Where does the line fall, between foolish and wise? Those who were first in line to buy tickets were considered wise, until the ship they sailed on, the Titanic, sank after hitting an iceberg. This week, Boscov’s department store will send you a mailer advertising savings on clothes, house wares, and shoes. Is it wise or foolish to spend your money at the prices offered? Should you take advantage of buying a house and receive an $8,000 tax credit? And, if someone offers to sell you today a relatively cheap ticket for a Phillies’ World Series home game, would you take it? What marks the line between foolish and wise? Mark tells us, in his gospel, chapter 12:41 – 44, that Jesus praises a poor widow for giving all her money to the Temple treasury. Now, is that foolish, or wise? Let’s find out by reading. (Read)
Jesus is a keep observer of human behavior. He notices things. A few days before, Jesus has entered Jerusalem, accompanied by loud cheering and crowds. We call it Palm Sunday. Every day, Jesus goes to the Temple and teaches. The chief priests, who are custodians of the Temple, along with the Scribes and Pharisees, use all their cunning questions to trick him into saying something that will turn the crowds against him, and form the grounds for arresting him. After several attempts, they finally give up, wilting under Jesus’ profound wisdom. Then he says, Mark 12:38 – 40. (Read) A person can put on a good show on the outside, but Jesus, ever the keen observer of human behavior, warns us to look further, deeper, into the motives and thoughts within.
As Jesus sits down in the Temple, he notices people putting their offerings into the Temple treasury. Opposite him, embedded in the wall, stand 13 funnels, or tubes that disappear into the wall and connect into the Treasury room. Ever since Old Testament times, when young king Joash took a wooden chest and bore a hole in it, rekindling the command of Moses, people have come to the Temple in Jerusalem and given an offering. The money was used for the upkeep of the Temple. (II Kings 12:9f) The money also went to support the tribe of priests who took care of the Temple grounds, sacrificed the animals that the people brought to atone for their sins, and made other offerings to God. Giving offerings was an important part of Jewish religious life, with giving 10%, called a tithe, the benchmark for giving.
The funnels in the Temple, historians tell us, seem to have been made of brass. When a person gave money for the Temple, he or she would put the offering into the funnel. Since there was no paper money in those days, all offerings were coins. Anyone who was around the funnels in the wall would be able to hear the coins as they were dropped in. Some coins, of less value and lighter weight, would make a softer sound. Heavier coins made a louder sound. Of course, the more coins you put in, the greater the over-all sound. Think 2 cents a meal offerings being dumped into the aluminum bucket we have up here once a month. Jesus could see – and hear – what people put into the Temple treasury through the funnels.
Jesus watches and observes. Some gave a nice amount. Some, who were wealthy, gave a large amount. Then, Jesus sees a woman come in, dressed poorly. He surmises she is a widow, a poor widow. She reaches into the folds of her cloak. He can see the outline of her hand searching for something to put in. Ah, there it is. Her hands close around it and out into plain sight comes her now open hand. In it are two coins. Not much value. She fingers one, then the other. What to do? She could keep one. It would buy something. Yet, with a look upward, she then puts in both coins, first one then the other, barely a sound. When she leaves, she leaves with shoulders lightened.
Jesus sees the truth in her life that must be told. He gathers the disciples around him for this teachable moment. “This widow, this poor widow, has put in more than all the others,” Jesus says. What an astounding thing to say. In the middle of the room, with the clang and cha-ching of the money rolling down the funnels, he tells the disciples that the soft-sounding 2 coins are of far more value than any amount given that day. Her decision to give all is not foolish but wise.Why? Why does he praise this poor woman? There are several possibilities.
Jesus may be praising her because she gave 100%. Wealthy people gave far more than she, but comparing what they gave to all the things they possessed, their percentage was comparatively small. The widow had only 2 coins, but she gave them all. Perhaps Jesus is praising her because she gave 100%. But, if this is why Jesus praised her, how do we apply this to our lives today? Should we, too, give 100% of what we have in our wallets and pocketbooks?
Tony Campolo tells the story of being invited to speak at a church on the Mainline in Philadelphia. It was a women’s group gathering. Towards the end of the program in the sanctuary, the leader of the women’s group said, “Before we take an offering, I’d like Dr. Campolo to bless the offering with a prayer.” Now, with Tony Campolo, you never know what to expect and this day was no different. He stepped up to the front and he said, “I will not bless this offering.” I will not bless a token offering. I will bless it if all of us will give everything we have in our wallets and pocketbooks, everything.” Now, Tony happened to know that he had about 10 bucks in his wallet, so he was on safe grounds saying this. He emptied out his wallet into the offering plates, they were passed, and, instead of the expected couple of hundred of dollars, the women gave $1400. Then, Tony prayed. I mean, he prayed and gave thanks for the willingness to give all.
I suspect that if we were to insist that we should follow Jesus and give everything in our pockets and wallets, we would quickly learn to check how much money was in our wallets before coming to church, so that our “all” would not really be our all. The alternative would be to give everything we have to the Lord and leave nothing. Then, we would find a spot under the Walt Whitman bridge and live there. We would be impoverished, relying on soup kitchens and government assistance to live. Surely, Jesus is not asking that we give absolutely everything.
