Your Two Cents Worth ...

Ever had anyone offer you “their two cents worth”?  They offer you nothing more than their opinion, with the caveat that it may not be worth much.  On the other hand, a soldier who dies in combat defending his country is said to have given his last ounce of courage or his last measure of devotion.  This sacrifice is the most any one could ever offer, and none of us would dare equate it to only the value of two pennies.  But what if everything you had to offer, your entire last measure of devotion, was literally only worth two pennies?  If that was the case, our first response would be to judge you as extremely poor.  If everything you owned, and everything you earned, had only amounted to two pennies, you would truly be the poorest of the poor.  If we encountered such a person, meaning if any of “us”, encountered such a person, we should all of us, be able to help them out somehow.  No matter how much any of “us” are in need financially ourselves, all of us can muster more than two pennies.  And yet this paradox is only just beginning.

We all know the story.  We have all been embarrassed by it.  We all measure ourselves by comparison and find that our own last measure of devotion has yet to ever be offered.  We call ourselves Christians, but few have ever faced the ultimate test, are we willing to give our lives for our beliefs.  Yet one poor widow, tucked away at the end of an eventful chapter in the Gospel of Mark, gave hers.  Peter could easily have skipped this story.  If he had, it would simply have gone down as one of the countless things Christ did or said that were never recorded in scriptures.  None of us would ever know anything about the poor widow.  None of us would feel cheated from this omission, from our lack of knowledge.  In fact, most of us might feel better about ourselves, at least about what we have given for His cause.  But Peter remembered the story.  Perhaps because the Holy Spirit, who inspires us all, remembered the story, and did not wish to see this widow disappear into oblivion unnoticed.

So it would be recorded.  Perhaps it is worthy of our second look, as John Mark records, picking up in verse 41 saying … “And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.”  Motives matter.  But talk about a high pressure sale.  Jesus moved within the Temple where He had been teaching and preaching over against the treasury.  This was the offertory box, or safe, or collection mechanism of His day.  In short, people brought what they intended to give, and cast it into the box.  Money falling in on money, silver and gold, falling on silver and gold, would make noise.  But then, that is the point of public giving, to make noise, to be noticed as you give.  What other purpose to giving in public, where it can be noticed, where it is to be sure it is noticed. 

Add to this spectacle, that Jesus moves near the box.  Ever had the preacher, also pass the plate for offerings, directly to you?  Kinda hard to avoid giving something, when the leader of your church passes you the plate, one on one.  This may have been an inadvertent pressure caused by having Christ, right next to the collection box.  People like the Sanhedrin, would want to publicly embarrass Jesus, by putting large sums of money in the box.  By comparison Jesus had nothing to give, He was not rich.  So the Sanhedrin members could put huge sums of money in the box, they would simply redistribute the funds later anyway, so it was for nothing but show.  The Sanhedrin were declaring by their rich gifts, that the favor of God was obviously upon them.  If Christ had nothing to give, and was so poor, perhaps He was not favored or loved by God. 

Others, those who followed Christ, might have felt compelled to put something in, while Jesus watched.  This was their way of “showing” Jesus that they were His followers.  Once Jesus saw them throw in money, they could rest, and relax, knowing that Jesus saw their one good deed.  That one good financial act, might actually “buy” them enough good will to last the rest of their lives.  A one-and-done version of buying salvation, and if you think about it, no price was too high for that one.  So while they were not trying to embarrass Christ by comparison, they were in fact embarrassing themselves, by withholding their hearts and attempting only to pacify their Lord with coin He did not want.  Their hearts that Jesus truly wanted, would go nowhere near the collection plate.

Commerce continued.  And Peter continues his recollection in verse 42 saying … “And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.”  I am unfamiliar with exactly how the currency exchange would work out between this widow in the day of Christ, and our current American dollars.  Therefore, I imagine her gift to be two pennies.  But I do believe her gift to be miniscule by comparison with the other patrons of the Temple.  The reaction of the disciples bears this out.  But here is where the paradox begins.  Motives matter.  She did not give to impress; the lack of quantity would see to that.  She did not give to garner the attention of her Lord, in order to buy His goodwill.  Her lack of funds would surely have prevented that; it was simply too little.  So instead, she gave seeking anonymity.  And Peter through the Holy Spirit continued to grant her some.  Even now we do not know her name, or anything about her story after this.  She could have been someone famous in the church later, or someone who never joined the faith.  We do not know.  We do have insight into her motives, and they were nothing like the others around her.

