Mark 12:38-44
My mother was the sixth child out of ten born to parents who were themselves children of German immigrants. Poverty was hereditary. My grandfather was a farmer and as far as I know was illiterate. His oldest son dropped out of school at an early age to help with the farm, and he also was illiterate. The scars of poverty were apparent on each of the ten children in different ways. My mother was no exception. When I was a teenager I remember accompanying her to the bank to argue over a bill she had received which she believed overcharged her by ten cents. Finally the man she was arguing with pulled a dime out of his pocket and gave it to her. Another time she bought a watermelon which on inspection at home had a bad spot. She carefully carved this out of the fruit, served the rest of it the family, and brought the rotten piece back to the grocer and demanded another watermelon. She wore him down also. My parents quarreled a lot, always about money. Dad liked to spend, Mom liked to save.
So thanks to Mom, God rest her soul,I have a very dysfunctional attitude toward money. If you asked the average Christian what Jesus talked about, he or she would probably say love, peace, being kind to others, avoiding sin. But of the 38 parables in the gospels that Jesus left us, sixteen have to do with money or possessions. That’s 43 percent. God cares about money, about possessions. And he does so because we do.
The scene Jesus is observing went something like this: people were coming into the temple and dropping money into the collection baskets. It was customary to say something like “I am giving 20 dollars so that my business will pick up. I am giving 50 dollars so that my son finds a good bride. I am giving 100 dollars so that my mother-in-law will recover from her illness. You get the idea. Giving money was like a prayer. It’s not a bad thing. We still say that almsgiving is one of three legs on which the Christian life rests, along with prayer and sacrifice. As is always the case, there are people who pervert the system. That’s what was happening with the scribes. According to the law of Moses, you were supposed to honor scribes, because they studied the law. It’s interesting that in Israel today and in some orthodox Jewish communities, studying the law exempts you from military service and even from working for a living, because there is nothing more important than studying the law. The scribes wore distinctive clothing to signal their position in society, and some indeed misused their status. Nothing new about that. What Jesus objects to is the practice of praying in exchange for money. And who is most likely to pray for money? A widow, who faces poverty and even starvation when whatever she has is gone. In the first reading we met such a widow.
God cares about money because we do. And the reason he cares is because money can become a god to us. It certainly was to my Mom and her siblings. And it probably is to me as well. I can’t imagine giving away all my money. I deeply sympathize with the young man who chose not to take Jesus up on his invitation to sell all he had, give it to the poor, and follow him. Thanks to my wife, though, I’m pretty generous contributing from my surplus -- she sees to it that I give it away.
God cares about money because we do. Money can do bad things to one’s soul. It can lead to a sense of entitlement; it can fuel addiction; it can cause isolation and strained relationships, especially among family members. Being wealthy can lead to anxiety, stress, depression as one tries to protect one’s money or make even more money. And being wealthy gives a false sense that you are somehow immune from things that most people fear. Jesus told a parable about that -- the man who built bigger barns for his crops so that he could take it easy -- but God told him that his soul would be demanded of him that very day.
Jesus praises the widow. The words we read aren’t as stark as the original Greek text. I don’t read Greek, but my sources tell me that what the Greek words basically say is that the widow put in her life. Does Jesus complement the widow because she gave everything away? Maybe not, two little coins almost worthless, aren’t going to make a big difference in the rest of her life. But in that gesture of throwing away her last pennies, Jesus sees someone who escapes from the burden of having money, someone who decides to completely depend on God for what will be the rest of her life. I think that’s what he wants you and I to see -- to recognize that money is in danger of becoming a god for each of us, and our task is to remember that we are completely dependent on God.