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 fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, 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.”
Mark 12: 41-44
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Kim 04.08.09 at 11:31 am
This is the last event in the Temple teaching ministry of Jesus, its narrative climax - the “little apocalypse” of Mark 13 follows - so the story of the “widow’s mite” is bound to go to the heart of the provocative challenge of the gospel (note how, in 12:43, Mark has Jesus call for the disciples who have been backstage since 11:27). And yet the homiletical tradition, ignoring the set-up of 12:39 - Jesus’ ferocious attack on the scribes who “devour widows’ houses” (i.e. financially exploit an underclass that Hebrew law repeatedly demands they protect) - has turned it into sentimental, anodyne vignette about the sacrificial giving of pensioners for the upkeep of the church.
Of course the widow is a model of costly faith - but that’s not the point. The point of the episode is radical critique that the widow in her penury has been religiously conditioned to impoverish herself even further (a) to add to the already substantial income of priests in the business of brokering grace; (b) to do so in the harsh glare of public scrutiny, the contrast between the big cheques of the rich (12:41b) and her two lepta (12:42), the smallest coins in circulation, adding shame to her shortage; and (c) to support the building fund of an edifice that Jesus announces will soon no longer exist (13:2).
Shaking the dust off his feet, the livid Lord leaves the Temple in apocalyptic mood - and all his twelve friends can say is, “Wow, Jesus, what a cathedral!” (13:1). How we dumb disciples miss the point with unerring accuracy.
Richard 04.08.09 at 12:53 pm
Thanks for that, Kim. That’s something like I would have said myself if I’d been in a position to write anything.
Let me add this from John Mark Ministries
On its own (as we usually hear it), the story lends itself easily to moralizing about the heroic sacrifice of this poor woman, who gave of her subsistence. Yet this story occurs within Jesus’ “Jerusalem ministry,” in which he has been confronting the abuses of the Temple system and the corruption of the religious leaders who wield power in violation of God’s will. This specific passage immediately follows Jesus’ excoriating of the scribes for–among other things–financially exploiting vulnerable widows, and it immediately precedes his announcement of the destruction of the Temple. Were we more attuned to the flow of narrative and the broad biblical story, we would see how this account fits into the pattern the Gospel writer is weaving. We would hear echoes of the Torah’s constant concern for widows, as well as the voices of Hebrew prophets like Isaiah and Amos, who condemned the religious establishment for exploiting the vulnerable. So is the widow’s mite a story about boundless generosity and self-sacrifice–or is it poignant and tragic evidence undergirding Jesus’ judgment against the Temple state? Preached once a year, extracted from its context, this widow is offered as a model to encourage giving to the church. Yet in its context, it suggests a very different reading: nothing short of a condemnation of the use of religion to victimize those who are powerless.
DH 04.08.09 at 9:14 pm
I personally believe that the correct understanding which doesn’t contradict each other is both the fact that the widow was looked at as being moral for giving all she had AND a rubuke of the leaders of the temple who were hurting the poor, etc. etc. like richard and Kim mention. To say that we shouldn’t look at the widow in a moral way from the passage is wrong when both conclusions are correct and are not contradictory.