The normalcy of a remarkable life
Proper 27B  |  Mark 12:38-44

Digging into this gospel, let us remember the scene—Jerusalem, the end of the road. The final test. It is Tuesday of that time we call Holy Week. Jesus arrived on Sunday with great fanfare. Then came to the Temple on Monday, flipping tables and driving out the moneychangers and dove sellers for compromising God’s house of prayer with their unjust economic systems and cozy relationship with Roman oppressors.

Jesus came back to that same place where he caused such a scene the day before and began to teach as large crowds formed around him. Some Pharisees and elders tried to trick him, but Jesus sprung the trap on them. Then some Sadducees did the same—and with the same result. Chief priests and Scribes, too. And through all of this, Jesus confounds his critics, amazes his disciples, and delights the crowds. Jesus offers good news to the people most affected by the structure of the world: the poor and powerless, the outcast and the sinner, the sojourner and the seeker. 

And then Jesus offers his final word to them.

“Beware of the scribes”

Jesus talks about how they like to walk around like they’re somebodies, like they are important. They dress the part to be noticed. 

But this isn’t the sin he’s naming—how they dress. Having egos. Nor is Jesus exposing hypocrisy as if that were a crime.

He names what they do: how they seek to be elevated—like the protectors of the Temple, like the best disciples, like the first officers of the king—and respected for what they do while also destroying lives, preying on the weakest among us. 

The thing about this critique isn’t that it’s about the scribes’ clothes. Or that they wear those clothes. It is that they are predatory. They gain their wealth and status by consuming and killing people. And before you consider this hyperbole, we must consider the whole passage.

Giving to the Temple

Jesus throws down some heavy charges against the scribes and then walks away. He leaves that spot. 

I suspect the crowd is stunned and more than a little confused. But they don’t seem to follow him. He sits down off to the side. Watches what is going on. And he turns his attention to the pilgrims coming to pay homage. 

The process is pretty simple. There is a money box on the wall and you simply walk up and put your money in. The money, the currency they would use is coin-based. We are ages before paper currency becomes a thing. And, like all currencies, denominations come in different sizes and weights. Your bigger amounts are bigger, heavier coins. Dropping them into the box will produce a THUNK and if you drop in a lot, you can hear the cascading THUNKs. Small denominations, on the other hand, are small, light. They PLINK. 

Jesus calls his disciples over and tells them to watch as some ostentatious people drop many heavy coins into the box and then this woman, a widow, drops two small coins, PLINK PLINK into the box. Then he points out that the wealthy give from their abundance, but this woman gave everything she had.

Notice he doesn’t say from her poverty. He knows she has nothing left now.

A Matter of Faith

I suspect our first impulse is to latch onto the language Jesus uses here. He describes her giving as a greater example of faith. And it is. But it is quite dangerous to see this as an abstraction—to see this as purely a lesson about internal faith. Because that is only half of what Jesus is saying.

This woman is being faithful, not in abstract giving, but in her very material giving precisely because she now has nothing. She is relying on God to keep her alive. Not metaphorically. Literally. Because now she has nothing.

Our practical minds might be outraged at the thought that she would be so stupid. Now she has nothing! And in a matter of days she will starve. But our practical minds can be real jerks, because we’re acting like she could actually get anything for a penny.

For much of the world today and for nearly all of human history, going a week without money or support is a death sentence. The modern social safety net literally prevents millions of people in our country from dying in the streets—thousands from dying in our city. Many of us in this room!

Jesus is drawing their attention not just to the woman’s faithfulness in hoping God will protect her, but to the selfishness of the wealthy and the cruelty of a Temple system that would feed off of her suffering.

Devouring

Jesus speaks of the scribes “devour[ing] widows’ houses” and then draws the disciples’ attention to a widow whose home was devoured.

Jesus is trying to tell us something, not just about the woman, but the scribes and Temple system. We are being shown an image of faithfulness and an image of faithlessness. This is why it isn’t just about the interiority of the woman, but the behavior of the scribes and the outcomes the Temple produces.

She is the product of the Temple’s work just as the scribes are.

This is why it is a den of robbers. And why they want to kill Jesus for saying so. Because the mass of people can see it. And the powerful don’t want it seen. And hate the person who names it.

Injustice

It is easy to see examples in our world because our whole economy is built on the principles of exploitation and extraction. Industries like oil and gas treat the world’s resources like free commodities that they alone are free to profit from. Payday lenders take a third of people’s paychecks and bail bondsmen profit from a carceral system which targets the poor. Credit agencies charge the poor higher rates and take them to court at higher rates.

But perhaps the most grotesque example is what we see in our public prisons. Private companies charge inmates dollars per minute for phone calls, and $10 for hygiene items we pick up at Meijer for a dollar. They exercise monopoly power to steal from the imprisoned while the prison gives them work at sub-minimum wages. And, increasingly, states and corporations use prison labor to replace the labor of free wage-earners, pitting the labor class against the incarcerated.

These are injustices. Straight-up. It is gross that we tolerate it. 

But notice that Jesus pairs the injustice against the poor with the people who are responsible for exploiting that poverty. The sin isn’t hypocrisy—it’s exploitation. They are making a mockery of God’s commands and Jesus pins the problem on the scribes themselves for perpetuating an unjust system.

This isn’t a call out to make the scribes feel bad. He’s trying to get us to see why the poor exist. That widows’ homes don’t just disappear on their own. Widows don’t lose them like car keys at the bottom of a purse. They are devoured by ravenous forces who dress up in fancy clothes and tell you this is the way it has to be. Who make the widows feel bad for not keeping the home, that they have no options, that there isn’t anything for them.

That women couldn’t get a bank account until fifty years ago speaks to our brokenness, our corruption and sin, and our learning and growing and becoming. That we can choose a different path, even at so late an hour as this.

A Different Path

We choose a different path when we vote, don’t we? When we cast votes for a different vision for the world. And when we advocate for change. When we lobby our local, state, or federal governments, urging them to change.

This is the heart of what Jesus is doing in Jerusalem, confronting the powerful, exposing their shame, the injustice of the status quo, the suffering of the most vulnerable, the lack of support for minorities,  the unaccountability of the powerful, the pomp and esteem we shower the powerful with, the absolute sense of the impossibility of the task, gosh, even that beloved phrase we claim to love with every fiber of our being “I hate change” when we just read about Jesus raising a man from the dead last week and pray to God to change our fortunes. Heck, people pray the Colts can actually win a game. 

We love change. We’re just afraid and frustrated and used to losing. We’ve been bitten by changes or thought certain changes would never come, even voted like change was impossible.

This is a story about the very possible. And if we remember the very first message Jesus offers, the message he takes up when John the Baptizer is arrested: that we must repent, turn ourselves in a new direction, we can see just how welcome and liberating this message is for them, for us, and for all time.

We don’t have to steal from the powerless. We support the powerless, encourage the powerless, offer a cup of water to the powerless. That’s our work. And those who aren’t up to the task? God’s fixing to replace them anyway. Because that’s what comes next in the story.

For us, though, now, ours is to love. To love that widow. Because she has faith that God will protect her. And God has faith that we are how that will happen.