Lk 21:1-4
Totally dependent on God: In the culture of the time, a widow—a woman whose husband had died—was powerless. Her source of livelihood, her husband, was gone. Therefore, she was totally dependent upon others to care for her.
The powerless widow in Luke’s story is contrasted to the rich throwing their offerings into the treasury. The wealthy are the powerful. They make their offerings from their abundance.
The powerless widow makes herself even more powerless by throwing in two small coins, all the livelihood she had. If she was dependent before, she is totally dependent now. She can only trust in and depend upon God, whereas the wealthy can trust in and depend upon themselves.
Luke holds up the widow as an example of authentic discipleship. Her gift of herself, her whole livelihood, is more than all the rest. Her action is to be imitated. The widow makes her gift from her want, which is a hyperbolic way of stating that she gives away what she does not have!
Her action fits one of Luke’s major themes—wealth is given to some people in order to be shared with others. The author of this Gospel has emphasized this point in the parable of the rich fool (12:16-21) and in Jesus’ discourse on the importance of dependence upon God (12:22-34) which follows it, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31), in the narrative about the rich official (18:18-23) and the discourse on riches and renunciation (18:24-30) which follows it, and in the story about Zacchaeus the tax collector (19:1-10).