Her last two coins

On my nightstand rest two tiny coppery disks.  The symbols engraved on them are foreign, ancient.  I don’t exactly know how I came by these metallic images of sacrifice.

(source)

Each one represents a coin placed in the temple treasury by the widow whose story is recorded in Luke 21:1-4.

I learned her narrative in my childhood Sunday School class.  There, her humble gift of two small coins was always contrasted with the showy contributions of the pompous rich.  I understood, as the record shows, that she gave everything she had to live on for the Lord’s work.

By my teachers, she was lauded as a woman of great generosity…and rightfully so.  The lesson was that we should be generous in giving to the Lord, and not just in times of comfortable wealth.

But I never really thought about WHY she gave her last two coins as an offering.

It certainly wasn’t for praise or honor—it seems that Jesus was the only one who noticed her and knew her situation.  He drew attention to her, not the other way around.  My guess is that it was incredibly humbling for her to place that little bit of change in the treasury in the midst of all of the other liberal wealth flowing that day.

It wasn’t to “keep up with the Joneses” either, for who would willingly give up her last pennies as an offering at an already gilded temple when there is daily bread to buy and monthly rent to pay?

I doubt it was for atonement or some sort of guilt offering.  If she needed to respond to God’s requirements of justice, surely she would have done all she could to save up enough to purchase the appropriate animal to sacrifice at that temple, as she had been raised to do.

If not for these reasons, then why would she give all she had to live on?

Two thoughts spring to mind.

1.  She was fully devoted to God.  She had something, tiny yet precious, to give Him as an offering, and she did not allow her poverty to stop her from giving from a willing, generous, loving heart.

2.  More importantly, I think it was that she knew something about the God she served with her last ounce of sustenance:  She knew her God would provide for her needs.  Perhaps she reasoned that He had brought her, a lowly and impoverished widow, this far, and He could certainly grant her all she needed in the days to come.  She was throwing herself on His gracious promise to care for the most vulnerable of Israel (Psalm 146:9; Proverbs 15:25).

Another idea dances around the edges of my thoughts:  What if God simply laid it on her heart to take her two very last coins to the temple on the very day Jesus and His disciples were standing there?  All so future generations could have an object lesson about what it truly means to give righteously?

Of course, that prompting would likely not go too far unless our dear widow’s heart was both devoted to her Lord and filled with faith in His promises.

Stories like these make me want to grab a dozen Bible commentaries, as I did when I had an entire Bible college library easily within reach, and read what others have to say about her story.  There is so much more to an account when the cultural and historical context is explained in greater detail.  If I tried to add that to this little post, I’d get so excited and share everything…and this would end up being 20 pages long!

Back to the replicas of the widow’s “mites.”  I keep them on my nightstand to remind me to be gracious in my offerings.  (While I have not yet attained this level of giving in my finances or any of my other resources, I want to press on toward that goal.)

We humans like visible reminders of spiritual concepts.

Touchstones.

Tangibles that give us something finite to hold on to when we’re struggling to grasp what it means to serve an infinite God.

I gaze at their holding place.

These little metal disks sit beside two equally small glass spheres.  Two marbles, each one a tiny icon of two of my ongoing prayer requests.  Once each prayer is answered with a clear “yes,” “no,” or “now is the right time,” the marble representing it will be taken back to my alma mater’s prayer room and deposited in the glass bowl filled with other multi-colored, round demonstrations of the answered prayers of fellow students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

As I reflect on these four objects lined up together for the time being, it occurs to me that my coins should also be speaking a message of whole-hearted devotion and unwavering trust in a God who hears and answers our prayers and cares for us in our most vulnerable state.