Mitey Giving

"Mitey Giving"
Mark 12-37-44


I can’t figure it out.  Why did the poor widow do what she did?  The REB says, “...with less than enough, she has given all she had to live on.”  The TEV says, “...poor as she is, she put in all she had.”  And, from The Message, “...she gave what she couldn’t afford -- she gave her all.”

It has been speculated that the coins were the wedding coins a woman was given when she got married.  A number of coins were woven into a head-band sort of thing, and worn around her forehead at her marriage ceremony.  These coins were an insurance policy of sorts in case her husband died.  A woman was totally financially dependent on her husband, and had no other way to earn money, other than the money her husband earned.  So if he died, she would have no way to earn money.

I remember a tearful news conference, when the PTL ministries and Jimmy and Tammy Fae Bakker were going under.  Tammy Fae was pouring out her heart because they were down to their last $100,000 and she didn’t know how she and Jimmy were going to survive.  I guess what it means to be down to your last two coins means different things to different people.

We know the woman in Mark’s story is a widow.  Jesus identifies her as such.  Are these two coins she is holding her last two “insurance” coins, given to her at her wedding?  She could have kept one.  Should she have kept one?  No one would have thought less of her if she did.  The literal Greek translation of the verse I just highlighted a moment ago, says:  “She gave her whole life.”  Why?  Why would she do that?

There is the story of the millionaire who was sitting in church.  He got up to give his testimony and he said, “I owe the millions I have today to a certain experience I had in church long ago.  I was down to my last dollar.  The offering was being taken up.  As the plate was nearing my row, I had a decision to make.  Was I going to give up that last dollar for the Lord, or hold on to it along with the last shred of security it symbolized?  The offering plate came to me and I joyfully put in the last dollar I had to my name.  I gave it all.  The Lord honored that, and has blessed me greatly since that day; all because I was willing to give all I had.”
At that point, a woman in the back stood up and said, “I dare you to do it again.”

This widow did.  She dared do it.  We know so little about her.  We only know she is a widow.  And she is poor.  Is she a young widow?  Or an older widow?  Does she have children, grandchildren, or not?  We can only guess.

II
And we can only guess why she gave “her whole life.”  With so little detail, we are only left to our own speculations as to what motivated her to do what she did.  Here are some possibilities.

Maybe the widow gave out of her THANKFULNESS to God.  When asked why they give to the church, why they put money in the offering plate, people give this is as the number one reason:  because they are thankful to God.  Maybe, despite how her life has turned out, the widow has never lost the hand of God’s care.  Even when down to her last two coins, she may be acting out of trusting thankfulness.  If I were in her shoes, (I would be a lot smaller), but I might be tempted to think God isn’t caring about me very much.  Not her.

Or, maybe the widow is putting her last two coins in because she’s BARGAINING with God.  Maybe she wanted something from God, and was trying to get what she wanted through this risky form of a bribe.  Like the millionaire in the story I told a moment ago, maybe she’s saying to God, “If I put my last two cents in, then you will have to take care of me; you will have no other choice.”

Or maybe she’s giving all she has out of GUILT.  Is she feeling guilty about something she had done in her life and is trying to show God how repentant she is by putting her last two coins in the offering horns in the temple?

In William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife is suffering from the awful effects of guilt.  Out of hopelessness and despair, Macbeth begs the doctor to cure his wife of her guilt.  Macbeth cried out:

Cure her of that.
Can you not minister to a mind distressed,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Burn out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Maybe the widow is suffering from just that kind of guilt, and is trying to find any way she can to rid herself of it, even if it means giving up her last two coins.

Or maybe the widow was just IMPULSIVE.  Maybe she did a lot of things without thinking about the consequences.  There are people like that, who don’t have good control over their impulses, and just do stuff without thinking.  They don’t think about the consequences their actions will have on themselves, and others who depend on them and love them.  Maybe the widow just had poor impulse control issues.

Whatever the reason for her actions, it is hard to understand why a poor widow would give up all she had to live on, and put it in the big brass horns in the temple.

III
Maybe we’re looking at this story the wrong way.  Let’s get ourselves in the picture.  There were seven horn-shaped receptacles in the temple treasury.   The offering collected in these brass receptacles went for the temple upkeep and for the cost of performing certain religious rituals.

