With Christmas looming, many of us are already thinking about what we’ll buy for friends and family. And when you don’t know what to get Uncle Frank or the cousin you see every 10 years, one of the best options is the ubiquitous gift card. Drop one of those in a Christmas card, and you’re done. It’s an easy way to keep your obligation of giving.

The town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, using the gift-card concept without the plastic, has developed its own kind of currency. The "BerkShare" (a wordplay on the Berkshires region) looks a lot like Monopoly money. For every 95 cents, local residents get one dollar’s worth of BerkShares they can use to buy goods and services from one of 400 participating businesses in the area. BerkShares aren’t legal tender anywhere outside Great Barrington.

"Local currency helps to keep the money flowing between friends, neighbors, and local businesses, which helps everybody to have a better life," says Asa Hardcastle, president of BerkShares Inc.

Matt Rubiner, owner of Rubiner’s Cheesemongers & Grocers, agrees. "Philosophically, it’s very much along the lines of the foundations that we set up our store under: supporting local, sustainable producers, keeping the community local wherever possible. So when the BerkShares came along, that was right up our alley. We really embraced it," Rubiner said.

Even the design and printing of the BerkShare currency is a local operation. BerkShares feature pictures of local artists, heroes and historical figures and come with individual serial numbers that make them tough to counterfeit.

"I think it’s nice to have a constant little reminder that we’re a community and we’re in it together," says local resident Heather Fisch. "It’s kind of like a Great Barrington pride moment. I’m a citizen of Great Barrington. Here’s my BerkShare."

The folks in Great Barrington aren’t alone in their currency creation. From Detroit to North Carolina to upstate New York, at least 12 other communities are trying to encourage people to buy and spend locally by printing up their own greenbacks (or pink-backs, or mauve-backs or whatever color their Monopoly-inspired money is).

It turns out that a similar kind of currency kaleidoscope characterized the economy of first-century Israel, the scene of this week’s text. A closer look at Mark 12 gives us a glimpse into the different coinage that circulated around the temple. In verses 13-17, we read the famous "render unto Caesar" passage, in which Jesus has the Herodians and Pharisees produce a denarius from their own pockets.

The coin in question, that silver denarius, was equal to a day’s wage, so it was no small change. Imperial coinage was circulated throughout the empire both to standardize trade between Rome and its various conquered territories and to promote the current emperor’s reputation and divinity. That coin likely had the likeness of Tiberius on it, and the inscription said; "Augustus Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus," while the flip side displayed the likeness of a female figure representing "peace" (but often associated with Tiberius’ mother, Livia). To righteous Jews, such inscriptions were idolatrous, which makes it interesting and maybe even a little scandalous, that the Jewish leaders confronting Jesus had some in the first place.

To avoid those idolatrous images, most first-century Jews continued to use the local Jewish currency, some of which had been in circulation since the Hasmonean dynasty 100 years earlier. The most basic coin of this period was the bronze or copper lepton, which avoided violating the second commandment by inscribing natural or man-made symbols instead of human or animal likenesses. At the time of Jesus, a very common lepton in circulation was the one minted by Alexander Jannaeus (who ruled from about 103 to 76 B.C.). It often featured an eight-rayed star or sunburst on one side and an anchor on the other. It was likely this coin that the money changers exchanged for Roman currency in the temple.

The lepton’s monetary value was pretty small at the time — so small, in fact, that it may be one of the least-valued coins ever struck. In fact those two lepton were equal to about 1/64th of a denarius. Take a look at one and you notice right away that it looks like the image was just stamped haphazardly in a tiny dribble of molten copper or bronze — kind of like what happens when a kid stamps something in a piece of Play-Doh and leaves the edges untrimmed. The coins aren’t rounded or finished and weigh next to nothing, making a U.S. penny feel like a British pound coin by comparison. Truth be told, a lepton looks like the kind of currency anyone could make. It was very likely two of these tiny lepta that the widow dropped into the temple treasury in this week’s text.

