So, I've been giving a lot of thought to these readings in light of last week. And I think we have work to do.
Our Gospel reading is one of those old chestnuts that we hear around this time, and we generally use it for stewardship sermons to have Jesus essentially say, hey, look, that widow gave everything she had. Can't you give just a fraction?
But, y'all, I'm not so sure that's what this is all about. Let's step back and give it a fresh look.
Jesus has been hanging around the temple, teaching. In fact just before this he gave us his two great commandments speech. You know what they are: love God, love your neighbor. And then he starts to talk about the rich and powerful. And he doesn't have the nicest things in the world to say about them. They are pompous, put on airs, lord their power about. And then Jesus says this thing: they devour widows' houses.
I have breezed over that every single time I've read it. They devour widows' houses.
In Jerusalem, the financial burden on even the most well-off was rough. The Romans taxed, and so did the Jewish leaders. Not only were imperial taxes collected, but Jewish men had to pay an assessment through the temple. The fact that this widow is giving her “mite” to the church suggests that her husband recently died, and she was paying what he owed...which was everything she had left.
Everything she had to live on. She was an impoverished widow in first century Palestine, a woman living on the margins of her society. She had no safety net. No husband to advocate for her, no pension to draw from, no social security. She was vulnerable in every single way that mattered. Two pennies short of the end. And, y'all, Jesus doesn't say it turns out alright for her. The chances are, he saw her make her payment, and then wander off, probably to die.
This was the way of life then.
The government of the temple was not supposed to be like this. In the past, before the age of empires, God had told his people in the wilderness that times were tough, but not so tough that they could ignore what was important – the caring of widows and orphans and strangers in their midst. They were to be welcoming to those in need, not cruel. Generous with what they had, not greedy.
Thats how it was for Ruth and Naomi. Naomi and her sons were Israelites caught up in a famine, who made their way to a foreign land, Moab. They didn't have to sneak across the border, they didn't have to worry about being rounded up. They were welcomed. Naomi's sons found wives and became prosperous. And when those sons died, Naomi and one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, made their way back to Israel. They were poor widows and Ruth was an undocumented alien. But they were welcomed into a culture that still listened to God's command to care for the widows and orphans and aliens in their midst. And Ruth survived. She didn't have to run in the dark of night. And she prospered. She didn't get separated from her husband because she had no papers. And she bore a son who became an ancestor of King David, an ancestor of Jesus. She was a person and recognized as a person, a whole person, not some animal.
But somewhere things changed. Maybe it was all those invasions. Maybe it was living in exile. Maybe it was the fear of others that caused people to hunker down, throw up walls, use the poor for their own benefit. I don't know, but certainly things had changed.
Indeed, in the days leading up to the widow's last gift, Jesus offers one scathing critique after another of the economic and political exploitation he witnesses all around him. He makes a mockery of Roman pomp and circumstance when he processes into Jerusalem on a donkey's back. He cleanses the Temple of the money changers with a whip.
He refuses to answer the chief priests, scribes, and elders when they demand to know the source of his authority. He shows them for what they are. "Beware of the scribes," Jesus tells his followers. "They devour widow's houses...” What a far way they had come from the desert generosity of their ancestors. Their piety was a sham, and their government was corrupt. And it is here that Jesus praises the widow for giving all she had to live on. Right?
So why on earth would he turn around and praise a woman for endangering her already endangered life to support an institution he condemns?
And I think the answer is, he doesn't. Centuries of stewardship sermons notwithstanding, Jesus never really commends the widow, applauds her self-sacrifice, or invites us to follow in her footsteps. He simply notices her, and tells his disciples to notice her, too.
This is a moment in the story when I'd give anything to hear Jesus's tone of voice. Is he heartbroken as he tells his disciples to peel their eyes away from the rich folks and glance in her direction instead? Is he outraged? Is he resigned? What does it mean to him, mere seconds after he's described the Temple leaders as devourers of widows' houses, to witness just such a widow being devoured? And worse, participating in her own devouring?
Y'all, I think the story of the widow's mite, of the widow's small, life-threatening payment is not about her at all. At least not in the way we've been taught. I think it's about us...us as scribes, as Pharisees.
I think Jesus is looking around and seeing the economic system based on greed and power and politics. A system where people play at thrones and play at God, who use God as a weapon against those who are in the shadows. Who are on the edge of life. Those who are hiding, those who are running. Those who wake up and, in their great sadness and depression, pull the blanket over their heads and close their eyes at what fate has in store...if they have a blanket at all.
Ya'll, I think Jesus is looking around at all these good religious people and then looking back at that widow and wondering, “Why is she having to do this? For God's sake, why is nobody helping her?”
Amen.