The Mighty Mite
Introduction
The keen eye of Jesus
One day Jesus
is sitting opposite the treasury, and the apostles are nearby watching the rich
tossing in their huge donations. But Jesus has his eye peeled upon a poor
little widow dropping in her two pennies. History has always praised the widow for her little gift. And it has always
praised every other gift after hers, that looks like her gift.
But praised also be the keen eye of
Jesus; the eye that saw what the others did not see. Calling over to the
apostles, he says, "Come here, I want you to see something. Feast
your eyes on this widow and her mighty mite. I tell you she gave more than
all the others put together" (Mk
12:41-44). Praised be the eye of Jesus, and ever other eye like his, that is
attuned to see the great things that are often wrapped up in small
packages. St. Paul says in Philippians
2:5, “Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus." “Have this eye in
you which was in Christ Jesus"
-- this eye which was attuned to
see how mighty was the widow’s mite.
I like the story of
this widow tossing her mite into the temple treasury. It’s a kind of mite in itself: simple, swift, ever so brief but
oh so complete. I like the story
also for another reason. One hundred and fifty years ago when I was pastoring
at St. Benedict the Moor Church on State Street, we would always pass a
tin cup at the community meal, because
really there is no meal that’s free. One day someone tossed in the strangest
littlest coin. Ancient it was. I am always grateful for my Latin and Greek
background received from my Capuchin professors who loved the classical
languages and made us loved them too. I
could read the Greek writing on the coin: "Tiberiou Kaisarou," "Tiberius Caesar!"
I sent the coin in for identification and appraisal. Back came
the answer: "It’s a widow's
mite!" Perhaps some guy "lifted" the coin from somebody’s
collection, and now it had become a beggar’s mite tossed into the State
Street Treasury, and the mite lives
on. But there is a sequel to the story:
the mite was so small that, to my great disappointment, I lost it. Or if I didn’t lose it, then
perhaps I might have lent it out to some priest confrere of mine for use in his homily. (You know how it goes:
you lend things out and they never come back, or you forget to whom you lent.)
Maybe this confrere simply never
returned it but added it to his own collection. If so, the once-lifted coin is now twice-lifted, and
again the mite lives on.
Mighty gifts wrapped up in
mites
One day the Lord commanded the prophet Elijah to go outside and stand on the
mountain and there he would experience the Lord passing by. A howling wind came up but the Lord
was not in the wind. A thundering
earthquake shattered the silence but the Lord was not in the
earthquake. Then a roaring fire
swept through the place but the Lord
was not in the fire. Finally a tiny
whisper could be heard, and the Lord was in it. And Elijah hid his face (1
Kings 19:9,11-13). That day in the temple near the treasury when the Lord’s
keen eye caught sight of the widow casting in her two pennies, -- that day the Lord was in the whisper,
and the whisper was a tiny widow.
I’ve mentioned my friend who was battling ovarian cancer. In her last
Christmas letter she wrote that was going to enter a hospice program after the
Christmas holidays, for she could no longer
take the therapy. In March she passed through hospice into
eternal life. In her last Easter card she wrote: “I like spring a lot.
It’s the time of the year when so many things are giving the slightest inkling,
the smallest sign, that perhaps things aren't really what they appear to be; trees aren't
really dead and barren. Seeds aren't really lifeless pebbles.” She continues, “There is even a Lady Cardinal taking twigs,
one at a time, to a secret place in a fir tree. It's the merest whisper of a
promise of things to come." The Lord is in the whisper, and the whisper
sometimes is a Cardinal.
One spring a Robin nested on the elbow of a down-spout outside
my kitchen window. I watched her go
through all her "appointed rounds."
In conformity with an unalterable blueprint, she built her nest. In
blind obedience to a mandate within she
brought her sacred eggs to term, and with unwavering fidelity she kept uninterrupted vigil over her
chicks. With unquestioning devotion she sheltered them against snow and rain,
and with spontaneous steadfastness she nourished them. I stood in awe at those
built-in "appointed rounds” of hers. I stood in awe at her standards of
excellence, at her miracle of fidelity and obedience unfolding before me. And
then one day, led by the eternal ordinance that governs growth and love, she
let go of her chicks. They flew away.
