Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Mark 12:38-44
“Two Small Coins”
When I shared with the children this morning about how I used to bring a quarter to church on Sundays for my offering, and I held that 25 cents in the palm of my hand, it felt so small. I rarely use change anymore – partly because I more often use a debit or credit card than cash, and partly because coins are worth so little. They seem almost useless.
You can’t use a quarter to make a phone call anymore, and even a grocery cart at the store requires a loonie these days. Perhaps in some places, quarters are still helpful if you need to go to a laundromat. But even there, you’d need an awful lot of quarters to get the job done.
But when Jesus was sitting across from the collection box for the temple treasury and observed the people giving their money, he pointed out that the poor widow who put in two small copper coins had given a lot. She’d given more than all the rich people with their large gifts.
In practical terms for the temple budget, Jesus’ statement simply isn’t true. The widow’s two coins wouldn’t have made much difference at all for the institution’s ministry. They would have represented the tiniest of drops in the biggest of buckets. The small copper coins (Greek: lepta) were the smallest coins circulated, and sixty-four “pennies” equaled one denarius, or a day’s wage.
The rich people had the resources to give more without much of a thought. They might have given a whole denarius, or maybe even more than one. And those larger offerings would have sustained religious life at the temple, feeding and clothing the religious leaders and maintaining the central place of worship for the Jewish People.
But Jesus says that the widow’s offering is greater, not because it has a larger impact on the temple’s ministry, but because it requires a larger sacrifice on her part.
Jesus’ comments about the poor widow and her offering only hint at a point. Maybe he’s saying that we should all be as generous as she was, giving all our resources for the benefit of the temple or the church today.
Or maybe he’s reminding us that people at different income levels will be able to give at different levels. We shouldn’t give more thanks and praise for the people who can give large amounts. But we should value the gifts of the poor ones as well. Even tiny amounts given by someone who is almost destitute represent extremely generous gifts.
Most of the commentaries notice the fact that Jesus’ point is not clear: “It’s hard to know whether Jesus’ example of the widow giving all she had should be taken as a good thing or as another condemnation of the workings of the temple,” the New Interpreter’s Study Bible questions.
Imagine a system that encourages poor widows to give their last coins for the sake of the religious leaders walking around in long robes and sitting in the places of honour at banquets! Maybe Jesus is drawing attention to an injustice.
Poor widows shouldn’t be called upon to give their last coins. Or if they do, the religious leaders should at least be putting them to good use!
I expect that all those points are true. As religious institutions today, churches like ours should be careful about how we do our fundraising and stewardship campaigns so that we don’t pressure folks with few resources to give more, while honouring and giving thanks for the various-sized gifts that each person or family is able to contribute.
But today I want to invite you to think about the people in our world who don’t have much, and still choose to give generously for others. Because the Scriptures this morning call us to notice and be inspired by the little ones who give out of their poverty, and in giving, change the world.
Let’s start with the Scripture story we heard this morning from the Book of Ruth. In this case, it’s not a poor widow giving money, but a poor widow without financial resources at all, giving her whole life to ensure the well-being of her mother-in-law, Naomi.
You may remember how the story begins with both Naomi’s husband and her two sons dying unexpectedly, leaving her with her two daughters-in-law – three single women trying to figure out how to support themselves in a society where women without fathers, husbands, or sons had no status or opportunity to earn a living.
At Naomi’s encouragement, Orpah decides to go back to her homeland and her family of origin. Her father or brothers will take her in, and perhaps she will be able to re-marry and have a good life some day. But Ruth clings to Naomi, recognizing that if Ruth leaves too, her mother-in-law will be doomed. Ruth doesn’t have money to help her, but what she has is her willingness to work and her love for Naomi.
At first, Ruth gets what they need by gleaning grain from the edges of a relative’s field, and that keeps them going for a while. But it won’t be enough in the long term. So what Ruth ultimately ends up doing is to find a way to marry into Naomi’s extended family.
Can you imagine? In our time, when we marry based on love and spend time looking for and getting to know a spouse with whom we share values, common interests, and goals… what Ruth does seems unimaginable! It was a huge risk to offer herself as a wife to Boaz, but she gave her life to save her life and the life of Naomi too.