People would come up and put in their coins (there was no paper money back then) with a clang and a bang.  The courtyard was probably crowded.  People were coming and going from the offering horns.  We almost get the impression that this was a common pastime of watching people put in their offering.  Jesus was just fitting himself in with the crowd of offering watchers.

But what was he watching, exactly?  He’s sitting across from the offering horns.  He had just given the crowd there a warning about the religion scholars and how they act.  Listen, again, to what he told the people about those religious peacocks:
Watch out for the teachers of the Law, who like to walk around in their long robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplace, who choose the reserved seats in the synagogues and the best places at feasts.  They take advantage of widows and rob them of their homes, and then make a show of saying long prayers.  Their punishment will be worse!” (TEV)

Jesus is making a contrast between the religious showmanship and unethical actions of the religionistas vs. the poor they manipulate and steal from.  The Greek literally means, these teachers of the Law were “eating up the property of the widows.”  Isn’t it interesting, then, that in the next scene, it is a poor widow who comes in and puts in her last two coins.  She is the one that Jesus identifies for his disciples.  She is the one he wants to make sure his disciples, and maybe many others sitting around, doesn’t miss.

IV
By pointing her out, Jesus is adding a huge punctuation mark to what he just said to all the people about those who were being taking advantage of by the religious establishment.  The key question that Jesus may want his followers to struggle with is NOT, “Why does the poor widow give her last two cents?”  The key question instead, may be, “Why does the poor widow only have two coins left to her name?”  What or who has forced her into these kinds of circumstances?

Jesus pointed out the wealthy who “gave what they’ll never miss.”  I get the idea, because of what he said to the crowds prior to his people watching at the treasury, that Jesus is not just talking about proportional or sacrificial giving.  He certainly makes that point -- that the poor widow, in proportion, gave much, much more than the wealthy who put in a lot of money.  But because of his comments that set up this scene, Jesus may also be trying to get his listeners to ask the question, “How did the moneybags get all their over abundance of wealth in the first place?”  How many widows did they step on, how many widow’s homes did they take away, or,  how much widow’s property did they “eat up” in order to get their ungodly amount of money?

Again, the question is not why the widow gave everything away?  The question is, “Who is doing what to the widow that reduced her to the point of having so little?”


V
But there is an even deeper level than that one, it seems to me.  There is a further question that Jesus is forcing his disciples to consider by calling them over and speaking privately to them about the widow’s giving.  And that question is, “Who is ALLOWING the widow to be taken advantage of?”  Who is standing by and doing nothing while the widow’s rights are being taken advantage of by the religious leaders, and she is reduced to two coins that she slides together between her fingers, standing before the offering trumpets, and finally throws them both in?  “Who would allow such a thing to happen, and keep happening?” Jesus is asking the disciples.

Jesus was in open praise of the widow.  But his praise was a back-handed slap at the hypocrites who gave large amounts of money, unjustly gained, for the temple upkeep, while neglecting the real human needs right there in front of their faces -- some of those needs which they, the rich, created.

The widow was so poor because she was getting eaten up by the fat cats and then neglected by the religious system that was only concerned about keeping its building shiny and its impotent rituals going.  Everyone ooohed and aaahed at the coins being poured in.  But no one asked the question about how the wealth was gained (except Jesus); or pointed out the human injustice (except Jesus); nor pointed out the human neglect in the distribution of that offering (except Jesus).

VI
All of a sudden, just putting money in the plate has much greater weight than just taking up a few minutes in the worship service.  Putting money in the plate has to do with our motivations for giving.  Putting money in the plate has to do with the manner in which it is given.  Putting money in the plate has to do with how it is that we are gaining that wealth in the first place.  Putting money in the plate has to do with making sure that nothing we’ve done, in our accumulation, has stepped on or taken advantage of helpless others.  Putting money in the plate has to do with making sure that we don’t just give, but that we are paying attention to those around us -- especially the down-and-out -- who are rubbing their last two coins together, and making sure that they are being taken care of, rather than having to make the awful choice of sacrificing everything.

Because Jesus is watching.