3.14. The Widow with Two Mites — True Giving

CHAPTER XIV The Widow with Two Mites — True Giving

T)ART of the charm of the gospels is in the delightful simplicity with which incidents that the historian of the grand style would treat as too trivial for notice have come to be preserved in these sacred records side by side with events of vast and world-wide importance. The family difference at Bethany is one of these; the scene of the widow giving her two mites is another. We cannot compare them with the Transfiguration, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection. And yet they fall quite naturally into their places in the same narrative that records those marvellous events. They even stand out with equal clearness, set before us in as bright a light, like the flowers at the foot of old Pre-Raffaelite pictures, which are as carefully drawn and as full of colour and light as the faces of the saints and angels in the centre of the canvas. But the curious point is that these minor incidents, thus standing in the most prominent position for all the world to see, do not appear trivial or out of place. It might be said that everything Jesus touched turned to gold, or at least that the smallest thing He took notice of revealed under His gaze a hitherto unsuspected wealth of meaning.

Things ai’e gxeat or small according to the character of the eye that regards them. While Wordswoi-th writes of Peter Bell—“ A primrose by the river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more;” the poet could say of himself —“ Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

These minor gospel incidents are not unique in themselves until Christ has something to do with them. Then they suddenly leap into intense significance. Many a family has seen a sisterly difference like that which for a moment disturbed the affectionate relationship of Mary and Martha; it is not to be supposed that the one widow whom Jesus saw casting her mites into the treasury at the temple was the only person who ever manifested so much generosity in the midst of poverty. But our Lord came into some relation with both incidents, with the first actively, with the second only in making His comment. In both cases His connection with the simple events fills them with significance. The smallest plot of land, the cottager’s garden, has one relation with infinity — its outlook to the sky. Wherever Jesus went He opened that outlook even into the most cramped scenes.

He was at the temple, seated in the court of the women. A succession of critics had been plying Him with questions.

First there had come a group in unwonted partnership, like Greeks and Trojans joining arms against a common victim, certain of the Pharisees united with the party of Herod. Both venomous as a brood of vipers, they had contrived a subtle attempt to draw Jesus into the utterance of a sentence that the Roman magistrate would reckon treasonable, with the alternative of rejecting His country’s cause and renouncing the Messianic hope. Next had come a party of the rival Sadducees with a question in casuistry that mocked at the resurrection. These had been followed by one of the scribes with a more serious question concerning the first commandment of all. Jesus had worsted His foes one after the other as soon as they had presented their cases, with replies characterised by dialectic skill as well as spiritual insight. The last of His questioners had taken himself off. For the moment He was in peace. But the strain of these successive contests must have left Him weary and exhausted.

He was sitting thus with His eyes closed or perhaps His head bent forward on one of His hands, when somebody came by whom He knew instinctively to be more after His mind. Looking up He saw a poor widow approaching one of the thirteen great treasure-chests with their trumpetshaped mouths — sufficient to receive all the gifts of the great multitude of worshippers who thronged the temple in times of high festival. She was a widow and in the extremity of poverty. How did Jesus know this 1 Perhaps her widowhood was apparent in her dress, and it would not be difficult to see that she was one of the poor. But the knowledge of Jesus goes beyond these general, more obvious facts. He who had seen Nathaniel under the fig-tree, and told the woman of Samaria the sad story of her life, and read the dark secret of the heart of Judas, and discerned the mental processes of His disputing antagonists on several occasions, had powers of discovering the thoughts and intents of the heart quite beyond our comprehension. And yet in the present instance it is legitimate to surmise that this widow may have been an obscure disciple whom Jesus had met before, perhaps on more than one occasion. There must have been many of these humble followers with whom He was acquainted, although they have never found their way into immortality by appearing in the brief pages of the four gospels. As He watched Jesus saw a number of wealthy persons casting in large amounts, now holding them ostentatiously in their hands and now dropping them significantly with the ring of heavy coins. He perceived the irony of the situation, how diametrically opposite the truth was from the appearance. To the casual observer these were the great contributors, and the gift of the poor woman was scarcely worth the having. While to her it meant a real sacrifice, it brought no appreciable increase to the treasury.

Then in point of fact was it not wasted? That anybody would be brutal enough to sneer at her for coming with such a minute ofifering is scarcely to be imagined if her presumably obvious poverty were observed. Some would pity her for what they would consider to be her needless punctiliousness in bringing an offering at all from her extreme poverty, seeing that she could only give what was practically worthless. Such would be the world’s view of the case. Such is too often the Church’s view of similar cases, although care may be taken to keep up the stereotyped form — “ The smallest contributions thankfully received.” In the eyes of our Lord the case is exactly reversed. The widow’s two mites are more than the shekels and talents of the wealthy. Paradoxical as this would be to the people brought up in the externalism of the Pharisees religion, for us who are familiar with the principles of Christ’s teaching it is perfectly intelligible. The root of Christian ethics is inwardness of motive. ’ With Christ the value of an action is determined by its aim. -What I do is good in so far as I intend good; and it has worth in proportion to the moral effort it requires in my own soul.