It may be that Jesus praises the widow because of her willing heart to give generously. She certainly had a generous, willing heart. She stands as an example and a contrast to the many who brought their money to the Temple and gave what the law required. The Law of Moses required 10%, a tithe, of one’s income. All day long, people came and gave their 10% and then left to do as they pleased with what they had left. They fulfilled the Law to the required level and then did as they pleased with what they considered theirs. It was not generosity on their parts. It was required giving.
I’ve picked up the story of a father who gave his young daughter two 1 dollar coins. Her eyes lit up at seeing the two dollars. “Wait,” said the dad. It was a lesson in stewardship, generous giving to the church. “You can’t have both,” he told his daughter. “One is for the church. The other is for you.” She seemed satisfied. After all, 1 dollar is better than no dollar. As they got out of the car to walk into the building, one of the coins fell from the daughter’s hand. It rolled toward the curb and fell, kerplunk, into the drain. She gasped, stopped, then turned to her dad, “Oh, Daddy, there goes God’s dollar.” Required giving does not seem to lead to generosity.
While the widow should be praised for her willingness to give generously, we need to keep scratching around in this encounter. When Jesus sees the widow, he calls his disciples to him. Whenever this happens, Jesus uses it as a teaching moment. Jesus sees the widow and uses it to teach in parable form. Parables stir curiosity. That’s true in this case. He says, “This widow, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.” We wonder how this can be. She only put in two small coins. Jesus drives home the meaning. Here comes the point: “They gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything.” (verse 44) She gave all.
We think Jesus praises her for giving everything, but, keep scratching. Look with me at the very end. “All she had to live on.” Now, the translators of our Bible made a choice with this phrase. Literally, Jesus’ statement ends with these words, “All of her….” and here’s the tricky word, “Bios.” “All of her bios.” Bios means “life.” We’re familiar with that meaning. After all, in school, we study biology. “Logy” means the study of, and Bio is a form of Bios meaning life. Because it means life, a secondary meaning is livelihood, or what someone has. Since Jesus is talking about giving and money, our translators have chosen the secondary meaning: “she put in everything – all she had to live on.” I think it’s better to take the first meaning. The widow “put in everything – all of her life.”
Jesus praises this woman, not for her generosity, although she was a generous giver, but because her giving sprang from a heart totally devoted to God. She gave herself totally to God and that affected everything she did. Like a poker player who pushes her chips across the green velvet table, she didn’t ponder over her stack of chips and decide how many of her chips to push forward and give to God. Instead, she pushed all her chips, everything she had out to the middle of the table, giving it all to God, and then asking, “God, what part do you want me to bring back and keep.”
Paul the apostle, in speaking of one congregation’s offering said, “They first gave themselves to God….” (II Corinthians 8:5) Jesus is talking about more than money here. He is talking abut what it means to follow Jesus. The answer seems to be: it takes all. Think of our lives like a long corridor, with doorways on each side of the hall. Following Jesus means opening up each and every door that represents a portion of our lives: one door leads into a room of our tastes; another represents our free time; another what our eyes choose to look on; or our family, our friends, our enemies; our work; our school; our money; our personal interests; even the skeletons in the closet down at the end of the hall. To be a disciple of Jesus is to open all doors and offer all, all to Jesus. In partnership with him, Jesus leads us to decide how to use each room for him. And, when we close a door to lock Jesus out, he taps, inviting us to open the door, that we might be released from its grasp. Whenever we lock the door, we settle for less than what Jesus wants to give us.
David B. Jackson, of Jackson, Mississippi, recalls Eugene Peterson, in his book,
Run with the Horses, telling how he saw a family of birds teaching their young to fly. Three young swallows were perched on a dead branch that stretched out over a lake.
“One adult swallow got alongside the chicks and started shoving them out toward the end of the branch – pushing, pushing, pushing. The end one fell off. Somewhere between the branch and the water four feet below, the wings started working, and the fledgling was off on his own. Then the second one.
The third was not to be bullied. At the last possible moment his grip on the branch loosened just enough so that he swung (vertically) downward, then tightened again, bulldog tenacious (hanging on upside down onto the branch). The parent was without sentiment. He pecked at the desperately clinging talons until it was more painful for the poor chick to hang on than risk the insecurities of flying. The grip was released, and the inexperienced wings began pumping. The mature swallow knew what the chick did not – that it would fly – that there was no danger in making it do what it was perfectly designed to do. Birds have feet and can walk. Birds have talons and can grasp a branch securely. They can walk; they can cling. But flying is their characteristic action, and not until they fly are they living at their best, gracefully and beautifully.
Giving is the air into which we were born. It is the action that we were designed for. Some of us try desperately to hold on to ourselves, to live for ourselves. We look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on to the dead branch of a bank account for dear life, afraid to risk ourselves on the untried wings of giving. We don’t think we can live generously because we have never tried. But the sooner we start, the better, for we are going to have to give up our lives finally, and the longer we wait, the less time we have for the soaring and swooping life of grace.”