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| Marc Chagall -- Ruth and Naomi |
This week’s combination of readings – whether in the
continuous track or the thematic track – seems somewhat random. Both the Old
Testament lessons are about women in need of protection and support who have to
make striking accommodations with the world in which they live. The Epistle
continues the Hebrews theme of Christ’s priesthood, while the Gospel from Mark
recounts the episode known as ‘the widow’s mite’. This is the occasion when
Jesus praises a widow woman who has given a tiny sum of money to the synagogue
in preference to the wealthy people he had seen give far larger sums.
There is an obvious lesson we can draw from this brief episode.
Generosity is relative to the resources of the giver. That is why it is odd for
human beings to be so impressed by ‘big bucks’. We always hear about huge
philanthropic gifts – from Carnegie, Rockefeller, Bill Gates and so on – and even
though we know that these have cost them very little, if anything, by way of
personal sacrifice, we’re still impressed. In sharp contrast, we don’t hear
much about small philanthropic gifts that a real sacrifice on the part of the
givers, who have forgone things that they themselves wanted, or even needed. The
size of a gift always captures the headlines. Yet this never measures its generosity -- a truth that is worth repeating
again and again.
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| Mafa -- The Widow's Mite |
Still, important though this lesson is, it does not take us
to the heart of the Gospel message. This impoverished woman is giving the
treasury of the Temple in Jerusalem all that she has to live on. Tiny though
her ‘mite’ is, it powerfully demonstrates the personal depths to which faith in
God can go. And it casts in quite a different light the ‘showy’ religion on which
Jesus comments in the preceding verses. Yet it is the hypocrites he condemns who
get worldly acclaim, while the poor widow remains in her poverty. That is why
her case presents us, as it did Jesus’ hearers, with a real counter-cultural
challenge. Which, in all honesty, do we prefer – the kind of success that the
world in which we live undoubtedly favors (and which church going can sometimes
help along), or the spiritual depth and simplicity that brings us closer to
God?
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