Trinity 11 Service
St. Mark 12:41-44
And [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small 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 offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
One of my memories of childhood is the movie that came out in 1978, when I was about eight years old: Grease. What really caught our (my siblings’ and my) attention were the songs that were being played on the radio even before the movie was released. One of those songs, Hopelessly Devoted to You, had a line in it that I never fully understood as an eight year old (though I knew it well; often happens like that). The line was,
But now, there’s nowhere to hide since you’ve pushed my love aside,
I’m out of my head, hopelessly devoted to you.
Fairly standard movie-musical type line, right?
But, if we want to get philosophical about it (and I do), just think of what that person is expressing. So hopelessly devoted is she, that there is nowhere to hide since she’s been rejected. She’d begun the song, saying, Mine is not the first heart broken, My eyes are not the first to cry. She has been one hundred percent committed, with no emotional plan B. She’d thrown all caution to the wind (it’s as romantic as romance can be, right?). Now, there is nowhere to hide.
And presumably, she has put herself in this position willingly (even gladly), because she has loved and trusted this object of her affections so deeply. She’s hopelessly devoted. And of course, it was—at this point, anyway—all for naught. Her heart is broken; she’s in tears. She walked off the proverbial ledge in trust; but the one in whom she’d trusted didn’t catch her.
This is going somewhere, but you’re going to have to wait for it.
Jesus had just before our text, said something about widows, some of the most vulnerable and needy people in that society. He’d mentioned them in passing, really. The way these widows tended to be treated by the powerful scribes was sort of a highlight reel of that Jewish leadership group’s infamy. They would prey upon these women who’d lost their income-earning and property-owning husbands, targeting them for a certain sort of foreclosure, leaving them destitute in the street (abhorrent to the LORD, as expressed in Old Testament law, which always protected vulnerable people, including widows).
Having just talked about widows, Jesus turns in our text, to pointing out the action of a certain one, as He and His disciples observe people putting their contributions into the Temple treasury. While rich people have put in large sums of money, Jesus considers this poor widow’s offering of two small copper coins (equaling about a penny) to be a more substantial one. It’s because of what it represents to her.
Now, it should be said, that this isn’t a bashing the rich type message. St. Mark isn’t criticizing the rich folks who are putting in large sums (Jesus isn’t either). They’ve been given much, and are able, then, to contribute much, which they’re doing. Isn’t any questioning of their faithfulness in the matter. In fact, we should presume that their contributions are faithfully given, and are pleasing to the LORD. We aren’t in any way told otherwise. No point is really being made about them at all by the writer, or by Jesus.
This is about the widow. The others are ordinary in their giving (nothing wrong with it); Jesus points her out because in her giving, she’s extraordinary. It isn’t measured by the amount (which is almost nothing).
Her gift is extraordinary in its commitment. We might say she has thrown all caution to the wind, she has no plan B. If we need one more cliche’, we might say, she’s all in. We might even say she would have nowhere to hide were the object of her devotion to push her love aside. She out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on—Jesus says. At least in that moment, in giving that gift, she has demonstrated herself to be hopelessly devoted to the LORD. This is an extraordinary offering because her hope is entirely in the LORD. She trusts implicitly, that He will provide for her needs even though in having given this offering she has nothing left.
There’s a line in the book of Proverbs:
My son, give me your heart,
and let your eyes observe my ways (23:26).
GIVE ME YOUR HEART—With a statement like that, the LORD is asking for hopeless devotion to Him, isn’t He (if we define it as devotion with no plan B, devotion that acknowledges that it directed elsewhere would be for naught).
That’s hard devotion to accomplish, isn’t it? This text isn’t really about offerings; it’s about commitment to the LORD. But it isn’t hard to see why Jesus chooses to teach this lesson using offerings as an example. What we’re willing to do with the things we have demonstrates our commitment, doesn’t it? It demonstrates what we believe about the LORD.
What if I were that widow, you might ask yourself, and gave everything I had to live on [nobody’s asking you to do that; we’re speaking hypothetically]? What if I were hopelessly devoted like that, having put myself out there with no plan B to the one Who says, Give me your heart? Would it have all been for naught? Would I find myself heartbroken, in tears, because the object of my devotion wasn’t worthy of it?
You’re here because you believe the answer to those questions is no, of course. You’ve believed it since your Baptism, or since through God’s Word the Holy Spirit planted faith in your heart that knows God’s grace toward you, His pledge to care for you.
Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save (Isaiah 46:4).
That’s who God is to You; that’s the one in Whom you’ve believed.
But that belief hasn’t always been reflected in your commitment, has it? It’s been hard to be that confident. The devil has gotten involved in your thinking; and he has said, Can you really afford to trust like that? You’ve gotta protect yourself! You’ve got a lot to lose.
So, you’ve been guarded in your commitment. You’ve had the LORD Who has given you everything you have, asking you to commit yourself to Him (giving Him your heart); and you have responded: I can do a little, but I gotta have a plan B. I’ve gotta be in control of what happens.
This may have manifested itself in your life in a moment of crisis, a moment in which something unexpected has happened that put you under great stress. You thought you had everything covered; but now it turns out, you didn’t.
The difference between faith and unbelief is often demonstrated in those moments, isn’t it? What will be your reaction in that very difficult moment? Will it be to despair, as if there’s no hope to be had, as if the only way out of this very difficult situation is that you’re going to come up with some ungodly solution to the problem?
And the rest of it might go something like this: God is just going to have to understand that I’m going to have to do what I have to do. After all, He left me dangling out here like this. That’s where the devil wants your thinking to be at a time like that. And no doubt, at times—at least for a moment, it’s where it has been.
Jesus commends the widow’s perspective. She has almost nothing; but what she has she might as well put in the LORD’s hands because He is the One Who is going to care for her needs. Were she to insist that she will make her own way, then what she has will never be enough. But when she puts herself in His hands, she’s in the hands of the one against Whom nothing and no one could possibly prevail.
Consider also, the tax collector in our Gospel lesson. He’s like the woman in our text in this way: he comes humbly before God, almost as if to say, I have nothing. I bring nothing to you but a sinful heart. I ask for your mercy. The Pharisee thinks he has something he’s bringing before God; he really doesn’t, and what he thinks he has will never be enough. But the tax collector recognizes himself to be entirely in the LORD’s hands. Why would he want to be anywhere else? His committing of himself to the LORD is merely motivated by the LORD’s own love and sacrifice toward him. His faith is in God’s own Son Who is unfailing in His commitment, demonstrating it in a sinless life, and in obedience even to death on a cross for sinners.
The hymn writer puts it this way:
The Sinless Son of God must die in sadness;
The sinful child of man may live in gladness;
Man forfeited his life and is acquitted—
God is committed.
He is committed to you! That’s what the forgiving of your sins in the blood of His Son demonstrates. In considering there to be nowhere to hide in your devotion to the LORD, you are in the place to have the most confidence. No plan B is necessary. In His hands there is nothing to fear. God be praised. Amen.