“Mighty Mite” (Mark 12:38-44)

The story of the Widow’s Mite is one of the most well-known in the New Testament, and it gets drug out about this time every year for stewardship season.  It’s so iconic that the Lectionary obligingly places it at about the time churches are working up their budget.  The word “mite” comes from the King James Version, there were no coins called that in Jesus’ day, but there was a “mite” in 16th Century England.   The Greek word that is rendered in  our translation as “small coins” is lepton, which means small in Greek . . . they were minted in vast numbers by one Alexander Jannaeus, King of Judea from 103 until 76 B.C.E.  There were so many of them made that they abound even today, and you can pick up a couple of widow’s lepta on the internet for $20 or so.

You can even find fine widow’s-lepta jewelry, a fact in which I find a certain irony, because the widow of this tale certainly couldn’t afford such a thing . . . she was poor as a church mouse.  If two lepta were all she had to eat on, she must not have eaten hardly at all . . . together, the two were worth about the same as a quadrans, the smallest denomination of Roman coin, which I guess is why the our translation says they’re worth a penny.  Almost all the paintings of the story—like this one—show her with a child, but it’s not in the text, either here in Mark or over in Luke.  I guess it’s to increase the pathos of the scene, as in “look, she’s got a child, for gosh sake . . . are those rich folks heartless or what?”

Actually, pathos is probably the least of what Jesus is going for here.  Widows—along with orphans—are stand-ins for the poorest of the poor in first century Palestine.  Whenever Jesus—or another storyteller—says “widow” or “widows and orphans” we’re meant to think of a whole class of people, a whole substrate—the people whose backbreaking labor supported the few at the top, the few like the scribes, the story of whom our lectionary (rightly) includes in the passage.  They like to wear long robes—a symbol of wealth and piety—and walk walk around the marketplace and be greeted with respect . . . I can see them now, the most learned men in Judaism, cruising through the stalls like ships of state, giving the queen’s wave . . . Jesus says to beware of these folks, don’t get tangled up with them . . . they go to church on Sundays, and sit at the best pews, and say wonderful, sonorous prayers—almighty Creator, we come to thee humble and full of wonder, and thank you for all with which you have blessed us—and then on Monday they go to work and foreclose on that single mom, or pick up a piece of  “distressed property” from an out-of-work dot-commer, or cut another couple thousand jobs ‘cause profits are down—got a fiscal responsibility to the stockholders, you know  . . . and the widow is an icon, a placeholder, an avatar for the poor of the time.

And Jesus said beware of them, because they will gut you like a fish, they are only concerned with themselves . . . they will callously discard you, foreclose on your house at the drop of a hat . . . but I wonder if that’s the only reason . . . could Jesus mean that we’re to beware of people like that because if we get tangled up with them, if we do business with them, we’ll become like them?  There seems to be something of that sense about it, else why would he tell us what fate awaits them?  Why tell us that they will receive a greater condemnation if he’s not warning us not to be like them?

The scribes are engaged in the time-honored practice of compartmentalizing their religion and their secular life, separating them out so that they do not conflict.  It’s convenient that way: their beliefs don’t have to infect how they live their day to day lives.  Even though Jesus is very clear about what awaits those who deal harshly with the poor—we can only imagine what “the greater condemnation” entails—we Christians, just like the scribes, are very good at not letting that sort of thinking get in the way of making money.

Well.  Just as the scribes can be considered an object lesson for a certain type of behavior—beware!—so can the widow, because conveniently, here comes one, one of the very embodiments of the poor and exploited . . . and has this widow had her house devoured lately?  Has she been swindled out of it, or just couldn’t pay the mortgage?  Whatever has happened to her, we know she doesn’t have a lot, cause as we saw, those two lepta aren’t worth much.  And while Jesus and the disciples watch, rich folks come along and put a lot of money into the pot, doubtless after looking around to make sure the right people are observing them, but the widow puts in those two lepta, worth together a Roman cent, the last penny she has.

