Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
When things are going great, it’s easy to be faithful. It’s easy to trust God when it’s smooth sailing. Bank account is fat, pantry is full, 2 newish cars in the drive way, cabin by the lake, park model in Arizona. But what happens when things are not this favourable? You’ve run out of pay cheque and there’s still more bills to pay. You’ve been eating Itchy Ban noodles for the 4th night in a row. Your car is a jalopy and needs lots of work. You can barely make mortgage or rent payments on your home let alone more properties elsewhere. It’s the opposite of luxury and the opposite of abundance. How easy is it to be faithful when chips are down?! This is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to faith and trust in God. Our scripture readings are chock full of this theme today.
Just think of the first reading we heard from 1 Kings. Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath. At this time, the term “widow” was synonymous with poverty. Often these were completely destitute women. This one in the Zarephath was dirt poor and she had a son to look after. All she had was a handful of flour and a little remnant oil in jug; just enough to make a last meal for herself and her son before they succumbed to poverty and starvation! This is a truly dire situation to say the least. Then, we see a strange religious guy calling at her from across way. “Bring me some water and make me a sammitch!” This widow, the very poorest of the poor with virtually nothing to her name, is imposed upon by this Man of God. How insulting and insensitive this must have seemed!? A stranger begging for food from people who have nothing. And, insisting that he is fed first and they can clean up the scraps! If you were in her shoes, how utterly ridiculous this must have seemed. And it truly would have, except for the promise from God that came with it: “For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth’” (1Kings 17:14).
There was a promise of a miracle, like feeding the 5000 from a few loaves of bread and a couple fish! But the widow still had to have faith to believe it. She still needed to trust God, and His message through the prophet Elijah. And she does, even when the chips were all the way down and they couldn’t go any more. “And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah” (1Ki 17:15-16). She believed the word of the Lord spoken through Elijah and blessing came of it. And this is the true test of faith, when it’s do or die, when it really matters, will we trust the promise of God to sustain and bless us?
This precise idea is talked about in our reading from 2 Corinthians. St. Paul is writing to them to almost brag about the Christians in Macedonia. Was this some kind of megachurch of the north with a 30 million dollar budget? Thousands of members present every Sunday? Did the pastor have his own private jet?! You know, a really successful and thriving and lively church! Actually it sounds like the exact opposite: “in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3 For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, 4 begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— 5 and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” (8:2-5). From a position of extreme poverty - not unlike the Widow of Zarephath - they wanted to give and support their fellow Christians. Selfless, abundant giving for the sake of the Gospel. In fact, this giving is described as an “act of grace.” As good Lutherans, when we hear “grace” we instantly think of forgiveness, life and salvation, won by the cross of Christ our Lord. But here, St. Paul speaks of the Macedonian Christians giving the grace God gave them.
And this is the nugget: the gifts God freely gives His people ought to be given away. Whether it be financial support, donating food to the Food Bank, works of mercy and service, spending time with lonely people, shoveling grandma’s sidewalk - whatever it is. It’s God’s people sharing God’s grace to the world with this incredible selfless spirit. Even though the Macedonian Christians were poor as Synagogue mice, “they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people” (2Cor 8:4 NIV). It was a privilege to give God’s grace away because they knew you can’t out-give God. When grace is freely given, it multiplies, just like the flour and oil in Zarephath. And when we realize that all we have - our time, talents and treasures - is actually of God’s grace, then we can never run out. We are free to be overflowing with generous abundance. This kind of sincerity of selfless love we see in our Lord’s cross and then from there into our everyday lives as we seek to be more like Christ our Lord.
And speaking of Jesus, that leads us nicely into our Gospel reading. Another poor widow in a place of being destitute … it’s almost like all of these Bible readings are connected?! Our Lord contrasts her to the Scribes. Religious folk who are living high on the kosher hog, wearing the fine robes and receiving praise from the populace, lounging in places of honour and making long drawn out prayers in the marketplace. They take from the poor widows to aggrandize themselves. So this flamboyant luxury is contrasted to the humble faith of a poor widow. Our Lord watches people giving their offerings - apparently He cares about the offerings His people give, fancy that. He watches as rich people give lots from their abundance. And there’s nothing wrong with that, for the record. But it’s the state of the heart our Lord is looking at. The poor widow comes and puts in her 2 coins. It becomes an object lesson for the disciples as Jesus calls them in to see it. Our Lord says “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (MK 12:43).
The concern wasn’t about the amount. It’s the heart. This widow gives everything and our Lord commends such grace. But what happened next? What happened to this now penny-less widow on the day after? We’re not told. But what we do know is that the same Saviour who sat watching the offerings on this Tuesday of Holy Week would also give everything for us and that very widow later that week. He truly gave all He had - His blood, His life, His all, for the life of the world. And for this reason, His followers have every reason to fear, love and trust in Him above all things and in turn, freely give likewise. And in this same self-less spirit, we give our Lord thanks for our soldiers and veterans who served our country and gave so richly of themselves that we might have freedom. We wear our poppies to remember their utmost sacrifice. For all gave some, but some gave all. We will remember them, just as we remember our Saviour who showed us that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (JN 15:13). Amen!
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