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When Little Is Much

Mark 12:43

Mark recorded an interesting little story.  It’s very short, so I’ll give you the whole thing: One day, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts.  But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.”  That’s it, the whole story.  Not too exciting was it.  Check your heart.  Not beating any faster, is it?  I didn’t think so.

Now listen to Jesus commentary on it.  He called his disciples close and said: “I tell you the truth, 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.”

Did you catch the main point: the poor widow put more into the treasury than all the others.  What do you make of that?  How can a couple of small coins, the smallest denomination at the time, ring louder in the treasury than the ostentatious dumping of bags of gold and silver coins?

Most of us would have been sufficiently impressed if the text read, “a poor widow came and put in a very small copper coin - half of what she had to live on.”  That would be a great sacrifice indeed, but this account isn’t here to draw attention to money or to those who were giving it.  It is to point to true faith - the willingness of some persons to trust God for everything - for their very life.  They trust God entirely.  Hence, Jesus makes a point of saying that she gave “everything – all she had to live on.”  Jesus would have said the same of anyone, regardless of the amount of money they gave, it’s not about quantity, it’s about the willingness to sacrifice it all.

With no money, the woman in the story had to look to God to sustain her.  That’s hard, isn’t it? So you ask: “Can this be really necessary?  Isn’t this a little extreme?  Surely Jesus wasn’t saying all believers have to give away all of their material possessions?”  Now, I have a question for you: “Have you ever lived with nothing, except the belief that you are doing exactly what God wanted you to do and that He would take care of you?”  Perhaps G. K. Chesterton’s famous quotation applies: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting: its been thought too hard and never tried.”

In this declaration of truth, Jesus startles us with the premium God places on faith.  What you have to give matters little to Him - whether, time, talent, wealth, or any other kind of resource you can think of - after all it all came from Him in the first place.  What matters to God is that you trust Him for everything from eternal life, to daily bread.