Mark 12:38-44 Pentecost 25
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson
November 10, 2024
Some of you younger people probably don’t remember the last time you handled cash, much less coin because you pay exclusively with an app on your phone or with a debit or credit card. If that’s the case, you’re not likely to know the joy of unloading your change onto the table once you get home and occasionally finding something interesting in there—like an actual silver quarter from many decades ago, which you find when you put your change down and you hear a particularly bright clinking sound. Or you find pesos that have been passing for pennies as they’ve travelled through pockets and registers and tip jars. Or an Indian Head Penny from 1907 like the one I was amazed to find one day a while back. There’s stuff to learn from those coins—history lessons from their dates and images, the beauty and detail formed in the minting process, the types of metals that were used. You don’t need to be a professional numismatist to enjoy coins and to learn a few things! There were a LOT of coins being dropped into 13 trumpet-shaped boxes that lined the walls of a courtyard in the Temple at Jerusalem on the day Jesus took a seat across from them so that he could watch people give their offerings to the LORD. As he carefully observed the people and the amount of money they deposited in the boxes, there were a couple things that stood out to him—and a couple of coins in particular. They, and the woman who gave them, caught his attention and caused him to turn that courtyard into a classroom where he could teach a lesson about generosity. A Couple of Coins in a Courtyard Classroom 1. Catch the Attention of Our Lord 2. Teach Us a Lesson about Generosity I know you want to get to the lesson Jesus taught his disciples so that you can learn it and live it, but you have other questions—I know it. What courtyard of the Temple was this? This widow was there, and women couldn’t go into all of the courts. This one was actually called the Women’s Court. Everyone could go there and give their offerings, but the women couldn’t go beyond that part of the Temple complex. What kind of offerings would a person make there? All kinds of them! Men over 20 would slip a half-shekel in there each year for the Temple Tax that kept up the buildings and supported sacrifices. Incidentally, the Shekel of Tyre that the Temple required for that tax was at least as much pure silver as our old quarters—this is why they liked that one! These boxes were the ones Mary and Joseph dropped the money for a couple turtle doves or pigeons when they dedicated Jesus, their firstborn son, to God—as all Jewish parents did. Other required offerings slid down the funnel and into those boxes. Voluntary, free-will offerings to the LORD did too. You might also be wondering, why would Jesus sit down to scrutinize the people’s giving?! You might wonder about this too: why was he was doing this on Tuesday of Holy Week—his last ever trip to the Temple because he would die not far from it just three days later?! With the clock ticking on his life, Jesus sat down in the temple court precisely at the place where people gave their offerings so that he could watch the people as they gave. And the Greek word for what he was doing is explicit: Jesus was studying the people as they gave their offerings, AND