A widow is saving her last
portion of flour for her final meal; she uses that flour to make bread to feed
the prophet Elijah. And in the midst of
the scribes wearing luxurious robes and sitting in the places of honor, a poor
widow very generously and graciously puts her livelihood, two small coins, into
the Temple's treasury. Just as these two
widows make sacrifices, Christ takes away our sins by the sacrifice he makes. How do these readings speak to us today in
the realities we face in our lives of faith?
What do these readings tell us about the importance of giving and how we
are called to give?
If many would consider the
gift of the poor widow's mites as meager or insignificant, why would she make
any gift at all? If it didn't matter to
the treasury, wouldn't she be better off keeping that money for herself and for
her own needs? If she had let the rich
and the well-off make all the contributions themselves, couldn't she have kept
her pennies and invested them for the future?
But perhaps the widow realized in her heart that by not keeping her
mites to herself and instead giving them to the Temple, she was worshipping God
and giving glory to God, which is what she did in this humble act.
There can be different
motivations behind our giving, whether our giving be big or small. For example, we could give resentfully,
hating to part with what we give, doing so begrudgingly. We can give out of shame, feeling that we
need to keep up appearances, to give so that others won't look down on us. We can give in a calculated manner, thinking
we will get something back in return, looking out for our own benefit. But we can also give out of quite different
motives: we can give out of thanksgiving, giving out of the blessings that God
has given to us, giving in thanks for God's generosity in our lives. Why else would the widow give her last mites,
her whole livelihood, to the Temple treasury, to the house of God, if it wasn't
out of thanksgiving? What is the motivation for what and how we give in our
lives? Do we give mostly out of shame or
begrudgingly, or do we do so out of the thanksgiving that we feel in our hearts?
You know, we can always
find excuses not to give. Many times
those excuses are very legitimate. But
look at the widow in our first reading.
King Ahab ruled over Israel in those days. The book of I Kings tells us
that Ahab worshipped foreign gods and did more to provoke the anger of the Lord
than all the kings of Israel before him.
Elijah went to Ahab, telling that as a punishment for turning away from
the Lord, the land of Israel will suffer a drought for years, until Elijah's
word tells the drought to stop. So, here
is this poor widow and her son, starving because of the drought that Elijah
declared. And here is Elijah, asking her
for her last little portion of food that she and her son are going to eat
before they starve to death. Her portion of food is so small that it will not
even stop her starvation. And perhaps
her husband even died in this drought.
Who would blame this poor widow if she resisted Elijah's request for a
meal, if she didn't want to share the little that she had. She is desperate, as she initially refuses
Elijah’s request, but she listens to God's will, feeding Elijah from the little
that she has. What this widow does is way beyond an act of kindness, far more
than mere generosity: this is a remarkable act of faith. First, she resists Elijah's request, but then
she accepts God's will in faith.
Perhaps we can identity
with the two widows in today's readings.
In the two years I have been here at the parish’s in Yazoo City and
Belzoni, I have seen many acts of kindness and generosity, seeing families make
sacrifices in order to help others and to do God's will in their lives. But maybe today’s readings are really asking
us to look inside of our hearts and to see the way we live out our faith. Perhaps, if we look into our hearts, we can
also see a little bit of the scribes within us as well. There are probably times when we do honor God
with what we have to give, from our talents, from our treasures, from our
time. Yet, there also may be times when
we fight the will of God for us in our lives. This can happen when we're
afraid, when there's uncertainty in our lives and in the world around us, when
we have no idea where we are going.
You know, we have talking
about Vatican II and the Year of Faith, and one of the things Vatican II
advocates is greater involvement on the part of the laity. We are the Church, and whatever happens at
Church is dependent on how much we want to get involved and want things to
happen. Our youth are doing a lot now,
and that is because of how Michelle Rutledge, Melissa McGraw, Cynthia Brown,
and Jessica Sanderfer and getting them engaged and having activities for
them. For along time, Natalie and Marian
have been doing the mass of the anointing luncheons, and now that they have to cut back, we need to have others pitch in to help. Our Halloween Carnival took a lot of work
this year, and it was because of the adults and the youth that were committed
to that event that it happened this year.
So when we hear about the two widows in the readings today giving of
themselves, it is not only from a financial standpoint that we give, but of our
talent and time as well.
Our readings today give us
a lot to think about in how we give in our lives of faith. May the way we give in our lives truly
reflect our journey of faith, may it give glory to God and reflect God's will
for our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment