Homily for the
32d Sunday of Ordinary
Time
Nov. 10, 2024
Mark 12: 38-44
Villa Maria, Bronx [with some adapting]
St. Francis Xavier,
Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption,
Bronx
“From her poverty, she has contributed
all she had, her whole livelihood” (Mark 12: 44).
Last Sunday, Jesus taught us the 2 great commandments, love of God and of neighbor (Mark 12:38-34). The poor widow who put her 2 little bronze coins—the origin of our saying to “put in your 2-cents worth”—into the temple treasury showed her love for God.
These funds were for the upkeep of God’s temple. She put in “her whole livelihood,” meaning that she may have gone without food that day, what little she had to live on—like the poor widow of Zarephath, who was generous with the prophet Elijah and so earned God’s protection (1 Kgs 17:10-16). Both widows have put all their trust in God; their lives are in his hands.
The immediate gospel passage contrasts
the widow’s sacrifice with the donations of the rich. The rich may be generous—which is
praiseworthy—but it doesn’t really cost them; they won’t be hungry on that
account.
The 1st part of our gospel today offers
a further contrast with the poor widow.
We can suppose that no one but Jesus took any notice of her, while the
rich—it’s implied—made a show of their generosity. That showiness is pointed to in that 1st part
of the text, the showiness of the scribes who parade their religiosity, their
learning, and their dignity (12:38-40) and who sometimes take advantage of the
vulnerable.
The scribes were men of learning,
especially regarding Torah and Jewish tradition. In a largely illiterate society, they also
served as record keepers. It’s
understandable that people would defer to them.
Tho the Gospels often present them as opponents of Jesus, they weren’t
all opposed. E.g., just last week Jesus
praised the scribe who asked him about the greatest commandment and “answered
with understanding” (12:34).
But Jesus has no patience for those who
seek only their own advantage, like Pope Francis having no patience with
clerical careerists, whose thoughts aren’t to serve the people of God but to rise
in the church ranks. We recall the
gospel of 3 Sundays back, when James and John asked Jesus to give them the most
advantageous positions in his kingdom, and the other 10 apostles were
“indignant” with them. Jesus chewed them
all out: lording it over others is how
the pagans act, “but it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you
will be your servant.” His followers
must be like him: “The Son of Man didn’t
come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (10:35-45).
by James Tissot
In fact, giving her life is what the
poor widow has done with her 2 cents:
“she contributed her whole livelihood.”
Beyond the trust she’s placed in God, the text can also mean that “she
has given her very life” to God, observes Salesian scripture scholar Fr. Frank
Moloney. He expands on that: Jesus’ followers were called away from their
livelihoods as fishermen, tax collectors, and other occupations not revealed in
the Gospels, and from their human associations, and were challenged to give
themselves even “unto death for the sake of Jesus and the gospel.”[1] Jesus told James and John they’d drink the
same cup that he’d drink and be baptized with the same baptism—that is, the cup
of suffering and death for the sake of the Gospel (10:39). Now, Fr. Moloney says, “the widow gives her
whole life and becomes a model for the disciples of Jesus,”[2]
who in the 1st century had to risk their reputations and their lives to follow
him and as many Christians do today in countries like Nigeria, India, and
China.
Which means the widow is a model for
us. Jesus, of course, isn’t asking us just
to put money into a collection. He wants
our lives—given in service to God and our neighbor. He wants us to give him time in prayer and
reading of the Scriptures. He wants us
to find ways to serve, to be helpful, to our parish, to the young, to the
elderly, to the sick, to anyone around us who is in some kind of need. He wants us to bring our Christian life into
our public lives; in the words of today’s responsorial psalm, to “secure justice
for the oppressed and food for the hungry, to protect strangers” (Ps 146:7,9). “Strangers” means migrants, refugees,
asylum-seekers, as the widow of Zarephath received Elijah, a refugee fleeing
for his life from the rulers of Israel; as the Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable
cared for an anonymous victim of a highway robbery; as Jesus himself has given
his life to ransom us from our sins and the punishment they merit—except, of
course, we’re not strangers to Jesus but his beloved sisters and brothers; as
our 2d reading today said, “Christ offered his blood once to take away the sins
of many, … to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him” (Heb 9:28).
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