The Widow’s Mite?
Mark 12: 38-44
You may be familiar with author and storyteller Garrison Keillor, and his highly popular radio show, The News from Lake Wobegon, which are stories from a fictitious town in Minnesota. He begins all his shows with the phrase, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my home town, out on the edge of the prairie.”
In one of his Lake Wobegon stories, Keillor tells about a Sunday morning in Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. The sermon has been droning on far too long, and Clarence Bunsen has checked out early. He realizes it's almost time for the offering, so he quietly reaches for his wallet. Upon opening his wallet, Clarence discovers he has no cash. He takes out his pen and hides the checkbook in the middle of his Bible, next to one of the psalms. He begins to scratch out a check for thirty dollars, because he almost had a heart attack that week, and because somebody in the church will count the offering and he wants them to see he gave thirty dollars.
He tries not to be obvious, but a lady to his right sees him. Clarence can tell she thinks he's writing in the pew Bible, so he doesn't look at what he's doing. She gives him a funny stare, and turns back to the sermon. Clarence tries to quietly rip the check out of the checkbook, with limited success, still not looking at what he's doing so the lady in the pew won't know he has written out a check in church. The offering plate comes by, and Clarence proudly puts in the check, only to realize a moment too late that he has just written a check for three hundred dollars. He accidentally wrote three-zero-zero on two different lines when he wasn't looking.
What could he do? On the one hand, he couldn't go downstairs after church and find the deacons counting the collection and say, "Fellows, there's been a mistake. I gave more than I really wanted to." On the other hand, he gave all he had in the checking account and a little more. Perhaps he and his family will have to eat beans and oatmeal for the rest of the month, Clarence thought, even though the contribution was going to a good place. One thing was for sure, notes Keillor, in that moment, Clarence felt fully alive for the first time all day.[1]
The way that Keillor describes it, Clarence gave all he had in the checking account and a little more. However I think it is more likely that Clarence gave a lot more than he wanted, but still didn’t give out of abject poverty. He still had beans and oatmeal and a kitchen to cook in, but it was his pride that prevented him from being honest with the people in church. Clarence was not at all in the desperate financial condition of the widow in today’s scripture, who when she put her small offering into the temple treasury gave all she had to live on.
This story is known as the widow’s mite, and is often used during Stewardship times in churches to remind, influence or cajole members to give more of their money towards the church budget or a building project. The widow is always lifted up as an example of righteous giving, and one who gave with the right attitude. And she is someone who gave her all to God and was living on total trust and faith. But in reality the widow didn’t have much of a choice and we miss the big picture if we don’t see that Jesus was none too happy with the religious institution of the day, the one that put the widow in her desperate situation in the first place. Let me tell you the rest of the story.
It had not been a quiet week in Jerusalem. It was what we refer to now as Holy Week. Jesus had entered Jerusalem triumphantly, but now things were going downhill quickly and shortly he would be arrested. Once again Jesus was not too happy with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes. Earlier in Mark we heard about Jesus driving out the money changers and merchants in the temple. As Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him to question his authority. He tells a parable that admonishes the Pharisees, who then continue to try to trap him into saying the wrong thing. Jesus then rips the Sadducees because they don’t know the Scriptures. The religious leaders continue to try to trap Jesus by asking him questions, hoping to trip him up and find a way to arrest him, which they eventually do. But at the moment Jesus continues to teach and reminds his followers to watch out for those teachers who walk around in flowing robes, who want the best seats in the house, who want to sit at head tables, those who devour widow’s houses and those who make lengthy prayers.
Their pride goes before them - so watch out.
Then Jesus goes off to the side and watches what is going on. Jesus is always watching and sees with eyes of understanding, clarity and compassion. He sees the story and the rest of the story. He sees the text and the subtext. He sees what is going on at the surface level and what is going on below the surface.
Take a minute to imagine Jesus in the Temple that day. The Temple in Jerusalem was quite large. I’ve heard it estimated to be the size of ten football fields. Herod was rebuilding and enlarging it – a process which took a long time and thousands of workers. The temple not only held the Holy of Holies, but also Courts for the Israelites, the Gentiles, the Priests, the Women and the merchants who were selling animals for sacrifices as well as other items. Besides the construction workers there were hundreds of priests working, as well as pilgrims visiting. It was as busy in the Jerusalem Temple as it will be at the mall the day after Thanksgiving. It was a lively, noisy colorful place and our text tells us that Jesus sat down amongst all of it and watched.
Jesus is watching. A comforting thought.
Jesus is watching and sees that the rich throw in large amounts of money into the temple treasury. Then he sees a poor widow who comes in and throws her meager offering into the treasury. Her two small coins, first translated as a lepton and later translated as a mite, are worth only a fraction of a penny. She is a poor widow – poor as in one who has to beg to survive. She is a poor widow because there were no rich widows in that time. When a man died, his widow would not receive his property or his money. Instead it would be turned over to the temple system, and the widow had to depend on other male relatives to live or she had to beg. You may remember this from the story of Ruth, that when all the men in their lives had died, Naomi, Ruth and Orpah were left with nothing except bitterness.
Widows were always poor in those days and that is the problem. Jesus is commenting on the religious system – the one that put the widow into poverty in the first place. Jesus was watching and could spot hypocrisy easily. He saw it in the Pharisees and didn’t hesitate to name it when he saw it. In the Biblical story that follows in Mark 13, we hear Jesus predict the destruction of the temple.
