Widow's Mite

Saturday-Sunday, October 5-6, 2024

Widow’s Mite

Woodcut image by Kreg Yingst from A Different Kind of Fast by Christine Valters Paintner. [2024].

The image above illustrates this passage from the Gospel of Mark (Mark 12: 41-44). It is often described as “the widow’s mite.”

Jesus sat down opposite the Temple treasury and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.” 

Preachers often teach that, in this scene, Jesus was praising the poor widow’s action, but I think he was just stating a fact: a small donation costs a poor person more than a large donation costs a rich person.  The book in which the picture is found asks the reader to contemplate the image, to consider the perspectives of the people shown and those who are outside the frame, such as Jesus and his disciples.

What was Jesus thinking as he watched people contributing to the Temple treasury?  He knew the Temple would be destroyed only 40 years later, “not one stone left upon another,” but here were these people donating to the building fund.  What were they expecting? Certainly not what happened.

I focused on the tall man in the center.  The more I looked at him, the sadder he seemed.  Weighed down, hurting inside.  He knows the country is trouble, with the Roman occupation and regular disturbances.  He believes the occupation is punishment for Israel’s sins, rejection by God.  He probably has the same family sorrows, the same fears about the future, as the poor widow, because this is the human condition.

I imagined what the widow would say to him:

Proud rich man
With your burden of coins
When you give, you buy
You buy a seat near God
The Temple is for you
You keep the rules and say the prayers
In your clean house, behind your walls
You have enough, you are enough
To make you proud

I see you, proud rich man
Can you see me, small and poor
Two coins long saved
I can pay, I too can pay
To have the Temple, to have the Lord
 
Sad rich man, your eyes so dark
Do you love a son, do you trust a friend
Do you sleep alone, behind your walls
I sleep alone in a bare corner
I lost my son
I stand by you, and we buy these walls
Stone as cold as our hearts
 
Look at that man,
There with his friends
He sees you, he sees me
He sees the walls, he sees them gone
What we are buying
It will all be gone
 
He reaches through us, changes us
You more like me, us more like him
Cracks in the stone of our hearts
Pure love in the cracks of our hearts
 
Sad rich man, sad poor me
The walls will fall, the veil will tear
The Lord in glory, the Lord alive
Will break the walls
Will break the chains
Chains of gold, chains of death
 
It is all free, the life and the light
Free the wine, the milk, the Lord
The bread, the body
The Father, the Son
Free for us, friend
Free for all

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