Strange Accounting

When I was growing up, my uncle helped teach me the value of money. He would put a coin in the palm of his hand so that when I reached out to shake it, I would find myself a few cents richer. Sometimes it was a couple dimes, sometimes a quarter. I soon began to learn the denominations of currency – a quarter is worth more than a dime, a dime more than a nickel, etc. Nowadays I myself am an uncle, but it’s a different era, and I’m not sure this same game would work with my nephew. He’s more likely to play with a credit card than with coins. 

Learning the value of money is an important life skill for all of us. Some lessons we learn at a young age: a whole stack of green bills with the face of George Washington are worth less than a single green bill with the face of Benjamin Franklin. Other lessons require more maturity: a compound interest rate is much different than a simple interest rate. Good teachers, and good examples, go a long way in helping us understand the things of this world.

Though he owned little to nothing himself, Jesus clearly understood the importance of money. He talks about it a lot in the Gospels; but he does so often in surprising ways. There’s the parable of the generous landowner, for example, who pays those who had worked for only an hour in his vineyard the same full daily wage as those who had labored all day. That’s kind of strange. In another place, he says that for the one who has, more will be given, and that the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Again, that doesn’t make a lot of sense according to our thinking about money.

Today’s Gospel provides another example of Jesus’s strange way of accounting. He and his disciples observe the poor widow at the treasury who puts in two coins worth a few cents. And yet, he says that she has contributed more than anyone else. What? This seems demonstrably false. The scribes have contributed much larger sums, certainly amounts larger than a few cents. How could one possibly say that the widow has contributed more than the rest? 

Of course, we know what Jesus is referring to – there is a kind of accounting that is much more important than mere dollars and cents. For example, one can be generous in two ways. The first is by giving a lot because one has a lot. A philanthropist may make a generous donation to a foundation or a university; but the value of his gift, while a lot in terms of dollars and cents, is tempered in the measure of generosity, since it is one he can well afford. Compare that kind of giving to that of a family of modest means who helps another family to pay its medical expenses, or who sponsors a child to go to Catholic school, or who contributes to the annual church campaign. True generosity is to give more than what one can – or, put another way, to give even when one cannot really afford to do so.

Jesus’s example of the poor widow in the Gospel is intended to remind us that God sees the value of our giving not so much in terms of dollars and cents, but according to what we have been given. As we heard a few weeks ago, riches can be an impediment to the kingdom of God: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. We all should learn the value of money – but not as an end in itself but rather as a means to provide for those for whom we are responsible, including the poor and needy. The truly generous person remembers that every gift has its origin in God, and so our gifts are not truly our own, but only entrusted to us to be used for his purposes. 

The Widow's Mite (1890) by William Teulon Blandford Fletcher

Today’s Gospel clearly has implications for how we view money and possessions, but we might consider what else it can teach us about how we “spend” things that we “possess”. If the widow’s coins might be thought of not as currency, but as grace – if we think in terms of a generosity of spirit, rather than of purse – what might we learn?

Think about all of the spiritual things we know that our world needs more of – indeed, that we ourselves need more of: humility, patience, forgiveness, honesty, empathy, charity of spirit, love. We tend to operate as if we can give or show these spiritual gifts to others only when we have them in abundance ourselves. But remember that, in Jesus’s way of accounting, true generosity is to give even when we do not have much to give – to give not from abundance but from our own poverty. The Temple scribes gave because they wanted honor from others; they sought to use their resources to win favor, both of God and of other people. But spiritual gifts are like material ones: they have their origin in God, not in us. The widow in the Gospel trusted that God would provide for what she did not have.

What if we did the same? What if we sought to be patient even when we are running low on patience, or if we sought to express concern and consolation to another even we are feeling anxious ourselves? What if we sought to be empathetic even when we find ourselves feeling critical, or to forgive even if we don’t feel very forgiving? What if we sought to embrace Jesus’s strange way of accounting – believing that God rewards those who give from their own poverty, and that he cannot be outdone in generosity?

Friends, we each need good teachers and good examples of how to regard the things of this world. But we need the same for the qualities of the spirit as well, and we can be those teachers, those examples to a world so clearly in need of spiritual gifts. Jesus reminds us today that the most important thing we possess is our identity in him and the grace we have received from being in relationship with him. God’s way of accounting may seem strange to us, but that is because it is rooted in his goodness and in his compassion – he can give us the power to show generosity if we first recognize how he has been generous to us. May the Eucharist we will receive today prompt us to rely upon him and to seek always to be giving, like the widow in the Gospel, especially when we feel we have little to give. Whether it is material resources, or those spiritual gifts that we have been given, it is from God that we have received, and from him that we will receive again.