The widows might

the value of the mite and might of those who know struggle

There’s an old story known colloquially as The Widow’s Mite. (For those worried I had a typo in my title… keep reading. I’m going somewhere.) “Mite” refers to an ancient currency that today could be considered a penny—so little as to be considered almost worthless.

It comes to us from Mark 12, and reads like this in the NRSV:

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, 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.’

When I heard this story preached growing up, the lesson went something like this: “God cares more about the quality of your offering than the quantity,” and usually talked about how we have to give our whole selves over to God. Which, I suppose is one way to read this story. Unfortunately, it ignores the socio-political dynamics of poverty, while also spiritualizing an extremely economic metaphor.

Photo by Connor Hall on Unsplash

One of the ways that traditional Bible Study has robbed us of reading the Bible well is the way it breaks up longer narratives. The Widow’s Mite is a story of its own, but it’s also part of a larger story within a larger story within a larger story. In this instance, it matters immensely that we consider what came right before this passage:

As Jesus taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

Notice! Right before Jesus witnesses and teaches about the poor widow’s gift as compared to the rich people, he is criticizing rich people for exploiting poor widows!

Jesus is not disinterested in the mechanics that make some rich and others poor. His whole ministry critiques the powerful and uplifts the lowly. We do this passage, and our entire theological imaginations, a great injustice to not fundamentally see it as a story about money, and whose offering is worthy before God. Jesus sees simultaneously the beauty of her gift while also mourning and raging at the injustice that leaves her with only two mites to give.

It was not lost on Jesus that the wealthy were putting money into the treasury that they had made by devouring the houses of the widows. It is not lost on Jesus today that some of our most well-known philanthropists made their money by exploiting workers and land, driving people and communities into poverty and chaos.

Rich people love to give out of their abundance and be praised for it. Whether the scribes of Jesus time, or the Bezos and Gates of ours, the rich devour money and give large sums (which represent fractions of percentages of their worth) to the applause of many.

Yet Jesus said again and again that his kingdom will be built amongst the poor—and I suspect it’s because he knew that it’s where true generosity lives. And ultimately, it’s where true power lives.

He observed this 2000 years ago when he acknowledged the widow’s gift:

Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury

Jack London noticed this in 1894, when he wrote:

The very poor can always be depended upon. They never turn away the hungry. Time and again, all over the United States, have I been refused food by the big house on the hill; and always have I received food from the little shack down by the creek or marsh, with its broken windows stuffed with rags and its tired-faced mother broken with labor.

During the Great Depression, a relief worker noticed it too and remarked:

The poorest have in large part been kept alive by the slightly less poor.

I’ve noticed it too, in my work time and again. The generosity that blossoms in communities of the marginalized and oppressed will always be worth more than the charity rolled down the distant hills by the disinterested.

True generosity, and true power, is in the widow’s mite.

Because, if you are desperate and wondering if anyone will help, the widows might.

And if you are wondering what it will take to overturn this rotten system, don’t underestimate the widows’ might.

Theirs is the kingdom.

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