A Penny's Worth Of Galaxies

Articles about the cosmos always catch my interest. I cannot claim to understand every astrophysical explanation, but I am always filled with astonishment when I read about light that began to travel toward earth before the planet even existed. That same sense of wonder returns to me when I am skiing down the Continental Divide from an elevation of 13, 000 feet. I marvel at the massiveness and age of the alpine peaks that surround me. Then suddenly it hits me: I am impressed with these awesome peaks, and yet they are nothing more than wrinkles on a little stone that revolves around a minor star in a galaxy that is only one among fifty billion galaxies.

The discrepancy in size between my little world and the cosmos is the same scale of realities we find in this month's lections. We read that time itself is encompassed by "the Alpha and the Omega" (Revelation 1:8). But we also observe the smallest act of giving: "A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins which were worth a penny" (Mark 12: 42). Between the beginning and end of time a widow gives a penny to the temple treasury, and Jesus is so moved by her action that you might conclude it is one of the major events in the history of the cosmos.

That is exactly what the widow's gift is.

The tiniest act of generosity, when it is a giving of one's whole self, commands a holy place in creation, in the unfolding of God's purposes and the fulfillment of God's reign. The God who is stoking the fires of fifty billion galaxies, the God who encompasses all of time, rejoices at a widow who gives a penny as an act of faith and worship. By putting everything she has into the temple treasury (Mark 12: 44), the widow embodies the greatest commandments (Mark 12: 28-34). Her action is an event in the stream of time that is in harmony with the source and goal of time, "the Alpha and the Omega." Who knows what act of love you and I have received as a result of that widow's generosity centuries ago? Love travels across time as surely as the light that set out for earth before earth existed.

Whenever you grow weary preaching and wonder if it matters that you spend all the time and effort it takes to find the words to speak the word of God to your people, go outside some clear night and look at the stars. Then look down deep and you may rediscover the passion that first drove you to preach: an irrepressible desire to give to the treasury of God your penny of faith and love, a penny worth a thousand galaxies.

Thomas H. Troeger