The Widow's Mite, a devotional thought

In Mark Chapter 12 we come across a well-known story about a widow who gives two pennies into the Temple treasury, while all the rich are dropping cool-crisp 20 dollar bills in the plate (or the 1st Century equivalent...).  Jesus watches the scene unfold and then he says, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow gave more than all the others, because they gave out of their wealth, but she gave everything she has" (Mark 12:44).

When you read this story in the broader context of Mark's narrative, you can't help but notice that it comes right after Jesus has finished denouncing the Teachers of the Law because they "devour widow's houses..." (v.40). So there's two references to widows back to back in Mark 12. But there's also two references to Teachers of the Law, because right before Mark 12:40, another Teacher of the Law asks Jesus what's the greatest commandment, and he says, "To love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself."

The reason this broader context matters is because it suggests that this generous widow is not just being held up as an example to generic rich people (though they are implicated...). She's being held up as an example to the Teachers of the Law, in particular, who who split hairs over which commandment is greatest, and then turn around and violate the first and foremost commandment by gobbling up the homes of the likes of her, using their wealth and their legalistic righteousness to justify their economic exploitation of others. Back in verse 29, Jesus told a Teacher of the Law that the most important commandment is to love God and love your neighbour, and here in verse 43, he points out the self-giving of a powerless widow, sitting lowest of all on the socio-economic totem pole, as the best example of what that actually looks like.

Some very sobering thoughts bob to the surface when you connect all these dots: if the Teachers of the Law really got it, what the greatest commandment was (v. 29-3), they wouldn't "devour the homes of the widows" (v.40), would they? And then that widow's two pennies wouldn't be "everything she had to live on." Would it? This story is as much a condemnation of spiritual-economic exploitation as it is an exhortation to give generously (probably more so). Loving God with all your heart is not some abstract, immaterial, touchy-feely type-thing. It actually looks like that impoverished widow in the Temple treasury that day, literally putting it all on the line with God and trusting him to provide. But the thing is, if we all got that, and did it with her, then she wouldn't be down to her last two pennies in the first place.