The Christian church has always depended on the generosity of believers to survive and fulfill its mission of proclaiming Christ to the world. The same was and remains true for the Jewish community. By the grace of God there have always been some among the faithful who are able and willing to be very generous. Truth be told, most faith communities would not have survived without such generosity. However, there have also been those who have made a show of how generous they are.
In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus talks about those who give much, but insist that everyone know how generous they are, and seem to expect the admiration and the respect of others for what they have done. At best Jesus found such behavior shallow. Instead, Jesus pointed to a poor widow who, walking past the temple at that moment, drops her small coin into the offering box. Jesus commends that her small gift is truly generous because it is a genuine sharing of all that she has, compared to those whose gifts, though large, represented only a small part of their great wealth.
Jesus does not measure our gifts to see if they are properly proportioned to our wealth. However, Jesus does ask that we are generous using part of what we have been blessed with to be a blessing to others.
Thanks be to God.
Pastor Bill