Noticing the widows

Pentecost 25B
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
10 November 2024

[ video ]

Yesterday I was in Lismore for a refresher course as part of the Safe Church Ministry training offered by the Diocese of Grafton. As we began that program we looked at various biblical text about vulnerable people, since our duty of care for vulnerable persons is such an important responsibility.

The biblical passages offered the usual categories of people: widows, orphans, the poor and the foreigner (that is, aliens resident in the villages and towns of ancient Israel).

Did you notice how our readings today featured several widows?

The Old Testament reading came from the book of Ruth. It mentioned by name two of the three women (all of them widows) in that delightful little story: Naomi, the mother-in-law; Ruth, the daughter-in-law who came back to Bethlehem, with Naomi; and it referenced indirectly Orpah, the other daughter-in-law who followed Naomi’s advice and stayed with her own people in Moab when Naomi returned home.

It is unusual for the Bible to offer us stories in which women play a leading role, and even more unusual for those women to have names.

In case you have not read the book of Ruth recently, let me remind you of the story. 

When famine breaks out in Bethlehem, a local man (Elimelech) relocates across to the other side of the Jordan river with his wife (Naomi) and their two sons. They settle in the territory of Moab where they are made welcome and make a new home. The two sons marry local women, but then all three men died. This leaves Naomi, Orpah and Ruth as widows. Naomi hears that things are back to normal in Bethlehem, so she decides to head back home and she encourages Orpah and Ruth to stay in their own land and make a fresh start with new husbands. After some back and forth Orpah agrees to stay behind, but Ruth insists on going to Bethlehem with Naomi. Famously, Ruth says:

Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you! 

[Ruth 1:16-17 NRSV]

You may have heard those words read or sung at a wedding.

By the time we pick up the story in this morning’s reading, Ruth has come to the attention of a wealthy relative (Boaz) who agrees to take over the property of his deceased cousins, which includes accepting Ruth the widow to be his wife.

Clearly that is not how we do things these days; at least not in our society. But if you read the story for yourself, as I hope you will this week, Naomi and Ruth are not exactly passive agents. They scheme to get their man, and Boaz goes along with their plans.

There are some twists in this story. Jews were not supposed to have anything to do with the people from Moab. There were deep memories of ancient conflict between these people, but Ruth is the hero of the tale. That makes this a remarkable story already. But there is another twist to this story. 

Ruth and Boaz have a son together. They call the boy, Obed. As time goes by Obed will have a son, who was Jesse. Then Jesse will have several sons, including David, the future king of Jerusalem!

That makes Ruth, the foreigner (the ultimate outsider) the great grandmother of King David.

Whoever crafted this little narrative had a point to make, and it was all about making room for the vulnerable people; in this case someone with a double handicap since she was both a widow and a foreigner. 

This outsider would become the ancestor not only of David but also of Jesus.

But Ruth and Naomi (and Orpah) are not the only widows in our readings today. There is also the anonymous widow from the Gospel passage. Let’s call her “Penny” since she is famous for the two copper pennies that she dropped into the moneybox outside the temple.

Of course they were not pennies, as this a term for English money. When the Bible was translated into English more than 400 years ago, they described her coins using the English word for the smallest coin available at the time: a mite.

Not a halfpenny, or a farthing, but a mite.

That is one very low-value coin.

In the time of Jesus that coin was called a prutah, and I have several examples of those tiny coins from the time of Jesus here with me in case you want to have a look at them later.

A silver denarius was the basic payment for a day’s work in the field, and you would need almost 1,000 prutotto exchange for one denarius. Yes, these were very low-value coins indeed.

In our Gospel today, Jesus has been warning people about the spiritual games played by powerful people. Then he sits opposite the collection point for cash offerings outside the temple. 

In among all the rich people making large gifts, Jesus notices a poor widow who made a very small gift: two small copper coins.

He draws the attention of his disciples to her.

Her gift, while very small, is more substantial than the larger gifts contributed by people who were wealthy by comparison. Their bank accounts were large, but her heart was bigger than theirs.

Jesus was not encouraging the church to extract all the money we can from vulnerable widows. Sadly that has sometimes happened, and it needs to be recognised as a form of elder abuse as well as spiritual abuse.

Jesus was simply saying, “This woman has her priorities right.”

She is not worried about the future, but as Jesus himself encouraged people to do, she was confident that God would provide for her needs. Her generosity was a simple act of faith.

So today we have stories about 4 widowed women. They were highly vulnerable in their societies at the time, but they were each women who had agency and they chose to live into the promise of a God who provides what we need.

They were not nameless widows, but people of faith and courage.

When we encounter vulnerable people, do we see the labels placed on them by our society: homeless, hungry, poor, drug user, drifters, drop outs, dysfunctional, disturbed, mentally ill, refugees, asylum-seekers, lost souls, losers, single mothers?

Or do we see them as people? People with potential? People with dreams? People with names? People loved by God?

I hope you will take the time this week to read the whole story of Ruth, and to notice her amazing legacy in the little family tree at the end of the story.

And I hope we all take some time this week to think of those we might too easily lump into categories, like “poor widows” and other kinds of vulnerable people.

Boaz noticed Ruth …

Jesus noticed Penny with her two small copper coins … 

Do we have eyes to see those people God wants us to notice this week