The story of the widow's mite is simple enough. Jesus is sitting near the treasury on the temple grounds. He with his retinue are watching people toss money into an offering box. A widow comes in. She tosses in a few mites--a tiny amount of money and probably the last bit of cash she had. Jesus sees it and says something like, "See! This widow is better than these other people. They give from their extra, but she gave even the last few coins she had to live on." And so the usual conclusion is to be like the widow. Dig deep. Give much. "The widow cast but two brass coins into the treasury and yet she shall be preferred before Croesus with all his wealth." said Jerome.
But is it really that simple? I confess to feeling a twinge of suspicion whenever I've heard this passage preached. Not to say that I felt the sermon wicked or the speaker a villain--not at all! Good people do they best they can at hard texts. I just knew that there was more to it, hearing as it were a kind of distant echo. And, sure enough, there is more--a lot more.
The best way to find out what is there is to dive deeply into the story itself.[1] There is a fecundity to scripture. Even the most obvious bit of story, if you sit with it, will slowly widen out into a satisfying tableau. This story, or pericope, (A pericope /pear-ICK-oh-pee/ is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought. Pericopes are the bits of scripture read aloud in liturgical worship.) is found in Mark 12.41-44 and Luke 21.1-4. I am going to focus on the Marcan instance. Mark is the earliest gospel, and Luke does not use the periocope any differently than Mark. The goal is to arrive at a defensible, understandable, and meaningful interpretation that gives it reason in its lexical setting and makes its teaching available to us today. I will be using the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), as it is the critical English text used in universities and seminaries. I also want to stay with English as far as possible before consulting the Greek. So the text reads
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.”
When I begin to examine a pericope, I always start with two techniques: observation and structural analysis. Observation is what it says: focused looking. It is helpful to make a list of what is observed. Observation is all about the details, and each should be listed on its own line. Doing so helps the mind dismiss assumptions and see what is there. Like pulling up carpet, one sometimes finds new layers underneath. Structural analysis is different from observation in that it is not concerned with what is being said, the meaning of content, but with how it is said. Structural analysis uncovers the framework in which content is presented. The reader is after the purpose of a text. He or she wants to know the main idea and how other ideas are arranged around it. The structure usually tells you that. To do structural analysis, I use grammatical techniques like sentence flowing or sentence diagramming. You can also underline parallel constructions, highlight verbs with a highlighter, and so on. Any technique is useful. Here is the diagram I made of this pericope. I do not use verse numbers or include chapter headings. The point is to discover grammatical and rhetorical structure.
Beginning with observation, here are several written in the order they were made. The more observations one makes, the better.
- The people in the story are the crowds, rich people, Jesus, his disciples, temple benefactors, and the widow
- The place is the temple treasury (Where is that?)
- Why is each person there?
- Money is important to the story and how much or little of it there is
- Economic class is part of this: some have "abundance," but the widow lives in poverty
- The story has Jesus going through a series of postures: he sits, he watches, he calls, he speaks.
- Jesus praises the largest gift, but based on a value completely other than the currency values of the day
- No one is concerned about what happens to this widow after Jesus's pronouncement
- The author makes a point to tell the reader how much the widow's coins were worth
- There is a lot of the verb "put" in this story
- The dramatic engine of the story is fueled by compare and contrast: wealth and poverty, large and small, the crowd and the individual, Jesus and the disciples, a wide view versus a narrow view, the value of the crowd and Jesus's value, watching silently and speaking aloud
- The story doubles up on its description of the amount the widow put into the treasury: everything she had, all she had to live on
- Are these two adjectival phrases about the widow's gift meant to give us more information about the widow, or is this just repetition for emphasis?
- Jesus begins his teaching with "Truly, I tell you." Is this important?
- The disciples are not present in the story until Jesus calls them
- The reaction of the disciples nor of anyone else is unrecorded
- Why are all the verbs in the simple past tense save the ones in Jesus's pronouncement. Those are all in the perfect tense?
- Is there a reason Jesus contrasts the verbs "have contributed" and "has put in" in the final comparison?
- Does their giving to the temple equate to our giving to the church or to charitable giving today?
- What did this story mean to Jews or God-fearing gentiles circulating it twenty years before the temple's destruction?
- What comes before this story? What comes after? How does this story "work" between then?
- What status or position in society did widows have in first-century Palestine?
- Who is Jesus at this point in the gospel?
