Many of us dream about hitting a financial windfall. We dream big about what we would do with all of the money we would win if we hit the lottery. Today people can achieve fame and fortune by becoming a social media influencer or by posting the right video on the right website at the right time. The concomitant reaction, though, it that once we have hit the motherlode then our generosity can truly begin! Many of us would start by taking care of our families and the other important people in our lives. After that we would endow our favorite charities whether be that an animal shelter, a school, or perhaps a food bank, and then occasionally our parish church. Along with that generous dream of course comes the desire to be recognized for our generosity.

This is part of our human nature, and we are really not that much different than the people who lived at the time of Jesus. While they may not have been able to dream of winning the lottery or becoming an internet sensation, they were able work hard or get lucky and acquire some personal wealth. For ordinary people at the time of Jesus, economic opportunities did exist. Then like now, just because one had privilege of legacy, did not mean that one was at the same time wealthy. This was especially true of the Sadducees. Ordinary people took advantage of opportunities and achieved a sense of wealth, or at least made for themselves a comfortable living. Certainly, this would have been true of some of the disciples of Jesus. We also know that some wealthy women helped to support Jesus and the apostles during the time of Jesus’s public ministry.

Jesus often uses parables as teaching tools, all of which are based on real life scenarios. One of the well-known parables is that of the farmer who had a bounteous harvest and decides to build great barns and retire to lavish in his wealth. Here we see a man who lacked any sense of generosity at all. This character neither assisted the poor nor did he make an offering to the Temple treasury. He wanted to revel in his new-found wealth. But he never got to enjoy his windfall. Clearly though this was a fictional character, it resonated with the disciples of Jesus as a real possibility.

It is much rarer that Jesus employs real people as teaching tools. One of those was the rich young man whom we encountered a few weeks ago. In this Gospel we hear the story of a poor elderly woman who makes a small but significant offering to the Temple.

While the wealthy, especially the Pharisees, would make great fanfare about their contributions to the Temple treasury, this elderly woman comes along and drops in two small coins, amounting to very little money in the grand scheme of things. However, this money comes not from her surplus wealth, but from the meager amount of money that she had. This means she had to make some sacrifices in order to make this contribution. Perhaps she had to skimp on food or forego some other necessity in her life in order to make her sacrifice.

Although she likely paid little mind to Jesus and the commotion around him, he caught sight of her and used her as an example of true charity and concern for the poor. Give, Jesus tells us, not from our wealth but from our need.

This woman was often used by St. Teresa of Calcutta as an example of authentic giving to the poor. “Give from your sustenance not from your surplus” St. Teresa used to admonish those who listened to her. For the wealthy, of course, this seems somewhat impossible to do. Some will argue that in this way were all just become desperately poor and then in no way can really help anyone else. To the naysayers this all seems too ludicrous. Yet, this is a sense of generosity which is borne of mercy.

Our first Reading gives us another example of this kind of generosity borne of mercy as the prophet Elijah prevails against a widow with a young son to take the very last of the supplies from her kitchen and to prepare a meal for him in addition to the meal she was preparing for her small family. He persists over her reticence and is fed for the duration of the drought that afflicted their land.

Our call this week is two-fold: First, Jesus is asking us to go all in and to give from the very depths of our souls. And second, we do this, not for so much for the benefit of others, but so that we come to understand the mercy of God at the very core of who we are.

Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.