Compared to the wealth of Roman coins that the religious leaders and other rich people seemed to be carrying around the temple, those two rough-stamped coins were about as valuable as Monopoly money. And yet, this isn’t a story about the value of coins but rather about the value of loyalty, commitment and sacrifice.

BerkShares are about a community taking care of its own, keeping the wealth within the community for

the benefit of the whole. In our text, Jesus condemns the community leaders of first-century Israel for doing exactly the opposite. The "long robes" of the scribes and their VIP seating arrangements at local parties are indications that they’re more concerned with themselves than their community.

Moreover, they "devour widows’ houses," which was a way of saying they preyed on perhaps the weakest and most vulnerable segment of society. Widows who lacked male relatives had no status and almost no prospects for income. Some commentators have suggested that the scribes may have acted as guardians for some of these widows, but they did so by exploiting for themselves the property that the women’s husbands may have left them. So much for following the Mosaic Law against abusing widows.

So when Jesus makes his remark about this poor widow dropping her two tiny coins in the temple treasury as, "all she had to live on," the context suggests he’s continuing his condemnation of the religious leaders and the system of economic exploitation that would cause her to donate her last two pennies.

While this text is often used as the text for a stewardship sermon, you can imagine Jesus smiling at the woman’s generous sacrifice. But it seems much more likely that he was probably shaking his head sadly as he said it.

At the same time, though, the text gives no indication that the widow is being forced to give up those lepta. In fact, we don’t know anything about her motivation other than she just dropped them in. Jesus recognized that her offering, even though it was less than a pittance monetarily, was far more valuable than the sum total of all the other coins offered up that day.

The text forces us to ask: What would cause a person to voluntarily give away her last two pennies, especially to a community and a political-economic system that continues to exploit her?

Perhaps it’s because the widow still believed. Maybe she still believed that regardless of all that had happened to her, everything she was and everything she had still belonged to God. Despite the corruption and exploitation going on in God’s name there in the temple, somehow God was still going to set things right. So the widow continued to invest in her community, a community of faith, by giving her last two coins for the good of the whole.

Call them her MiteShares if you will.

What makes this story significant is the obvious strength of the widow’s faith. She isn’t just dabbling in spare change. She is, to borrow a poker term, "all in" with God, unlike the scribes and others. Hers was a gift from a heart filled with faith and love. Though she was poor, the reality of this story is that this widow was rich.

One point of this story that might be easy to overlook, one point we might sub-consciously want to overlook, is the fact that Jesus knew what was in people’s hearts that day. Of course, there are many examples in the Gospels where Jesus obviously knows what people are thinking and the condition of their faith and the condition of their hearts towards God.

And of course, Jesus always knows what’s in our hearts. Jesus knew the hypocrisy of the Scribes and their deceptiveness. Although our text doesn’t say so, we know that He also knew what was in this poor widow’s heart.

As God’s people, we have experienced the great love He has for us. We know that Jesus became poor so that we might become rich. By His redeeming work, we are set free from sin, Satan, and death. In our Baptism, we were joined to Christ. By faith we are new creations in Christ.

As the power of the Holy Spirit increases our faith and trust in God, our hearts overflow with love for Christ, the Word of Scripture and thankfulness for what He did for us on the cross. The rich had purses overflowing with wealth. The poor widow had a heart overflowing with love.

So we have to ask ourselves this morning, who was it that was really wealthy?

Hopefully, through the eyes of faith and with a heart filled with love for Jesus, you can see that the person who has a heart of faith in the Lord and receives His gifts is the one who is really rich. Jesus is our greatest treasure.

This well-known account teaches us an important truth about deceptiveness and sincerity of heart. The power to live our lives as God’s people and to worship him in spirit and in truth is Jesus Christ himself.

Because He knows our hearts, he also knows our weaknesses. He gives us strength for sincerity of heart and life. By His Word and Holy Sacraments, we are fortified and renewed.

The scribes may have had their long robes and high standing in society, but in reality they were far from God. The simplicity of the poor widow and her giving out of her poverty all she had is an important message to us. The greater gift is the one that comes from a sincere heart and love for God.
Amen.