GIVING EVERYTHING

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” —Mark 12:43, 44

Given Jesus’ fraught relationship with the temple and its priests, it might be surprising that He would support giving to that system. But He emphasized the kind of heart this gift represented more than the amount given or what the offering might be used for. Amid the offerings given that day—“many rich people threw in large amounts” (Mark 12:41)—the two small coins would have added little to the temple budget. The significance was in what they represented, in the widow’s act of giving, and that Jesus recognized her generosity.

We know so little in this story, just the snapshot that Jesus pointed out to His disciples, but we can imagine the timidity with which the widow approached the offering box. She might well have been nervous, even hesitant, about giving “all she had to live on,” but she would also likely have not wanted to attract attention, well aware that her offering was achingly small compared to the more ostentatious giving that was going on around her.

Perhaps it was her timidity that drew Jesus’ attention.

Whatever it was, Jesus saw her and her act of giving.

He used her quiet generosity to teach a lesson to His disciples, and through them, her story has been told and retold many times since.

We do not know her name or the rest of her story, but we know what she did, and her story has prompted generosity among Jesus’ followers down through the centuries since. The return on investment of those two small coins has been incredible.

But even that was not the point. Rather, Jesus noticed—and her courage matters to the many of us who still read her story.