Naomi swept her house clean. She had lived here more than thirty years, but now it was to be handed over. She was a widow and could not own property.
It didn’t seem like more than six months since her husband Jonas had died. The days had been so very long, but, as she looked back, it seemed like just yesterday he had been here with her. He had taken sick and died so suddenly. All the women mourned with her, but they could not take away the sadness. So many, many nights she had burned in loneliness. She missed him so. The Lord had blessed them with a son, but he had taken a fever and died as a young man seven years ago. Naomi was alone. So very alone.
Jonas had been a good tradesman and had hidden away enough for her to live on simply—up until now. Now she was left with only two small coins. Her sister thought she was very foolish to use them to pay the temple tax. “Do you see the rich put in their gold coins?” her sister asked. “Does the temple need your money? Does it mean anything to them? You need that little bit of money to continue eating! There is no one to take care of you, Naomi! You must take care of yourself.”
But Naomi owed the tax. It was the Law. Jonas had always obeyed the Law. She must, too. The Law required the tax, and the Law required of the community to care for widows and orphans. Naomi was sure she must do what the Law required.
And so, Naomi left the house to go to the temple to pay the tax. Once she dropped the coins in the great metal funnels, she would be reduced to begging. It was the lot of widows who had no one to care for them. It was hard to imagine that tomorrow she would need to find a place on the street. But, it was the way the community interpreted the Law about widows. They were allowed to beg. People were supposed to give them coins here and there, so they could live.
The Widow’s Mite
What you just read is where prayer took me as I considered today’s brief Gospel. I imagined the story from the widow’s point of view.
Today’s Gospel is the same story we had on Sunday three weeks ago. The setting is Holy Week. Jesus is walking around Jerusalem with his disciples, giving them final instructions before their world radically changes on Holy Thursday night. One of the homilies I heard three weeks ago reflected on this Gospel passage from Judas Iscariot’s point of view. I have heard it said that Jesus’ comment about the widow’s mite was the final straw for Judas. And, indeed, just a few verses later in both Mark and Luke, he agrees to hand Jesus over to the temple leaders with their plot for his death.
At that time, I spent some time thinking of this reading from the widow’s point of view. What was she thinking? What was she feeling? What happened to her after she put the coins in the treasury?
The plight of widows without sons to care for them was dire in Jewish culture of Jesus’ time. Women could own no property. Lawyers (scribes) would find ways to legally take away any sustenance a widow had. In the Gospel of Mark three weeks ago, Jesus commented on the injustice of that.
But, what happened to this widow? The words of the popular Gospel song, El Shaddei, come to mind, “To the outcast on her knees, he’s the God who really sees.” God Himself, Jesus, saw this widow, an outcast on her knees. What did he do for her? What did he make of her generosity?
Prayer continued.
There was an Order of Widows in the early Church in Jerusalem. Their job was to pray. The Church provided for their needs. You find reference to the situation in Acts 6:1, “In those days, as the number of disciples grew, the ones who spoke Greek complained that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food, as compared with the widows of those who spoke Hebrew.” This problem led to the institution of the diaconate and the choosing of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
Did Jesus sit by the treasury and notice this widow because he needed to plant the seeds of the need to care for widows in the minds of his disciples? Did the Order of Widows in the early church come from the seeds planted into day’s Gospel? Is that how God blessed this poor widow I named Naomi? Is this one of those times God wrote straight with crooked lines?
Maybe. Blessedly, maybe. What a beautiful thing to consider!
Applications
Three weeks ago, when this story was part of the Sunday readings, there were two widows. The widow of Zarephath shared her last flour and oil with Elijah. That Sunday, as I listened to homilies and considered those two widows, what struck me was that they were both poor—and laity.
These two women were willing to share all they had as lay women without support. I, too, am a widow. I am not rich, but I have all I need and more. Where is my calling?
Pope Francis’ homily for the World Day of the Poor last Sunday speaks to me:
“We are part of a history marked by tribulation, violence, suffering and injustice, ever awaiting a liberation that never seems to arrive. Those who are most wounded, oppressed and even crushed, are the poor, the weakest links in the chain. The World Day of the Poor which we are celebrating asks us not to turn aside, not to be afraid to take a close look at the suffering of those most vulnerable….
…Let us ask: what is demanded of us as Christians in this situation? We are asked to nurture tomorrow’s hope by healing today’s pain. The two are linked: if you do not work to heal today’s pain, it will be hard to have hope for tomorrow. The hope born of the Gospel has nothing to do with a passive expectation that things may be better tomorrow, but with making God’s promise of salvation concrete today. Today and every day. Christian hope is not the naïve, even adolescent, optimism of those who hope that things may change – that won’t happen – but in the meantime go on with life; it has to do with building daily, by concrete gestures, the kingdom of love, justice, and fraternity that Jesus inaugurated.
For the text of Pope Francis’ homily…
Prayer
As we in America give You thanks this week, Lord, we ask you to bless whatever small offerings we might put in your treasury of Hope and Love. Magnify them, bless them, let them be seeds of hope for those we bless and seeds of compassion for us, for me. Help us to remember you call all of us to give what we have, what we can. You use it to care for all your people.