- What does this story say about Jesus? How does this story advance the story about Jesus that Mark's gospel is telling?
And now for the structural analysis.
The fun begins when structural analysis is finished (to whatever degree one desires). And it is fun! Sometimes I find it hard to complete an analysis for the insights jumping off the page! Highlighting structure words like then, therefore, and, but, etc. reveal the machinery of the text. It becomes easy to see how each piece, each paragraph, each sentence, fits together. And, in doing so, it guides the reader toward the main idea.
The main idea of a pericope is the pearl inside the grammatical clam. Discovering it not by whimsy or by guesswork but based on grammatical structure is one of the most important tasks of the exegete. Grammatical structure tells the hearer or reader what is important and what is not. It communicates the choice of meaning that a writer or speaker is making. Grammatical structure is a treasure map. And following it means that the exegete will not only emphasize what is meant to be emphasized, but make correct decisions about the importance of other parts of a story. Exegesis is not only understanding the words and sentences; it is understanding how the author has structured information for meaning.
The main idea is discovered by looking at the structure. So one begins looking for words that reveal it, such as relative pronouns or conjunctions that begin sorting material into independent and dependent clauses. In this case, the temporal adverb "then" divides the pericope into two halves. The first half comes before Jesus speaks and the rest follows after. Before is the factual world of action and after is the mental world of interpretation. The transition movement makes dramatic suspense. A division can also be made in the first half to create the diagram above. This pericope is a story in three acts: the opening scene at the temple treasury; the cast of characters, rich people and the widow; and the teaching that results from it all. I labeled these the Scene, Introduction of Characters, and the Lesson. But does this help to discover the main idea? Yes it does.
The main idea of a pericope will be located in structures that are supported by everything around them. It will not be found in dependent material beginning with because, for example. It will not be found in introductory material. In this pericope, then, the main idea is not to be found in the first two acts. It is located in the third.
In the third act, too, some digging for the main idea is required. The act is divided into three parts: Jesus's assembly of the disciples for instruction, Jesus's surprising announcement, and the reason for the announcement. Now, the main idea cannot be in the first subdivision because it is introductory. So, it must be in one of the other two parts. Again, structure comes to the rescue. The third portion begins with the subordinate conjunction for. That section, then, supports the second section and depends grammatically on it. Thus, the main idea can only be in the second section of the third act: "this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury." But this is a comparative clause. And so, of the two, the first assertion is favored. Thus, the main idea of the pericope is "this poor widow has put in more."
Now, there is another structure in the pericope that deserves investigation. It involves a rhetorical device called syncrisis. Syncrisis is a kind of comparison or antithesis. And it is easily observable in the A B B A structure of the third act.
A this widow has put in more
B than those
for
B1 all have contributed
A1 but she has put in everything
Ancient rhetoricians used syncrisis to contrast people in order to evaluate their relative worth to society. Syncrisis is a subset of a larger genre called epideictic rhetoric which is designed to publicly praise (or shame) someone for the purpose of emulation (or shunning). Jesus's speech in the temple treasury is certainly an example of epideictic rhetoric, of a sort called an encomium, and syncrisis forms a major part of the way he structured his speech. But Jesus did not begin its use in the story. The gospel writer employed syncrisis in the second act of the pericope before Jesus's encomium. The story is built around them. I should also say that epideictic rhetoric would sometimes include some introductory narrative information. One was, after all, about to praise or damn someone, and so some factual information to set up the story might be helpful. This factual warmup is called by rhetoricians the narratio. So, then, Mark's story of the widow's mite is a three-part, dramatic, epideitic narration that begins with a bit of narratio and then uses syncrisis to publicly praise one of two contrasted people. Its hero is a widow. Its main idea is "this poor widow has put in more."
The temptation now is overwhelming to apply this as a kind of moral of the story. The sermon writes itself: "Just as this widow gave all she had out of her poverty and was praised, so you have no excuse, out of your abundance, to give to the work of the kingdom." But consider: almost none of the observations made above have been satisfied. The setting and action of the first two acts of the tale are ignored by this conclusion, as are any criticisms made by the story about class and wealth. Structural analysis has provided a framework. But there is more work to be done later in another post.
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[1] Exegesis /ex-uh-JEE-zis/ (from the Greek verb ἐξηγεῖσθαι, "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The interpreter allows the text to "lead out" the meaning. The antonym is eisegesis /AI-suh-jee-zus/ where an interpreter "leads in" to a text a preconceived meaning.
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