Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Generosity and Justice (Mark 12:38-44)

Generosity and Justice (Mark 12:38-44)

Last updated on: June 15, 2026 at 7:59 am by James F. McGrath

0 Comments

Generosity and Justice (Mark 12:38-44) 2026-06-15T07:59:15-04:00 James F. McGrath

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Generosity and Justice: Mark 12:38-44

Sermon delivered at the Hoover Service, Lakeside Chautauqua, Sunday June 14th, 2026

As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

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.”

Those of us who have been reading the scriptures for decades know that they continue to surprise us, even to shock us. Even a passage we know can grab our attention when we read it in a different translation.

That’s how I felt one Sunday morning when this text was put up on the screen. There it said in big font for all to read and say Amen to, “Watch out for the religion scholars.”

Sheesh!

That’s the paraphrase known as The Message and while it takes liberties, it can be striking in positive ways. It’s good to periodically find ways to hear the scriptures speaking to and about us. We tend to read it knowing who the positive characters are and who the negative ones are, and to assume that we’re the good guys in the story. While there’s a lot that I could critique about this specific choice of how to paraphrase the meaning of the text, it is a good thing to hear the text afresh as challenging you and your profession. It was certainly thought provoking for me!

The “religion scholars” in The Message are called “scribes” or “teachers of the Law” in most other translations. Jesus often disagreed with professional scribes, since most of them aligned with other groups such as the Pharisees. It is worth noting that this is the school of thought that Jesus engaged with and commented on most. Some readers assume that means Jesus disagreed with the Pharisees more than with any other group. In fact, the opposite is the case. Think about it. Which two are more likely to get in an argument on any given day? A Baptist and a Buddhist, or an American Baptist and a Southern Baptist? Will it more likely be a Muslim and a Methodist, or a Methodist and a Presbyterian? We get into more regular and more heated conflict with those who are most similar to us, and yet who disagree with us on a few matters that we consider to be really important.

Let’s keep that in mind as we see what Jesus criticizes these scribes for, so that we avoid turning them into cardboard cutout villains, and in the process risk failing to hear how Jesus’ words might be critical of what we ourselves do.

On the one hand, the scribes liked to be viewed with respect, and to be honored. If we’re fair, few of us want to be dishonored or ignored. While this falls afoul of Jesus’ teaching on humility and not elevating ourselves, the heart of the issue isn’t just their desire to be respected. They want to be viewed as authorities and honored in the context of religious communities, yet they are engaging in wrongdoing. Jesus singles out one matter among many. He says they devour widows’ houses.

How does someone devour someone else’s house? We’re not to envisage a gingerbread house (or the house of cheese that Monica and another chef imagine in an episode of Friends, if that’s more helpful). The devouring is metaphorical. They are consuming it, and depriving the widow of it. But how?

The vulnerability of widows was not a new issue. Let’s listen to Isaiah 10:1-4:

Woe to those who make iniquitous decrees,
who write oppressive statutes,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
to make widows their spoil
and to plunder orphans!
What will you do on the day of punishment,
in the calamity that will come from far away?
To whom will you flee for help,
and where will you leave your wealth,
so as not to crouch among the prisoners
or fall among the slain?
For all this his anger has not turned away;
his hand is stretched out still.

Here we get important clues. There are laws, but they are harming the needy. The poor are being made poorer, not through illegal means but through laws that are unjust.

Scribes were not lawyers in the modern sense, but they were experts in the Law. We can imagine a widow who, as a result of her husband dying, is now at risk of losing her home. It could be because of debt. It could be because a male relative of the husband now has the most claim on the property. What do you do in such a circumstance? You turn to a legal expert. Some of them probably were happy to take the little money a widow had, promising to look for a loophole in the law that would allow the widow to keep her property. Once she ran out of money, they’d reveal what they had known to be the case all along. There was no loophole. Now the grieving woman will lose her house poorer than she was when her husband died.

