Mark 12:38 - 44
When I was practicing medicine I walked in on a patient of mine one day who had a visitor -- a minister from his pentecostal church. The minister was just finishing up a fairly ornate prayer for healing and was in the process of laying his hands on my patient’s head. I waited till they were through, and watched as the minister stood there -- until my patient reached for his wallet and offered a ten dollar bill to the minister who put it in his own pocket and left. I later learned that this minister had been an assistant at the pentecostal church, but eventually was dismissed because of a problem with alcohol. He now made some of his living by going around praying for people. In the gospel we read today, you can see that this is not a new practice, unfortunately. The scribes Jesus was condemning were doing the exact same thing.
Why do you think Jesus called the attention of his apostles to the widow with her two pennies? Was he saying that we should take her as an example, boost the amount we put in the collection basket, give more to charity? It’s one way to interpret the story, I guess. But maybe it’s not the only way. Jesus, after all, does not tell us to imitate her. And he has just finished calling attention to the corruption and hypocrisy of the scribes. Before that he was condemning the money changers in the temple. And he predicts that the temple, the very dwelling of God on earth for the Jews, would be torn down so that not a stone would be left on a stone. You get the feeling that Jesus had no use for some of the things that passed for religion in those days.
So it’s possible that we are looking at this widow for other reasons. As I was studying this gospel, I learned that in the original Greek what Jesus says, “She has contributed all that she has, her whole life.” Two coins worth a few cents were all that stood between her and starvation. Widows had no support system if they did not have children, and it’s likely that this was just such a widow. She may indeed have been one of the widows that the scribes devoured. Who might be likely to pay for a prayer than someone who had very little and very little hope of getting more? If you are desperate, and you are a believer, it might seem as though the only hope is a miracle, and who could ask for a miracle better than a professional prayer?: So one way of seeing the widow is to see someone who has decided to quit trying to live in an unjust system and is is a way, saying, “I’m in your hands, God.” I’ve got nothing left to give. And indeed, without food, she’ll meet the fate of many of the poor in those days -- she’ll starve to death. Is she acting out of defiance, or resignation? In any event, she’s giving up.
So what does Jesus want us to notice? I think the answer is that he wants his disciples and ourselves to notice. It’s very easy to completely miss the presence of the poor, the ones on the margin, the foreigner, the stranger. Sometimes it's deliberate -- we look away, we turn our heads rather than meet the eyes of the buim on the corner with the cardboard sign. Sometimes it’s not even that -- we don’t even notice. Remember the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man didn’t even notice the beggar at his door, and I suspect the apostles didn’t notice the widow until Jesus pointed her out.
It’s pretty inconvenient to roll down my window and give money to the man holding the cardboard sign. I don’t do it, I confess. But something should happen when I encounter someone like that, something should happen to me. I should be grateful to God for my own circumstances; I should maybe say a prayer for the person and at least smile; I should resolve to be more generous towards the poor in some way. I doubt that anyone in Western Massachusetts starves to death because they have nothing. There are all kinds of safety nets.
But there are many other people who aren’t as obvious as the man with the cardboard sign. Nothing will change until they are noticed, until you and I notice them.
If you go to today’s responsorial psalm, it is a tribute to God who notices and acts; he secure’s justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry...the fatherless and the widow he sustains. Read the psalm over again to see how God notices -- as the first step towards acting. God notices those that most of us ignore. And perhaps that’s what Jesus is talking about today -- noticing who is hurting, who is in despair, who has given their very life. Noticing is the first step towards action.
