It’s great to meet up with a friend. I would imagine we’d be looking forward to a nice relaxed time, catching up with one another and just letting the conversation go wherever it will. We would expect an informal time, and we would certainly not expect our friend to say, ‘Before we start, tell me what you expect to get out of this session’. What! This isn’t a meeting with a counsellor, or bank manager or school tutor. This is just us wanting to spend some time with a friend – relaxed, informal, and with no agenda. Now let’s apply this to meeting Jesus. What motivates us to set time aside to go to church, watch a Service online, of simply have a time of prayer? I hope we don’t have to justify these times with clever reasoning and argument. Knowing Jesus as we do, I hope we would all want to spend time with him – informally, relaxed, and with no agenda. And yet, many who don’t know Jesus that well may well question what they might gain from spending time in worship and prayer? “What’s in it for me?” For us who know Jesus, the question is inappropriate, but for the sake of the honest enquirer, I wonder what we would give as an answer. 

Maybe on many occasions we do have an agenda in meeting Jesus. Maybe we do have in mind a desired outcome – peace, reassurance, forgiveness, hope, guidance. Well, now that we are going down this road, let me suggest another outcome – something that often happens once we have spent time with Jesus. Empowerment. 

Just like the widow in the Gospel passage this week, we might think that we have very little to offer. We look at the outwardly wealthy, and their contributions seem to eclipse our small efforts. But Jesus applauds the poor widow who put two small coins into the temple treasury. It is often the case that as a result of spending time with Jesus we become aware of our true wealth, out of which we can be generous. Our eyes might be opened to our wealth of knowledge, experience and wisdom, our wealth of faith, hope, optimism, encouragement, our wealth of time, friendship and a listening ear. Sometimes we might approach Jesus feeling empty, and yet we end up feeling well-stocked! Our generosity arises out of our appreciation of how wealthy we are, and spending time with Jesus can be quite an eye-opener.