It was John Wycliffe, the 14th century translator of the scriptures, who rendered in English as “mite” the Latin noun “minitum” which was used to describe the widow’s offering in Mark 12:42. Or as the King James Version of the Bible puts it, “two mites, which make a farthing.” A “farthing” was worth a quarter of a penny, and the term was used to indicate an amount of the smallest possible, least significant value you could conceive.
Today we heard the more modern translation: “two small copper coins,” along with the wild exaggeration that they might be worth as much as an entire penny! But those of us fortunate enough to have the old language ringing in our memories’ ears will always hear this passage as the story of the widow’s mite. A “mite” being a little-tiny, teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy amount, a coin of very little value; even two of them don’t add up to much.
It would be easy, I think, to mis-remember this little episode as the parable of the widow’s mite, as though St. Mark’s account began with Jesus saying something like, “the kingdom of God is as if a widow had two mites…” But that is not how the story begins, because it is not a parable. St. Mark is very clear here. He tells us that Jesus “sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury.” This is not a made up story; it’s the real thing. It’s quite a scene, if you let yourself picture it. This is the Temple treasury, and Jesus is watching the people make their financial contributions. And he’s keeping track of how much people give. He’s counting. Just let that ink in for a moment.
So, Jesus is watching, and keeping track of how much people give. And although “many rich people put in large sums,” Jesus does not praise them for it (nor does he criticize them). He waits, and he watches. And when the poor widow comes to the treasury and puts in her two mites, her little-tiny, teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy amount (times two), that’s when Jesus seizes a teaching moment.
Now, this is a bit of a disappointment for me, to tell you the truth, since I have long wanted to preach on the text, “Many rich people put in large sums.” But somehow I never find myself in just the right room full of people to preach that sermon. (Some day I will, though; and I will knock that sermon out of the park!). Instead, I have the widow’s mite to contend with. So, I’ll do my best.
One of the most reliably accurate maxims of our day is that you get what you pay for. It’s not just an assertion of economic function; it’s a bit of common sense, too, that you get what you pay for. Certainly, I have been known to repeat that maxim around the church, especially if we try to cut corners somewhere. But since we rely so much on volunteers and on the generosity of others at Saint Mark’s, organizationally speaking there is a great deal that we get here that we don’t really pay for - it’s a blessing. Still, there are plenty of bills to pay for which the maxim applies. And in most other areas of our lives, the saying does hold true: you get what you pay for. It is the underlying assumption of the marketplace: that you can get what you want, as long as you pay for it; and you get what you pay for. Whether we are dealing with housing, healthcare, restaurants, air conditioners, organ builders, dog food, kitty litter, or office supplies: you get what you pay for.
It makes sense in a world that is nearly completely controlled by the metaphor of the marketplace that the rule applies so consistently: you get what you pay for.
A cynical, but not un-true corollary to this maxim is that you pay for what you get, which means that everything really does have a price, even if it is ostensibly a gift. That is, that everything comes with some kind of strings attached, and nothing is ever really free. Again, in the church this corollary can at times apply: there are certainly gifts that come with strings attached to them. We try to see those gifts as blessings, too.
Sitting there at the treasury, I suppose that Jesus wondered if people expected to get what they paid for when they put their money into the box. Did he assume that the rich people who put in large sums expected to get what they paid for? Good seats at the high holy days, preferential treatment from the priests, an “in” with God? Hard to say. But it seems clear, doesn’t it, that the poor widow cannot reasonably expect to get what she paid for, since what she paid for was only a little-tiny, teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy bit?
Technically, Jesus’ observation of those giving at the treasury contains a lesson in what we call “proportional giving” - the idea that generous giving begins with a calculation of a proportion of your wealth, not a simple dollar figure. But if that was the only lesson we got out of this observation, we would be missing a great deal. Because the Gospel of Jesus boldly proclaims that you do not get what you pay for. And that begins with Jesus.
In the love of Jesus we do not get what we paid for; rather, we are given what he paid for: a life transformed by the power of the resurrection, which means a life defined by transfiguration, forgiveness, and transformation, and freed from the sting of death. But we live in a world that is so governed by the rule that you get what you pay for, that many people hardly know what to do with the gifts of life, and freedom, and grace, and beauty, and faith - all aspects of resurrection life - that come for free from the hand of God.