I came across another example when I was attending church meetings in Winnipeg earlier this week. The Life & Mission Agency Committee of our national church normally meets in the church offices in Toronto, but the meeting was moved to Winnipeg this time in order to connect with some of the Presbyterian Indigenous ministries in the area.
In addition to visiting Place of Hope Presbyterian Church, an Indigenous congregation established by the Rev. Margaret Mullin, members of the committee had the opportunity to visit Camp Morgan. Camp Morgan is the place where family and friends have held vigil for close to a year now, near the Brady Road landfill in south Winnipeg as the landfill is searched for the remains of two murdered Indigenous women—Morgan Harris and Mercedes Myran.
A third woman, Rebecca Contois’s partial remains were found at the Brady Road landfill earlier, while the location of the remains of Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, known as Buffalo Woman, is unknown.
In September last year, the 2023 Moderator of the General Assembly, the Rev. Mary Fontaine, joined other church leaders from the United, Lutheran and Anglican churches at the site, adding their voices to those of the families, Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous Manitobans and Canadians, who had called for a search of the Brady Road landfill and serious action on the continued epidemic of violence targeting Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people.
On Monday afternoon, our committee and Presbyterian national staff visited the vigil site near the landfill, in solidarity with the families and friends of the women. When we arrived, we were met and welcomed by Ben Red Horse Gavel, the firekeeper at Camp Morgan. We presented braided sweetgrass, tobacco, and sage as gifts to the keeper of the sacred fire. We listened to Ben’s story and the story of Camp Morgan, and prayed for the women, their families, and the camp as we placed tobacco into the sacred fire.
What struck me about the experience was hearing from the firekeeper, Ben. I expected that the firekeeper would be someone close to the families, if not a family member himself. But Ben was from Alberta, a member of the Blackfoot People, and he had travelled to Manitoba in order to serve.
Ben was a young man, who had already had his own troubles and trials in life. And he chose to leave everything, come to Manitoba, to live in a shack (even through the Winnipeg winter), and to commit many months of his life to keeping the fire going for these murdered and missing women.
There is a tradition in many Indigenous cultures of lighting and keeping a sacred fire when someone has died. On Monday evening, we also had the chance to visit the sacred fire that was burning outside the Manitoba legislature for TRC Commissioner, Justice Murray Sinclair. We prayed for his family and gave thanks for his leadership and witness to all Canadians about the need for justice and reconciliation.
A sacred fire often burns for three days or so, as the family and community grieve and lay their loved one to rest in a good way. But the fire at Camp Morgan burns on and on, with people like Ben committed to keep it going until the women are recovered and can be buried with dignity and care.
Just as Jesus might have said that the Kingdom of God is like a poor widow who gives two small coins, all that she has, for the ministry of the temple… the Rev. Ian Ross-McDonald said, in a reflection on Tuesday morning… The Kingdom of God is like a man who leaves everything, travels across the country with only his dog, and camps beside a landfill to make sure that no one forgets the missing and murdered Indigenous women who have been dumped there.
Many reflections on today’s Gospel text point out that the poor widow was like Jesus. Her two small copper coins represent more than money. They represent the faith-filled offering found in presenting all of who we are to God for service to the world.
This kind of offering does not ask for a guarantee of success or a measure of the effectiveness of the gift. In fact, the offering is not really calculated or counted as we might expect, because it’s not so much about the act of giving or receiving, as it is about the act of being… of living for others.
I think that must be what Jesus was pointing out with the poor widow’s offering. She offers a glimpse into what Jesus himself is about. Just as she gave all that she had, all that she had to live on… Jesus is on the way to giving the whole of his life for humanity, for the whole world.
Remembering the poor widow who offered her two small copper coins, we are invited today to offer our least coins (small as they may seem in the palms of our hands) and to offer our prayers, and our lives for God’s good purposes in our community and our world.
May God give us the gift of faith and trust to give of ourselves without counting the cost, and may God bless all that we offer to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation in our families, communities, and throughout the world. Amen.