I have some good news today for widows. [How many of you fall into that category?] Some of you have been widowed and remarried. Some of you still grieve the loss of your life’s partner. If you are a widow, you can probably use some good news. It’s not easy losing a spouse. Some of you have a void in life that nothing will ever fill. But here’s the good news. Jesus is aware of your situation, and Jesus is aware of your faithfulness to the church.
Pastor James Love tells about a friend of his, a young minister, who serves at a large church. This church hired a professional church fund-raiser to help them with a large capital-funds campaign. The fund-raiser told this story:
At the initial meeting, the fund-raiser asked the board about their goals for the campaign. Someone said, “You have to understand that we are a church that has a high percentage of older people, mostly widows on fixed incomes. So we really can’t expect to raise too much money.” The fund-raiser asked to see a list of the major givers to that church. He took the list with him at the close of the meeting.
The next meeting, he told the board that he had done an analysis of the congregation’s giving. “Please note,” he said in his report, “that the majority of your top 50 contributors are ‘widows on fixed incomes.’ Please note that, according to my calculations, those widows on fixed incomes pay about 60 percent of this congregation’s annual budget. I’d say if you want to improve the giving in this congregation, you need to talk to those women first, find out why they give, then try to infect the rest of the congregation with the faith of these ‘widows on fixed incomes.’” (1)
Pastor John Jewell tells a similar story. He says that years ago, a pastor friend of his preached a sermon on giving. He talked about his brother who most people thought of as a generous contributor to the church. His gifts were counted in the tens of thousands of dollars. But the pastor called his brother a cheapskate! After all, his brother was a multimillionaire who could afford to give much more.
He went on to say that there was a poor widow in the church who gave more than his wealthy brother. The actual amount of her dollars was less, but the level of her commitment to Christ was far greater than his brother’s.
Once this woman decided to give up her monthly appointment at the beauty parlor so she could make an extra gift for a building program. This pastor went to see her to say to say to her that this was not necessary. After all, this monthly appointment that she felt was a luxury to have her hair done was her one pleasure in life. Plus, she enjoyed the contact with people at the shop.
When the pastor tried to have her keep her meager pledge for the building fund, she corrected him in no uncertain terms.
“Pastor, this is the only thing I have to give. I have nothing else. I have talked with God about this and God knows it is in my heart to want to be a part of this building program. I want to do this and God will see that I have what I need!”
He took her pledge back to the church, says John Jewell, with tears in his eyes and joy in his heart. And God was impressed! (2)
These two moving stories are tied, of course, to today’s lesson from Mark’s Gospel. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were gathered and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything all she had to live on.”
This is one of the best-known stories in the New Testament, and rightfully so. It is a story of extraordinary faith and commitment.
Widows in Bible times lived extremely difficult lives. When the writer of the epistle of James thought of responsibilities that Christians have, here is one of the most important. He writes: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress . . .”
Some of you know about that distress. There is the emptiness, the loneliness, and sometimes there is financial hardship besides. But, at least, most widows today are somewhat provided for. Not so in Bible times. A widow was completely dependent on her family. She could not inherit from her husband. If she had no children, she returned to her father’s house. If she had no family, she was indeed in trouble. There were no jobs for widows. There was no Social Security system, no welfare system. It is common knowledge today that many single mothers fall below the poverty line. The plight of widows in biblical times was much more desperate. They were literally in danger of starving to death.
You may remember the story of the widow in I Kings 17 who encountered the prophet Elijah. She was going about her daily routine of gathering sticks to make a fire so she could feed her son and herself. Elijah asked the woman for a drink of water and a piece of bread. She replied that she has only enough flour and oil for one last meal to feed herself and her son. She and the lad literally lived on bread and water and it was all nearly gone! You and I cannot even imagine such desperate circumstances.
Think of Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth gleaning for wheat in Boaz’ fields. Can you imagine being dependent on the little bit of wheat that the harvesters left as your only source of food and income? Think of the back-breaking work involved in gleaning wheat in a field.
The widow that Jesus observed was in desperate circumstances. She was down to her last two coins . . . and she gave them to God! What amazing faith.
Eric Hulstrand of Binford, North Dakota, was preaching one Sunday when an elderly woman named Mary fainted and struck her head on the end of the pew. Immediately, an Emergency Medical Technician in the congregation called an ambulance. As they strapped Mary to a stretcher and got ready to head out the door, she regained consciousness. She motioned for her daughter to come near. Everyone thought she was summoning her strength to convey what could be her final words. The daughter leaned over until her ear was at her mother’s mouth.
“My offering is in my purse,” this dear elderly woman whispered as they carried her out. (3)
The widow was down to her last two coins and she gave them to God. What was going on here? Why would she give her last two coins?
First of all, the widow was demonstrating that God came first in her life. There is a battle going on in many people’s lives, a battle between God and mammon, a battle between Christian faith and materialism.
Actually this may be the most significant spiritual battle taking place in our consumer-driven culture. But the battle is not ours alone. This battle takes place wherever there are people.
Financial counselor, Ron Blue, tells of confronting that battle in an unexpected place. While visiting a small village in rural Africa, Ron asked a local leader what the biggest problem facing his community was. He expected to hear the man speak of lack of medical care or food or education, but the local leader said: “Materialism. That’s our number one problem.”
