"The Widow's Mites"
Our Hebrew Bible story for tonight is part of the prophet Elijah’s
dramatic conflict with the wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Elijah
announces that God will send a three year drought to punish their
idolatry and injustice, and that rain or dew will henceforth fall
only on his command. He then takes the sensible course of getting
out of town fast, and takes up residence near the Wadi Cherith east
of the Jordan --a natural watercourse which fills only in the rainy
season. There God sends ravens to feed him bread and meat until the
water dries up, and this is where our story begins. God could continue
to hand out individualized miracles by giving Elijah the power to
call for rain and refill the wadi. Instead, the Spirit directs Elijah
to ask help from another person—a Gentile, at that--and give
her and her household help in return. He travels to Zarephath, meets
the widow at the city gate, and requests a drink from her precious
and dwindling water supply. She immediately and generously agrees
to share with this visiting foreigner. Then Elijah ups the ante and
demands bread as well, and the widow reaches her limit. Her despair
erupts into a protest that she has just enough oil and meal to make
a scrap of food, and that then she and her son expect to die from
hunger. Elijah promises that if she shares this last bit with him,
he can make her oil and meal last as long as she needs, and her faith
and cooperation help make this miracle occur—they all eat for
many days, until the rain falls again and normal life can go on. Presumably
God could have sent the ravens to visit again, or enabled Elijah to
multiply her supplies regardless of her participation—and surely
would have done so if she just couldn’t have brought herself
to give away her child’s last food. But when she does find the
inner strength to share from her poverty and become an active part
of the miracle she gains not just food, but dignity—the memory
that God worked through her and not just the prophet. Elijah, for
his part, is kept connected to the human community and warned against
the temptation to take pride in his dramatic powers by his dependence
on the gift of a poor widow, one of the most marginalized and vulnerable
members of any patriarchal society. And in the following story, when
her son becomes ill and dies, she experiences an even more dramatic
reward for her faith and generosity when Elijah raises him from the
dead.
Like Elijah, Jesus’ prophetic critique of injustice brought
him into conflict with the powers of his time—the Roman invaders
and those members of the privileged Jewish establishment who colluded
with them. He wasn’t much threat when he stuck to healing and
teaching peasants in backwater Galilee, but then he exploded into
Jerusalem to messianic shouts and palm branches, and focused his challenge
on Herod’s opulent Temple project—the utmost symbol of the
Judean king’s corrupt alliance between God and Caesar. Jesus
attacked the moneychangers in the Temple, returned there to trade
increasingly pointed barbs with scribes and Pharisees, and finally
responded to a disciple’s admiration of the building by prophesying
its horrifying destruction. In the midst of this escalating conflict,
Jesus accuses the scribes of parading fake piety while devouring widow’s
houses. Then he points out such a destitute widow dropping her tiny
donation into the Temple treasury—two lepta (which the older
translations called mites), which equaled one-sixty-fourth of the
average daily wage. Jesus says that this is really more than the large
sums of extra cash showily dropped in by the rich folks, because it
is all that she has to live on.
This familiar and beloved story is usually taken to be an admonition
to give like the widow—to give sacrificially, well beyond our
financial and emotional comfort zones. It is an important challenge
to those of us who, even in this recession, are privileged beyond
many Americans and certainly beyond most people in the developing
world. But this may not be the entire moral of the story, which hinges
on what exactly Jesus meant by the scribes “devouring widow’s
houses” and the widow giving “all that she has to live on.”
In Jesus’ world, even more than in our world today, men enjoyed
the majority of money and social power, and women’s security
for themselves and their children depended first on their fathers,
and then on their husbands. A woman who was divorced or widowed, especially
if she did not have a wealthy birth family or a grown son to help
provide for her and defend her rights, was often in a very precarious
position. Some commentators suggest that those who devoured widow’s
houses would be trustees appointed to protect the property of a widow
who took advantage of this position to bleed off profit—like
a modern day tycoon who joins a charity board for his image and then
goes on to embezzle donations. Tonight’s widow might in fact
have been reduced to poverty by just such a scam, and yet given with
impressive generosity from her limited resources—what Jesus referred
to with Semitic exaggeration as “all she had to live on.”
Other exegetes argue that “devouring widow’s houses”
would consist precisely of pressure upon vulnerable people like the
widow to give desperately needed funds—literally all she had
to live on--to the extravagant and unnecessary Temple building project—like
a modern day televangelist convincing lonely watchers to send in their
prescription and grocery money in return for a friendly voice on the
dial-a-prayer line. In this case Jesus would not be focusing on the
widow as a role model so much as calling to conversion those who are
exploiting her. Part of tonight’s Gospel message may also be
a warning against what twelve step programs call codependence—giving
too much and too often, in a way that fosters irresponsibility in
the receiver or is unhealthy and damaging for the giver. There is
convincing evidence for each of these positions, and we will never
know exactly what was in the mind of Jesus, or of the early Christian
community which passed on this story to us.
This ambiguity is frustrating, because like our world, and many of
our individual lives right now, this community is facing a crisis,
and it is far from evident what response God is inviting us to. Our
financial resources are rapidly running out, and our participation
in Sunday worship and other activities much smaller than some of the
peak times that I, as a new member, have only heard about. There are
probably a variety of feelings about our situation swirling around
in this worship space, and in each of our inner spaces. Like me, you
may at different times feel anxiety, guilt, hope, resentment, determination,
or a host of other things I haven’t thought of. It is not an
easy place to be. Like every other place to be, though, it has the
potential for grace and transformation. The crisis pressing in on
us, and the ambiguity of tonight’s readings about justice and
generosity, call us to discernment, to an ever-more-intent listening
to God’s Spirit speaking in our world, ourselves, and one another.
We are called to reflect carefully on the world’s need, and also
on our lives--to note when our giving brings us more life and when
it drains us. We are called to pray intently for a generous heart—but
also for guidance about how and when to share our time, talent, and
treasure.
When Jesus encountered this widow, he was facing his own crisis of
stress, grief, discernment, and the apparent failure of his ministry.
Perhaps he was so moved by her situation because he could identify
with it; perhaps he took strength from her courage and generosity
within the limits of her unjust situation as he wrestled with God
about his own. When we come to this table, we remember his choice—like
the widow’s--of challenging, nonviolent love in the face of evil.
Let us come in memory of him, and in memory of her, and in memory
of all those throughout the world facing injustice or suffering. Let
us bring all our struggles and all our questions to the challenging,
compassionate, life-giving generosity of our God.
