The Widow’s Might

By

Reverend Litton Logan

November 12, 2006

Scriptures:

Scriptures: 

Mark 12:38--44(NRSV)

³⁸As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

The Widow’s Offering

⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury.  Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Sermon:

There was a man who called at the church and asked if he could speak to the Head Hog at the Trough.  The secretary said, “Who?” Then she gathered herself and said “Sir, if you mean our pastor you will have to treat him with a little more respect than that and ask for the ‘Reverend’ or ‘The Pastor.' But certainly you cannot refer to him as the Head Hog at the Trough.” The man said, “I understand. I was calling because I have $10,000 I was thinking about donating to the building fund.”  She said, “Hold on for just a moment—I think the big pig just walked in the door.”

          I think it is ironic that today is the final Sunday of our Annual Stewardship Campaign and the lectionary scriptures for this Sunday are the passages about the Widow’s Mite.

Today’s scriptures as much as they seem to address the pious hypocrites among the scribes of Jesus’ day there are strong indications that these scriptures were in fact warning people in Mark’s church and our church about elitism, hypocrisy and corruption among religious leadership.  More-than-this, however, these scriptures are continuing words about one’s absolute faith in God and the cost of discipleship as Jesus draws nearer and nearer to Jerusalem and Calvary.

          In his last days, Jesus is intent on teaching his disciples to see and understand the Kingdom of God and his role and their role in it.  Today, in the midst of Jesus’ teaching his disciples while they are gathered in the Temple, he issues a warning concerning the religious scholars and leaders of his day, who, “…love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they’ll pay for it in the end.”(The Message, Mark 12:38-41)

          Jesus’ and Mark’s audience are the people of the land, the poor people, the fringe people, people who were without any immediate sense of hope and relief from their plights in life.  Mark’s people of the Way of Jesus are a religious sect that did not enjoy Roman, legal protection as a recognized religion of the empire. Mark’s Christians were therefore experiencing and expecting persecution. 

Through out Mark’s Gospel he recalls the words of Jesus about the promise of the soon-to-come Kingdom of God and the righting of wrongs and injustices.  Jesus speaks with the authority, the charisma of personal conviction, not with the equivocating authority of religious academia.  Jesus gives people real hope in this world as well as the one to come.  The hope he offers is all about God loving them and accepting them in the here-and-now based upon the sincerity and truth of their hearts not upon their participation in the rigors of religious customs and humanly contrived laws and doctrines.  Conversely, the words of many of the religious scholars and leadership of the day left the people cold, condemned, and frustrated.

          As one reads these passages of scripture in Mark, images of corrupt and wealthy TV evangelist, arrogant and indifferent bishops and church hierarchies, immoral priests and preachers and others exploiters of God’s people leap from the headlines of today. 

          As Jesus is teaching his disciples in the Great Herodian Temple, he is watching people file by in the Court of the Women depositing money in the treasury.  One translation of these scriptures indicates that Jesus is watching how people gave their money, not how much they gave.

I might mention that all around the Court of the Women in the Temple, the farthest point in the Temple women could enter, ran a colonnade and within it against the wall, were thirteen trumpet shaped receptacles for people to deposit their various offerings or charitable gifts.  Edersheim in his book “The Temple” indicates that nine of these trumpets were for the receipt of money legally due by worshipers for the maintenance and support of the Temple and four were for voluntary gifts. A board of fifteen appointed Temple Administrators or trustees, most likely dominated by the scribes and priests, would have administered all of these gifts including the overall operations of the Temple.

These trumpet shaped receptacles were wide at the mouth and small at the bottom and made of brass.  The shape kept people from reaching a hand in and taking money out while pretending to put money in the trumpet.  Also, sounding deposits of money or the lack there of meant a person couldn’t fake a donation.  Thus, we catch the connection of sounding a trumpet when making a donation or giving alms at the Temple. 

