Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
March 16, 2025
Mark 12:38-44
At the beginning of worship:
The Reverend Dawna Bridgewater, an associate pastor for a large church, found herself with the task of raising money for a new roof on their sanctuary. Her first day with the assignment proved quite successful. An attorney called and told her the church had received a $65,000 bequest. A couple dropped by and confirmed their plans on giving $35,000. Another member dropped by and handed her a $100 check. What a day, $91,100 raised.
Just as she packed her bags in preparation for going home, she heard a commotion in the office lobby. A woman yelled, “Is that lady preacher in?” She stepped out into the reception and recognized immediately a woman she’d helped a few weeks earlier. She remembered giving her ten dollars for gas from the church discretionary fund. A single mother, the woman was overweight and wore dirty clothes. Her three children, ranging from age one to five, were in tow. They could all use a bath and new shoes.
Dawna assumed the woman needed more help and asked how she was doing. She was surprised by her answer. “I’m fine. I was able to sign up for food stamps and with the gas you brought me, I found a job.”
Then she shocked the pastor. “I want to thank the church for helping.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a handful of crumbled bills and laid $12 on Dawna’ s desk.
“The church doesn’t expect you to repay the gift,” Dawna said. “And we’re certainly not charging interest.”
The woman said the ten was to pay the church and the two dollars was for God, who had helped her out when she was in need. “You may have another need,” she said. “Use it.”
The next day, Reverend Bridgewater reported to the finance chairperson they now have $91,112. The chair was impressed, but not nearly as impressed as Dawna, who knew who had given the $12.[1]
Introduction to the Scriptures
As we work through the gospel of Mark, we’re coming to the end of Jesus’ public ministry. After today’s passage, Jesus spends the 13th chapter teaching the disciples about his return, which we explored back in Advent. Then, the 14th Chapter, which we’ll begin to explore next week, deals with the Passover and leads up to Jesus’ arrest.
Interestingly, Jesus began his public ministry by calling the fishermen who left everything behind.[2] He ends condemning the religious leaders of the day and contrasts them to a woman who gives everything, something Jesus will also do on the cross.
Read Mark 12:38-44.
The way Mark tells this story, it’s been a long day which we’ve explored over the last three Sundays. Earlier in the day, Jesus and the disciples hike back into Jerusalem from Bethany, where they’ve been staying. They enter the temple. We can imagine the bustling activity. Three days before the Passover, the most holy of the religious holidays, pilgrims flock to the temple.
In verses 38 and 39, Jesus speaks to the crowd for the last time. The rest of the Mark’s gospel consists of Jesus teaching the disciples, followed by his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection.[3] Here, Jesus addresses the scribes (and I’m glad I’m not wearing a robe this morning). This seems a bit odd, since Jesus just praised a scribe for being near to the kingdom of God. At least there was a good one among the bunch. The scribes taught the law, and there would be many of them around the temple during the holiday looking for patrons.
Think about how their flowing robes separated the scribes from the common people. This is always a danger those of us in the clergy face. In the Protestant tradition, we believe in the priesthood of all believers. In other words, while I have the education and have jumped through the hoops required for ordination, I’m not any different than anyone else. We all have equal access to God. Your prayers are just as good as mine.
Jesus, watching the religious authorities of his day, was taken back by some of their behavior. I’m sure Jesus would have similar feelings today. Back in the 1990s, we had a wave of Catholic priests in Boston caught preying on children. But we Protestants have also had similar problems. Just this past week there was an arrest of an evangelical megachurch pastor in Texas who served as a spiritual advisor to leading politicians.[4]
With their fancy robes, long prayers, and the likelihood they were ripping off those who could least afford it, Jesus had to say something in the first century. It’d be no different if Jesus came back today.
By the time Jesus enters the Court of the Women, he’s wearied and tired. Repeatedly, he dealt with attempts of entrapment: from the chief priests, the elders, the Sadducees, the scribes, and even the Herodians. Plumb worn out, I imagine Jesus reclining on a bench across from the treasury, with it’s 13 trumpet-like receptacles lining the opposite wall of the Court.[5]
Many who are rich enter wearing fancy clothes and drop lots of coins which ring out as they fall into the treasury. Some of the gifts are announced publicly, encouraging others to give, kind of like a how shot machine jingle when someone hits the jackpot.[6] Others are dressed modestly and drop in smaller amounts. Since this was before the advent of paper money (folding money as it used to be called), the clanging of the coins falling into the receptacles make a racket. The disciples sit beside Jesus, mystified. To them, the temple and the grounds and all that’s going on is amazing.
