Sustaining Faith

The Venerable Joan Clark

Mark 12:38-44

If we look at any scripture story, parable, or teaching by Jesus, and you will find a strong reaction to “weighing one’s worth” by one’s deeds or acts. In Jesus’ mission and message, we aren’t “golden” because we are useful, successful, or essential to a project or institution. We are worthy of God’s grace and place in a community of faith no matter who we are or what we are capable of doing, because our worth is not measured but intrinsic to who we are, marked and made in the image of God.

This sense of “value” should have been a no brainer to those of the Jewish faith, given the messages of the Hebrew scriptures, but at the time Jesus was living and teaching, the message had gotten lost, at least lost to those “in charge.”

Still worse? Today, in our own churches, we many times still choose to misinterpret this story of the widow’s gift, in order to nudge people into giving money they don’t have or to guilt them into increasing their tithes and commitments. We praise the poor woman for giving the only two cents she has to live on, saying to ourselves, isn’t her faith great. Look at her sacrifice.

But here’s the rub. Jesus was not glorifying the widow in this scripture for her self-sacrificing demeanour. He was harshly and bluntly criticizing the Pharisees and Scribes for taking advantage of her goodness and preying on her faith commitment in order to extract from her the only money she had to live on. Lauded as an act of “great faith,” Jesus sees it for what it is –the worst kind of religious abuse, a manipulation of her gentle and vulnerable spirit, using the language of faith to encourage her to deny her own welfare in the name of God. Jesus calls out this act as a wretched act of treachery and evil on behalf of the Temple leadership, whom he declares “devour widows’ houses and pray just for show.”

Religion does strange things to people. While faith itself makes people vulnerable, those in the ranks of religious institutions tend toward power. And as we all know, power corrupts.

In Jesus’ time, the divide between the religious elite and the faithful poor was growing ever greater, and it was clear that the more the elite glorified poverty and declared giving one’s last dime as righteous, the poorer people became. Jesus does not mince words. He points out that this attitude meant that the institution was cheating widows out of their homes rather than caring for the vulnerable. Encouraging people to give beyond their means, whether Levites, or foreigners, or orphans, or widows, was not a celebration of faith but a robbery of the poor. Unfortunately, many people equate religious institutions and their leadership with “God” and God’s own message. While the widow gave from her bleeding heart, the vampires in Pharisee clothing were all too eager to suck her in.

Jesus’ sharp critique of the Temple system would come up again, as Jesus overthrows money changing tables in the Temple courtyard. But in a way, this passage today is even stronger, because it is all too easy for any of us at any time to cloak our own agendas as gestures of faith. This is the worse kind of sin, using faith itself as a motive for human goals and greed.

Part of what makes it so hard to understand sometimes what Jesus is saying and doing is because we have a desire to read what we want to hear. And it’s easy to “misread” when we miss what’s going on with our eyes and experience.

So let’s look at what’s happening here in this scripture reading.

Jesus is sitting in the courtyard of the Temple and some of his disciples are with him. He’s been teaching them and talking to them about a number of problematic issues….this all will culminate with his sentence regarding the final destruction of the Temple. They are watching some of the Pharisees and Scribes parade around looking important and haughty, expecting due respect from all. Jesus points them out. Here’s what he says:

Jesus leans in toward his disciples and says in a low voice: “Watch out for the ‘legal experts.’ They like to walk around in long robes. They want to be greeted with honour in the markets. They long for places of honour in the synagogues and at banquets. But THEY are the ones who cheat widows out of their homes, and then to show off they say long prayers. They will be judged most harshly!”

Jesus then motions to his disciples to follow him, and he sits down across from the Temple money collection box for the Temple treasury, and he tells them to observe the people giving money.  He wants his disciples to pay attention to what’s going on.

Many rich people were throwing in money, which is fine if they have it. But then a poor widow comes forward, and she puts two small copper coins worthy a penny into the box.

Jesus points to her and says: “I assure you that this poor widow has put in more than everyone who’s been putting money in the treasury!”

Jesus points to the wealthy givers: “All of them are giving out of their spare change.”

Then motioning again to the poor widow woman: “But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she had –the only money she had to live on.”

Now do you hear what Jesus is doing here?

Is Jesus praising the woman? Goodness no. Jesus is appalled. He recognizes that she, in her feeling that she needed to give in order to be worthy, has been entirely taken advantage of by the Temple leadership.
This woman should not be giving the only money she had to live on. The Temple should have been instead taking care of her!

Jesus isn’t saying that giving itself is wrong. But he is saying that those who can afford to give, should. Those who can’t, should not have to, and definitely should not feel as if they must.

For the Temple, and unfortunately for many of our churches today, we have fallen into the trap of valuing people for their “weight in gold,” rather than their intrinsic worth as fellow people of God.

To belong to the Temple meant to “pay” one’s dues. But Jesus doesn’t charge us for membership in God’s kingdom. Jesus knows that all are worthy of God’s grace no matter their means, their deeds, or their usefulness.

Just as Jesus redefines faith, love, and neighbour, Jesus also redefines worth.

Whether you are a woman, a child, a person who is ill, poor, rich, or of modest means, all are worthy to sit at the table of the Lord.