Measurement

Luke 21:1-4 (ESV) Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Some of the most popular quick clicks on the Internet today are rankings and numbered collections of the elite. A fast jump to buzzfeed.com just now showed the following top trending articles: “The 12 Types Of Boys You'll Crush On This School Year,” “8 Animals Whose Numbers Are Plummeting Thanks To Humans,” “The 25 Most Kimye Things That Have Ever Happened,” and, of course, “18 Kids Who Are Way Too Sassy For Their Own Good.” Travel magazines promote “The Top 50 Vacation Destinations.” I have become a regular user of Yelp to help me find the best local eateries when traveling. We have a burning desire to know the best and to know where we stand, so we measure things… and we measure people. Yet, are we really measuring the right things?

Jesus attacks the measurement fixation in this famous passage in Luke 21. A poor widow gave two small coins, yet Jesus said she gave more than all the wealthy people who dumped huge sums into the treasury. That would have shocked his hearers, but his point was she gave far more in proportion to what she had. The raw numbers were not the ultimate measure of the gift.

This principle goes beyond finances. In our desire to measure, we can never grasp the whole story. When we feel superior to those next to us because we won this round of the game, we cannot know everything that affected their performance – or ours. Perhaps we won this time because they put in a halfhearted effort. Jesus wants us to stop ranking people on external measurements that hide the whole story. Every person is valuable. Total commitment is the real measure.