The Gospel proclaimed at Sunday Mass on November 7th recounts the efforts of a poor widow who contributes two small coins to the Temple’s treasury (Mark 12:38-44). The widow makes her contribution after “many rich people put in large sums” (Mk. 12:42). This juxtaposition sets up a teaching moment for Jesus: “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” (Mk. 12:43-44).
Jesus’s words reveal to us God’s priorities. God cares more about the interior motivations of our hearts than the external results of our actions. The wealthy who give of their surplus – only after providing for themselves – exhibit a façade of generosity that masks an underlying fear that God will not provide for them if they put others before themselves. By contrast, the poor widow, in giving what we can assume were her only two coins, allowed herself to become vulnerable, so that she had to depend on the generosity of others and of God.
Wealth does not necessarily have to be material or financial. Wealth can come in the form of knowledge, resources, time, gifts, and experiences. As human beings, we have a natural tendency to want to give from our areas of wealth. We want to share things that we know a lot about, we are eager to give of our time when we have a lot of it, and we invite others into experiences that we feel certain about. But there is a natural hesitancy surrounding areas that are all too unfamiliar – areas that reveal our weakness, our need for others, and our need for God.
I had a professor in graduate school who would encourage all of her students to participate in class discussion, even those who may have had only “half-baked thoughts.” This encouragement helped many students gain confidence in sharing their ideas and questions, even when they weren’t fully formed. These ideas and questions prompted other students to share their own thoughts. The conversation that resulted was a unifying experience: As a class, we were able to help one another seek and understand truth.
So often, we feel that we need to have things incredibly prepared and put together before offering them to others. Preparation is a good and necessary thing. However, it becomes dangerous when it convinces us that our success in life depends entirely upon our own efforts, on our own wealth. When we rely on ourselves so much that we disconnect ourselves from others, and most tragically from God, we end up with the most devastating form of wealth – wealth of pride that renders us unable to receive love, assistance, and mercy from others.
St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke of a poverty that, in her opinion, was worse than material poverty: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty – it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
What kind of wealth is hiding your own hunger – for connection, for acceptance, for love, for God? Take some time to focus on your own poverty and allow others into it, and you might find that in doing so, you become rich in the areas that matter most – relationship and communion with God and God’s people.
