Mark 12:35-44
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
The author J. Ellsworth Kalas, in his book “Strong Was Her Faith”, describes this scene this way. His understanding and challenge is a good one for us to consider. He writes, “Suppose one of the men who came to the temple that day was worth the equivalent in our culture of one hundred thousand dollars. That isn’t an unreasonable figure by any means. And suppose he gave ten thousand dollars. If I had been a supervising priest at the setting, I would have been delighted and impressed. but as Jesus viewed things, such a contributor would trail far behind the Mighty Window. Specifically, by giving then thousand dollars out of one of his hundred thousand, he has given ninety thousand less than the widow! He still has ninety thousand left, and she has nothing. That’s why Jesus was so impressed by her gift. She had given ninety thousand dollars, so to speak, more than the rich man! How do you out-give someone like that? Do you see why I call her the “Mighty Widow”?
“And do you see why I envy her? Between you and me, I tithe my income; I’ve done so since I was then years old. And in truth, now I give more than a tithe. But I do so from a place of comparative comfort. I have a pension program. We live in a lovely home- not ostentatious, but with enough bathrooms to bless my sense of privacy. We can eat out. The Depression-bred-boy who still occupies the back of my mind gets uncomfortable when the bill is large, even though I can afford it; but the point is, I can afford it. To be honest, I wouldn’t know how to begin to compete with this Mighty Widow. I know, I know” She lived in a different world from ours, a decidedly simpler world. But having said that, I must go on to say that this widow compels me to do more than I’m doing. After all my rationalizing about the difference in our two worlds and times, she nevertheless shames me into giving more than I’m giving.
“Leaven was fermented dough. As such, it was seen as being ritually unclean, and of itself unappealing. But when given a chance to do its thing, it made a flat piece of dough into an appetizing meal. Such was the widow: easily dismissed by a culture that found her a burden, lack the natural appeal of the self-sufficient. But she, Jesus said, gave more than them all! There was an ugly flatness to the comfortable giving of the well-to-do, but a blessed bounteousness to the widow’s mite. I hear the master saying, “She’s my kind of people. Of such is the kingdom of heaven.””
I want to be Jesus’ kind of people…you too?
Joyfully Yours 