Canter Bridge

The famous story of the ‘widow’s mite’ is a beloved slice of the gospels’ narrative testimony about Jesus. Her skinny little offering—amidst large and clanging competitors—touches a sentimental nerve in sympathetic readers.

A less natural readerly instinct notices that Mark places this vignette just after a more somber warning to the religious and the powerful.

And in his teaching (Jesus) said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’ (Mark 12:38–44 ESV)

The juxtaposition of these two stories suggests that those who threw their impressive offerings into the receptacle with due fanfare are actually the devourers of widow’s houses, their livelihood, their slender remaining means of economic viability.

Thus, they are God’s enemies, notwithstanding their awesome religiosity.

Indeed, read closely, the syntax of Jesus’ warning to unjust worshippers is chilling in the way it speaks of criminal injustice and long prayers in a single breath:

And in his teaching he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplacesand have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’ (Mark 12:38–40 ESV)

Our widow, notorious for administering her poverty in a way that nourished generosity in spite of everything, is often read as the mere encouragement of similar sacrifice. She is God’s friend.

This is not wrong. It is simply partial.

More accurately, the widow is an inspiring figure in a broader instruction that ought to send a chill down the spine of every religious man who sucks the economic life out of his sisters while chattering on about God, his sworn enemy.