The Blessing of Blessing

She remembered being a little girl and going with her mother and the women to get water. While they worked, she played on the hillside of the Kidron valley, picking wildflowers for her mom. It was amazing how much joy she felt in presenting her mom that little handful of wilting weeds. She remembered her mother’s smile as she received the bundle and dipped the corner of her apron in the water to wrap around them as she carried them home. She tucked her coins in the pocket of her apron and set out for the Temple.

With Passover two days away, the Temple authorities are watching Jesus. But he continues to teach, right there in the Temple. When you entered the Temple, you came first to the Court of the Gentiles, a large court paved with multi-hued stones. The Court of the Gentiles was over-run with money-changers and sacrificial animal dealers. Get your lamb, doves for sale, goats ready for Sacrifice! Gentiles couldn’t go beyond this court.

Jewish men and women were able to ascend to the next terrace level, known as the Middle Court or the Court of the Women. This court was between the open to anyone, even Gentiles court, and the Court of the Israelite, for Jewish men who were ritually clean, and beyond that the Court of the Priests. It was here in the Court of Women, the Middle Court, that Jesus taught in the Temple. This court was also known as the Treasury because it was surrounded by a colonnade and spaced along the outer wall were big wooden boxes with bronze, trumpet shaped funnels in the top to collect the offerings. Some boxes were designated for taxes (every year a half-shekel was due from ever Israelite 20 years and older), some for sacrifice (you could purchase a bird for sacrifice without having to deal with a bird…you put the money in, the priests took the same number of birds to sacrifice as were purchased the day before, and your sacrifice was taken care of), and the other collection boxes were for free-will gifts.

It was here, surrounded by the offering boxes that Jesus pointed out the priests, arrogant in their flowing robes, conspicuous in their expectation of being treated as exceptional, granting no mercy to the least if they couldn’t afford their Temple tax and make their sacrifice and then praying long, elaborate elitist prayers that made the common people feel less than. The mercy shown to them will be like the mercy they have shown, their punishment will be severe.

Maybe Jesus paused to let the crowd settle. Surely a wave of shock had made its way through those gathered there in the Middle Court, the audacity of questioning the Temple elite right there in the Temple.

Maybe Jesus paused to settle his own emotions. Surely a wave of anger had made its way nearly to the surface as he taught and thought about the very people who were entrusted with the work of God taking advantage of others.

Maybe Jesus paused to let his message unsettle those who heard it. Surely they were unjust in their requirements of taxes and sacrifices beyond what people could afford in order to be able to come and be in good standing and worship God.

Whatever the reason, Jesus sat down and quietly watched as men and women made their way into the court and made their offerings. Rich men walked around proudly, throwing their tax in, paying their sacrificial fees, and tossing in their voluntary offerings with indifference. The coins made such a racket as the clangs and clanks in the copper trumpets reverberated in the wooden boxes and the stone colonnade. They didn’t even notice how much they dropped in as the good ole boys network laughed and cajoled. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t a significant amount of money to them.

A woman caught Jesus’s attention, not because she was trying to get people’s attention, like the others, but because she wasn’t. (figuring out who she is) She was a widow; must be, she entered alone. She looked at the half-shekel boxes by the gate, remorse in her eyes. She didn’t have the annual Temple tax, a half-shekel. The equivalent of a half-day’s wage. She kept walking, slowly rubbing the coins back and forth in her hand. She paused beside one of the free-will offering boxes and opened her hand, looking at the coins, she touched them offering a silent prayer, her devotion evident. Taking a deep breath, she quietly dropped the coins into the offering and slipped away, assuming she was unnoticed. As she turned to go, Jesus saw the love, the devotion in her expression.

“Truly I tell you,” he said to the crowd that was still around him, waiting for him to speak and watching where he trained his eyes, “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.”

Can you imagine what she was going through? Her husband died. She must not have adult children, or she would have a place to live. Her father must have already died. She must have no brothers. She is alone in the world, without the right to own property, without the ability to earn a living and care for herself, without security for the future, without enough for the present.

Her greatest joy is to offer all that she has to God. Like Bartimaeus, who threw off his cloak while he was still blind, she had faith.

Rev. Dr. William Pender, a retired Presbyterian minister, tells about an experience he had on a church mission trip to Guatemala 25 years or so ago. He says, “We were way up in the mountains and stopped at a small market—the only commercial establishment within miles. There were some mountain people selling their handmade baskets. Beautiful, colorful baskets. A little girl was selling the baskets she had made. “Cuanto?”, I asked. How much? $2 for each basket—a great deal on such handiwork! I chose two baskets, but I knew that I could bargain. I could haggle. I got two baskets for $1! As we drove away, I was so pleased with myself. I had negotiated such a bargain—$4 to $1 for these exquisitely crafted baskets. The difference between $4 and $1 was really nothing to me; what I was celebrating was my bargaining skills! I got a deal. And then it hit me—what would $4 have meant to that poor Indian girl? The baskets had been a bargain at $2 each…and the girl could have had $4 instead of $1. That girl was a victim…a victim of my religion—to get a good deal at all costs. Now you may be quibble with my use of the word “religion.” But religion is what we are tied to, bound to, connected to. What leads to pride! And I was proud of my ability…but I can still see those dark, brown eyes of that little girl as I exchanged that meaningless dollar for what represented hours of her labor. She was victim of my religion.”

When we bargain, when we negotiate how much we will give, when we drop our offering in without thinking because it’s really not that much money to us in our budget, our faith continues to be in the kingdom of the secular economy. A fistful of flowers, two tiny, copper coins,…the economy of God’s kingdom is that when we give a blessing, we are the one who is blessed.

(William C. Pender, First Presbyterian Church of Knoxville , 11/11/12)