As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then 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. For 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.”
POINTERS FOR PRAYER
1. The scribes are presented as ostentatious and devious, acting more out of self-interest than the love of God or people. There can be an element of self-interest in each of us. Perhaps there have been times when you have been disturbed by glimpsing in yourself ‘other motives’ in your doing good. Recall when you were awakened to this fact. Where was the good news for you in these experiences?
2. In material terms what the widow had to offer was very little. Recall when you felt yourself called to give and gave even though you apparently had very little. Perhaps you have had the experience of finding that what you thought was little and insignificant meant a great deal to another person. Recall some of those moments.
3. The widow ‘gave everything she had, all she had to live on’. In doing so she placed herself in a very vulnerable position, trusting that things would work out. Have you ever found that what seemed a generous but reckless giving of yourself proved life-giving for yourself and others?
The first story is a straight teaching. In prophetic manner, Jesus names the temptation of all who are “professionally” religious: self-importance, greed, hypocrisy.
The second story, a story with a direct observable point. The contrast is not between material giving and spiritual giving: both the widow and the very rich give materially—and the Temple needed support. The contrast lies between the attitude (self-glory v. gift) and the cost of the donation (relatively little v. “all she had to live on”).
Money can easily distort our attitudes and values. It is tempting to react more warmly to those who give more generously—we all do it. It is easy to overlook the motive behind giving and focus, not on the giver, but on the gift. We do have the expression that it’s the thought that counts. Usually, though, such proverbial wisdom is employed to help me/us be consoled when some expectation was not realised. Thus, this apparently consolatory thought acknowledges the tendency to the opposite, the attraction to the gift as such!! The Lord, however, reads our hearts.