John Mark records the response of Jesus in verse 43 saying … “And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:”  Jesus does not make a spectacle.  He quietly calls over His disciples to Him, and with a lowered voice He points out the widow and her gift.  He then proclaims something that makes no sense at first.  Monetarily it will never make any sense.  Bookkeepers and Accountants do not value two pennies as much as they do two hundred dollars.  So the facts of what she gave can never be more than her contemporaries.  She was poor after all.  In fact, she was extremely poor.  The other donors in the Temple might have done better to help her out, as nearly everyone had more money than her.  But Jesus takes care not to call unwanted attention to disrupt her anonymity.  He handles this quietly, but purposely.

Jesus continues in verse 44 saying … “For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.”  The paradox explodes.  Her entire living, all that she had in this world was the two pennies.  She was poor, extremely poor.  But she gave it all to God.  Every chance she had to trade this world’s money for the food she needed to eat, or the rent she must pay to stay in whatever hovel she could find; she threw it all in the box.  You can always argue two pennies will not accomplish anything in God’s ministry.  You can always argue that she would have been better off keeping it, even Tithing only requires 10 percent of her increase.  She clearly has no increase, or miniscule increase at best.  But she gave it all to God instead of using it on her great need.

Jesus begins by saying “she of her want”.  He identifies that she had wants.  Not silly wants like we do, looking for the latest iPhone, or finding the organically grown Goji berries from Nepal.  No her wants came from a wholly empty stomach.  Her wants were magnified, perhaps driven, by pain and discomfort her life was made of.  What a small pittance she had earned, and without savings, and she gave it all to God.  He had no need of it.  Why ask her to give at all.  The best use they could have made of that collection box, was to empty it in her living room, and help her get her life on track.  But that didn’t happen.  She had given her all, her last ounce of courage, her last measure of devotion, and sum total value was two pennies.

But was it courage?  Could it be we have this story ALL wrong?  Could it be that a widow who had so much faith as to give God everything she had, was not a widow born of desperation, but one born of the surety of the love of our God?  Jesus called her out to His disciples.  But perhaps God had been meeting her needs and sustaining her life, even if not one of wealth and ease, every day she had lived it.  Perhaps our God had done this so often for her, as He has done for so many countless servants in scripture, that there was no doubt in her heart that food would find its way to her stomach.  That shelter would find its way over her head.  Perhaps her certainty of God’s love, backed by years of history, had dulled the need for courage entirely in her.  She was certain He loved her.  She was willing to bet her life on it, because she already knew He saved her life every day.

When she went hungry, it was not because God was unaware.  A missed meal was not a death sentence.  Nor was a night outside.  But to hold back from a God who had sustained her thus far, to deny Him the life He kept giving to her, was beyond inconceivable to this widow.  She had all the wealth in the world, for it was all the wealth God had given her.  To return it, was nothing more than recycling.  She had that much trust.  Lived day to day in His care, putting her everything in His hands, and knowing His love would not fail her.  Abraham put Isaac on the altar only once, I would wager this widow was in the custom of putting her all in the collection box.  Not to be noticed.  Not to achieve salvation, or the goodwill of God.  But because the love of God was all she would ever need.

Now who is the poor one, and who is the rich one in this story.  It turns out, the widow has more real wealth than all of us combined.  For she lives in a way of complete dependence none of us are yet willing to emulate or acknowledge.  She could help each of us out.  As we blindly attempt to give her money, she could teach us that our money is our prison.  It binds us to routines to keep it.  It tempts us to buy what we do not need, and hoard what we have not used in years.  It is an albatross around our necks, weighing us down into a world that values coin over humanity.  Its ethics are self driven.  Its principles scream only for more.  Yet we bind ourselves to it, for fear that without earning a living, we would starve on the street and die.  We never trust our God completely; we only ask for assistance in finding more money to keep us alive.  In money we trust, in God we only ask for help from time to time.

Would that we had the lion’s faith of this widow in the love of our God.  Would that our certainty of His care was as strong.  It has been there all along.  We refuse to recognize it.  We take credit for it.  We are not grateful, because we do not believe He did it for us, we believe we earned it.  We believe He setup of a system of earning it for ourselves, not one of total dependence on Him.  Yet here stands the widow’s story in scripture in stark contrast to our convenient beliefs.  We ask for wealth and blessing in our prayers, never once thinking it may be our poverty that is our greatest gift from Him.  Teaching us dependence may be His greatest lesson for us.  Because it is only through our weakness that He can be made strong.  While we cling to the illusion of strength, we do nothing but hold off His blessings, and suffer from anemic faith, and selfish prayers, that accomplish little.  For it is little we ascribe to Him, and much we ascribe to the power of our careers.

Again I ask, who is the poor one, and who is rich, in the story of this widow?  Her two pennies were her last full measure of devotion to our God, a gift I cannot equal until it is my all cast onto that altar.  What is your two cents worth?