Jesus spots a widow woman; possibly, he knows she is a widow because she would have been dressed all in black.  The widow follows behinds people, whom Jesus indicates are making a big show of giving large sums of money for the upkeep and operations of the temple in accordance with law and tradition.  They piously dump their money in with resounding clatter of the brass trumpets as the money makes its way down.  The widow with no regards for who is watching or listening throws into two mites, about a quarter of our penny.  This paltry sum would have been barely audible as the coins made their way down receptacle.  She gives all that she has in compliance with law and tradition.  Others gave out of their largesse; they would never miss their donations, but she gave sacrificially. Jesus is quick to point out that in the end these pious show-offs will receive the greater condemnation.

David E. Leininger, in “The View From Jesus’ Pew” tells this story.  A priest once asked one of his parishioners to serve as financial chairman of his parish. The man, manager of a grain elevator, agreed on two conditions: no report would be due for a year, and no one would ask any questions during the year. At the end of the year, he made his report. He had paid off the church debt of $200,000. He had redecorated the church. He had sent money to missions. He had $5,000 in the bank. Needless to say, everyone wanted to know how. The man quietly explained, "You people bring your grain to my elevator. As you did business with me, I simply withheld 10 percent and gave it to the church. You never missed it."

          A person could go to jail for that trick, but it does make the point of Jesus—people giving out of their largesse to God’s work and not missing the money.

          Nevertheless, wait a minute, why a widow in these scriptures?  Why not a poor old man or a poor young person?  There is a good reason to highlight a widow woman, one of societies most vulnerable and marginalized to make Jesus’ and Mark’s point.

          However, before we get to the widow a little background.  I think the background will clear up some traditional misuses of these scriptures—misuses that limit our understanding of these passages and, honestly, let us as disciples of Christ off too light.  These scriptures are often used  to manipulate people in to giving sacrificially to financially support the church at the expense of a far, far greater need of the church—the need for Christian people committed to God at all costs, not just at some costs, even sacrificial costs. 

Let us look for a minute at the scribes in these scriptures and Jesus’ accusations that they devour the houses of widows.  What kind of characters were these scribes?

The original understanding of the word scribe is simple, those who knew how to write.  They served as recording or documenting officials for businesses, courts of law, and for the royal courts.  Eventually, the term scribe among the Jews took on the meaning of “wise men” since a person had to be intelligent to write.  After the Jews returned from the Babylonian Exile, during the time of Ezra the Prophet, the designation of scribe would come to denote people that transcribed and interpreted the Mosaic Laws for the people.  The scribes were the first teachers of the Mosaic Laws and founders of the oral traditions.

          The scribes fell into two broad although not mutually exclusive categories.  Some scribes were engaged in the transcription of the Pentateuch scrolls and other religious documents. In additions to transcription, this group of professional scribes also interpreted and taught the Laws of Moses for the masses but in particular to the Jewish youth. [1]  That is to say, the scribes read passages of scripture from the first five books of the Old Testament, explained the scriptures, and then deduced the law contained in it.[2]

          Then there were the legal scribes, who acted as notary publics and recording clerks in the courts and the Sanhedrin.  These scribes prepared wills, bills of divorce requiring special care, acted as public notaries, and as recording clerks in the courthouse. In lawsuits and criminal actions, a scribe as an expert in the Mosaic Laws—civil, religious, and criminal--and its various interpretations was assigned to each side.  The scribes also drew up bills of sale and conveyances of property, etc.  The scribe’s fees for performing many of these services were not fixed. I believe it is this latter group of scribes, who were associated with the administration of the Temple that Jesus is referring to in our scriptures today.