“If a man has a mud hut, he wants one made out of stone. If he has a thatch roof, he wants a tin roof. If he has one acre, he wants two. Materialism is a disease of the heart.” (4)
Bob Buford, a wealthy entrepreneur, was struggling with the priorities in his life. He hired a well-known financial consultant to help him plan his life. This consultant was not a believer. But he told Bob, “I hear two things coming out of your mouth.” He drew a box. He said, “This box is your life.” Then outside of the box he put a dollar sign representing money and a cross representing Christ. He said, “I hear two things vying for attention in your life. I can’t help you plan your life until you tell me which of these things you want in the center of that box which represents your life.” That was a turning point, says Bob Buford, that led him to completely commit his life to Christ. (5) Which comes first the dollar sign or the cross? The poor widow didn’t have much in the way of material possessions, but she knew where her priorities lay. God was first in her life.
In the second place, this widow believed her gift would make a difference. What she was giving might have seemed very small to her neighbors, but like the little boy who gave his fishes and loaves to the Master, this widow knew her gift would make a difference.
Barbara Brown Taylor tells about a single lady in Hattiesburg, Mississippi who made the most of her meager income. Her name is Osceola McCarty. Ms. McCarty is a laundress, an elderly African-American woman who never married. She dropped out of school when she was in sixth grade to begin a lifetime of washing clothes. That was the year her maiden aunt came out of the hospital, unable to walk, and moved in with her family. Twelve-year‑old McCarty left school to care for her aunt and to help her mother and grandmother with the backyard laundry business. By the time her aunt recovered a year later, McCarty thought she was too far behind to return to school. “I was too big,’ she says, “so I kept on working.”
“For the next seventy‑five years that is what she did,” says Taylor, “scrubbing the dark clothes on a washboard and boiling the whites in a big black pot in her backyard before hanging them all out on the line to dry. Her day started when the sun came up and stopped when it went down.”
But then, when she was eighty‑seven, Osceola McCarty did something that caught the imagination of the people of Hattiesburg. She gave $150,000 her life savings to the University of Southern Mississippi for black scholarships. “Now reporters and photographers are crawling all over her, local businesspeople have pledged to match her gift, and the young woman who was awarded the first McCarty scholarship has all but adopted her. McCarty says the one question she gets asked more than any other is why she did not spend the money on herself. ‘I am spending it on myself,’ she answers, smiling the slyest of smiles.” (6)
That’s an amazing story. The widow that Jesus praised didn’t give $150,000. Well, maybe she did, over a lifetime. We get all excited when somebody gives $50,000 to the church. We put their name on a window or on a plaque. We sometimes forget that the person who tithes faithfully over their adult life will often give much more than that $50,000. But it’s not the amount that matters to God. What matters is that it is a true act of commitment. The little bit that many of us give to God barely inconveniences us. We’re talking real sacrifice, not tipping God a pittance.
The widow made God the first priority in her life. She knew that God would use her gift, however small. And one last thing last thing: her faithfulness touched others. That’s no small thing. Every time this story is told her example touches a new generation of believers. Think about that! Of course, this act would still have been important if only those closest to her were aware of her devotion.
Dr. William Hinson, an outstanding preacher in Texas, once told how a small gift touched his life. He was only eighteen, still in school and was preaching only his second sermon as an associate pastor. As he stood to preach, a ten-year-old boy on the front row of the church began swinging his feet like a lot of little boys do. Dr. Hinson said that, as a young preacher, he was already so nervous. Then he got distracted by the boy’s legs and lost track of what he was saying. He botched the sermon up badly and finally just said amen.
As he was standing there in his embarrassment, the ten-year-old boy with the restless legs came up to him and invited him home for lunch. Hinson thought to himself that the boy certainly owed him that much.
Hinson had a wonderful lunch with the boy and his family. About two weeks later, Hinson got a letter from that young boy. Enclosed was fifty‑seven cents. A note explained that this was all of the profit the young man had from his egg money and that he wanted to help Pastor Bill become a better preacher. Hinson said there was no way he could keep the money and he called the boy’s father to tell him so.
The boy’s father told him that he couldn’t send the money back. The boy had never worked so hard or taken care of his chickens so well. If he was to send that money back, the boy would be broken hearted. So, with a lump in his throat and a deep sense of humility, Hinson kept that 57 cents.
As the months and years went by, there were many more of those letters with egg money enclosed. Through college and seminary, the letters came. Sometimes Hinson would get discouraged and want to quit and one of those letters would come and he knew he could not give up.
That young boy with the restless legs grew up and became quite successful. Once he flew out in his private plane, to hear one of Hinson’s sermons, to see if his investment had paid off. (7)
My guess is that young boy became successful because he became disciplined quite young in the use of his money including giving his money to good causes. That’s a lesson in itself. But think what a difference his small gift made in the life of a struggling young seminarian. He couldn’t have known, of course, that his egg money would yield such influence—anymore than the widow could know that we would be telling her story two thousand years later, but that’s the way things work in the Kingdom of God. A little goes a long way. This widow made God first in her life. She knew that, though she had little to give, that little would make a difference. And she touched many lives. Like Osceola McCarty of Hattiesburg, MS, if someone had asked her why she didn’t spend the money on herself, she would have answered, “I am spending it on myself.” And it’s true. Only that which we refuse to offer to God is ever really lost. That which we give to God is ours for all eternity.
1. http://www.jameslove.com/sermons/Sermon_Mark_12_38-44.htm
2. http://www.lectionarysermons.com/novem_12.htm.
3. Edward K. Rowell, 1001 Quotes, Illustrations, and Humorous Stories (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), p. 195.
4. Rev. Daniel Meyer, http://cc‑ob.org/sermons/2003/03sermons.htm.
5. Pastor Ken Kelly, http://www.chapinbaptist.com/sermons/20040125.html.
6. Home By Another Way (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1999), pp. 213-214.
7. Cited by