Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” Mark 12:41-44
“It is natural to assume that large gifts are of more value to God than small ones (cf. Mark 10:26)—after all more can be done with them. But Jesus here calls in question this complacent assumption of conventional piety. The gifts of the rich, though large, were easy gifts: the widow’s gift, though tiny, meant a real surrender of herself to God and trust in him, and therefore an honoring of God as God, as the one to whom we belong wholly and who is able to care for us.”
C.E.B. Cranfield in The Gospel According to Mark in The Cambridge Greek Commentary Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pressm, 1959) 386-387.