The nest was empty and I felt lonely. The Lord is in the whisper, and
the whisper sometimes is a Robin.
The one thousand
biographers of St Francis of Assisi never fail to relate the occasion
when he was in his father's shop, selling and buying costly velvets and fine
embroideries. Just as a prominent merchant of the town entered the shop, there
entered also a beggar who perhaps was somewhat rudely seeking alms. Francis did
what we all tend to do in such a situation: he took care of the "nice
guy" with good manners first. But after a while, realizing that the
mendicant had quietly slipped away as unworthy of attention, Francis, seized
with remorse, flew out of his father's shop,
went racing across the piazza, "like an arrow from the bow"
(Chesterton's St. Francis).
Searching the narrow and twisting streets of Assisi, he finally came
upon the beggar, and heaped upon the
astonished man a healthy sum of hiis father’s money. The Lord is in the
whisper, and the whisper sometimes is
even a rude beggar.
Remember the true story
about the taxi cab driver, written marvelously by the cabbie himself? It’s 2:30
in the morning. He is responding to a call. When he gets to the place, there’s
an old lady waiting. She has a small suitcase in hand. He writes:
When we got
into the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, “Could you drive through
downtown?” “It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly. “Oh, I don’t mind,”
she answered. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.” I looked into the rear mirror. Her eyes
were glistening. “I Don’t have any family left,” she
continued. The doctor says I don’t have very long.” I quickly reached over and
shut the meter off. For the next two
hours, we drove through the city visiting the spots that contained all her past memories.
(His bottom
line:) As I look back now, I do not think that I have done anything more
important in my whole life. We are
conditioned to think that our lives
revolve around great events.
They don’t. For the most part they revolve around little events in which
something very important, very meaningful is wrapped up. (The Lord is in the whisper, and the whisper
sometimes is a tiny but mighty moment.)
//Whatever helps to make the task of believing a little less
difficult for us, whatever eases
our doubts about whether God is or is
not, or whether we do really live on; whatever seems to bring us to the edges of our human existence
and point to the beyond and the beckoning -- all that we do not find in the
thundering or the roaring or the
howling of life. We find it in the whispers of life. //Whatever softens the blows of life and lifts our drooping spirits, whatever fills us
with such great joy and such intense love that we find ourselves
demanding an eternal home for it (we
refuse to let it die or disappear forever) - all that we do not find in the thundering
or the roaring or the howling of life.
We find it in the whispers of life. //Whatever helps us, in the midst of the
gloom of human existence, to shout a victorious “yes” that life does
have meaning and “yes” it is worthwhile living, -- all that we do not find in the thundering
or the roaring or the howling of life.
We find it in the whispers of life.
Because
whispers are whispers, they demand fine-tuning of our ears and eyes. But
fine-tuning is an endangered species
among us. In a culture like ours how is it possible to be finely-tuned? In a culture that celebrates the crude and
rude, the gross and coarse, how can we be finely-tuned to a Lady Cardinal or a
nesting Robin? In a culture that celebrates youth and
wealth, how is it possible to be attuned to old widows and poor beggars. In a
culture that celebrates the "boom-box," how can we be finely-attuned
to the silence that harbors and nourishes the whispers of life?
We need to turn down the noise and reduce the speed of life, so
that we don’t rush right by the thunderous messages wrapped up in the whispers.
We need to turn our meters off, and give ourselves generously to the tiny but
mighty moments before us, lest we miss the Lord passing by. We need to correct
the poor tuning in our lives that keeps ours meters going, and has us rushing right by what could be, to quote
the cabbie, “the most important and
the most meaningful thing I’ve ever
done in my whole life.”
Conclusion
(fine-tuning)
The bottom life here is this: At the end of the day, when we
have rushed right by the widow, the beggar, the Cardinal, the Robin, the little
old lady making her way towards the
end, the loss is ours. At the end of the day, it is life's meaning
that we have rushed by, and have
lost. For it is in the whispers of life
that we find the meaning of life.
We've asked it a thousand times in our lives, and we'll keep asking it right to the very end: What
in the world is it all about? It's called "Our Search for Meaning."
That meaning the Lord does not scream into our ears. The Lord whispers the meaning of life to us, and
only those whose ears are finely-tuned
hear it.