EVERYTHING -- ALMOST!

  

The gospel passage assigned for  today, Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time, is the story of the poor widow who come to the temple with her offering:

[Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood” (Mk 12:41-44).

 Sit beside Jesus and take in the scene as it unfolds. He and his disciples are in this great room, the temple treasury. Devout Jews are coming in and dropping their offerings into the several chests. Atop each of these chests is a trumpet-shaped receptacle in which the person drops the offering. Some scholars tell us that at each chest there was a temple worker or Levite who, as the person put in their offering, would announce in a loud voice the amount of the offering being made. 

As you're sitting there amid the bustle of people coming and going and making their offerings, you can hear the voices calling out the various amounts of money being put in the chests. You hear one voice all out clearly, "Two lepta."  You and the disciples look at one another. A lepton is the smallest coin in circulation, worth 1/128 of a denarius. Jesus then motions you and the other disciples to gather near him so he can tell you something: "Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury."

The widow's lesson is pretty obvious, of course. She is giving to the Lord everything she has, her whole bios, as the gospel's Greek puts it, "her whole life."

I'm always touched by the little detail that she had two coins, not one. She could have done what I do too often in my own life: Make a deal with God, and go "halfsies:" One coin for God and the other one for me. It makes sense, right? This way I still have a little something to rely on. Something instead of God, that is. 

"Usually I'm pretty satisfied..."

I think that I do a good job of sacrificing things to God, especially as a monk. I try to examine my conscience and look at myself and my motives pretty often, and usually come away pretty satisfied with myself for my efforts. 

Then I walk into the temple treasury to make my offering. Walking just ahead of me is this poor widow. As we get on the line leading to the big chest with it's trumpet-shaped receptacle, I notice that she's holding two little coins. Both in the same hand. It's suddenly clear to me that she intends to contribute both of them to the temple treasury -- she's not about to hold back anything from the Lord! Suddenly my generous offering of self looks puny and half-hearted (a good word!), as I start to see all the areas of my life in which I don't depend entirely on God but take things into my own hands in an attempt to control them in case God doesn't come through the way I want or when I want.

I stand there at the treasury box, and as she drops in both of her lepta, the old woman looks over her shoulder at me. Joy and peace radiate from her face as she gives me an encouraging smile. She must know I need it.