None of this, however, phases Jesus. That is, until a certain unnamed woman enters the court and makes her offering. Why does she grab Jesus’ attention? What makes her stand out? Could it be her clothes? But then, beggars and the poor are commonly seen in Palestine. What makes this woman stand out in a sea of humanity?
Perhaps her faith catches Jesus’ attention. Her determination as she marches up to one the 13 receptacles and drops in her offering. Instead of the constant clanging of coins made by the rich making their offerings, her gift causes just a ping or two as the lightweight coins roll into the treasury.
These are copper coins, the smallest coins in circulation, worth less than our pennies. About 7/10s of 1% of a denarii, the coin Jesus and the Pharisees and Herodians quibbled over earlier.[7]We’re told this is all she has in the world, and she gives it to the temple. She was not expected to give it all. She could have kept one of the coins. But she didn’t. What happens to her now? Mark doesn’t’ say, leaving us to ponder.
Jesus points the woman out to the disciples. I’m sure they’re not overly impressed. After all, it takes a lot of money to fund the operations of the temple. What will a mere two cent do? But Jesus points her out because of he is more concerned with the condition of our hearts than in the amount given.[8] This woman can do what the rich man, who we met in chapter 10, wasn’t able to do.[9]
The widow who appears to pass under the radar of all the religious leaders milling around in the courtyard catches Jesus’ eye. The disciples must have missed her, too, until Jesus points her out. While she remains anonymous, like all the rest who gave to the temple this day, we recall her generosity. In a way, her story reminds us that our giving is between us and God who sees and knows all. And while she gave perhaps the smallest amount this day, her gift has inspired people for 2000 years.
Furthermore, by giving all she had, she foreshadows what Jesus will do at the end of the week, when he offers up his life for us. And while Jesus never says we must follow her example of giving all; she serves an example of trust in the Lord and a reminder that all we have belongs to God.
Another thing we should grasp from this passage is that Jesus doesn’t criticize the giving of the rich. Obviously the two small coins wouldn’t do much for operating the temple. There was a need for larger gifts, and they were appreciated. But Jesus didn’t come to support the status quo of the temple, for he himself would build a new temple in the hearts of his followers, one that was not bound to a particular place on earth.[10]
Finally, in this passage, we see the importance of humility. Whatever we do for the kingdom should not be done with arrogance or pride. Throughout Mark, Jesus continually attacks false piety.[11] Such deeds, cloaked in religious trappings, upset Jesus.[12]
As our giving is between us and God, so is our faith. We shouldn’t make a big deal out of it, because our faith is ground in God’s grace, not in our doings. So, keep your faith close to your hearts, for we’re not to brag or to show off. And while Jesus didn’t say so directly, stay away from those who brag about what they’re doing for the kingdom for they may be like the scribes at the temple in the first century, full of hot air.
Instead, as you walk through life following Jesus, trust God and, like the woman at the treasury, quietly doing what you can to further God’s kingdom. As we saw last week, this involves loving God and loving our neighbors. Amen
[1] William J. Carl, Jr., “The Single Mother’s Mite,” The Living Pulpit (July-September 1997), 39. I used this story in another sermon on this passage in 1997.
[2] Mark 1:16-20. See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2024/01/14/you-catch-em-hell-clean-em-jesus-begins-his-ministry/
[3] Scholars are split over Jesus ending his ministry after the rebuke of the scribes or with the woman at the treasury. For the two sides see William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974), 441. And James R. Edwards The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 382.
[4] https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/12/robert-morris-texas-megachurch-indicted-sexual-abuse/
[5] For the setting of the treasury, see Lane, 442-443.
[6] Edwards, 381. For the link to slot machines, see Chelsey Harmon, Commentary on Mark 12:38-44. https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2024-11-04/mark-1238-44-4/
[7] Douglas R. A. Hare, Mark: Westminster Bible Companion, (Louisville, KY: WJKP, 1996), 165. The conflict over the denarius: Mark 12:13-15. See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/03/02/opposition-to-jesus-grows/
[8] Edwards, 381.
[9] Mark 10:17-22. See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2024/10/20/with-god-all-things-are-possible/
[10] See John 4:21.
[11] Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (1991, Hendrickson Publishing, 1997), 294.
[12] Hare, 164.
What a wonderful story you opened with!
I’ve known those in ministry who took great pleasure (or maybe pride?) in their status. I guess all of us, though, have at one time or another wanted to say “look at me and what I’ve done”. I don’t want to judge because it’s easy to be a hypocrite.
Thanks, and I know I have been guilty of that pride thing. I have always shunned titles, but my secretaries knew to add mine if we had a guest preacher/speaker who insisted on being referred to as Rev or Dr…