A Quantum View

Lectionary Readings | Proper 27, Year B | 11.10.2024

You probably know this story well, or at least the second half of it. This is the one we call “The widow’s mite,” where a widow makes the meager offering of less than a penny during her visit to the temple. Jesus sees her and claims that she has contributed more than anyone else, even those who have given generously - they have given out of abundance, and she has given out of poverty. 

This story shows up as a parallel to the Hebrew Bible reading from 1 Kings, where another widow shares what little she has with the great Prophet Elijah. He comes to her looking for food and drink, and she woefully tells him that she has nothing to give; so little, in fact, that she’s planning a final meal for herself and her son before they die of starvation. Through the mysterious work of the prophet, however, her small offering becomes bottomless grain and oil, from which she and her household are able to eat and drink. 

One way to read these stories is with a sort of romantic lens, where we can hold these women up as lessons on the importance of generosity and trust. And while that’s a valid (and common) interpretation, it’s also important to remember that when widows are referenced in scripture, their presence usually signifies a more profound kind of lesson; usually one that has less to do with individual piety or generosity, and more to do with systemic injustice and power imbalances. 

Widows in the ancient world were at the bottom rung of the social ladder. Female, alone and unprotected, they were often destitute and relegated to the margins. They were the “at-risk” folks of their time. And so when they are invoked in our stories, it’s usually to help us see God’s power at work down at that “bottom-rung” level, in contrast with the power at work among the higher echelons of political and religious authority. 

The Gospel brings that contrast into focus, today. Read again and you’ll see that the first half is a statement on the hypocrisy and corruption of the the Pharisees, the folks in traditional positions of power. The second half is this story of the widow and her offering. This contrast shows up in the Psalm, too: “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them. The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.”

This repeating pattern is highlighting a profound and countercultural truth, which is that God’s power looks nothing like human-generated power. Jesus is pointing to poverty, humility, sacrifice, and smallness, and saying: that’s where the real power is. 

I appreciate this in theory, but to be honest, I don’t know how much it actually applies to “real life,” or at least the reality of the world that we currently live in. I want to believe what he’s saying, but I sure don’t see a lot of evidence for it. Post-election, I am identifying heavily with the widow this week, at least in the ways in which I feel very small, vulnerable, and powerless. The systems around me feel large and immovable, corrupt in ways that I can’t fix, and I’m feeling out of control.

I did stumble across something in my reading this week, though, that helped me wrap my heart around the widow’s power: the idea of “quantum organizing.” This term is invoked in community organizing and collective care circles, by folks who are trying to figure out how to create power where there is none. Folks who are trying to make an impact on a large system with very limited resources. 

“Quantum” refers to a realm of physics that studies how matter and energy (or “stuff”) behaves at the subatomic scale. It turns out that at the micro-est level, stuff behaves really differently than it does at the “macro” scale (the world that we live in and see.) It turns out that the subatomic and invisible universe is incredibly relational and interconnected. Stuff that appears to be separate and distinct is actually interconnected. Stuff that we assume behaves a certain way, suddenly doesn’t. Space starts to look less like a void scattered with items and more like a network, or a fabric. And scientists are starting to figure out that the visible, macro world that we live in might actually have those same properties, but in ways that our eyes and brains can’t perceive.

I get in over my head pretty quickly here (I did fail out of physics in high school) but I’ve learned enough to understand the theory as it’s applied to human movements for change. Quantum theory gets used in community organizing all the time because it highlights the importance of relationships and connectedness. And because it totally dismantles the assumption that large-scale changes require large-scale efforts. It suggests that what we do on a small scale profoundly affects the whole. 

I came across this wonderful quote from Margaret Wheatley who has done tons of research on this, and wrote a book called Leadership and the New Science. She says, 

“Our efforts often seem too small, and we doubt that our actions will make a difference. But a quantum view explains the success of small efforts quite differently. Acting locally allows us to be inside the movement and flow of the system, and small changes affect the global system. Activities in one part of the whole create effects that appear in distant places. Because of these unseen connections, there is potential value in working anywhere in the system. We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness.”

The invisible fabric of our connectedness. What a theological statement!

Do I think Jesus was an ancient quantum physicist? No. But do I think he deeply understood what Wheatley is talking about here? Yes. Because this is the exact wisdom he shares, over and over again: Seemingly small actions have profound effects. Unimportant people have power that extends beyond what seems possible. Two copper coins count more than large sums. 

This is the paradigm flip that Jesus ushers in. In Christ all things are being made new. The old forms of power are fading away, and the new ones are being created. And he’s telling us where to look and how to move to find these new forms of power: among widows and orphans, among the lost and lonely, the sick, the abandoned, the stranger, the outcast. Among the actions and behaviors that seem so small and insignificant that they couldn’t possibly bring about change. And yet, from a quantum perspective, they do. 

I know it’s a little heady, but it’s giving me so much hope these days. We have to believe that what we do here matters. That it matters in a big way. We have to believe that it has an impact on the world, not just as a symbol, but in a real and material way, even if we can’t see it. Yes, we are only ourselves, and together we are a hundred and fiftyish person-sized parish, in a small town in the Hudson Valley. We are, in many ways, a grain of sand on a large beach. 

And yet, the message from Christ is consistent: your two coin offering has an impact that goes far and deep beyond what we can imagine, or may ever even know. Quantum Christ wants us to understand that we are all interconnected, that every part of our world and existence is interconnected. And so who we are in this time has an impact. Our selves, our behaviors, our acts of generosity, our prayers, our relationships - all become essential threads in the invisible fabric of our interconnectedness. Amen.