Therefore a small action may have a high value if it is the outcome of a great purpose, or if it involves a great sacrifice. All value is relative. Things are dear or cheap according to the standard with which we compare them, With our Lord the standard is internal. That “personal equation “ which we so often forget to make, or over which we blunder so sadly, is all important in the true judgment of conduct, and with Jesus Christ as the Judge it cannot but be accurately worked.

— That the widow gave more than all the rest simply means that what she gave was more of a sacrifice to her, that judged by her means of giving it was a larger proportion. It was her all, her living. Nobody else had given his whole property, nobody else had sacrificed what was needed for his livelihoood. These rich donors had given out of their superfluity; the widow out of her deficiency. Their gifts, large as they were, absolutely involved no serious sacrifice; but her little gift was a real sacrifice, seeing that she had not enough to live on, and yet, though she was short to begin with, she still contrived to set aside something for the service of God.

Therefore a common modern application of the phrase, “the widow’s mite,” is quite inappropriate. The notion that a small gift under any circumstances may be gracefully apologised for by the giver calling it his “mite,” ignores the chief point in the story of this widow at the temple. It was not because she gave a very small sum that she was commended, but because she gave her all, although in her particular case that happened to amount to no more than two farthings. He who would claim this woman’s place of honour must do her generous deed, must give his all.

We shall not improve on the lessons of this story by any extravagant treatment of it. Thus it has been said that the widow was the more generous in giving as many as two mites, when she could have reduced her offering by half, dropping one of the coins in the treasury and retaining the other for her own use. But it was not allowable for anybody to give less than two mites.-^The fact is, she gave the very least that it was lawful for her to give.

Then it is not reasonable to go beyond our Lord’s words, and represent this woman’s gift as the greatest possible gift in the estimation of Jesus, or the greatest gift that has ever been given. He says nothing of the kind. It is a common mistake to translate everything in the Bible into superlatives; to paint every good man as an angel, every bad man as a fiend: to make out everv action to be either absolutely sublime or absolutely vile. Nothing more tends to make the Bible appear to be an unreal book. lu the present instance it is to be observed that our Lord uses the comparative mood — not the superlative; or if it be said that “more than all” is virtually superlative, still it must be remembered that the “all” does not comprehend- the universe. Comparing the widow with the rich contributors whom He watched bringing their ostentatious gifts, Jesus declared that she had exceeded them all.

There was nobody else on this occasion who was giving his whole property, all he possessed. But it is not to be denied that greater sacrifices might be made or have been made. The two mites would purchase but a single meal, and that of the most meagre character. If, therefore, the woman had spent them in this way, in a few hours she would have been in as needy a condition as she was after casting the coins into the treasury. But if a man of fortuna.^ave all he possessed he would cripple his means for life. This woman was poor and almost destitute when she came to the temple, and her parting with these two small coins could not in any way aflfect her future condition in the world. ~ But if a person in comfortable circumstances gave up the whole of his property, he would have to change his position in society and come down to the lowest. Of course that must mean a much greater sacrifice. Many of those who had lands and other possessions and sold them all, bringing the whole produce to the common fund that the apostles opened in the primitive church at Jerusalem, must have made a considerably greater sacrifice than was made by this widow, “““^”hen St. Francis in his youth, with all the prospects of wealth before him, stripped himself of everything even to his very clothes, which he flung back to his angry father, his sacrifice must have been greater than that of the widow. Nor is there anything in this assertion contrary to the words of Jesus, or the lesson He was teaching. Of all the rich men who were casting into I the treasury at that time there was not one who made an offering the real worth of which was equal to what this woman gave. That is the exact case. That is all that Jesus said.

Hence we are led to another branch of our Lord’s teaching. In the most emphatic terms He deplored the difficulty of rich men coming into the kingdom of heaven. It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The sacrifice for Christ is so much harder where there is so much more to be given up. The converse must also be true. When the i-ich man does make the sacrifice, the value of his self-surrender is proportionately greater. But when all this is said, and the case is viewed in its right proportions, the lessons it contains are sufficiently impressive.

Perhaps the first of them is not so much to draw admiration for the one giver commended as to bring shame to the many whose gifts she had exceeded in so simple a way.

After all, she had not done so very much, at the most sacrificing her next meal. But they had done still less. Not one of them would go without his dinner because of the gift he was bringing for the temple-service. Probably the giver of the largest amount would go home to a very sumptuous meal. Not for one moment would he dream of lessening the lavish fare of his table by a single dish in order that he might be able to give the more to the service of God. It was very easy to surpass the whole of these rich givers; and that the widow had done with her mites. This is a lesson of shame and humiliation. And it is a lesson that the servants of Christ are slow to learn. ^=»^lmost every charitable society in Christendom sets the names of its munificent donors in places of honour, while the smaller givers must be content to remain in obscurity, an obscurity, however, of which the worthy among them will not complain.

