November 8, 2015
Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: 1 Kings 17:10-16
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110815.cfm
One of my children’s favorite past times looks something like this: Child A has a toy. Child B grabs the toy out of Child A’s hands. Child A screams “Mine!” Child B protests how unfair it is and refuses to give the toy back. Unfortunately, we see this same script played out over and over again in our lives, albeit in a slightly more polite way. The desire for things, and especially the desire for things that other people care about (e.g. gold, fine art, concert tickets, houses, cars, clothes, etc.), continually afflicts us. This desire is what the Ten Commandments warn us against: “You shall not covet” (Exod 20:17). Covetousness destroys us from within, when our inner desires spin out of control and take over our decision-making process. Yet God offers us an antidote for the poison of covetousness.
A Dry State
In this Sunday’s first reading from 1 Kings, we find the prophet Elijah hungry and thirsty in the midst of a terrible drought. Since we get this reading out of context, we might miss the fact that Elijah himself prophesied this drought earlier in the chapter (1 Kgs 17:1). The drought is a divine judgment against the worship of the false god, Baal, who supposedly had control over the rain and the fertility of the land. Through Elijah, the Lord reveals that he alone has power over creation. Yet the very prophet who prophesied the drought is now suffering from its effects.
The Starving Widow at Zarephath
At the command of the Lord, Elijah wanders far to the north of Israel to the town of Zarephath on the Mediterranean coast, north of Tyre, but south of Sidon. In this Gentile city, Elijah finds a poor widow collecting sticks to prepare a fire for her last meal. Because of the drought, her flour and oil (staple foods in the ancient Near East) are at an end. She plans to cook a meal for herself and her son and then die of starvation. Widows were particularly vulnerable in ancient times because they usually had been financially dependent on their husbands. When the husband dies, the widow must wait until her son reaches the age where he can bring in income before she can achieve any kind of financial security. Because of this state of affairs, she and her son might be some of the first victims of the drought. Elijah does not select this destination and this widow at random, but he is sent by God. Jesus even cites this instance as an example of how prophets are not welcomed at home:
But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.” (Luke 4:25-26 RSV)
The Prophet’s Demand
Yet when Elijah finds the widow at Zarephath, he surprisingly does not give her alms, show pity, or offer to help her. Instead, he asks her to make some food for him to eat before she and her son enjoy their last meal! It is audacious to solicit a meal from a starving person. But Elijah is not acting on his own. He represents God and he attaches a promise to his request. If the woman will comply with his claim, then God will bless her and prevent her oil or flour from running out. They will last, in fact, until the end of the drought.
Trusting God with a Gift
If we miss the fact that Elijah is the “man of God,” then the passage doesn’t make sense. It sounds like Elijah is just a selfish dolt, abusing his moral authority to afflict an already oppressed woman. Rather, he is actually leading her into a posture of faith. Without Elijah’s intervention, she and her son would have started starving that day. But Elijah asks her to demonstrate her trust in God through the simple act of feeding the man who represents God first. Her giving of what little she has reveals her faith in God’s providence. It unleashes his blessing upon her.
Giving Shows Our Faith
Generosity opens our hearts to God and to others. It leads to a continual reciprocity, an exchange of gifts where we love by giving and are loved by receiving. We have to be careful, though, not to boil this concept down to a strict calculus. The beauty of mutual giving does not lend itself to exact math. The point is that God calls us to be generous people, not covetous people. When we open our hands or wallets and help others, or tithe to the Church, we demonstrate our faith in God’s help, his providence, his care for us. We show that we really believe in what he says and that our security does not lie in mere finances, but in the Creator of the Universe. Giving, in fact, is part of our worship.
So next time you find inner self screaming, “Mine!”, when someone asks something of you, re-think. God might be calling you to be like the widow at Zarephath and bake a cake for the man of God out of your last reserves. What matters to God is not the dollar amount or the fanfare, but the sincerity of heart with which we give. As we’ll see in this Sunday’s gospel about the widow who gave her last two “mites” to the temple treasury, the very poor can give more in God’s eyes than the wealthy. Giving frees us from the grip of covetousness and sets us free to depend on God.
