Friends, this Sunday we meet 2 widows in scripture. One from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. Both are at the end of their resources. Nothing left. There is a profound spiritual insight from both. At the end of their financial rope they are asked to keep giving. The widow of Zarephath who, amid a famine, gives her last meal to the prophet Elijah. Divine grace comes when we are most vulnerable, or at least that is when we notice it more. Because she gives her last morsel, she keeps on receiving for a whole year the sustenance she needs. Here is the ultimate paradox: abundance comes from the wiling gift.

Jesus observes the widow who gives her last penny, literally. Both Elijah and Jesus address women in desperate situations. Then, they are asked to give. Really? They are in need. But here is the deep, rich truth. When we are lined to the God who is nothing but giving, then we can give and give and never run out. We cannot outlive God.

The flip side is when we cling to pathetic substitutes for God like money, power, and pleasure. We can hoard and hoard but never have enough. It’s counterintuitive but we can turn something that is not God into God and it will never be enough,  WE have God by giving God away. The same is true with faith, joy, hospitality, etc. the more we give, the more we receive. Our being increases in the measure we give it away. The prayer attributed to St. Francis says it all:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal.

See you Sunday

+Philip