The Widow’s Mite

Didn't take a single picture today, oops! Nine kids, including a new one, over six feet tall but fortunately well-behaved!

Another way-extra-biblical story line today. Took a couple of sentences in the passage and let my imagination run wild! Jesus told His disciples to beware of those who were falsely pious but "robbed widow's houses." So we opened with a rich man going to visit a poor widow to demand payment on a loan. She begged for more time. He said, all right, you won't give me my money, I'll just take these chairs instead, and walked off with the only two wooden chairs in the room.

Next we saw the rich man standing by the temple treasury's offering box, loudly ringing a bell for attention. He praised God for allowing him to prosper, and announced that he was giving the required 1/10^th to God. He placed a large handful of silver coins in the box.

Next we jumped to a chance phrasing which actually came right after the "mite" story (did I mention I also re-arranged the sequence for dramatic effect?), where the disciples are pointing out to Jesus the beauty of the temple, its stones and "the gifts". I asked myself, how did they know what were gifts and what were just part of the original temple? We introduced a priest. Along comes a man with a beautiful vase full of flowers. He presents it to the priest who thanks him, puts it on the table next to the offering box, and has the man sign his name on a card reading "Donated by__________" which was then propped up against the vase. Then came a woman with two candlesticks, who signed her name to another card to be displayed with the candlesticks. It was these gifts the disciples pointed out to Jesus, who did not seem very impressed.

But then along came the widow we'd seen earlier. She quietly dropped two small coins in the offering box. Jesus jumped up and exclaimed to His disciples, "Did you see that? Now THAT was truly beautiful!" The disciples asked, huh, what? He pointed out the widow who had given more than anyone else, because she had given all she had. We concluded by having Jesus say, in the eyes of the world she is just a poor widow, but in the eyes of God, she is a princess! And an angel with a halo came and crowned the woman.

Our game involved dropping coins in an "offering box"—a glass jar. The catch was that they had to kneel backwards on a chair, & the jar was on the floor behind it. It was just about the right difficulty. Out of five coins, each child managed 1 to 4. However, for the new boy, we had to move the jar a lot farther away from the chair. His arms were so long he couldn't possibly miss otherwise!

We emphasized that the point of this story was not that you are supposed to put everything you have in the offering box, but that what Jesus really wants is for us to give our hearts to God. So we made simple origami hearts. And then, since the kids don't usually take their crafts home anyway, they placed them in the offering box!