38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who
like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and
have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who
devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive
the greater condemnation.” 41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched
the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large
sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a
penny. [6] 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I
say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing
to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but
she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
(Mark 12:38-44 (ESV)
“Truly, I say to you,
this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the
offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of
her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
“But she out of her poverty has put in everything she had,
all she had to live on.”
We can see it, there in the outer courts of the temple,
where the unclean, the gentiles, the women, the sick and infirm and pious Jews
who touched nothing dead, would not enter a gentiles home, gathered in the
midst of men selling pigeons, sheep, cattle, and goats for sacrifice. There
where you could smell the salted sacrifices roasting on the massive BBQ they
called an altar, where you could see the smoke billow up, and if you looked
real hard within the dim light of dusk you could even see the offering of
incense burn before the curtain that hid the holy of holies with in this grand
complex of ornate gates, golden limestone and marbled colonnades and grand
staircases made of cut stone. This is as far as most people could go on any day
of the week. And here, so that everyone who visited the city had equal
opportunity to give to the temple, to donate to its building and upkeep the
treasury was set up. Jewish sources from the first century don’t provide a
whole lot of detail, about it. But they do tell us that that it was a box, or
possibly a series of boxes, with thirteen trumpet like holes protruding out of
it, and a person could choose where they wanted the money to go by choosing to
deposit the money in one of these thirteen trumpets. Jesus has been watching
for a while.
You get the impression that perhaps he is watching because
of a bit of cynicism. He has just finished berating the scribes for devouring
the houses of widows, and for a pretense saying long prayers. Scribes and
lawyers were one in the same in first century Judea. They were called scribes
because they copied the scriptures letter by letter, so careful not to lose a
letter that when the oldest manuscript of Isaiah now known to exist was found
in the Qumran, the famed Dead Sea scrolls, it was compared to the oldest
manuscript we had up to this day, the manuscript which provides the basis for the
Hebrew Old Testament I have in my office, a manuscript from the tenth century
called the Leningrad Codex because it has been in a museum in St. Petersburg
since the 19th century, originally purchased in Cairo. In any case,
the comparison was done between these two manuscripts that had at least 1,000
years of separation and were found to have almost no differences whatsoever, a
couple changes to spelling. It was an absolute incredible discovery that blew
that whole telephone game theory of text corruption, that is still heard today
touted by ignorant angry atheists, out of the water. The scribes were
meticulous in their copying of the scriptures, and that made them experts in
the law of the land. They knew it inside and out and could argue for it and
against it three ways from Sunday. So they knew how to plunder a widow’s house.
I mean essentially what Jesus is berating them for is breaking the tenth
commandment, taking their neighbor’s house in a manner that appears right, has
the appearance of looking legal. Perhaps the way a developer uses imminent
domain to scuttle off the poor and move them out of the way so he can build a
shopping mall for the good of the community. And they were rich. It was a rich
man’s occupation.
Jesus watches them, one by one. All their fine long robes,
dressed to impress. It was funny I once had a Baptist pastor berate me for
wearing long robes during the service because Christ spoke against it.
Evidently, according to his mind, Christ wore something like the seven hundred
dollar suit he was wearing. I think he missed the point. Everyone wore robes in
Christ’s day. And Christ himself would be found wearing a robe so valuable the
soldiers ensuring his execution would play a game of craps for it rather than cut
it up to be sold by the yard. One wonders where the son of man would have
received such a gift, but there was evidently a rich man somewhere that loved
him enough to give his best, perhaps like the woman who during these last days
of Christ’s life that he spent in the temple would pour the expensive nard
worth the years wages of a common laborer over his head to prepare him for
death. These were men and people of means not unlike these finely dressed
scribes dropping their denarius’s with a loud thump echoing out of the trumpet
like mouth of the coffer. Jesus could hear their offerings drop, as they
congratulated themselves. But he watches because he sees a widow in mourning
for her husband.
God showed up in her life and now she has nothing but the
long nights of the soul known to Job. Jesus, of course, omniscient as he is,
knows everything even of this woman. But she had to look out of place visiting
the temple during this festive time. Out of her poverty she gives all she had
to live on, more than all who have given from their wealth. Two farthings, make
an empty din among the loud thumps of the heavy denarii, but that thin din
lifted Christ’s chin. These were the
thin and small penny like copper coins for which a person could buy two
sparrows with in the market place, according to Luke she could have bought five
for her two farthings, some sort of first century baker’s dozen I don’t care to
ever understand. Sparrow, it’s what’s for dinner! Maybe they made for a good
pot pie. But she doesn’t buy the pauper’s meal, the po’boy sandwich. Perhaps
because she knows she is worth more than two sparrows, or even five.
It’s funny, when I read this story and think of what
possesses a woman to do this? The first thing that comes to mind is complete
frustration. It’s almost worthless. A penny saved is a penny earned we say. But
we rarely if ever think a penny is worth saving. If all I had left to my name
were two pennies, I don’t know what I would do. But Jesus praises her. It isn’t
frustration. It’s gratitude in the midst of distress, the kind of gratitude
that stems from a profoundly deep faith and trust in a God who considers you
far more valuable than any two sparrows that can be purchased for a penny, any
two sparrows for which God himself cares and provides for, allowing them to
life within the rafters of his glorious temple, watching as any one of them
falls from the sky, or makes dinner for a feral cat. Here she is in the temple,
the blood of the sacrifices slaughtered that day still sizzling upon the horns
of the altar of burnt offering, coagulating in the trench at its base. Here she
knows her value to God.
No, she won’t hold on. She won’t try to carve ten percent
off a farthing. She won’t let the rich despise her gift. If she is worth more
than a sparrow to her Lord, then she will trust, she will give when most think
she should be receiving. And the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the
world looks on, praises her faith. He too knows that she, whom the world
despises is worth more than all the gold or silver the rich poor into the
coffers of the temple. For her life, like yours, is a life he will redeem, a
life he will purchase from slavery to sin, slavery to death, slavery to the
devil, not with gold or silver but with his precious blood, with his innocent suffering
and death. He doesn’t die for two sparrows, no farthings, or denarius. But he
dies for you. And a God that loves you to death, is a God to trust.
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