Care | Gift | Poetry | Poverty | Risk | Stewardship

GIVING OBSERVED
Unnoted He sat by the temple gate
While the rich and the poor passed by.
And he read their hearts as they dropped their gifts
‘Neath the gaze of His searching eye.
Each gift he weighed in a subtle scale
As it dropped in the temple store–
And the pain it cost, and the sacrifice,
And the burden of love it bore.
But the piercing eye of the watching Christ
Looked not at the proffered gold;
Not “What did he give?” was the searching test,
But “How much did he withhold?”
By that standard stern the rich man’s tithe
Was shamed by the widow’s mite;
For she gave her all– while he kept his wealth
As he passed from the Master’s sight.
By the gates of the treasury still He sits,
And watches the gifts we bring–
And He measures the gold that we…