Who do you identify with in this story?  If you say “the widow, of course” I say “Not so fast” . . . I know who I identify with, and I squirm when I think of it.  As you can see, I haven’t missed many meals, and my family’s always had some kind of health insurance.  I can go out and buy triple-mocha decaf lattés, if I want, and see a movie if I want, and I can even buy a book or a DVD once in a while.  I know on what side of the equation I belong, and it isn’t with the down-trodden.  But to be fair, if I can’t identify with the widows and orphans, I can’t identify exactly with the scribes.  I mean, I haven’t devoured any widows’ lately, I haven’t foreclosed on any single mom's houses . . . I give to charities, volunteer my time for those less fortunate . . . and that’s probably where a lot of us are, we’re not bad people, in fact we’re good people, especially by our society’s standards . . . so if we’re not widows and orphans, and we’re not really those hungry scribes, who are we in this passage?  Well . . . we’re us, that’s who we are, we are ourselves . . . and there really was no counterpart for us in those days, there was no middle class . . . we have disposable income and leisure time, but most of us are hardly rich . . . but we do support the rich, don’t we?  We buy their products, we shop for bargains, we drive the great, consumer engine that produces the Ken Lays and Bill Gateses . . . we are the consumers, and we have the power to change things, if we would . . .

Jesus calls over the disciples – he doesn’t say this to the crowds – he calls them over, and the disciples know that this is a teaching, because he begins with the words “Truly I say unto you” and the Teaching goes “this poor widow has given more than all those contributing to the temple, for they all contributed out of their abundance” – and other translations here call it surplus or money they could spare – “but she had put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”  In other words, the rich put in from their disposable income, from money they could spare – and remember, only they had it – while the widow gave all she had to live on.

Whoa!  All she could live on!  What is that supposed to mean?  Surely not what it says, not the plain sense of it, surely not that we're supposed to give all we have . . . Ah think ah’m gonna be faint . . . but that's what Jesus says, and we could mince words, we could parse it and claim that Jesus didn't actually say that everyone had to give everything that they owned, only that because she did, her gift was more important, we could try to interpret it away, but the essence of the teaching remains the same: the widow was being more faithful by giving two measly pennies, because they were all she had, than the rich who gave huge sums.

The psalmist writes: the earth is the Lord's, and all that is in it . . . Paul speaks of our lives – of our lives – being bought for a price, which is the life and death of Jesus Christ . . . this widow's giving shows that she knew this fundamental reality beneath all of stewardship: everything we have, all our money, our houses, even ourselves – is not our own, it belongs to God.  Sorry, folks, but it's true . . .  all the money we'll ever earn, all our stuff, everything, is the Lord's.

The rich, who gave only from what they could spare, their disposable income, held themselves up against God, they balanced their own selves, their own needs with God's.  And holding your needs, your money – indeed yourself – up in balance with God is idolatry, plain and simple, and God doesn't like an idolater.

We might say that this notion that all belongs to God is the first principle of stewardship, and the second is this: who’s on first? The answer of the rich, who gave only from what they could spare, was clear: they came first, not God.  They held themselves in higher regard than the Almighty.  The widow showed – by very drastic action, designed to drive the point home – that (1) everything belongs to God and (2) with her, God came first.  In the Old Testament, where the notion is first seen, a tithe is to be the first fruits of the labor of the people of God, in other words, the stuff off the top.  Whenever they got the harvest, or money from selling, their goods, they gave first to God, and they gave the most choice, un-blemished goods, the before-any-other-tax-or-expenditure cream off the top.  Then they fed themselves.

      And that is the idea historically behind a Christian tithe as well . . . it's a before-tax, before anything else offering to God . . . And we like to think of it as a gift, as if we're being generous, as if it entitles us to be first in line, or have a greater say in how things are run in the church, but it's really not.  After all, how can we gift God with something – our time, our money or our selves – that belongs to God in the first place?  That’s a principle the widow knew all too well.

And there you have it: the story of the Widow’s Lepta, the Widow’s mite.  And I would not presume to tell you all how much to give, that would be a kind of judgment, and that of course is up to God.  But it’s important to give something, ‘cause we’re all adults here: we all know that it costs money to run the church, and that those costs go up every year.  So prayerfully consider how much God is leading you to give, and drop your pledge into the basket this Consecration Sunday, or fill out the form online.  Amen.