There’s a well known story in the gospel of look concerning giving. In Mark 12 Jesus and his disciples are observing as people give offerings. What they see is an absolute circus. One after another people step up, and theatrically drop in their offerings to the praise of the crowd around them. The more money, the bigger the reaction.
Then through this field of theatrics steps a widow with what Mark tells us is only two copper coins that she drops into the offering plate. Jesus immediately points out to his disciples the weight of this woman’s offering, saying “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:43-44)
Clearly, the amount given isn’t everything. The heart of it is. In the middle of a circus, a woman was more in line with God than any wealthy person putting on a show.
Some scholars believe that the type of offering plate used was constructed to cleverly amplify sound so that the coins falling in would give off extra sound and onlookers could hear how much was being put in. You got the applause of the crowd and the applause of your own perceived generosity.
The widow, dropping her offering into that bowl would have heard quiet and then two soft clinks as her coins fell in. It probably wouldn’t have made much sound. It might have even gotten lost in chatter of the crowd. Everyone was probably just waiting for her to move on so they could make their big, loud offerings.
We don’t know anything else about this woman besides the fact that she was poor and a widow. There are a few things we can surmise from her station and presence. Widow and poor are both indicators that she had no one in her life to look after her. In that time, a woman couldn’t just go out and support herself. You didn’t earn your own income. Your needs were met by your husband. If you didn’t have a husband, your sons were meant to take care of you. If you didn’t have sons, your son in law was meant to care for you. It wasn’t just a bummer if you were husbandless and childless, it was a disaster. Raising a family was a woman’s retirement plan.
So poor and a widow indicates that not only was this woman without her husband, the person meant to be meeting her needs, she was without anyone to take care of her. The last two coins in her hand were showing how much that was starting to weigh on her.
I wonder if she paused and thought before she put her coin in. I wonder if she hesitated. I wonder if just for a moment she considered holding on to those precious coins. For her, that wasn’t making a small offering. That was trusting God with her everything.
There is a direct relationship between our giving and our trust in God. These things inform on each other, and loudly. How tightly we hold on to the things we posses testifies to how well we think our needs our met. It may seem like you’re conveying a shrewd distrust of the world, but deep down this is really a distrust that God will provide.
Two coins are easy for us to brush away with our modern sensibilities. But what if that were proportionate to our current, personal means. I don’t know the conversion rate for two coins in ancient Judea, but let’s look at it in your terms. What if you were asked to donate a month’s income to charity? Or a year’s? Does the widow’s sacrifice make a little more sense then? What if you’d been low on funds for years and were living paycheck to paycheck and then God put a financial need for someone else on your heart? Letting go of that money puts you in a place of uncertainty and instability and you might not know where you’ll end up or how things will go. What a beautiful breeding ground for trust.
Trust in God starts where confidence in our means ends.
Giving is every bit as much an exercise in trust for us as it is an exercise in providing for others. And it requires courage. To be poor and to give anyway is to leap without a net and trust that God will catch you. That’s terrifying. But if we’re going to believe God when he says he’ll take care of us then we need to give him the chance to show us.
An important note. I’m not advocating for recklessness here. Part of our walk as Christians is being good stewards of the things God gives us, especially if we’re responsible for others. We need to use our wisdom and discernment to wisely use the resources given us by God. But how many times have you met a Christian that’s being truly reckless with their resources?
More often than not, we fall to the other side of things, holding too tightly to the things we believe we need to take care of ourselves. So many other things are outside of our control, it makes sense that we want to hold tightly to what we can. But this control can’t be our ultimate priority.
If God is putting an opportunity on your heart you have a holy responsibility to stand up and obey it, whether or not you can see the security of your own circumstances. Your worries are secondary. To disobey is to tell God you don’t think he will take care of you and that you’re better off on your own.
Whereas when we behave as the widow did, we showcase a wholehearted faith that deeply honors God. When we act as the widow did with our resources, we are saying that we trust God more than we trust our own plans, that we’re putting our resources in his hands with total surrender and expectation that he will provide. That is a loud testimony indeed. Far louder than a pile of coins jingling in an offering plate.
The widow gave what was perceived by the world as nothing, and God received everything. May we learn to give as freely.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 