From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts:
In the course of his teaching Jesus said to the crowds,
“Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes
and accept greetings in the marketplaces,
seats of honor in synagogues,
and places of honor at banquets.
They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext
recite lengthy prayers.
They will receive a very severe condemnation.”
He sat down opposite the treasury
and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury.
Many rich people put in large sums.
A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.
Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them,
“Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more
than all the other contributors to the treasury.
For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth,
but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had,
her whole livelihood.”
Sunday’s Gospel, Mark 12:38-44
In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus praised a scribe who enthusiastically endorsed loving God with heart, mind, and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves. In our Gospel for today, though, he excoriates the general run of these religious masters: their “love of God” is all for show, a threadbare attempt to cover their rapacious appetite for swallowing the property of those they should care for as “neighbors.”
Then Jesus sits and watches people leave contributions for various uses in the Temple. A passage in Jewish documents describes an area of chests, with tops shaped like the smaller end of a trumpet, where people could drop metal coins down into the widening box below. Contributions would “ring out” as they went in depending upon the number of coins and the kind of metal they were made of.
“Two small coins” of copper (worth about 1/64th the average daily wage of the day) would make very little noise compared to a handful of gold or silver coins. Yet Jesus insists to his disciples (us, right?) that her contribution was the greatest of all!
How so? Everyone else gave from their “surplus”—what they had beyond what they strictly needed. She had no surplus. In fact, this day she did not even have enough for her daily bread—yet she kept her priorities straight: honor and love God first, then rely upon the Lord for anything else needed. Perhaps this is a day God wants her to fast. Or perhaps this is a day God will provide for her in some unexpected way. Whatever: she will love God with her whole being and then she will go forth in faith and trust. She sets a high bar.
Do we know what happened to her that day? Not really. But it is worth keeping in mind that we do know that God-in-Christ saw her act of faith, and that he and his disciples kept a money bag to provide for various needs, including alms for the poor. We find these words in today’s Psalm:
The LORD …gives food to the hungry.
…the LORD loves the just…
The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The LORD shall reign forever;
your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia!
From Ps. 146
Our call is to go forth and do the same.
For further reflection:
The first reading tells of Elijah’s encounter with another widow. As with the widow in the Gospel, she has no surplus–she expects to fix one meal for herself and her son, a last meal for them both during a famine. Instead, at the prophet’s urging, she prepares it all to preserve his life for another day instead. This is a great act of faith towards someone animated by the Spirit of God, just as the widow Jesus sees acts because for her the Temple is a strong sign of God’s presence. In the Elijah story, the gift of her and her son’s last day results in a reward by God: food for her, her son, and Elijah for a year, until the famine is over. Later, God’s Spirit, working through Elijah, even raises her son from death.
So many echoes and patterns here! Surely, in our Gospel, Jesus recognized how the widow he sees in the Temple, like his own widowed mother, models putting God first and trusting Him completely for the outcome.