1 Kings 17: 8-16 (New Jerusalem Bible)
Mark 12: 38-44 (Common English Bible)
The gospel reading from Mark is not so much a commentary on the widow’s gracious gift, it is a critique about the Temple in Jerusalem. Today our culture’s ideas about contemporary houses of worship tend to separate the sacred from the secular. During the 1st century readers of Mark’s gospel would consider commerce as part of the Temple’s life. It’s similar on a smaller scale as some mega-churches sell Starbucks coffee and books within the church building for a profit. For First Century Israel, the Temple was part of their redistribution economy. This is where the goods and services were expected to be collected and then fairly given to those who need them. But the system was rigged.
So Mark gives us a fitting analysis of the Temple’s practices. At its heart it was a crooked system in which its leaders were unfairly distributing goods and resources. The most hurt by this system were the poor, such as the widow in this gospel story. Her gift of her last two copper coins was not necessarily an example of her piety, but rather the corruption within the Temple.
Despite the corruption in the Temple, the widowed woman still chooses to give her last coins and be faithful to a vision of something larger than she can see now. Jesus told his disciples, “I assure you this poor widow has put in more than everyone who’s been putting money in the treasuring. All of them are giving out their spare change. But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she has.”
And it is true that low-income people give more to the poor than the rich, percentage wise. Those who have experienced poverty first hand, know how devastating it can be. In the meantime the Economic Royalists like Elon Musk are making money from money.
Jesus offers us the widow as a model of faith. And Jesus warns his disciples about the corrupt Scribes because of their selfish lifestyle. In doing so, he presents the contrast between the Scribes and the widowed woman. The Scribes are concerned with gaining power over other people in order to enrich themselves. The widow on the other hand, gives up the rest of her money so that God may work through her.
There are two choices, misuse of power over others, which is usually the poor or surrender your selfish mind-set so that we may truly serve God. One choice is the way to death. The other choice is the way to live.
Now imagine living in an unprecedented recession and having only a few dollars to your name. A total stranger shows up asking for money. You explain your predicament, but he still tries to talk you out of your last dollar. This is the scene unfolding in Sidon at the home of the widow Zarephath and the prophet Elijah (Ist Kings 8: 8-16). Sidon was located in modern day Lebanon or what’s left of it after Israeli bombing. God sends Elijah to Zarephath a pagan in an area that worships Baal as their god. God told Elijah he would find food there. Elijah finds Zarephath at the city’s gate and asks her for food and drink. Instead Zarephath tells Elijah she intends to go home and cook a meal for herself and son. All she has left is a “meal in a jar” and “oil in a jug” (Ist Kings 17: 14). Elijah tells the woman not to fear. The meal will not run out and the oil will not fail until God sends rain again to that area.
Zarephath must decide whether to choose faith over fear and hope over despair. Her choice was between Yahweh the God of the Hebrews or the pagan gods of her native land. Like her, people must decide faith over fear when facing cancer or despair at the graveside of a loved one. Like Zarephath, people still ask, can God be trusted?
Zarephath puts her hope in Yahweh. In doing so, she discovers that the God who brings hope to the hopeless is also the God who honors courageous faith. This is very similar to the widow mentioned in Mark’s gospel.
Taken together, these two stories remind us who God is and what God does. God works through ordinary people who trust God with what they have. It could be something meager like a meal in a jar, oil in a jug or just five loaves of bread and two fish. God honors the widow with her two coins because that is all she had.
Jesus draws attention to the widow in Sidon during his first sermon at Nazareth mentioned in Luke chapter four verses 25-26, “I can assure you no prophet is welcomed in the prophet’s hometown. And I can assure you there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it didn’t rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land. Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only a widow in the land of Sidon.”
Too often, high-status people look at people they consider “low-status”or not having a pretentious career as a failure. One person even told me if you don’t make more than 100,000 dollars a year, you’ve failed. God does not see it that way. God is the great artist and looks at those people with good hearts, with a beautiful future to come.
When we reflect on Elijah’s words, consider him as the great optimist. When people can see only scarcity, Elijah talks about abundance. Elijah brings a word of faith into a moment of fear and resignation. After hearing about the widow’s plans for death, Elijah gives her the same promise God gave to Hagar in the desert, “Do not be afraid” (Genesis 21: 17).
Elijah wanted Zarephath to participate in the new reality of God’s promises, but at the moment remains hidden from view. Once faced by hunger, suffering and death, the widow is given a new world that gives her hope.
This gracious gift of salvation comes in the form of sustenance, and daily bread , whether it’s physical or spiritual. Zarephath did a reversal and made plans to preserve life and took a step toward hope. This biblical narrative shows that humans have a tendency to over-consolidate power in ways that continue economic and political uncertainty.
As Christians, we place our trust in God, not in kings, presidents, wealth or weapons that cannot save (Psalm 146: 3). Yet we do not have the luxury of closing off prophetic voices. We never know who might be knocking at our door.
AMEN.