Nothing can be more foreign to our Lord’s teaciimg in this incident than the prevalent custom of printing the lists of contributors to any good object in the order of the amounts given, beginning with the thousands and the hundreds, and coming down to the tens and the units. The widow never appears in these lists. Her mites are ignominiously lumped together with other people’s mites in an odd figure, under the title “ smaller sums.” The great donor is made a patron of the fund, a life-governor of the institution. The widow with her mites must be content to be ignored.

This, we are told, is politic. Perhaps so; but will anybody say it is Christlike? Very likely it is found to be the easiest method of raising the large sums that are required. But this only is another way of saying that the whole question of religious finance rests on a low basis.

If the mind of Christ dwelt in the givers no such worldly devices would need to be thought of. Probably in the case of most of these funds the person who really deserves most honour as having made the largest sacrifice is neither the great man whose name appears at the top for the largest amount, but who has given out of his superfluity; nor the obscure man whose name is relegated to the bottom for the smallest gift, and who may perhaps be doing less than he ought; but the humble person whose name is buried in the middle of the column, who has made some serious effort in order to bring his gift up to the utmost that he has been able to make it. No gift counts for anything if it does not require sacrifice. That is the essential point. And where the sacrifice is greatest there the gift is greatest. But now let us return to the woman whose deed of generosity, slight as it appeared in itself, attracted so marked attention from our Lord. We are to beware of unreasonable extravagance. Still her conduct called forth the admiration of Jesus. It was the one act in all that scene of lavish giving that He cared for at all. It was beautiful. It did involve a sacrifice. But she who made this sacrifice could cast herself on the goodness of God for whom she brought the gift. Any mercenary motive resting on the belief that God would surely provide at least as much even in money as she gave would have spoilt the gift. *She must give with the brave consciousness that the consequence might be the necessity for her to go hungry.

She could not be sure that it would be the will of God to spare her suffering. But if she had faith she would know that even that must be well when it was His will. At all events she would leave all to Him.

Meanwhile it is her joy to take her part in the temple offerings. She could easily have found an excuse in her extreme penury. She might have been deterred from very shame of giving so little. A cold, commonsense calculation might have suggested that her minute contribution among so many large amounts was of no practical use.

None of these thoughts deter her. She will do her best.

-The effect of such giving to the woman herself must have been very happy. At once it lifted her out of the sordidness of poverty. One of the worst effects of extreme penury is the engrossing attention it seems to demand to the mere scraping together of the barest subsistence. This must have a narrowing effect on the mind. In His parable of the Sower, Jesus Christ points to the cares of life as well as the deceitfulness of riches as hindering the growth of the good seed. So in His lesson on the birds and the lilies He warns His disciples not to be anxious for the morrow in order that they may be free to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. But how is it possible not to be anxious for the morrow when a man is at his wits’ end to know where to-morrow’s dinner is to be got? K it is most hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, next to his difficulty must be that of a very poor man. Both have this in common, that they are in danger of their attention being chained to the things of earth, the one in the idolatry of wealth, the other in the anxiety of poverty.

It has been said that there is a certain freedom in precariousness, that if you can never provide for more than a day or so in advance, you have no occasion for looking forward beyond such a short period. This may be the case with a happy-go-lucky person who has cast care to the winds as too uncomfortable a companion. But there are men who do not find it easy to take life in this jaunty fashion. For such it must be a serious strain to be always living from hand to mouth, always on the verge of starvation, never reasonably assured of to-morrow’s livelihood; and it is piteous to see that according to Mr. Charles Booth’s statistics one-tenth of the population of London exists habitually in this miserable condition. But now when a person in the sadly crowded class of the extremely poor actually summons courage to make a gift, to take her share in supporting the work of religion, she is indulging in a real luxury. It is only to a noble soul that a gift offered under such circumstances would be a delight. But only a noble soul can be imagined as making such an ofiering. When the widow has the spirit to do this deed she at once rises out of the gloomy monotony of her penury, set free from the hard bondage of care, lifted into the cheerful atmosphere of generosity, saved therefore from the most dreary consequence of poverty, its sordid living. In this respect the widow at the temple becomes a cheering example for poor people of generous dispositions, whose peculiar trial it is that when they would so gladly assist the cause of Christ — support much needed schemes for the betterment of mankind, or share in the work of extending missionary work — they think it is impossible for them to do so. Their narrow means are barely sufficient for the support of their own families; what margin can they have for giving ’\ Still harder is the lot of one who like this widow is apparently left alone in the world, and yet has not sufficient for the supply of her own wants.

She has not even the satisfaction of feeling that her struggle with poverty is for the support of a family that is dependent on her. It is wholly for herself. But now we have the encouragement of Christ for the very poor.

It may be that the opportunity can rarely come to them. But when it does come it is exceedingly precious to such as have the mind of Christ..Jf people who despair of doing anything because they cannot do much would emulate the courageous widow with her mites, many a dingy life would be lit up with a new and exalting interest, and many a good cause would be lifted into a purer and more Christlike atmosphere.