By middle-class American standards, the widow's decision is questionable.
Season after Pentecost | 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
1 Kings 17:8-16 (Psalm 146); Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44 | Semi-continuous first reading: Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 (Psalm 127)
Here's to all the people who give their last coin. Brian, my husband and the co-director of Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center, got a text message late at night. I didn't get all the details. I just know that there was an addict who was overdosing at a crack house somewhere in Atlanta. The person needed a pastor.
I’m afraid for Ruth. Boaz’s words suggest either that Ruth has already been assaulted and humiliated, or that it would have been customary for a woman in her position to expect abuse.
Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea, by Samuel L. Adams
Samuel Adams's book is important on two counts: he focuses on the once-neglected period of the Second Temple, and he asks economic questions rather than theological-spiritual ones.
The passage (Mark 12:41–44) about the poor widow who put “everything she had” in the temple treasury was among the lectionary readings a few weeks ago, and it’s a frequent text for stewardship sermons. The example of the widow’s generosity seems clear enough, and it’s part of the church’s standard repertoire about sacrificial giving. But Fergus Kerr suggests that the story is about not generosity but exploitation.
The story of the widow of Zarephath and Elijah is bracketed by two other stories that are excluded from the lectionary and are therefore never heard by many people in our congregations. Both of them concern the deviant monarchy under which the widow and her child live.