Mark 13 reads, “As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"
2"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."
Jesus was commenting on the continued hypocrisy of the religious system and its leaders, those that devoured the widow’s home and made her poor. Pete Perry says that the treasury was there “to underwrite the religious apparatus of the day.” [2] Jesus never came to be part of any religious apparatus, or a political or governmental system. He came as a servant leader, one who notices when people are being taken advantage of or harmed. He came as savior and one who knows our hearts, our motivations and our intentions. Jesus came to show us a different way of living - one of radical sacrifice and servant leadership.
Today’s story really is a reminder to watch out for those systems, whether they are governmental or religious systems, that takes advantage of the poor and make a profit. It reminds me of TV preachers standing in large glass cathedrals or stadium churches, who hawk their products and implore people at home to buy more of their products and send them more money. Did you know that you could buy a genuine widow’s mite coin with earth from the Holy Land for a mere $39.95? Or you could purchase a King Azes II Drachm & Widow's Mite Coin (Set of 2), for $69.96, payable in two easy monthly payments of $34.98.
Kind of ironic isn’t it – that people are still taking advantage of the poor widow.
One thing that is abundantly clear in the life of Jesus is that he came to stand with those who were outside the mainstream of society. He was always watching out for those who were poor, hungry, sick, lame, lost and displaced.
Today we need this story to remind us to watch out for systems that intentionally or by exclusion fail to take care of those who are poor, hungry, sick, lame, lost and displaced. And there are many systems today that are struggling to redefine themselves, find ways to work and make ends meet. Our health care system or apparatus quickly comes to mind. It is a system that works for some – but not for all. Not all people who might be diagnosed with Stage Four cancer would have the same resources that Eddie and I were fortunate enough to have. I won’t even pretend to know what the best health care proposal is - but I do know that if a parent whose child was severely injured in a bike accident and needs reconstruction of his jaw, which is then denied by their insurance company because it’s dental and dental is not covered, and who then goes ahead with the surgery because it’s their son whom then love, and end up owing $65,000 in medical bills, and then has to fight the system so that they don’t have to declare bankruptcy, lose their house, and end up homeless - then I know that there is something wrong somewhere with the health care apparatus. We all must continue to respectfully dialogue with one another on both the personal and national level to work to find ways to care for “the least of these,” for the “least of these” could be one of us someday when we least expect it.
But I could be accused of being a hypocrite myself, if I didn’t have us look at our own religious system here in this church and at our own actions and intentions. We can’t simply look at the lessons from Scripture and apply them to “someone else.” We have to look at what the story and the lesson might mean to us in our situation. We are a religious system who is pretty concerned about the offerings that are coming in or are not coming in, which are needed to sustain our building and our ministry.
For over ten years, a part of our incoming budget came from the Presbyterian Church who worshiped here on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday nights. With their sudden departure this week, we are left wondering what that might mean for the church and its ministry. Will we lament the loss of the income and focus only on the lost money? Will we keep begging for more money from our members and parishioners, some of whom cannot give “mite” more than they are already giving? This church has been worried about money for as long as I can remember – and yet we are still here. God is good, all the time. Will we give into the laments about money, or will we give our total trust to God knowing that this is an opportunity for a new thing.
Isaiah (43:19) who is speaking for God asks “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”
One of the lessons that we can take from this story today is to look at our church situation as if we had the eyes of Jesus Christ. Eyes that see the surface conditions (the loss of the money from our budget) but also with eyes that are looking below the surface to see where the deep needs are in our community. We need to look at that which is apparent – and that which may not be apparent but is needed.
God is doing a new thing with our church. It “sprung” up quickly. It has already started and although we may not perceive exactly what it is yet – we recognize that it is a new thing. We are asked to give all of our faith, all of our creativity, all of our service to God and to trust.
What new thing might God do here at this church and within this community of faith? God is one who is Creator - God is always in process of doing a new thing and working in new ways and new places. This could be an adventure of faith for our church, if we can cast off the old laments and the old tapes that run in our head and turn them over to God. God is good, all the time. In a few weeks we will gather to talk, share, create and trust together and join God in the process of what new thing might be happening here amongst us.
If I could rewrite the ending to Garrison Keillor’s story of Clarence Bunsen at the Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, I would have Clarence opening up his wallet and upon finding that it was empty, being able to honestly turn to the lady in the pew next to him and tell her that he spent his last $5 on gas to get himself to church. She would then see him with eyes that were like Christ, wouldn’t give him a funny stare, but would extend a comforting smile that held no judgment in her eyes. And in my story, the deacons wouldn’t be counting the money downstairs after church, and wouldn’t be a group who Clarence was uncomfortable talking to. Instead they would be believers - just like us – in different phases of our spiritual journey – who wouldn’t put on any airs or pretenses - but simply made a point of watching and listening and loving one another.
And in my story, it would be the Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church who would give their all, trusting in God to supply all their needs as they reached out to help Clarence and others just like him who had lost their jobs or their homes, and had no money in their wallets. That’s the news that I would report from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, and all the men are good looking, all the children are above average.
Amen
Rev. Deborah J. Blanchard
[2] Pete Perry, “Mark 12:38-44,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, ed. David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) 285.
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