The Widow's Offering
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Have you ever wished you could do more for God? We find ourselves often wishing; desiring to do more in the service and application of our devotion to God. We find ourselves in the monastery kitchen of Brother Lawrence, seeking to practice faith in the continual presence of God. We yearn with Richard Rolle to cast aside the external things that wax our hearts cold and to reignite our souls by the blazing heat of God’s love. We struggle with Calvin to please God to the extreme of self-denial and longing for the glory of God with full zeal. Sometimes, I hope often, we find ourselves wanting to do more for God.
The story of the widow in Luke 21 shows us one way that our longing makes itself evident toward others. Look at Luke 21:1-4 with me:
1 Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box,
2 and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.
3 And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.
4 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Pray
We are still in the final week of Christ before his death and resurrection, still learning from Jesus in the Temple. He has just warned us, as we discussed last week, to beware the scribes - both avoiding their influence and cautiously not becoming scribe-like in our own lives. As they are in the Temple, Jesus is watching the treasury:
1 Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box,
2 and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.
Mark tells us a little more detail:
41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.
As they are watching, Jesus sees a good number of rich people putting in great amounts into the treasury. This is something that was commanded - everyone had a minimum to give toward the Temple. But often the wealthy would showcase their goodness through philanthropy - by giving large sums of money toward worthy causes. (Not much has changed since then, has it?)
In Judea during the Roman period, there was no “middle class.” You were either very wealthy or very poor. Here, we find the wealthy - those who were educated and had great jobs with plentiful wealth - giving hand-over-fist. And if these chapters give us any indication, they were not shy in giving such grand gifts. Here a man might give as he declares, “I give 1,000 shekels to the Temple!” Another, not to be outdone, comes behind him and yells, “2,000 shekels for Adonai!” You can watch the coffers filling quickly as one of the Levites has to come collect the excess and put it away for safe-keeping.
Then up walks a poor widow. Talk about poverty - this woman has no husband and no savings. The text does not tell us how old she is, but the implication is that she is too old to find work. She has almost nothing left. Her husband’s death has left her in abject poverty, and now the money is almost gone. All that are left are two small coins - less than the amount a day laborer would earn in 12 minutes of work - and they didn’t make peanuts!
Look at what Jesus says:
3 And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.
Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’m almost certain that Jesus can actually count. So how can he say that she - with her two small coins - has given more than anyone else? More than everyone else?
4 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Everyone else who gave gave out of their abundance. They had plenty to spare. They could live comfortably without their large gifts. In fact, some gave with the express hope of gaining more (if you give, God has to give you more back, right?). But she didn’t have plenty. She didn’t have any - nothing but a couple of coins that most folks would walk by on the ground without even bothering to pick them up. But it was all she had.
I think Jesus says she gave more because of what it cost her to give. The rich were well off without. She had nothing left. It cost her everything to give. And she gave anyway. There’s a valuable truth here:
God Greatly Values Gifts That Cost Us Greatly
God Greatly Values Gifts That Cost Us Greatly
This gift cost her everything, and Jesus finds the greatest value in her greatest sacrifice. This isn’t the only time in Scripture that costly gifts are valued by God:
David purchases animals for sacrifices so that he doesn’t offer what costs him nothing (2Sa 24:24; 1Ch 21:24)
Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with the costly perfume (Mt 26)
The Macedonian churches giving out of their poverty for the sake of fellow believers (2Co 8)
In all of these things, we mimic God’s costly gift of salvation - a gift that cost him his own Son