The Widow's Mite
The Widow’s Mite
Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.”(Mark 12:41-44, RSV)
This is not a parable Jesus is telling, Mark presents it as an historic event. And this is an old Sunday School story that we all know. In fact, our reading of the Bible story famously known as “The Poor Widow’s Mite” comes round once every three years, always for the preacher on a Sunday morning in November when the stewardship drive is in full swing, such that which came first, the widow with her pathetic coin, or the preacher with his pledge card?
Mark is not reciting events that we are to take like a schoolboy’s eyes glazing over as he reads another boring history lesson. This and his every story — Mark includes in his gospel for a reason about Jesus, and these old stories are told and retold and told again, set in the situs of the times, with a lesson, a moral: it’s our task to open the story and dig Jesus’ message out of it, like the oyster inside the shell. I’ll be brief.
Our Lord does not here teach that God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ are against wealth and hate rich people. “The earth is the Lord’s and he made it and all that is therein,” and the Bible says that on the sixth day of creation, God looked at all he had done, and at us people that he made in his image, and it was very good indeed. The church teaches, and the Bible shows, that, as among us humans, Jesus “had a preferential option for the poor”, meaning the poor are especially dear to his heart; he came among us as one of the poor, identified with the poor, loves them with sympathetic pathos because they are the powerless, hungry, naked, and homeless whose lives are gut-wrenching for God to behold. But as for the wealthy who are contributing out of their abundance, they are doing what’s asked of them, the temple could not operate without them, the wealthy are vital to the temple’s life.
And more than that, we are told it’s the gift of the wealthy, the tax on the wealthy that made it possible for the temple in Jerusalem to have a disbursement window where the same poor widow and her children go for an allowance to live on; so the rich are the lifeblood of the poor in the New Testament Age, and any society through the ages of ages. But the poor also are praised and blessed for participating not only in temple worship but in all aspects of community life, including giving their fair share.
So with my notion that Mark never wastes a word of his New Testament Greek story about Jesus, here Mark remembers Jesus noticing the generosity of the rich while sentimentally assuring the poor that their talents also are essential and blessed. For their lives, God is hopeful; and for their gifts, God is grateful.
You may now turn this story around to see yourself in the gospel mirror this stewardship season as Father Steve works so very hard and lovingly for the life of Holy Nativity Church and School, not wanting to be overbearing as he agonizes every year that he must plead for pledge cards to be turned in. It would be naive of me to say “let’s surprise and delight him and finish up our annual stewardship drive this morning while he’s away,” but that’s not a bad idea as a way to love the rector and ourselves. I forbid you to tell him I said this(!) but in more than three decades as a priest I’ve worked with and around many priests, rectors, bishops and deans, and Steve Bates is the best there is. What a blessing he is. He works harder than any priest I’ve known, and we need to do all we can to encourage and support him. From my many years as a parish priest, I know it is easy for a sensitive pastor to feel down and discouraged at times, yet I have never seen Father Steve disheartened. Our priest is extraordinary, and the Search Committee who found him was divinely inspired.
Beyond the story of The Poor Widow’s Mite, Jesus is in Jerusalem teaching. He came to town like a madman, no sooner arriving than he goes into a rage, turning over the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sell pigeons. In this stage of his life, the Son of God seems only all too human: one morning, getting up on the wrong side of the bed, he curses a fig tree for not producing fruit out of season. How irenic is that for the God of Peace! He tells a sharp and pointed story of how the landlord of a vineyard deals with wicked tenants who refuse to pay the landlord his share of the crop and murder the landlord’s beloved Son. Today as Jesus and his disciples leave the temple someone remarks on the beautiful stones, and Jesus will prophesy that the magnificent building will be torn down as the world collapses in apocalyptic nightmare that heralds the coming of the Son of Man from on high. This is the gospel.
This is the gospel, and the kingdom of God is at hand, and every Christian generation reads the horrors of its own age as signs of the end of time. It would be so easy and obvious to do that this morning with the state of humanity and all that people are doing to each other. Hatred, evil, selfish greed; arrogant, murderous religious certitude and senseless cruelty. Yet around and beyond all that for those who receive him as Lord and Savior, the Logos, Jesus Christ the Creating Word came into the world that he might make us children of God and heirs of eternal life. Salvation is ours. Salvation is ours. Jesus comes among us as one of the poorest, and offers himself on Calvary as he calls us also to a sacrificial way of life and giving that is, like his, the Way of the Cross.
This is the gospel, and the kingdom of God is at hand, and every Christian generation reads the horrors of its own age as signs of the end of time. It would be so easy and obvious to do that this morning with the state of humanity and all that people are doing to each other. Hatred, evil, selfish greed; arrogant, murderous religious certitude and senseless cruelty. Yet around and beyond all that for those who receive him as Lord and Savior, the Logos, Jesus Christ the Creating Word came into the world that he might make us children of God and heirs of eternal life. Salvation is ours. Salvation is ours. Jesus comes among us as one of the poorest, and offers himself on Calvary as he calls us also to a sacrificial way of life and giving that is, like his, the Way of the Cross.
Whether you identify in the gospel story with the wealthy who thankfully contribute out of their abundance, or with the widow who gives her all, the good news is that God loves you just as you are, the way you are, and that’s the Gospel truth.
Homily in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on Sunday, 8 November 2015, Proper 27B. The Rev. Tom Weller. This brief homily is printed by no means pridefully, but simply to honor a standing commitment to a dear friend. TW+