A mighty widow's mite

Sermon for Pentecost XXV,2024, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY
Text: Mark 12:38-44

When I was growing up, my parish had a Lenten tradition of giving out cardboard UTO mite boxes to the children in the parish. We would then drop coins into the box during Lent, and on Easter we would bring them back, and up to a large open plywood cross in the front of the sanctuary. The cross would then be filled with the mite boxes. More recently, I have understood the significance of those boxes full of coins, inspired by the Gospel reading of the widow and her two copper coins. There could be a whole other sermon about filling a cross with coins for another time. Suffice it to say that each penny I put in was a sacrifice of sorts, particularly since I was way too young to work, and my parents hadn’t started giving me an allowance. The word mite descended from German, to mean something small, and in Flemish refers to a thin copper coin, so the concept is of something small and of little value, like the two copper coins that the widow put into the treasury box.

Just before we hear about the widow, we hear about the scribes who like to call attention to themselves. At first they don’t seem to have much in common with the widow, but there is a contrast between the two. On the one hand we have scribes who make a big deal out of their importance and wealth, as if they were giving away their valuable time to enrich society. On the other hand, we have a poor, marginalized widow giving away something of much less value in the eyes of society. What she gives has more impact on her because she can’t afford to give anything, and it has a spiritual impact on the treasury, because she can’t afford to give anything. The scribes don’t make as much of an impression because they give out of their abundance, and they expect something in return: notoriety. The reason why money or time is given is more important than how much is given. That reason could be a sense of obligation, an attitude of generosity, or a desire for notoriety, and that determines the true worth of the gift. People will remember the widow’s mite offering longer than they remember the self-serving gifts from the scribes. The point that Jesus makes with these two stories is that the most valuable giving is sacrificial, done quietly and humbly.
A few months ago, my employer had a community service day where hundreds of us cleaned up a park and made meal packets for others who were food insecure. Making the meal packets was an amazing event, where 10 people worked at one of 76 tables. Two people weighed out rice and lentils, two others added dried vegetables, and the rest added a tablespoon full of herbs and spices and heat-sealed the bags. At the end of four 90 minute shifts, we had made one million meal bags. The atmosphere was loud with music and voices and cowbells ringing to indicate a full box of bags, and we were having fun as we gave our time and energy to the effort. All of this was the opposite of what I have just said was Jesus’ lesson on humble and quiet giving, and makes us sound more like the scribes, calling attention to ourselves and giving out of our abundance of time.

But, the story of the widow is a story of one person, one person discounted and sidelined by a society that didn’t see her value. She acted humbly as one person, but what we experienced while making meals was many of us coming together as a whole, thousands of hands doing small things, but creating something much larger than ourselves. This was an experience of the kingdom of God, being built one scoop or sealed bag at a time, by all of us coming together as one. This was not the experience of the widow, but what if there had been 5 widows, or 10 widows, or 50 widows, each humbly putting their only two copper coins into the treasury box? That would have amounted to something significant, individual widows coming together, each doing something small, but together giving far more than any one of them could have done alone.

What I’m talking about here is the giving experience of the individual vs. a group, and can a group give something of great value without great sacrifice. I think that they can, but we have to take into consideration the power of a group, and be aware of the power that comes from forming the body of Christ to do something. The scribes, as a group, did not come together as one because they were in it for themselves. Their giving was all about them, and they didn’t accomplish much. But as part of a group of 10, I could accomplish something more, like providing a meal to someone who might otherwise go without. I am fortunate to have more than two copper coins to my name, and I bagged meals during the time I would have been working, so I can’t say that I sacrificed anything I truly needed, not like the widow. But, there’s no way that I could have made one million meals, any more than the widow herself could have given 100 coins to the treasury. I was helping out because I believed that the effort was good even if we made a small fraction of the total.

Two weeks from today, we will have our yearly consecration Sunday, where we will pledge money for the coming year. It will not be as dramatic as a widow giving all that she had, and we don’t want you to put yourself in that position. Each of us can contribute something, and like my experience making meal bags, what we contribute will make us part of something larger than us, individually. We will end up supporting the parish and its ministries in ways that we could not do, individually. We give what we can, somewhere between the widow and someone of great means. Let us look to the Holy Spirit to move us as one body to humbly give as the widow showed us how to give.