The doors to our kitchen cupboards are bare these days. When we had a new kitchen some years ago we made a decision that we would not stick anything on to them. How different it had all been for the previous two decades. Then walls and cupboard doors were awash with notes, cards and, chiefly, paintings produced by our two young children.
Like Joyce Grenfell in her famous nursery sketches we often found ourselves looking at the latest offering and saying, "What a beautiful bright orange sun... oh it's mummy? Yes, of course, I can see that now". Such art works were lovingly displayed and over the years came to take over the kitchen.
There was no evidence that we had a budding Picasso or David Hockney in our midst, but that didn't matter. We were thrilled to get their paintings because of where they came from not because of what it looked like. It didn't stop at paintings either. In a notebook I have a scrap of paper on which my eldest son wrote his first "story". It simply says, "A cow went down the road. The End". Well it's not War and Peace but to me it is priceless.
Without being too fanciful I suspect that were God to live in a house like ours he too would have cupboards and walls covered with daubs and drawings. These would be made up of the offerings of his children who are seeking to do what is right and, in the words of Micah, to "love justice, seek mercy and walk humbly with God".
Jesus watched the religious leaders of his day bring their offerings to God with great pomp and ceremony. They were determined that people would be aware of their generosity. He noticed a widow slip quietly through the crowds and place just two small coins in the offertory box. Jesus commended her gift over and above the lavish amounts given by the Pharisees. Why? Because she gave all she had. I think it is very clear which offering was going to feature on God's kitchen cupboard that night.
Malc' Halliday is the Centre Manager of the Christian Resources Project Plymouth weekendthought@aol.com