Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 21-22.

I haven’t written much about Jesus’ comment about the widow’s mites because it is just four verses out of this whole passage, with so much in the larger sections.  If you listen to the speakers at the fund raising dinners held by non-profit organizations you will often hear the speakers praise one or more wealthy individuals for their generosity.  That makes sense, by praising the wealthy who donate they increase the likelihood that they will donate more, and quite simply put, that small amount the poor widow gave would not provide enough for the adornments which caught the disciples attention in the next set of verses.  Yet God does not look at things that way.  After all, He does not need what we can give Him.  And while those who run non-profit organizations which rely on donations to operate need to pander to wealthy donors, we should not judge people by the amount they give, but rather by their dedication to sacrificing in order to help others.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 21-22.

When Jesus was telling His disciples about the signs of the coming destruction of the temple and the coming of the kingdom of God, He said something I found interesting.

Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.

We do not normally think of carousing and drunkenness as things we get weighed down by.  We tend to think of getting weighed down by work and family life so that we can no longer take part in drunkenness and carousing.  So, what are we supposed to be doing that we need to be careful not to get weighed down and thus fail to do?  Well, a sentence after the above quote Jesus tells us to be on watch and to pray.  So, perhaps if we come to view prayer as something which we will be too weighed down by other activities to take part in properly, we will pray more as we ought to.  We think of prayer as a solemn serious thing.  Well, it certainly is a serious thing, but perhaps we should sometimes make it less solemn.  Perhaps we should make our prayer time exciting and fun.  Certainly, our prayer time should be something to which we look forward.  And what about the other part of what Jesus tells us?  For what should we be on watch?  From the context, we should be on watch for the signs of the coming of the kingdom of God.  While the things which Jesus talked about earlier in this passage (earthquakes, famines, pestilences, fearful events, etc) are some of those signs, there is more to it than that.  Earlier in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told us that the kingdom of God was within us.  So, we should be on watch for changes within us, for the ways in which we are being transformed to be more like Christ.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 21-22.

I thought I should write something about what Jesus said concerning the destruction of the Temple, but I was not able to compose my thoughts.  Then I  thought I should write something about what Jesus said at the Last Supper, but I ran into the same problem.  I also thought I should write about Jesus’ praying on the Mount of Olives.  This time my thoughts came together.  A few days ago I wrote about how the Lord’s Prayer is a template we should use for composing our prayers.  Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives gives us insight into how we should ask God for things.  Jesus asked the Father to take the cup of coming suffering from Him, but also yielded Himself to the Father’s will.  We should ask God for those things we desire, but we should also ask that He give them to us only if it is His will to do so.  In addition to Jesus’ prayer, we also have what He said to His disciples when He found them sleeping, “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”  This offers us insight into one of the aspects of prayer which is often overlooked.  Prayer helps us avoid temptation.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 21-22

Today’s passage begins with the account of the woman giving two small coins.  Jesus tells us that she gave more than those who gave much larger sums because they gave from their surplus, while she gave everything she had.  We need to read this in light of the fact that elsewhere Jesus told the rich young man to sell all that he has and give it to the poor.  The lesson being that if our giving does not cause us to sacrifice at least some of our desires we are not giving enough.

However, there is more to this story than just that.  My brother pointed out to me a few years ago that we need to look at this story in the context of what was going on in the Gospel accounts where this is recounted.  He focused on the things which immediately preceded it, but I think what comes after is just as important.  So, what is the context?  Well, immediately before this Jesus had a confrontation with the leaders of Jerusalem over where He got the authority to drive the merchants out of the Temple. At the end of that confrontation, Jesus condemned those who publicly did showy things to gain admiration while privately cheating those with no power.  Immediately after this, He told His disciples that the Temple would soon be completely destroyed in response to their expressions of awe over the magnificence of its construction.  That section ends with a warning not to let our hearts be dulled by partying and the worries of this life.

So, the widow stands in contrast to those who spend their wealth on ostentatious display to impress others and those who spend their wealth on material pleasures, or even just attempting to secure their well-being.  I also want to point out that the placement of this account suggests that the widow was in such dire straits because she had been cheated, yet she gave anyway. As so often happens when I write these blogs, I find myself having failed to fully flesh out the thought that was in the back of my mind when I began writing.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 21-22

I did not comment on Jesus’ comments about the poor widow who gave her last two coins (OK, the passage does not actually say that, but Jesus does say that she gave all that she had) when I read it in the Gospel of Mark this year.  I felt bad about that because I have long thought it contains important lessons about wealth, but it is such a short part of the passage and I did not think it connected with the other themes in that day’s passage.

However, I did a quick search on it today to make sure that I remembered where it occurs in the Gospels and came across a commentary about it I had never heard.  The commentary pointed out that Jesus’ comment about the widow’s offering came just a short time before He prophesied the destruction of the Temple.  I am amazed that I have never heard anyone make that connection.  The collection box referred to in the verses about the widow’s offering would have been for expenses related to the upkeep of the Temple.  If the Temple was going to be destroyed in less than 40 years (and we know that it was indeed destroyed in just under 40 years after this) then these offerings were being wasted.  In this light, instead of commending the widow for her offering, Jesus was condemning the wealthy for what they were doing.  By ostentatiously making offerings which, for all intents and purposes, cost them nothing they were pressuring the poor to make offerings which they could not afford, offerings which accomplished nothing of value.

My title for today’s blog suggests that perhaps we should not spend money on worship facilities, but that is not what I believe.  Rather, I think this passage raises questions about how much we spend on those facilities.  Are we encouraging the poor to give more than they can afford so as to make our worship facility ostentatious?  Does the beauty and luxuriousness of the facility make the poor among us feel unworthy to worship God?  I don’t think the questions raised by this passage have one single answer.  We must consider them each and every time we make changes to our facilities.