          In Ched Myers’, “Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus” he indicates that in today’s scriptures Jesus alludes to the practice of scribal trusteeship for the estates of widows [with no male, near kinsman], since women could not be trusted to manage their deceased husband’s affairs.  Because these scribes were viewed as being pious and trustworthy—giving long, eloquent public prayers in the Temple--they earned the legal right to administrate estates.  As compensation, the scribes would usually take a percentage of the estate’s assets, a practice notorious for embezzlement and abuse.  Such practices were against every thing the Law taught.  Widows and orphans were of special concern to God and were to be protected and looked after not neglected or victimized. [3]

          Another interpretation of these passages takes the tack that since the site of the scribe’s pompous praying was the Temple demanding that poor people support the extravagances of the Temple and the life styles of the pompous, egotistical priest and scribes placed an unnecessary financial burden on the poor.  [4]

          Thus, we see the situation.  I think the widow in today’s scripture is a mighty object lesson of a person’s faith in God. Jesus indicates that the widow woman gives to God without any regard for the amount or the politics of the Temple. The widow gives all that she has in compliance with the law and traditions because her faith was in God, not human politics or matters of religion.  In this widow’s sacrificial giving, especially to support a system that for all intent and purposes may have victimized her (although she most likely would not have seen it that way), Mark alludes to Jesus’ upcoming sacrifice and willing victimization at the hands of the pious and corrupt religious leadership of his day.  Jesus and the Widow are victims of corrupt, hypocritical, self-important religion that has turned its back on God’s will for compassion, justice, and mercy in the land. 

This widow woman, a marginalized and vulnerable person in our scriptures today, thus becomes a Messianic figure.  Jesus later on, like the widow, will faithfully give his all.  Jesus gives his all out of his love for God and God’s claim on his life in spite of human injustice and corruption.   Furthermore, Jesus is telling  his disciples across the ages that it is in our willingness to give all that we have, even our life if necessary, in the face of injustice, corruption, and the malevolent powers of this world that is in the finally analysis the truest measure of our commitment to God and the way of the kingdom citizen. In addition, God knows and honors the intent behind all our giving, not the amount or duration of our sacrifices.

          It is in such sacrificial giving that we find the might of the widow--the power of her faith to give her all in blind faith that in the end God holds sway over human affairs.  In the end, God will triumph and so will she. She trusted God beyond humanity with all its corruptions, weaknesses, and sin. This is the way Jesus lived and died. It is the standard that Mark expected his persecuted and frightened audience to live by and that we are called to live by.

Just because we live in a low-threat, religious environment, we should not be lulled into a false sense of the cost of Christian discipleship.  If we can not look deep inside and say with absolute confidence that we are willing to pay what ever price God demands of us, then we may be at risk of Jesus’ condemnation of religious hypocrites—actors that don the role and trappings of Christianity only when it is safe and convenient.

          Remember, it is not what we know about God or how much we give that is of the greatest importance.  Rather it is how we are known by God that really counts. Moreover, like the widow, like Jesus, we trust God to weigh our intentions and to know the truths of our hearts.  I urge us to keep in mind that it was the widow’s faith even to sacrificial giving that Jesus saw as the widow’s might and power as an object lesson of faith. Her faith in God was the intent that lay behind her gift.  It was Jesus’ faith in God unto death that becomes his might and power as God’s Christ for our lives. It is our faith in God in the face of possible sacrifice unto death that is the power and might of our faith.

          These passages of scriptures should never be used to manipulate people into just giving money.  No, no, no!  These scriptures are to be understoond to mean, Christians stand ready to give your all to be true to your faith in God and God’s claim on your lives.  A faith that the living, dieing, and resurrected Jesus proves is well placed, well placed.

In closing, the Annual Stewardship Campaign.  Yes, the church will take money from the pretentious, arrogant, contributors, who give large gifts out of their largesse without a struggle of faith.  Yes, we will take money from those who in faith give sacrificially.  Yes, we will take money from those who begrudge their giving.  Yes, we will take the causal bills and coins tossed in the offering plate for conspicuous approval of those around us.  The Church leadership will strive in prayer to discern God’s will for these resources no matter what their source or the intentions of the giver.  However, remember God loves a cheerful giver and God knows the intent behind each gift.  We can fool others, we may even be able to fool ourselves on occasions, but we can never fool God. Therefore, as you make your pledge for 2007, “…give as the Lord has prospered you.”