When Jesus looked up he saw some wealthy people
putting their offerings into the treasury
and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins.
The wealthy people to whom Jesus referred need not have been particularly engaged in their offerings. For them, giving could be easily become so routine as to lose its meaning. This was not to say that the virtuous habit of magnanimity was a bad thing. But if giving was done entirely without reflection and always without any significant cost it might not ever reach the heights that true self-gift could attain. It could remain intermixed with pride and the vanity of sustaining a certain sort of self-image. People could in fact give but not have love.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (see First Corinthians 13:3).
The point was not that wealthy people should necessarily give away all that they had. It wasn't even just to always keep in mind whether or not there was more wealth they could give. The point was that all people, poor or rich, could and ought to truly give of themselves. They could be genuinely motivated by love above and beyond their need to check a box or appear a certain way. Their gifts could be empowered by the trust in God to have an impact that they otherwise could not.
and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins.
He said, “I tell you truly,
this poor widow put in more than all the rest;
The widow's offerings probably did not contribute to her self-image or vanity as a religious individual. She knew that in the eyes of others, of rich people making their generous offerings, that what she gave was basically nothing at all. But for the widow herself her gift cemented her trust in God. And for all who saw and all who would eventually read of her gift it had a world changing effect of teaching what true giving could be. Her minimal gift became a maximal example. The point was not to follow her in giving one's whole livelihood necessarily. But we are certainly meant to learn to give, as she did, our whole self.
Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
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