In recent decades, archaeologists have turned their attention to ancient cooking pits and trash heaps because these reveal what ordinary people were doing a long, long time ago. Instead of assuming history is what the rich and powerful rulers were doing in ancient empires, the trash heaps and cooking pits of so-called ordinary people tell us what real life was like. They tell us about what matters to people. They give us insight into value, which may have very little with price.
Trash heaps often include bones, corn cobs, or other items that let us know what people ate and what their diet meant for their health, or lack of it. Not only that, you can measure the tooth marks on bones and figure out what people were eating, and if dogs were getting a shot at the bones as well. Knowing this can tell you if dogs were a part of their lives or not. Yes, people’s trash tell a story about what life was like on a daily basis.
Let’s suppose an archaeologist from the distant future was rummaging through the ruins of your home. What would give them an idea of what was valuable in your life? They may find a jewelry box, for instance, but would they know that you treasured a relatively inexpensive bauble over more expensive items, because of the associations this piece had with people or events that were special?
What if these future scientists were to discover, intact, the front of your refrigerator? Thing of what treasures they’d find? Would there be a greeting card from a friend? How about a Christmas letter detailing the events of the past year for a friend? And though expensive artwork may have hung in your home’s hallway, would they realize how much you treasured the artwork of children and grandchildren affixed by magnets to your refrigerator doors?
The gift of a child’s artwork can be very unassuming, and for that reason it’s valuable. A child gives all they have. They pour their heart and soul into the picture they draw, so regardless of what its value might be to a major auction house or art critic, it hangs in the place of honor on your fridge.
In today’s scripture passage Jesus is standing in the temple with his disciples, who seem to be transfixed by the large monetary gifts being given to the work and maintenance of the great temple in Jerusalem.
The second temple was so called to distinguish it from the temple build by Solomon that was destroyed by the Babylonians. This second temple was centuries in the making. At first when the exiles returned to Jerusalem, with a mandate to rebuild the temple given to them by Cyrus the Great, it seemed it would be a work of a few months to get the temple started, but sixteen years went by before the prophets Haggai and Zechariah lit a fire under the people and got them building again.
However it remained a work in progress for centuries until Herod the Great spent the people’s wealth on finishing the project. Herod the Great was admired in the larger Roman Empire for his spectacular building projects, but those people didn’t have to live under his paranoid cruelty. Though God’s people loved their temple, they didn’t admire any of Herod’s works.
Every Jewish male was required to donate a half-shekel to the temple’s coffers. Everything beyond that was a voluntary gift. Jesus was standing with his disciples near the “Trumpet Chests” that were in the women’s court. The area was called the women’s court because this was as far as women — Jewish women, that is — were allowed to go into the temple. Only men could go into the interior chamber. As for Gentiles, non-Jews, they were allowed in the outer courtyard, and many did so to ooh and ah at the wonderful architecture and massive columns that made this one of the wonders of the world.
According to today’s scripture passage, Jesus “…sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums (12:21).” The Trumpet Chests were large trumpet- shaped repositories, where money could be cast for the temple’s treasury. Remember, there were no checks or paper money. Cash was coin made from various metals. The coins were worth the value of the metal.
Because these were metal coins, they made a very loud sound as they clanged and clattered in the Trumpet Chests, and made another satisfying noise when they hit bottom. No doubt many could hear the coins ring and jingle, and they could distinguish what sort of coin was thrown into the Trumpet Chests by the sound of precious metals.
As Jesus watched, Mark told us, “A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny (10:42).” As a woman this widow was not required to make any monetary offering to the temple. Hers was strictly a volunteer contribution. Her tiny coins, known as leptons, made virtually no sound in comparison to the gifts of the wealthy. Those two coins, so thin you could almost see through them, made virtually no difference to the ministries of the temple from an economic sense.
Not only that, but was anyone paying attention to her besides Jesus? Possibly not, because according to the scripture he called his disciples’ attention to what was happening in their midst. Jesus honored a woman whose value was not appreciated by his male disciples. They did not see her. He had to point her out. He praised her saying she had given more money than anyone else, because she gave all she had.
Scripture recognized that widows were an especially vulnerable population. In that society they did not work outside the home, so they depended upon financial support from a male relative — a spouse, a child, or another relative. Why did she give? Was it out of a sense of obligation or because she wanted to give, and wanted to be part of something larger than herself?
The average life span at that time was 25-35 years, but that did not signify how long a person lived. Many died much younger. Disease took many at a very young age. Women could be especially vulnerable — childbirth could be fatal. However, women who survived their child-bearing years might well, like today, live to an advanced age. They would outlive their husbands, their adult children, and other relatives, and require additional support.
