The One To Watch

Mark 12:38-44

The story of the widow's mite is the all-time great story of Christian giving, the story of a poor woman who gave everything she had to the church. What the rich young ruler could not do, she did without even being asked, only there was no crowd to witness the liquidation of her estate. It was as easy as uncurling her fingers from around two copper coins and letting them fall into the temple treasury, still damp from her hands, where they made such a small sound that only she could hear it.

As far as she knew, no one even saw her. But then again, no one ever saw her. She was one of life's minor characters, one of the invisible people who come and go without anyone noticing what they do, or what they have on, or when they leave the room. She was a bit player, one of the extras who ring the stage while the major characters stride around in the middle, dazzling everyone with their costumes and high drama.

In the temple scene Mark describes for us, those characters that include rich people and scribes -- among many, many others, but those are the ones who stand out - people who know that other people are watching them and who seem used to it, even pleased, when heads turn and talk stops for a moment as they make their entrances. Their clothes are splendid and they fit. They do not hang on them like the clothes of the minor characters. They have shape; they have flair. When these clothes come into a room, they announce that Someone has arrived, someone whom the no ones both envy and admire-the rich because they have money, and the scribes because they have status.

The scribes of Jesus' day were Jerusalem's elite, doctors of the law whose long years of study made them the official interpreters of God's word. They were the religious professionals, the ones to whom people turned for guidance and counsel. They were the clergy, who wore long robes, whose names were listed in the bulletin and whom people wanted their children to know. They were not paid like our clergy are, however. They were, in fact, forbidden to receive pay for doing their jobs, so they lived on subsidies instead - a little from their students, a little from the poor box, a little from the temple treasury.

Some scribes were not content with a little however, and found ways to make a lot more - by using their positions to wrangle invitations to people's homes, for instance, where they accepted the best meals. When they wore out their welcomes, no one dared to tell them so, least of all their poorer parishioners who were glad to spend their savings on such esteemed guests.

So while the scribes may have been without money, they were not without honor, honor that some of them--not all of them, but some of them--turned to their own advantage. When they felt that advantage begin to slip, they could always say, "Let us pray," reminding everyone whose side they were on. Or they could spend a little more time in the temple, planting themselves there in their long, impressive robes to be seen by those who came to make their offerings to God. The scribes were clearly the people to watch. They were the guardians of the faith, the religious aristocracy, even if they did sponge off those they were meant to serve.

They were the people to watch, only Jesus was not watching them in the temple that day. He was not paying attention to what was happening on center stage at all because he was far more interested in what was going on in the wings, and in one woman in particular. It is hard to know how she caught his attention. She did not catch anyone else's, that is for sure. She was all used up. Even a scribe could see there was no meat left in her larder; there was none left on her bones. She was out--out of food, out of money, out of what it took for a single woman to scratch her living among people who looked right through her as if she were not there. When she lost her husband, she not only lost her place and her name; she lost her face. She had become invisible. No one saw her anymore. No one, that is, except Jesus.

He saw her walk to the temple treasury to give up her two coins and something about the way she did it -- the length of time she stood there, maybe, or the way she cradled them in her hand like her last two eggs--something about the way she did it let him know that it was the end for her, that it was everything she had, so that when she surrendered them and turned to go, he knew she had nothing left that was not God's. Her sacrifice was complete, so complete that he called his disciples over to witness it. "Truly," he said to them, "this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

That is why we know about her today, that nameless woman--because she gave all the little she had, holding nothing back--which made her last penny a fortune in God's eyes. If you think tithing is heroic, try following her act. She was a percentage giver, all right - 100% - but while she is generally admired for her generosity I cannot help but wonder about that.

Are we really supposed to admire a poor woman who gave her last cent to a morally bankrupt religious institution? Was it right for her to surrender her living to those who lived better than she? What if she were someone you knew, someone of limited means who decided to send her last dollar to the 700 Club? Would that be admirable, or scandalous? Would that be a good deed or a crying shame?

Nowhere in this passage does Jesus praise the widow for what she is doing. He simply calls his disciples over to notice her, and to compare what she is doing with what everyone else is doing. He invites them to sit down beside him and contemplate the disparity between abundance and poverty, between large sums and two copper coins, between apparent sacrifice and the real thing. He does not make anyone wrong. He does not dismiss the gifts of the rich. He simply points out that the major characters are minor givers, while the minor character - the poor widow - turns out to be the major donor of them all.

It is the last of his dizzy lessons in the upside down kingdom of God, where the last shall be first, and the great shall be the servants of all, and the most unlikely people will turn out to have been Christ himself in disguise. The poor widow is his last case in point. When he leaves the temple with his disciples that day, his public ministry is over. In four days he will be dead, having uncurled his fingers from around his own offering, to give up the two copper coins of his life.

If you ask me, that is why he noticed the poor widow in the first place. She reminded him of someone. It was the end for her; it was the end for him too. She gave her living to a corrupt church; he was about to give his life for a corrupt world. She withheld nothing from God; neither did he. It took one to know one. When he looked at her it was like looking in a mirror at a reflection so clear that he called his disciples over to see. "Look," he said to those who meant to follow him. "That is what I have been talking about. Look at her."

He could not have picked a less likely role model for them. If he had taken a Polaroid snapshot of the temple that day and handed it to the disciples with one question written underneath--"Where is Christ in this picture?"--they would never have guessed the answer. There were major characters in that room, after all--doctors of the law and patrons of the arts, rich people and smart people, people with names and faces--any one of them a better bet than the thin woman in the widow's weeds, a minor character if there ever was one. "She's the one," Jesus tells them when their time is up. "The one without a penny to her name, she's the one to watch"

I wish he had said it to her. It was a great moment, in which the tragedy of her life took on the possibility of meaning. It was a great tribute to her, in which the greatness of her gift was acknowledged, only she never knew it. She walked into the temple with her last two coins in her hand, and she walked out again without them, totally unaware that she was being watched. As far as she knew, no one even saw her. She came with no name, and she went out with no name, but where did she go? And what did she do, once she had given her life away?

I keep thinking I see her as I drive around town. It would sound better if I told you that I have been looking for her, but that is not really true. She is not one of the people I look for; she is more like one of the people I try not to see, but now that Jesus pointed her out to me she is harder and harder not to see. The problem is, I am never positive it is her. Only she knows that for sure, but there are certain clues I am willing to share with you.

She is not a main character for one thing. While her appearances are memorable, they are all cameos. If you have no peripheral vision, you may miss her altogether. Sometimes she is a he, sometimes she is a child, sometimes she is even a scribe. Now you see her, now you don't. So if you want to spot her you have to watch, really watch, because you never know where she will turn up next.

The second clue is that she is usually giving something away; her time, her heart, her living, her life. The general rule is that you cannot see how much it costs her, but it is almost always more than you think.

The third clue is that what she is doing rarely makes sense by any ordinary human standard. It is as if she gets her orders from some other planet, where superior beings know things we do not yet know--like how to let go of the little that you have in order to receive the more you don't, or how to trust what you cannot see more than you trust what you can.

That is far as I have gotten with clues, but you can probably come up with some more of your own. Here is what you do. You sit down somewhere where you can get a good look at whatever is going on and you pay special attention to what is happening out on the edges of your vision, where people are sometimes hard to see. Then you crunch your eyes just slightly and you ask yourself: "Where is Christ in this picture?"

Amen.

Barbara Taylor

THE PROTESTANT HOUR