Two Very Small Coins
"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on.”"
— Mark 12:41-44
Thirteen chests stood in that courtyard, each with a mouth shaped like a horn and each labelled for a different purpose. People dropped their coins in with everyone watching. Her two were lepta, the least valuable coin struck in Judea. A laborer earned a hundred and twenty eight of them for a full day. What she carried in was worth about ten minutes of that day. She had a pair and could have kept one back without anyone noticing. A widow did not inherit from her husband: the property went to his sons or brothers, and she was left with her keep and the sum written into the marriage contract. Minutes earlier, in that same courtyard, Jesus had accused the religious teachers of swallowing up the homes of women like her. Her bronze helped pay the men who did it. On his way out he said the whole place would be pulled down, and Roman troops did that forty years later. God notices what a gift costs, even when nobody else can.