SCRIBES, WIDOWS & GOD’S WORK
Psalm 146; Mark 12:38-44
25th Sunday after Pentecost, November 10 , 2024
Rev. Dr. Ritva H. Williams
This morning we, like Jesus, are gathered in a sanctuary — a holy place. Chapter 12 of Mark’s gospel has been a long and exhausting day for Jesus. This has been a long and challenging week for us that has left many of us wondering about the future. Unlike us, Jesus knew that his path must lead through the cross and the grave into the resurrection. That knowing empowered Jesus to silence the chief priests, scribes and elders when they challenged his authority, to sidestep the political trap set by the Pharisees and Herodians, and to calmly show the Sadducees their theological error. In Jesus’ world where there was no separation of church and state, these religious authorities were also the political and economic leaders of their communities.
There was a moment of mutual affirmation between Jesus and a scribe about the absolute importance of the commandments to love God and to love your neighbor. Then Jesus turns the tables, dissing the scribes’ claim that the Messiah will like David, a king exercising political and military power. From there he launches into a scathing condemnation of leaders who who strut around in long luxurious robes, love to be greeted and gushed over in the marketplace, and take the most prominent seats in the synagogue and at banquets. Jesus warns us beware of such leaders, who practice their piety in public offering long, windy prayers, even as they devour widows’ houses.
Jesus finishes speaking and sits down opposite the treasury-box to catch his breath. He watches as many wealthy persons nonchalantly toss silver and gold coins. Then a poor widow drops two small copper coins worth into the treasury box. Jesus turns to his disciples and points out that this poor widow has given more than everyone else. She has given everything she had, all she had to live on in contrast to the many who gave off the top of their abundance.
Jesus neither praises nor condemns the widow. He definitely does not hold her up as a model for stewardship drives in the church. Jesus points her out because she represents how the social and religious structures of his day have gone off the rails.
Jesus lived in a world where women were not independent, autonomous persons. They could not even speak in public, let alone apply for a job, open a bank account, or sign a contract. Without an adult male relative to speak for her and to act in her name, a widow was one of the most vulnerable persons in the community. Scripture sought to address this vulernability by instituting a tithe on all produce and income every third year, which was to be set aside specifically to sustain widows, orphans, resident aliens, and Levites (Deuteronomy 14:28-29).
Religious officials and villages elders (all men) were to oversee and maintain this system for the benefit of society’ most vulnerable members. The very existence of a poor widow who has nothing but two copper coins is an indictment of these leaders. They have failed in their God-given responsibility, allowing their greed to take precedence over the common good.
But what about the widow? Is she foolish, naive, or maybe crazy? Is she a victim, conned by greedy scribes to give away all she has with a promise of rewards in heaven? Is she expecting a miracle?
My favorite interpretation of this scripture, comes from the woman who headed up the stewardship team in my first call congregation. She shared how her husband’s death in a car accident left her a young widowed mother of two small children. Without skills or work experience, she had to go on welfare. She was deeply ashamed, but refused to give up or give in despair. Every Sunday she went to church with her little ones and put $5 in the offering plate, even though it meant she personally went without. She persisted, and like most welfare recipients, within two years she had taken enough training classes to land a job and become self-sufficient. At the time when she gave this testimony she was a successful accountant.
A “widow’s mite” — very small amount, tiny bit, smidgeon — can also be a “widow’s might” — strength, power, capacity. To quote Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” The widow exercises her freedom to choose her attitude, her own way within a social system that is failing to live up to its own ideals, a social system that diminishes and denies her personhood.
Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes asserts that Jesus points out the widow, bringing her to the attention of his disciples to ask the question, “why she is poor in the first place. Why do we have rich and poor?” The answer he suggests is:
Because the rich like it that way; otherwise they'd change it. The rich are afraid to share, but not the poor. And sharing is powerful: it disturbs the line between mine and yours, between rich and poor. It changes the world. Empowered by her faith.. [the widow] has made her choice. This is the widow's might. (“The Widow’s Might” November 8, 2024 at unfoldinglight.org)
The widow’s might/strength is her freedom to choose even in her extreme poverty to give away her last mite/copper coin. She is the very opposite of the rich young man who couldn’t bring himself to sell his possessions in order to help the poor. He trusts in his wealth to keep him safe and secure. She has no one else to trust in but God.
I wonder if one of the hymns that was sung that day in that sanctuary in Jerusalem was Psalm 146. Was anyone listening and paying attention to the words? I wonder if who took them to heart, who heard in them God’s agenda and mission in the world?
Hear again Psalm 146:
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord all my life, sing hymns to my God while I exist.
Put not your trust in the great, in mortal humans who cannot save.
Their breath departs; they return to the dust; on that day their plans come to nothing.
Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help, whose hope is n the Lord their God,
maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
who secures justice for those who are wronged, gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord restores sight to the blind;
the Lord makes those who are bent stand upright; the Lord loves the righteous;
the Lord watches over the stranger; the Lord gives courage to the orphan and widow,
but makes the path of the wicked tortuous.
The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, for generations. Hallelujah.
This is God’s work in our world, but it is our hands and feet and voices that are called to make it so.
Please pray with me
Good and gracious God, we ask you to teach us to choose simplicity for the sake of those who are simple;
moderation for the sake of those who have less than enough; humility for the sake of those who are humiliated; collaboration for the sake of those who are oppressed; listening for the sake of those who are silenced; forgiveness for the sake of those who are unforgiven. May our choices be guided by your grace and your Gospel; and may we gladly rejoice when you choose us to bring your love to others. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. (adapted from “Choosing Differently” by John van de Laar at sacredise.com )
