Another Jesus saying we have received in a number of variants speaks of the same kind of unconditional attitude: “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24).3 The background of this saying could be a fixed form of discourse that is multiply attested in antiquity. That is how generals addressed their soldiers immediately before battle: whoever fights at complete risk of his own life and so supports those fighting at his side will be rescued. But any coward who flees will lose his life, because no one will help him.4 If the motif of that kind of “general’s pep talk” has made its way into Jesus’ saying we would again have evidence that Jesus was more educated and knew more of the world than many want to allow. But quite independently of that, Luke 9:24 also reveals Jesus’ radicality. Those who want to follow him have to be ready to lose their lives. That is precisely how they will save them. Obviously this saying, which Jesus addressed to others, also reflects his own attitude: he was ready to give up his life.
Luke 9:24 and its parallels are not, however, exclusively interested in the surrender of life in death. After all, human beings are also desperately engaged in “saving” their own desires and dreams, their own guiding images and plans for their lives. But these very rescue actions cause them to lose their lives—namely, the true lives that existence under the rule of God would give them. “To lose one’s life” therefore refers not only to martyrdom but in given circumstances to the surrender of one’s secure bourgeois existence for the sake of the reign of God.
Such radicality for the sake of God’s project is not everyone’s thing. Normally we want not “either-or” but “both-and.” In particular, people familiar with the Gospel and desiring to serve God can be deeply conflicted here. They want to be there for God, but they also want space for themselves. They want to make a place for God in their lives, but they also want to have free segments in which they decide for themselves about their lives. They want to do the will of God, but at the same time they want to live their own dreams and longings. Jesus had in mind, with the greatest clarity of understanding possible, this internal conflict that can almost tear apart especially those who are his followers. That is the reason for the next saying, which, like so many other sayings of Jesus, uses everyday experience in its argument: “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt 6:24). That is: when it is a question of God and the reign of God, there can be nothing but undivided self-surrender. This “wholeness” and “undividedness” appears again and again in Jesus’ instructions. It is connected at its root with the unconditional way of being that he demands in relationship to God. There is probably no text in the gospel tradition that shows this more vividly than Mark 12:41-44. It is worth our while to consider it more closely.
The Widow’s Sacrifice
A word in advance: the extensive temple complex in Herodian Jerusalem included the “court of the women.” There, behind the colonnades, lay a hall in which visitors to the temple could leave offerings of money for the maintenance of the sanctuary and its daily sacrifices. This hall was called the “treasury.” There one gave one’s money to priests who served in the treasury and one named the amount and the purpose of the gift. That way everyone nearby could hear what those entering the treasury were giving for the temple and its maintenance.5 That is the background to the logic of this text:
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44)
It makes all kinds of sense to fill in the details: Jesus is very close to the treasury and hears the sums being named and their purposes. There is a constant coming and going: Jews from the homeland and the Diaspora, old and young, men and women, poor and rich. Their classes and origins can be read in their dress and often in the way they speak as well.
A woman enters the treasury. Her clothes show that she is poor, and her apparel also shows that she is a widow. So she is living in a double kind of misery. She is not only poor; she no longer has the protection of a man. Jesus sees how she gives her gift to the priest, and he hears that she is offering two copper coins. Such a coin was the smallest unit of money there was. Jesus is touched by the event. Here is a harsh contrast: just now the rich, and here the poor! Just now silver, often amounting to large sums, and now two copper coins!
Jesus also sees the background: the rich who are not in the least pained by offering a silver shekel, and the poor widow who gives everything she has. The two copper coins would have secured her food for the next day. They were literally a necessity of life. But of this utmost necessity she gives not only half—she could, after all, have handed the priest one coin—but everything.
Jesus sees the full implications of the event. He calls his disciples together, points to the woman who is already going away, and tells them what he has seen. He not only tells the story but interprets it, and thus the little narrative reaches the point it was heading toward from the beginning. Jesus says: the widow there has given more than all the others, for the others have given only a small part of their property, but this woman has given everything, her whole living.
Obviously, the reader of Mark’s gospel is meant to see the widow’s sacrifice against the background of the reign of God proclaimed by Jesus. The reign of God—that means that God turns to human beings totally and without any reservation in order to bring divine abundance to the world. This self-gift of God is a historical event: it is happening now, in Israel and in the new community life Jesus is creating. Therefore the reign of God attracts those who are able to experience God’s overflowing self-gift, so that they in turn give everything they have: their whole heart, their whole existence. The poor widow who gave her two copper coins becomes a sign, a symbol of this “totality.”
Mark has deliberately located this scene with the widow before the eschatological discourse (Mark 13) and the beginning of the passion account (Mark 14:1). The widow’s gift already reflects for him the “wholeness” of Jesus’ gift of his life. But the widow’s deed also illustrates for him the scriptural saying Jesus had quoted shortly before: “you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The widow gave everything she had. She loved God with her entire “wealth.”
Of course, objections immediately arise: what will the woman have to eat the next day if she has given everything away? Is this not a horrid God who demands such a “totality”?—a God who devours people totally?—a God who demands human sacrifice?—a God who even robs the poor of their last dollar and does not begrudge the lucky their good fortune?
Precisely at this point it is evident that the story of the widow’s offering, like all the stories in the Bible, positively forces on us the question of the “place” of the reign of God. It is not a nebulous thing that lies in the future or is deeply hidden in the human soul. Rather, it demands a concrete “space,” and that space has social dimensions (see chap. 3 above). The reign of God develops its power where people live the new common life established by God and endow that common life with everything they have. Then the poor widow is no longer alone. Then there are many who offer her protection, who share their meals with her, who comfort her in her suffering. In this common life given by God, moreover, people are not totally devoured and deprived of their freedom but instead find their freedom, good fortune, and happiness precisely there.