July 26, 2015
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: 2 Kings 4:42-44
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072615.cfm
Sometimes what we have to offer doesn’t measure up. Our best effort might not yield success. Our best idea might not see the light of day. What we bring to the table is not always adequate to the task. This can leave us wondering how we will ever get things together and amount to something. Yet this is where God kicks in—not with magic, but with grace.
Death in the Pot!
In this Sunday’s first reading, we find the prophet Elisha confronting a dilemma. A time of famine has come upon the town where he is, Gilgal (2 Kings 4:38). He is chief prophet, over the “sons of the prophets” who seek his help in the crisis. At first, he asks them to make a stew, but the only vegetables to be found for the stew are poisonous gourds. The sons of the prophets don’t realize the danger until they are eating their lunch and one of them yells, “There is death in the pot!” In response, Elisha throws some meal into the pot and the stew is miraculously made healthful. You would think after such a miracle, he would get a break.
A Little Lunch
But soon an out-of-towner comes in with a bag of bread and grain. It is the first-harvested barley of the year and everyone is starving. When Elisha tells him to set it before the hundred or so prophets, he objects that it is far too little food to do so. Now the text tells us that he brought 20 loaves, which might seem like a lot of bread. But the size and shape of loaves of bread in the Bible varies considerably and relying on the man’s shock at the suggestion that it could feed 100 people, perhaps we should view each loaf as a single portion. The starving men would be glad for anything, but these 20 loaves would certainly not satisfy their hunger.
Eating to the Point of Satiety
After stating his objection, the man allows himself to be overcome by Elisha’s insistence. Elisha again tells him to set the food before the prophets, but this time he includes a prophecy: “thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left’” (2 Kings 4:43 RSV). And indeed, the prophets eat up the loaves and the grain, with leftovers to spare. I can’t imagine having leftovers in the midst of a famine! They must have had a lot of bread to eat. God provided for their need in the middle of a crisis. He made up for the lack in what was offered.
A Meagre Offering
We might not have much to offer God. In fact, how could the Creator of the universe have need of anything that we possess? He has given so much to us that we owe him everything yet he needs nothing. It’s like trying to give a Mother’s Day present to your mom when you are four years old. All we can give him is ourselves—we have nothing else but this meagre offering. And yet that scanty sacrifice is precisely what he desires.
Living Sacrifice
The Lord can take the little that we have to offer and transform it, extend it, change it from something worthless into a beautiful sacrifice. He does not regard us in the same way that the world does—constantly measuring, comparing, weighing, judging based on appearances. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1Sa 16:7 RSV) The Lord sees beyond the limits of what we can give into the heart of who we are. St. Paul tells us to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1 RSV). When we don’t measure up in the eyes of the world and our knee-jerk reaction is to hide ourselves and our gifts from others, God invites us to step out in faith and let him take care of the rest. He accepts and blesses what we have to offer, no matter how paltry it seems to us.
God shows up for Elisha and the prophets, turning a measly bag of bread into a feast for a hundred men. The miracle required a risk. The man with the bread had to risk the embarrassment and shame of putting a tiny amount of food in front of a large crowd of men. But for taking that risk, God blessed his offering. He turned a pittance into a celebration. When we are willing to believe him, believe his Word, believe that he really came to die for us and rise again, he responds in abundance. When we take the usually small risks involved in faith, God replies to our “yes” with a profusion of blessing beyond our imagining. If we come to him with what little we have, his mercy pours over us like a waterfall. It’s a good deal. Why not take him up on it?
