Two Small Coins

Clink. Clink. Two tiny coins, so light you could barely feel them in your hand, drop into a collection chest. Nobody looks up. Nobody, except one man sitting quietly nearby.

It is the last week of Jesus' life, and he is teaching in the temple in Jerusalem. The courts are packed with pilgrims who have come for Passover. Jesus has just warned the crowd about certain teachers of the law. They love to walk around in long robes, he says, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplace. They love the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts. They make long prayers for show. And they devour widows' houses. They will receive the greater condemnation. Then Jesus sits down, opposite the place where the offerings are given.

From where he sits, Jesus can see the collection chests, and he watches the people putting in their money. It is quite a show. Many rich people come by and throw in large amounts. Perhaps the coins make a satisfying rattle as they pour in. Perhaps people nearby notice and nod approvingly. These are generous gifts, and the temple needs them. Jesus doesn't say a word against any of them. He just keeps watching.

Then a woman comes forward. Mark tells us two things about her. She is a widow, and she is poor. In that world a widow often had no one to provide for her, and many lived on the very edge of hunger. She is easy to miss in the crowd. She reaches the chest and drops in two small copper coins, the smallest coins anyone used. Mark says the two together made a quadrans, a Roman coin worth next to nothing. A day's wage was worth sixty-four of those little quadrans coins. And then she turns and walks away.

Jesus calls his disciples over. He wants them to see what he has seen. “Truly I tell you,” he says, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others who are giving to the treasury.” The disciples must have looked puzzled. More? Two little coins, more than all those handfuls of silver? Jesus explains. “They all gave out of their abundance. They had plenty left over. But she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Jesus measures giving in a different way. The rich gave what they could easily spare. The widow gave what she could not spare at all. She trusted God with everything, right down to her last coin. Notice too that Jesus tells this straight after warning about those who devour widows' houses. He sees the people who are overlooked, and the people who take advantage of them. The crowd saw only two tiny coins. Jesus saw a whole life laid in God's hands.

Where did people put their offerings? The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish teaching written down around the year 200, describes thirteen collection chests in the temple, each shaped like a trumpet, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, labelled for different kinds of gifts. The coins the widow gave were called lepta, the smallest bronze coins in circulation. Mark explains their value by naming a Roman coin, the quadrans, which may suggest he was writing for readers who knew Roman money better than the coins of Judea.

Two Small Coins. You'll find it in Mark chapter 12, verses 41 to 44. Jesus wasn't counting how much went in. He was counting how much was held back. So here's the question to carry with you. What would it look like for you to trust God with everything?