Making Contact

I look at giving differently now that I run a non-profit and work with the poor.

He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.' - Luke 21:1-4 

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus, who lived among the poor and relied on support from believers, saw something others might have easily missed.  He saw a widow in the act of giving up.

She was not just making an offering to help those with less.  She was offering up to God all she had to live on, a sign that her life was in His hands.

How many of us are willing to do that?

Perhaps if we were as desperate as she, we would think we have nothing to lose.  But she came to the Temple to give, rather than just waste away quietly.  She must have known it was the duty of the Temple Priests to take care of the widows and orphans, using the very treasury she contributed to for that purpose.

So she was also making a statement that only Jesus noticed.

I have nothing now.  Will you finally help me?  Or will you let me die?

When we accept the call to serve our neighbor, our hands become God's hands.  We become the ones who have the means to help those whom the world has forgotten.

The rich who put their gifts into the treasury didn't have to have any contact with those the money will help, so to them, the widow was invisible.  But Jesus saw her, and he wants us to see her.

She is the reason for the gift, and yet no one offered to help her directly.

If we truly want to help, we need to make contact.  And once we do, we not only help our neighbor, but we get to know them, and care about them.

So, the lesson is to take notice and be God's hands, serving and not just giving.

More to come...