In Luke 21:1-4 we find a story I’ve been hearing all my life, The Widow’s Offering, and it wasn’t until now that this story really disturbed me. I grew up in Sunday School hearing this story and being told that the right thing to do is, like the widow, give all I have to God.
But now as I read, I find that I have more questions than answers. What happened to the widow after she gave the last of her money away? We use her as an example, and in that way kind of exalt her, but Jesus didn’t say to his disciples that they should do the same thing. Is she an example we should follow? Though Jesus does say that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 14:24-25), he seems to talk more about leaving behind relationships than he does about leaving behind possessions (at least in my brief scan of the book of Luke). He just told them the truth that she gave much more, percentage-wise, than the rest of the people. He also doesn’t say that she is blessed or exalted for what she did. She was just observed.
What happened after? Was she okay? Did she survive? God says his eye is on the sparrow, and that we are worth more to him than a bird, but does he keep his eye on the sparrow and just watch it fall out of the sky?
I want this story to be fair. I want her to be rewarded for what she gave. I want her to have been provided for for the rest of her life. But the truth is we don’t know what happened to her.
So why is this in the Bible? Is it an observation or an object lesson? And why? Why does the woman have to be either of those things? Can’t she simply be a woman? We want stories to have meaning, and that meaning gives the stories significance. Can this story be significant simply because this woman lived? It’s hard for me to be okay with that. I think my spirit knows and agrees with the church answers to the questions in this post, but my humanity is having a hard time accepting them.
Notes
-
thebridgechicago liked this
-
seezit liked this
-
hajna posted this
