The 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 7, 2021

Mark 12:41–44

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

While the woman who puts in her two small coins absorbs our attention in this reading, it profits us to look also at the Lord Jesus, who is closely observing her.

The Lord is sitting in the Temple complex near the treasury, as the reading begins.  The fact that he is sitting is significant, for no one sat in this part of the Temple.  First of all, this would have been disrespectful; secondly, there were no benches or chairs.  But the Greek verb clearly indicates that he was sitting.  It seems that the Lord sat on the floor, then.  This sitting meant that he had a position there as teacher or ruler, or even a judge, and he assumed it readily.  He did so in a place where he could see the treasury and all the people approaching it.  He does not tell the disciples why he is doing this, and they must have milled about, waiting to see what Jesus would do next.  He had a little before silenced the Pharisees and Sadducees, and rebuked the scribes.  He had made it clear to all whose house this was.  His sitting and watching the Jews putting money in the treasury probably seemed to the Apostles the assertion by the Lord that this belonged to him.

In the long procession of people making donations, casting their money into the treasury, a woman came up by herself.  We learn from the Evangelist that she was a widow, but he knew this only because Jesus identifies her as one.  The woman herself does nothing outwardly extraordinary.  Amidst the wealthier donors she would have hardly stood out.  Because of her poverty we can assume that she has no living children or close relatives and that she is a beggar — Mark tells us that she threw into the treasury two coins of the least denomination.  Jesus observes that this was her whole living, all she had been able to beg that day.

He watched her carefully, ignoring the well-dressed men and women around her, who, for their part, did not pay any attention to her at all.  We see the Lord simply observing her, not doing anything else, not walking up to her to praise her or assist her.  Perhaps his gaze drew his Apostles to look at her too.  They would have wondered what could possibly interest him about her.  But he was always seeing in the little things and unnoticed people what no one else could see.  He quickly gathered his Apostles together just as she tossed in her thin copper coins.  He spoke in a low tone so as not to be overheard, lest she be distressed.  “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury.”  Prefacing his statement with “amen” indicated that the stress he placed on this teaching.  The literal-minded Apostles would have looked at her slight figure receding into the crowd and at at the bags of coins being entered into the treasury after she was gone.  The Lord explained, “For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”  This would not have made much sense to them at first.  It was something for them to ponder, like a parable.  They did not understand that the Lord spoke of her love for God and for his Temple, even with all the misfortune she had suffered.  It was love that God wanted.  The enormity of her sacrifice signified the love for him in her heart.  The Temple treasurer would not count it, but Almighty God already had.

The Lord remained sitting for a while longer.  He did not offer any reward to the woman or replenish what she had donated, for a sacrifice which is repaid is no longer a sacrifice.  Surely she now gazes in heaven upon the God whom she loved so much on earth.  The Lord himself shows us through her how he ought to love him, emptying ourselves entirely of our self so that we might belong wholly to him.