[i]Some stories make best selling novels,
but we forget them two years later.
Others become blockbuster
movies,
but in 6 months we cannot recall the plot.
Then there are stories
like Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.
This tale was being told
hundreds of years before Jesus
– and here we are, thousands of years
later
listening to it again today.
Such stories hold our
attention through the ages because
they are deep and universal.
They say something vitally
about important for our lives.
The widow of Zarephath had
no earthly means of support.
Even in a good economy,
she would have been poor.
But a terrible drought
had stricken the land; so things were even worse.
She had just enough food
left
to make one last paltry meal for herself and her child.
She planned to cook that
meal, eat it, then die.
All she could think of was
surviving one last day.
That may not sound like
it applies to us.
But everyone is neurologically
wired, while still in the crib,
to feel fundamentally vulnerable.
Just being ignored or
disrespected,
triggers the same survival anxiety
in our brain stem as a threat to our life.
We need to know we are
loved, appreciated, and respected.
So we are all trying to
survive – financially, socially, emotionally –
one way or another, trying to get by.
Our Old Testament story
takes a remarkable turn.
The widow has only enough
food for her last meal.
Elijah says, “Give it to
me,” and she does.
Her crazy generous gift
blossoms into a miracle
as the
food lasts long enough
to save them all.
We hear an echo of this
story in John’s Gospel
when a little boy gives Jesus his five loaves
and two fish
to feed a multitude.
The point is simple if we
just dare to believe it.
When we devote our gifts
–
material, social, intellectual, or what have you --
to our own survival, our own well-being --
we have just enough to scrape by.
We subsist on the edge of
anxiety.
But when we forget about
self-preservation
and give ourselves away,
we plunge into the abundance of life itself
and the miracle happens.
When we give God whatever
we’ve got,
however small, however inadequate,
God multiplies it to serve others and sustain us
at the same time.
The tricky thing about
plunging into abundant life
is that we can’t do it on our own.
Someone has to invite us.
If Elijah hadn’t dared to
ask the widow
to give him her last meal,
it would have been her last meal.
But by imposing on her,
by challenging her to be
absurdly generous, he saved her life.
Our job is to invite each
other into God’s grace.
Who are we in this story?
Perhaps we are bot
the widow and the prophet.
There is a legend that
the Risen Lord
appeared to St. Thomas and told him
to take
the gospel to India.
But Thomas refused; so
Jesus sold Thomas
to a slave trader who took him to India
and sold him to a Raja.
Thomas was an architect
by trade;
so the Raja gave him the
task
of building for him the finest palace in India.
Thomas took from the Raja’s
account,
the construction costs for a palace,
bricks and hiring masons,
he gave
the money to the poor.
Every few months the Raja
would ask for a progress report,
and Thomas would hit him up for more construction costs,
which he would again give to the poor.
Eventually, the Raja
demanded to see his palace.
So Thomas explained, “Your
majesty,
there was no place on earth worthy of a palace for you,
so I have given the money to the poor
in order to build you a palace in heaven.”
The Raja thought a moment
and then replied,
“Oh I see. Thank you.”
Although I come to you
from Las Vegas,
I am not recommending a course of sacred swindling.
But I do say this:
Life and joy do not flow when we are marshaling
our time, talents, thoughts, and attention
to advance our own interest.
Life and joy flow when we give ourselves away.
But that is such a
counter-intuitive thing to do,
we need an invitation.
We need each other’s
encouragement.
The best thing we can do
for another person
is often to ask them for help.
And when someone asks us
for help,
they are doing us a favor.
It is nothing less that
the gift of God’s abundant life.
[i]
This sermon for Pentecost 3 is for a Preaching Course I am taking at the Anglican
Center in Rome.
