The picture of the widow’s mite is often held up as a romantic picture of the way we Christians are supposed to be. Many sermons have been preached in which an elderly woman, hobbling in with a walking stick, dressed simply in op-shop clothes, dropping every last cent of her money into the church collection plate, is held up as the ideal. Some have even used this text in sermons about money and giving to the church. I guess we’ve all heard these sorts of sermons. We may even have prided ourselves on the fact that so often it is the widow’s mite that keeps the church going. Well folks, just to get our creative juices going, here is a cheque for $1million from a generous donor, and here is $20.00 given by one of the widows of this parish! Faced with these two gifts, which of these is of most value?
But if anyone thinks this is a story about giving more money to the church, you’re missing the whole point. Let’s rest for a moment with his image of a poor elderly woman. Mark wants us to see a woman of deep faith and prayer, who has found her vocation in loving God. She is coming to the temple to pray. She may be a strong woman supported by family and community. Or she may be vulnerable and alone, struggling to survive. We don’t know for sure. Whatever her background, all of us are like this woman. We are here because we too, want to express our love, gratitude and praise to God. And that brings us to the nub of the issue, which Jesus raises. This is passage is not about how much money we give to God or to the church. This is a passage about faith, about loving God with our whole being. It is also about God’s justice, in which the piety of the religious leaders stands in stark contrast with the generous heart of the poor woman who wanted to sacrifice everything she had for God.
Nowadays, we are finding out a good deal more about widows in the biblical period. The Greek word for “widow” means literally someone “forsaken” or “left empty.” It meant anyone living without a husband, and in the days of the New Testament, that was a most unfortunate place to be. Some women could own property, but most were excluded from doing so. So if you were a woman and your husband died and your family could not afford to keep you, you could be abandoned or even sold into slavery. Becoming a widow was not difficult either. Widows were women whose men who had fallen out of favour with the empire. They may have been child brides of men much older than themselves. In some cases there were even civil penalties against women who did not remarry, but remarriage meant that their dowries and inheritances would enrich some other gentleman. So, being left without a husband was considered a bitter misfortune. Just being a woman was a high risk occupation.
It is well known that Jesus taught that these kinds of injustices are not to exist in the Kingdom of God. Jesus stepped forward as the true advocate of God for the oppressed and exploited. All through the New Testament, we see that Christians gave widows a special place, often meeting in their homes for worship and meetings. It is not surprising that the first part of Jesus teaching in today’s passage is a warning against those who exhibit ostentation and crave high positions. We are told to beware of those who devour widow’s houses. The point Jesus notes is that the religious leaders used their positions of importance, piety and finally their ostentatious generosity (hold up the cheque) to impress their importance on the community. This made it easier for themselves to be appointed as trustees over the estates of widows, thus gaining a share of the estate to enrich themselves further. Since widows were so vulnerable, Jesus is criticising the religious leaders for using their piety as a cloak for preying on the most vulnerable members of society and making profits out of them.
This week there have been many jokes on the radio: “do you want to get rich? Start a church!” This story is a warning to religious leaders who are in it for the money and who think their wealth is a sign of God’s blessing. This story is about justice, about limits in the use of religious authority, warning us against the excesses of some church leaders who seem to benefit with expensive cars and flash houses at the expense of their parishioners. Religious leaders are not in their roles for the money, which is why the Anglican church operates with a stipend system which provides a living allowance for its clergy as a way of keeping parishioners safe from leaders who would demand too much in return for giving their lives to God. The gospel instead, compels all of us to care the little ones, the most vulnerable. In New Testament times the widows were among the most vulnerable members of society. Care for the vulnerable is an essential part of our calling as Christians, something the gospel impels us to be engaged in. For some time now, Aged Care has had a special unit to deal with the issue of elder abuse. Far too many of the elderly today are pressured by family members or a close friend to hand over large amounts of their estate or property. This is a form of financial abuse; another hidden problem in our society. All through the bible, God is the ultimate defender of widows and orphans. Naturally, Jesus gave a special place to widows. The early church supported them; the gospel calls us to stand up to defend the most vulnerable people in our community.
So, what about the widow’s mite? This story is also about faith. Mark says the widow is an exemplar of the Christian faith. Just a few verses earlier in this part of Mark’s gospel, one of the scribes had asked Jesus about the greatest commandment. Jesus had replied that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Here the widow demonstrates her love of God by giving all she has. She is aware of God’s grace and goodness and by her living she shows her complete dependence on God. By contrast the rich contribute large sums out of their bounty in a show of ostentation. Most people, including these religious leaders and even the disciples, thought that wealth was a sign of God’s favour and blessing. Jesus is saying the opposite. Look to the little ones, those without power and prestige. Look at this lowly widow. Here is your example of a person of faith.
Jesus drew our attention to widows in another place in the New Testament. In his first sermon in Nazareth, he proclaimed God’s special attention to a poor widow whom Elijah visited. He outraged his neighbours by pointing out that although there were many widows in Israel at the time of famine Elijah was sent to none of them, but to an alien woman of a despised race. The crowds tried to shove Jesus over the cliff after that sermon! Elijah made his pilgrimage to the Philistine town during an ideological war with Queen Jezebel. Under the queen’s leadership the people worshipped prosperity: Ba’al was their God and they prayed to Ba’al for rain and therefore for prosperity. But Elijah asked the true God of heaven to turn of the tap and stop the rain and show that God cannot be manipulated into keeping them prosperous. The rain stopped for three and a half years. Even Elijah was hungry and thirsty and so God sent him to an alien widow, the Palestinian woman, to be cared for. The flour she shared never disappeared. The cup of oil she shared kept filling itself up. There was enough food to eat.
Jesus puts the gifts of these widows in perspective. The value of gifts cannot be measured in dollar terms, he teaches us, but by what the gift represents for the person giving it. Elijah asked a poor widow to share her food and God gave them all they needed in plenty and abundance. Jesus praised the widow who was generous.
God is a generous God. The problem is that our hearts are often too closed to God’s generosity to notice the gifts God is giving. God’s generosity sometimes surprises us. As with Elijah, it may come to us from places beyond the boundaries of our expectations. We experience God’s generosity when our hearts are open and when are hearts are filled with a desire for God. St Therese of Lisieux who lived in the 16th century talks a lot about God’s grace in her writings. For her, the heart that is open to God is a heart that overflows with love. Merit does not consist in doing much, or giving much. The heart in communion with God overflows with love and acts only to pass on the love received from God.
The early Christians were aware of God’s goodness and generosity. Generosity, grace, forgiveness, these were the gifts that got the Church going. The book of Acts tells us they were generous to widows, to the poor and to each other. Many of those first Christians were not rich. Many of them were in fact widows themselves; but they were committed to others and sharing what they had, and they stood in solidarity with others. Generous sharing of ourselves with others will bring us at last to the banquet of God, the banquet of endless blessing, of which our worship here is but a foretaste.