New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado offered another suggestion, related to the fact that legal experts were not supposed to charge for this service. He writes:

The reference to the scribe robbing a widow of her home (v. 40) probably has to do with a scribe sponging off devout people who felt an obligation to support a scribe as a representative of God’s law. Both then and now there are examples of Jewish and Christian religious leaders who unscrupulously solicit support from simple, vulnerable people who are led to believe that they are supporting the very work of God but can ill afford to give as heavily as they are solicited to do.[1]

Likewise Edward Schnabel writes:

The house of a widow would often be her entire inheritance. The verb devour is a vivid description of the scribes’ uncaring treatment of widows, appropriating their houses in an unethical manner. This could happen through charging excessive legal fees when they worked as probate lawyers, deliberate mismanagement of a widow’s estate of which they had been made trustees, taking their houses as pledges for unpayable debts, prompting them to support the temple with resources they could not really afford, or exploiting their hospitality and trust.[2]

All of these scenarios certainly occurred. In each of these cases, the scribes have devoured the homes of widows.

Jesus offers his warning about scribes and widows right before a story about a poor widow. Yet we often read that latter story without the introduction, and that shapes how we understand it. Notice how the commentaries I quoted point out that widows felt pressured to support the temple with resources they could scarcely afford. Surely that is relevant to the story of a poor widow doing precisely that.

This doesn’t mean it isn’t an example of generosity. It certainly is. But there is much more to it than that. That’s why I called this sermon “Generosity and Justice.” On the one hand, Jesus explicitly says that the woman gave more generously than the wealthy, when judged in proportion to their means. On the other hand, the passage as a whole indicates that there is a problem when someone who is in dire straits, rather than receiving the help they desperately need, feels obligated to give away even the little that they have.

Rev. Tawnya Denise Anderson wrote in an article in The Christian Century, “By lifting up the widow’s actions, Jesus is not simply heaping praise on her for her generosity; he’s indicting the system that keeps her poor. He’s asking us to face our greed. Everyone must ask themselves some tough questions. Is this right? Why is she down to only two coins of the lowest possible denomination? How did she get here, and did we let it happen?” Anderson then quotes Bryan Stevenson, “The opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice.” Stevenson is the director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and his book Just Mercy drew attention to unfair systems and the unequal harm they inflict on human lives. Brazilian archbishop Hélder Câmara put it this way: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

It isn’t an either/or situation. We can appreciate generosity, and yet avoid treating it as a sufficient response to injustice. We can read a heartwarming story about a local community coming together to purchase a wheelchair for a local poor person with impaired mobility, and also believe that the best way to meet such needs is by providing healthcare in ways that do not depend on being wealthy, or burden those in the community around us who may also be struggling to make ends meet.

The two threads of generosity and justice are there throughout the Bible. They are there in the words of Jesus that are so often misinterpreted, “The poor you will always have with you.” Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 15:11, which says in full, “There will always be some Israelites who are poor and needy. That’s why I am commanding you to be generous with them” (CEV). The point is not that poverty cannot be alleviated, but that there will be other opportunities to address the issue, which does not detract from the appropriateness of seizing what is not merely a once in a lifetime opportunity, but a once in history opportunity.

Those words are in the context of a law about the sabbatical year. Leviticus 25 contains what is known as the law of the jubilee year. The same Bible and the same legal code, and in some cases the very same passage that commands generosity did not leave matters at that, but also instituted a system aimed at justice.

Here’s what Deuteronomy 15 says:

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

Leviticus 25:8-13 says:

“You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the Day of Atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

“In this year of Jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property…

The laws about the sabbath and jubilee years, in order to be understood, must be placed within the context of ancient society and how wealth and poverty, accumulation of property and loss, and how they affected people across generations. Most people living in the ancient world were farmers. Life was predominantly agrarian. Your livelihood, your very survival, depended on the land and managing to get the land to yield crops sufficient to feed your family and plant seeds that you hope will grow into next year’s supply of food. What happened when there was a famine? What happened when there was drought? What happened when locusts came through? These and so many other things could go wrong, and did go wrong periodically. What could a subsistence farmer do in these circumstances?

