The Eye of the Beholder
What Jesus observed was something different. A poverty-stricken widow furtively dropping a couple of coins in the box, hoping not to be noticed.
What Jesus observed was something different. A poverty-stricken widow furtively dropping a couple of coins in the box, hoping not to be noticed.
When I opened the gift, I was devastated. They were the ugliest shoes I had ever seen! I grunted “thanks” and started to walk out of the room.
Luke’s Gospel places before us a nameless biblical woman of protest and persistence, she has no standing and presumably no rights in her community.
At this moment in time, death and loss are all around us, and the fragility of life is abundantly clear.
If there were anxious people listening to Jesus on this day, they probably went away very worried indeed.
Though we set out with others, our friends may desert us. We will not always be welcome.
“I am not seeking the perfect vessel, but the perfect internal form.”
Our relationship with God, like our human relationships, is based on listening.
The question put to Jesus is really this: “Who is more important? Me, or someone else? Us, or them?”
One of the great measures of success in our life is simply how open we are to the needs of the world around us.