Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Such radicality for the sake of God’s project is not everyone’s thing. Normally we want not “either-or” but “both-and.” In particular, people familiar with the Gospel and desiring to serve God can be deeply conflicted here. They want to be there for God, but they also want space for themselves. They want to make a place for God in their lives, but they also want to have free segments in which they decide for themselves about their lives. They want to do the will of God, but at the same time they want to live their own dreams and longings. Jesus had in mind, with the greatest clarity of understanding possible, this internal conflict that can almost tear apart especially those who are his followers. That is the reason for the next saying, which, like so many other sayings of Jesus, uses everyday experience in its argument: “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt 6:24). That is: when it is a question of God and the reign of God, there can be nothing but undivided self-surrender. This “wholeness” and “undividedness” appears again and again in Jesus’ instructions. It is connected at its root with the unconditional way of being that he demands in relationship to God. There is probably no text in the gospel tradition that shows this more vividly than Mark 12:41-44. It is worth our while to consider it more closely.

The Widow’s Sacrifice

A word in advance: the extensive temple complex in Herodian Jerusalem included the “court of the women.” There, behind the colonnades, lay a hall in which visitors to the temple could leave offerings of money for the maintenance of the sanctuary and its daily sacrifices. This hall was called the “treasury.” There one gave one’s money to priests who served in the treasury and one named the amount and the purpose of the gift. That way everyone nearby could hear what those entering the treasury were giving for the temple and its maintenance.⁵ That is the background to the logic of this text:

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44)

It makes all kinds of sense to fill in the details: Jesus is very close to the treasury and hears the sums being named and their purposes. There is a constant coming and going: Jews from the homeland and the Diaspora, old and young, men and women, poor and rich. Their classes and origins can be read in their dress and often in the way they speak as well.

A woman enters the treasury. Her clothes show that she is poor, and her apparel also shows that she is a widow. So she is living in a double kind of misery. She is not only poor; she no longer has the protection of a man. Jesus sees how she gives her gift to the priest, and he hears that she is offering two copper coins. Such a coin was the smallest unit of money there was. Jesus is touched by the event. Here is a harsh contrast: just now the rich, and here the poor! Just now silver, often amounting to large sums, and now two copper coins!

Jesus also sees the background: the rich who are not in the least pained by offering a silver shekel, and the poor widow who gives everything she has. The two copper coins would have secured her food for the next day. They were literally a necessity of life. But of this utmost necessity she gives not only half—she could, after all, have handed the priest one coin—but everything.

Jesus sees the full implications of the event. He calls his disciples together, points to the woman who is already going away, and tells them what he has seen. He not only tells the story but interprets it, and thus the little narrative reaches the point it was heading toward from the beginning. Jesus says: the widow there has given more than all the others, for the others have given only a small part of their property, but this woman has given everything, her whole living.