Jesus suggested that this made her a target for unscrupulous scribes and others in position of power. Devour and conquer!
That’s why the law of Moses called for widows and other vulnerable populations to receive protection.
So we read: the Lord “…who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing (Deuteronomy 10:18).”
“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge (Deuteronomy 24:17).”
Exodus 22:22 says simply: “You shall not abuse any widow or orphan.”
Jesus made it clear that widows, among others, need special protection. Once again, devour and conquer! That’s why when the widow entered the temple Jesus had warned the people, “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 honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation (Mark 12:38-40).”
The Scribes are an important social class. Nowadays we associate reading and writing as two sides of the same coin, but in the ancient world reading was one skill, and writing was another. Scribes could not only read, they could also write. They copied books, both sacred and secular. Scribes provided writing services to the nobility. They could keep recordings, including business accounts. They worked for the government and for private citizens.
Those who could manipulate information technology, who help control the flow of information, had great power. They demanded respect. But Jesus warned, in the imperative, saying, “Look! Don’t you see what the scribes are doing?”
They wanted to look good in public, so they wore flowing robes, as Jesus put it, stoles that were associated with religious festivals. They attended the religious festivals in full regalia because it was important to them that people saw them in a great light.
But despite their wealth and power, Jesus said, they wanted more. They preyed on widows, setting them up for poor investments, where they stood to lose the homes they put up for collateral. They mismanaged estates. They took widow’s houses as pledge for loans they could not pay back.
They wanted the choice seats in the synagogue. You know, some people in Colonial America, eminent families, would pay for an expensive pew so all would know how important they were compared to others who attended church.
Jesus seemed to be saying that in societies where there’s a gap in incomes the strong devour the weak. Devour and conquer.
Jesus returned to the subject of widows on more than one occasion. He told a parable about an unjust judge who refused to hear a widow’s court case, but in the end she wore the judge down.
Well, what are we to do? Is the warning of Jesus and the example of the widow interesting sidelights on a two-thousand-year- old economic controversy? After all, widows who found themselves without a husband, son, or anyone else, with a Jewish background can work outside the home. Nor do we throw out gifts in a metal chamber to get more bling for the buck when we toss in our gift. People write checks, use paper cash, or even electronic transfers and do so without drawing undue attention to themselves.
Also I suspect we must keep ourselves aware of the damage done by any unthinking person or church that equates a person’s good standing in church with the size of the offering we make. There are always in-kind contributions for those who may not always be able to do as much as they would like with what they have.
It’s a danger if we accept economic oppression as normal. It’s a danger if we assume that people are poor, handicapped, or disadvantaged because somehow they deserve their condition.
When we take anecdotes as truth instead of learning that welfare queens are not the norm, and that for most poor people, being poor requires constant employment from dawn to dusk to navigate the barriers put up against them to receive what they need. Many people who are disadvantaged in ways that are not easy to detect aren’t getting their food or medications. They are not getting the health care they need. They can’t get to doctors and the doctors they can get to may not want to serve them.
It’s too easy to criticize the spending habits of the poor, criticizing when they buy prepared food instead of uncooked food, not realizing that some people have no working stoves in their homes. Maybe their phone or their car is the nicest thing they own, because they have to rent instead of buy.
It’s not enough to ooh and ah at the extraordinary generosity of the widow in this story, who gave all she had, and somehow this lets us off the hook. We should feel inspired to give more, and aspire to give all of ourselves to the work of the gospel, to the good news of Jesus Christ.
After all, some day in the distant future an archaeologist may be digging through our trash. Instead of finding the remains of our dinners, which we’ve stuffed down the garbage disposal or sent to the landfill, they may find our pay stubs and a copy of the record of our church giving, the original of which was sent to the IRS. They may be able to look at the bills for our phones and our television packages and make a guess as to our true priorities.
In 1895, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called “Recessional.” At the time the British were the high and mighty, lord of all creation, of all they could see and not see. The sun did not set on the British Empire. Against that backdrop he warned in a poem called “Recessional” that the rich and powerful (and he was referring to his own people) might, drunk with power, believe that their wealth is something they need to protect, instead of blessing those who need their protection.
One stanza in his poem says it all:
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart.
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
A humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts be with us yet
Lest we forget., Lest we Forget.
(in the public domain)
Whether we are the widow, giving all we have, or the scribes, lured by power to take even more from those who have the least, let us come before God with our offerings and with our service in humility — and joy!
Nothing can be more important than our Lord’s high regard for what we do in our poverty, and nothing could be more dangerous to our souls than the Lord’s contempt when we are concerned for outward appearances and what people think of us, instead of how God will judge us on that day.
Amen.
