There is a lot about coins in the Gospels. They frequently appear in our Lord’s parables. The coins with which the Good Samaritan pays for the welfare of the man who fell among thieves; The talents, of which the servant who received only one hid it in the ground and gave it back to his master without any interest, for which he was roundly condemned. Then in actual events they figure more often than we might realise. Yesterday on the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran, we heard how our Lord overthrew the money-changers’ tables in the Temple and scattered their coins around. On another occasion our Lord told Peter to pay the temple tax with a coin which he would find inside the mouth of a fish which he was going to catch in the Lake of Galilee. Then our Lord wonderfully confounds His foes when they ask Him about the legitimacy of paying taxes to Caesar by asking them whose image is stamped on the coinage they pay the tax with. Most dreadful of all are the thirty silver pieces. I need say no more about them.
The widow of today’s Gospel gave from out of her poverty, from all she had to live on, as our Lord observes. What she gave is sometimes called ‘the widow’s mite’, but St Mark tells us that she gave two coins, which he calls ‘lepta’, the smallest denomination of currency available.
I recall an occasion when I was the junior curate in a parish where we were three priests (yes, there used to be such days of clerical abundance!) It was Christmas Day in the Presbytery. The PP used to insist that because the Christmas Collection was for the clergy, then the clergy should count it and share it out. Well, as we waded through paper money and lots of odd coins, I came across three small envelopes, all in good condition, so not reused, carefully sealed from end to end and, when I opened them I found in each one a single penny. Well, it was obvious that they had been deliberately given in that way to attract our attention, and the donor clearly succeeded as here I am telling you about this some forty years later. To this day I don’t know whether that was a reflection of what the donor thought of the priestly ministry he or she was receiving from us, or if it was a real case of the widow’s mite, or three mites on that occasion. But even pennies, forty years ago, though not very valuable, were still not the smallest denomination. There used to be in those days still the halfpenny, a word I suspect some of you may not even have heard before, much less actually had in your pocket or used to pay towards anything.
Coinage, or money in general, represents value – something we put a price on and we give either in order to gain something else in return, or just to discharge a duty like paying taxes. But in the case of the widow’s lepta they are hardly able to buy anything. So the value they represented to the Temple Treasury is virtually infinitesimal. On the other hand, the large sums of money Our Lord sees put in by the rich could have contributed substantially to the daily expenditure of Temple outlay: the equivalent of their Hayes and Finch weekly bill for candles, or for vestments, or perhaps to pay for cleaning, or even the occasional sacrificial animal, maybe.
Nonetheless, Our Lord points out to His disciples the true value of anything given is to be identified not with what you can buy with it, but with what it costs the giver, and also something else – what it means to whoever receives it. And if what is given and received is, as in this case, not something given under compulsion, but freely, then the value is quite different from that of the price of something bought or sold. So, in this case, the widow’s two tiny lepta are very precious indeed.
First, she gave freely. This was not compelled, like the Temple Tax or any other tax for that matter. Secondly, she gave from her great need, not from wealth. This represented a far greater value both to the woman and also to God to whom it was given. Thirdly, she gave both her lepta, when she could reasonably have given just one and kept the other for her needs. After all, as a widow, she has very limited income. A wife or mother relies on her husband or children to supply her needs. Without a man in the home, where is the money going to come from? If the widow today gives away the only two coins she possesses, where is she going to get what she needs for a small meal?
This is what Elijah’s example teaches us. He meets the widow of Sidon, (and note she was not a Jew), and asks her for a drink of water and a mere scrap of bread. Not much to ask for. She replies, ‘as the Lord your God lives,’ - and this is how we know she is not a Jew, because she refers to Elijah’s God as your God – ‘I have no bread but only a little flour and oil. I am at this very moment gathering a couple of sticks to make a small fire to cook this tiny amount, and after that is eaten my son and I shall die because we have nothing else to eat.’ Elijah’s next word is very important: ‘Fear not!’ - for she is obviously resigned to death by starvation very soon, - ‘trust me because I speak now the Lord God’s word to you.’ And so, trusting his word, the widow does as he has asked her and she receives her reward. She does not receive a whole barnful of flour nor a tankerload of oil, but just enough to get by each day until the end of the drought.
She has put her trust in God’s messenger, and she is saved. Her generosity and her trust together are a very valuable offering in the sight not just of Elijah but also in the sight of God. This is how our Lord sees the widow’s offering. It is given as the offering of a free and willing heart and is given with complete trust in God. We can be sure that she is among the great saints in heaven even if she didn’t ever meet our Lord in this life and find out how much He knew about her. She certainly knows now!
And we know about her because our Lord told His disciples about the real value of what she had given. We, too, can be absolutely sure that He knows everything we give to Him and in what spirit of generosity and trust. We can offer not just money (or the lack of it), but the coinage of our entire lives to the service of His Temple, of His holy Sanctuary, in the priesthood. God receives with great joy what we offer Him with a generous spirit, when we put our trust in His goodness to us. He will most certainly honour and reward whatever we offer Him. Poor as we are in our own estimation, weak as we may be in so many ways, God doesn’t look at the value of what we give as being no more to Him that two tiny lepta, but rather as the offering of our hearts in love and gratitude to Him, and for that love and gratitude He will reward us, and when He rewards us, then like the widow herself, we will know then, too!
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