At this time of year we are on the verge of stewardship season. And we still struggle to conceive of stewardship as something more than a euphemism for fund-raising. And, frankly, at this time of year, many’s the rector who is tempted to preach a sermon entitled: You Get What You Pay For. I believe I know how to preach that sermon.
But maybe part of Christian stewardship is living and giving in ways that recognize that we do not get what we pay for. We don’t even pay for what we get. For, to be a Christian steward is to take one’s place in a virtuous cycle of giving with no strings attached that finds its origin in God’s own being. We give because we recognize that we have been given to. God is the giver of all good gifts, and everything we have has been given to us by the triune God who is always giving of God’s self to God’s self, and back again! By virtue of our baptism, we have been given the on-going gifts of God’s grace that spill out of God’s being, by means of the perfect self-offering of love given for the sake of the world by Christ on the Cross. This is not the mechanism of a fund raising campaign; these are the machinations of love: an unending loop of love into which every human is called, which is also an infinite loop of giving, since the best and holiest response to a gift is to give something in return, and so on, and so on, and so on.
The idea of becoming Christian stewards is that we learn to give in the same way: not because we get what we pay for, but precisely because we have already been given extravagant gifts for which we paid nothing: the gifts of life and love, gifts of beauty, the gift of this planet, the gifts of our families and friends, the gift of the church, the gifts of many things that we possess for a while, and, most especially the gift of salvation, which is the gift of God’s love that delivers us from darkness, decay, and death. We have not paid for what we‘ve gotten, nor could we ever. And we have been given so much more than we could ever afford - all from the hand of God.
Observing both the rich and the poor, Jesus’ teaching includes the assertion that it is harder for the rich to learn this lesson than it is for the poor. I’d say, that’s because the rich are so caught up with the rule that you get what you pay for - in fact, when you are rich, you insist on it, don’t you? But when we allow our lives to be controlled by the expectation that we must get what we pay for, we diminish our hopes and lower our expectations. On the other hand, when we see that in Christ we are already living lives in which we have been given far more than we could ever pay for, our hopes are enlarged and our expectations elevated.
There is a tremendous machinery in America and around the globe trying to convince you and me that we can and should only ever get what we pay for, and that wants to make us pay for whatever we’ve got. But at every altar before which the Gospel of love is proclaimed, the gift of Christ’s sacrificial love - for which we have not paid, and which we could never afford - is made manifest day after day. The truth is that Christ calls us here not so that we will give to him, but so that he can keep giving to us, day in and day out. His self-giving, his love-giving, his grace-giving never stops.
It’s my job, not only to remind you of the holiness of the impulse to give in response to that love, but also to be first among you as a giver, if not in the amount, then at least in the ready and joyful response to that impulse. And it is my joy to give a lot more that two mites to Saint Mark’s, because frankly, I have a lot more than two mites to give. And here in this place, I have received more gifts than I could ever account for. More precisely, it’s my joy to give back to God, from the foot of the Cross, where I am reminded every day that I could never pay for what I get - my life, my freedom, my salvation have been paid for already, and given to me for free.
But I am reminded by the widow’s mite - by that little-tiny, teeny-weeny, itsy-bitty gift, that I, too, am called to bring to Christ everything I have, all I have to live on; which seems completely unrealistic, until I remember that without Jesus, I have nothing. And he has always given far more to me than I could ever give to him. And this is not a parable; it’s not a made up story - that everything we have comes from God - it’s the real thing; it’s the truth.
And the point of Jesus’ observation is not to convince poor widows to give like rich people. Rather, the point is to convince rich people to think and to give like poor widows - to be willing to give to God everything you have, since everything came from God in the first place; and to be confident that God will see to it that you get what you need.
All of which makes me hopeful that it’s not too late for my dream come true - if you do your part - to give me a reason to preach a sermon on the text, “many rich people put in large sums!” I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to knock that sermon out of the park!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
7 November 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
