Worship This Week

Sunday, Nov 8, 2026 | Open-Handed

Sermon Text: Mark 12:38-44

In this service, Pastor Julie preaches the sermon "Open-Handed" from Mark 12:38-44. Jesus sits across from the temple treasury and watches. The wealthy give large sums out of their abundance, but it is a poor widow, dropping in two small copper coins, whom Jesus calls his disciples over to notice: "She out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." Just before this moment, Jesus has warned against religious leaders who "devour widows' houses" while making a show of their piety. The story holds both together: a sharp word about systems that take from the vulnerable, and a quiet portrait of a woman whose giving is wholehearted and free.

Generosity is less a transaction than a posture, a way of holding everything we have with an open hand. We give not to purchase God's favor or to be seen, but because we trust that our lives are held by Someone larger than our fears of scarcity. The psalmist prays for God to "prosper the work of our hands," and Paul tells the Thessalonians he shared with them "not only the gospel of God but also our own selves." In this season of stewardship, we are invited to ask not simply what we will give, but what kind of people we are becoming as we give it.

Accompanying scriptures are Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 and 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8.

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