There was only one thing you could do: borrow money in order to pay for the seeds you needed to plant next year’s crop. What could you put as collateral? The only thing you had of value sufficient to serve as collateral for such a loan, namely your land itself.

You borrowed money, planted again, and lived in hope. A bountiful harvest, and you and your family would be fine. You’d survive this crisis, and remember how bad things got that one year, while getting on with your lives. Alas, more often than not, that was not the way things turned out. Drought quite often lasted more than one year. Even if it didn’t, for someone who grew at best a little bit more than the bare minimum they needed for themselves and their family to survive, growing that much food and then having enough leftover to pay back your debt in full would take a miracle. For the vast majority of people who lived through this all too common experience, the miracle didn’t happen.

So what would happen next? You would lose what you would put up as collateral, namely your land. The person to whom you were indebted was now the landowner, and in most cases they would keep you on as tenant farmers, working the land that used to be yours for them. Now you had a new challenge. Now you had to grow enough to feed your family, and also pay rent to the new owner of your land. As has already become clear, that was very very unlikely to happen. If you could not pay your rent, you might sell one of your children into slavery and make do for the rest of you for a little while longer. But eventually if you kept defaulting on what you owed, your entire family would be sold into slavery. Once that happened, that was likely to be your fate and the fate of your children in perpetuity.

That was true in the ancient world in general — but not where the sabbatical and jubilee laws were in effect. Every seven years there would be a cancellation of debts, and once a generation, once every 50 years, property would return to the family to which it originally belonged. The proclamation of liberty suggests that slaves were also freed. We’re talking about there being a complete socioeconomic reset at least once in most people’s lifetimes.

You can see how this addressed the problem of poverty and enslavement, destitution and despair, perpetuating themselves endlessly across the generations as land amassed in the hands of fewer and fewer, while the vast majority of agricultural laborers went from being land owners to tenants to slaves.

This is such a different vision from anything currently on offer in human society, although occasionally people will work towards seeing the same underlying principle applied in our day.

This ancient solution to the problem of injustice and inequality cannot just be picked up out of leviticus, plopped down in the middle of law in the United states or some other modern country, and resolve all our problems. Agriculture has changed, and where we find the vast majority of people living and either making a living or failing to do so, is not what it was in the ancient world. Give the average city dweller land that belonged to their ancestors, and the chances that they will be able to farm it effectively are extremely slim indeed. Yet the principle, the vision, the aim of addressing inequity and unfairness in society is one that we can embrace and try to adapt. That’s a whole other topic, a sermon for another time.

For the moment, I just want us to return to the title of the sermon and the texts with which we began. Ancient Israel’s laws demanded both generosity and justice. Their lawmakers recognized no law can prevent all inequality, or eliminate unfairness altogether. In the jubilee years, famines would occur, deaths would be incurred, and some would accumulate while others would lose what they had. In our society with freedom, but also before the invention of modern technology for farming, including fertilizers and mechanical harvesting equipment, there was no way guarantee that people would eat. The year after a jubilee year might turn out to be a drought. Even when there are really radical and downright impressive laws seeking to ensure justice to the extent possible, there is no way to absolutely guarantee that no one will become hungry, that no one will lose their land and their livelihood. In those times the Israelites were told to help one another, to be generous to one another. The poor you will always have with you, therefore do not close your hand and withhold the good that you have from others who desperately need it.

