Year B

Mark 12:38-44

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The “All” of Self-Denying Love

Archeologists have unearthed and learned new things about the Christian Church in Rome during the first two centuries of the church’s life. They learned that Christians would meet at times in the homes of widows. As Peter and Paul did this on their visits to Rome which we read of in the book of Acts. These houses became meeting places for fellowship and worship when Christianity was illegal. Widows seemed to be quite numerous in those days, nothing has changed much today, and most likely they would be poor since their economic well-being usually required a male head of the household to provide a living. When all went well, widows would have children to provide for them after their husbands were gone.

Some were left financially secure but if not, opportunities for women to achieve financial independence were scarce. For hundreds of years prophets had to address this situation that widow’s may encounter and this is an issue the church continues the need to address even in these days. The two widows we read about today are godly women, poor widows who struggle to trust God and do what is right in a man’s world. What is remarkable about these two women is that they are not presented as “social problems” but as strong figures who act in ways that are an example for us. We read of a poor widow who drops her “widow’s mite” all she had into the temple collection box in the gospel text.

In the OT lesson, we read about a widow of Zarephath in the days of the Prophet Elijah. King Ahab had married a foreign woman named Jezebel who had set up a sanctuary for the fertility god Baal. Baal was the god they worshipped. In retaliation for the king’s marriage, Elijah had predicted a drought which the word of the Lord brought about. For three and a half years, there was no rain. Elijah himself had to seek refuge from the drought. He was hungry and thirsty. God sent him to the alien widow, the Palestinian woman, to be cared for, a widow who had hardly anything herself.

She proclaims that the Lord will provide for them “until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth. She was eager to praise the Lord through what service she could offer and was willing to place her trust in the prophet’s word and in a God who cares. She gave to Elijah the man of God a cake from what she baked, an act of faith, and according to the promise, the prophet was empowered to make the flour and the oil hold out until the famine ended. Testifying to God’s faithful care of his people until the day of vindication comes.

Jesus in the gospel today points to a widow he notices in the court of the women at the Jerusalem Temple. Thirteen trumpet-shaped boxes received the gifts of the people, and Jesus noticed that rich people came and gave large gifts. Then, along comes a woman with two copper coins, the lepton and since these Greek coins were not used everywhere, Mark explains for his readers that they were worth a quadran: or to what amounted to a half denarius, a penny and a day’s wages for a laborer. Jesus said she gave all that she had to live on-100%.

He then puts her gift in perspective, along with the gifts of the rich. Jesus tells his disciples that the two small coins the widow gave were worth more than the gifts of the rich persons who gave much more money but sacrificed very little. The value of the gift cannot be set by its inherent cash value, but by what it represents for the giver. Those who gave “out of their abundance” still have an abundance left, whereas the widow “had put in everything she had, and by doing this she is showing that she puts her faith in God to provide which comes from her self-denying love. Much as Christ offered his total self on the cross, a self-denying love to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. 

But what of those religious leaders, who liked to be seen with powerful and influential people and sit in the best seats in the synagogue and at banquets. Jesus warns against those who devour widow’s houses; those with a sense of power and prestige, who are willing to live off the offerings of poor widows under the pretense of piety leaving them with nothing. Here was a widow giving her all to a corrupt institution, an institution that failed to care for her as it is supposed to do.  Throughout his ministry, Jesus called attention those on the margins of society, those who had previously gone unnoticed, the poor, the blind, the lame, the beggars, the lepers, military personnel, and widows.

These are the same folk we find on the margins of our societies today. Jesus seems pretty tough on anyone who exploits others for their gain. They are not getting it right and he addresses the corruption that leads to abuse of the poor, and the author of Hebrews says, in Christ we are able to intercede even on behalf of those who test us and we are able to offer our lives to God. The concerns over unjust systems are not new. In the midst of unjust systems, the church is called to lift high the banner of gospel hope, pointing out the ways that God is overcoming injustice through God’s people and making a way where no way seems possible. 

Those who identify with Christ will look after the oppressed, the strangers and widows and orphans. What does it cost us, in terms of commitment? A drop in the bucket, or a full bucket? The Palestinian widow gave a bucketful to Elijah. She gave her last meal to share with the God-sent visitor, her life in a measure of meal, a cruet of oil, just as the widow in the temple with the copper coins gave her all. By the grace of God she entrusted her whole self into God’s keeping. Her gift was so humble that nobody knew its magnitude except her Lord. Jesus praised it and God expects it. How are we caring and acting in our world?

It is actions that make the difference, not for our salvation, Jesus has taken care of saving us. Jesus Christ is our only savior. Rather we act on behalf of the gratitude we feel for our blessings, the grace, the mercy and the love we have been offered. Because of our Lord’s lavish self-giving of all his wealth-his life, power, authority, holiness, everything. We are able to say and mean and live by, “Not I who live, but Christ alive in me. Not my will but yours be done. Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Take my love: my Lord. Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for thee.

God grant that it may be so. God grant that our Lord Jesus will say of us, “Out of their poverty, they gave everything they had. And by my grace, their nothing I claim as everything. Amen.