A Total Self Giving To God.
Dear Parishioners,
Our scripture readings today draw our attention to examples of faith, trust and unreserved generosity. The two poor widows mentioned in the readings optimized a model for everyone. In Jesus, God became poor for us, offering himself to take away our sins.
In the first reading, the background to Elijah’s miracle is set at a time of great drought: both in Israel and in Zarephath, which is in Phoenicia, where the deity Baal was worshiped as the god of rain. At the time, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel turned the Israelites to worship of this foreign god. As a result, God asserted his superiority over Baal by preventing it from raining.
When Prophet Elijah arrived at the entrance of the city of Zarephath, he met the widow who extended kindness and a sacrificial gift to him. The prophet requested not just water but also food from a widow who had so little to live on. He assured her that the God of Israel will continue to provide flour and oil for her until the drought ends. The lesson for us is that we should always seek nourishment from God, who, unlike Baal, can truly provide it.
In the gospel, Jesus observed how the crowd was putting money into the treasury. Many people gave sizeable sums to the treasury. Then came a widow who gave two coins worth little and yet Jesus said that her tiny contribution was greater than all others. We learn something from this widow’s experience. First, real gifts ought to be sacrificial. Second, it is not the amount of the gift that matters, rather the cost to the giver. You may have heard this expression “give and don’t count the cost.”
We may wonder if our giving truly counts if we don’t feel the pain. Some people may not give at all unless they get something back. The two widows in the scripture readings perhaps exhibited some recklessness; they gave all they have at a great cost. They showed us an example of how not to hold back. Sometimes, we too do not want to give all, motivated by self-preservation, insecurity and fear. It seems that we are guilty of holding back something from God. The two widows teach us how to surrender.
God took the first step. He so loved the world that gave his only begotten Son Jesus; that he might appear before God on our behalf. His gift of self-brought forgiveness and salvation to those who eagerly awaited him. Our three scripture readings today highlight for us a common theme: a total self-giving to God, that embodies the teaching in the last Week’s Gospel and anticipate Jesus’ total self-giving of his life. Give the little you have to God; he will transform it beyond your imagination.
Grace and Peace to You,
Fr. Vitalis Anyanike, Pastor