I will talk more about the good that we have and sharing it in another talk this week, and I will approach it in a very very different way. For now let’s draw this message to a close by reflecting on what we should learn from this story, including not just the widows generosity but the introduction warning about how widows are so often exploited. How do we pursue these two aims that are there in the teaching of Jesus and throughout the scriptures, generosity and justice? And of particular importance in connection with this text, what does it say about us that tell the story we so often about the widows generosity, and so rarely if ever address the warnings about systems that lead to widows having only two coins in the first place?

We tend to focus on half the message of the scripture for this morning, and that half is ever so important. My hope this morning is that we will find ways to integrate both emphases found in this story and throughout scripture, justice and generosity, and do so to the glory of God. We can value sacrificial generosity, while also working to create a world in which no one is likely to find themselves left with only two small coins. We can build institutions that convey to those in desperate need that we have help to offer them, rather than expecting them to help us in ways they cannot afford to. May God help us find the balance between the two, so that we can pursue the one without losing hold of the other. Amen.

[1] Larry W. Hurtado, Mark. New International Commentary, p.205.

[2] Edward J. Schnabel, Mark. Tyndale Commentary, p.310.

Previous Post

June 9, 2026

From Close Encounters to Disclosure: Call for Papers

Next Post

June 17, 2026 Faith that Lives (Matthew 7:12-29)

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"And to you!"

James F. McGrath

Make Evangelicalism Christian Again

"Thank You, I identify as "strange" wink, wink! Anyway, at this point we're not going ..."

Burke S

Make Evangelicalism Christian Again

"You are such a strange individual and so difficult to have a conversation with. You ..."

James F. McGrath

Make Evangelicalism Christian Again

"What you're suggesting citing these "rabbinical" interpretations you're favoring are just that - interpretations. There ..."

Burke S

Make Evangelicalism Christian Again

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1 John 1 Peter 1 Samuel 1 Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Corinthians 2 Kings 2 Peter 2 Samuel 2 Thessalonians 2 Timothy academia Acts of the Apostles afterlife Akhaten Alcatraz American Academy of Religion Amos Anglican Arabic Aramaic archaeology art artificial intelligence astronomy atheism atonement Babylon 5 Baptists Battlestar Galactica Bible Biblical Studies Carnival biblioblogging Black Mirror Blade Runner Book of Job book review Buddhism Call for Papers China Christianity Christmas Christology Chronicles Coptic creation Daniel Deuteronomy Doctor Who Dune Easter Ecclesiastes economics education Eldad Keynan Enoch Seminar Ephesians eschatology Esther Evangelicals evolution Exodus Expanse Ezekiel Ezra fantasy Fringe fundamentalism Galatians games Ge'ez genealogy Genesis Gnosticism Gospel of Jesus' Wife Gospel of John Gospel of Judas Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Peter Gospel of Thomas Greek Harry Potter Hebrew Hebrews Hinduism historical Jesus history Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Holidays horror Hosea humor incarnation India inerrancy information literacy inspirational Intelligent Design Ireland Isaiah Islam Israel Italy James Jeremiah John the Baptist Jonah Joshua Judaism Jude Judges Judith Lamentations languages Latin Leviticus libraries literature Lord of the Rings LOST Mandaeans Mandaic memes Methodism Micah monotheism morality Mormons movies music mythicism NASSCAL Nehemiah new perspective New Testament news Numbers Orthodox paganism panentheism pantheism Patheos Paul and his letters Pentecostals Philippians Philippians 2:6-11 philosophy physics Planet of the Apes podcast politics Progressive Christianity Protestantism Proverbs Psalms pseudoscience racism religion Revelation Roman Catholicism Romania Romans Ruth scams science science fiction Secret Gospel of Mark Society of Biblical Literature Song of Songs Star Trek Star Wars Stargate Swahili Syriac Taoism technology Terminator The Handmaid's Tale The Hobbit The Matrix theodicy theology theory Timeless Titus tomb Torchwood travel TRON Uncategorized United Kingdom Westworld X-Files young-earth creationism Zechariah

Select a Month November 2026 October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 February 2007 January 2001

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz