Reflections on the readings for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (November 7, 2021): 1 KGS 17:10-16; PS 146:7,8-9,9-10; HEB 9:24-28; MK 12:38-44
MISSIO offers “Preaching Mission,” as a homily help, providing connections to mission from the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
Christ wants us to follow Him in faith, hope and love and to offer ourselves to Him, whatever the price.
In the Gospel reading for today, we listen as Jesus points out to the crowd around Him just how the scribes fail to either help the people of God or to show them good example. Instead, they make a point of demanding to be noticed, deferred to, and honored wherever they go. They pray, but harm rather than help those in need such as widows. And Christ adds that they will be dealt with very harshly. Then He sits down where He can see the treasury of the Temple and all who go there to make a donation. Not surprisingly, rich people give a great deal. Then, our Lord sees a poor widow deposit two small coins. “Calling His disciples to Himself, He said to them, ‘Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood’” (Mark 12:43-44). Jesus understood what His disciples and all around Him did not: that the widow had trusted herself entirely to God’s mercy and had demonstrated a generosity that would probably never have occurred to the wealthy donors who gave so much more. The rich, like the scribes, have already been rewarded by the approval of those around them.
The widow has given what amounts to a few cents. The people with Jesus may have barely noticed her. Yet He sees her humble, devout heart and knows exactly what that gift cost her – everything she had. At least, everything by human standards. And she offered it willingly as an act of worship and service to God. In contrast with those who gave from their “surplus,” she trusted the Almighty to provide for her in whatever way He saw fit. She showed herself as a true child of God. We do not know, of course, what Jesus’ followers make of this incident. Yet, we do know that the Apostles and others had given up a great deal to become His disciples. He asks the same today. Christ wants us to follow Him in faith, hope and love and to offer ourselves to Him, whatever the price.