An unnamed, lonely, widowed, poor woman is the last character Jesus encounters in Mark’s gospel, the humblest teacher. Jesus has always shown a particular fondness for single women. They belong to the biblical triad of the defenseless: widows, orphans, and strangers.
God always intervenes and stands up for them: “They are mine!”
They teach without words or titles, wise in tears and courage, and if you listened once to the lesson of her heart, you would lecture the savvy.
Sitting in the offering room, something catches Jesus’s attention: his gaze has become as piercing and sharp as the prophets, as one who loves and cares for life in all its details.
Jesus sees a tiny gesture in which God’s spark is concealed, the almighty scintillating in the detail of two pennies.
The widow threw away all she had, including everything she could’ve eaten; she preferred this method because she could not always commit to giving it all to her Lord.
God’s scales do not weigh quantity but heart, and she spends herself entirely in her relationship with God.
We rue and lament that we are not even close to holiness, but surely you can pick what seems like your two pennies in your life.
That woman has put a lot of heart and the whole heritage of her life into the world’s veins. All this circulates in the universe as mild and mighty energy; every tiny and significant human acts as two small coins that open God’s heart.