There are people I pass by almost every morning on my way to work. They’re not my fellow commuters. These are the people I walk by at Port Authority. Sometimes they hold the doors that are already open. Sometimes they sing a song not as a performer but as a way to draw people’s attention. Now you can assume who I am talking about. These are homeless people. Now, imagine that I go to one of them and ask, “Can you give me everything you have?” This is like trying to get water out of a stone or squeeze blood out of a starved vampire! This seems like what’s happening in the first lesson and the gospel reading this morning. While Elijah does succeed in getting water out of a stone, getting a morsel of bread from the widow, our focus is on how he does it. Which leads us to what makes both of these widows in the first lesson and the gospel lesson give everything to God as well as what compels us to give our whole selves, who we are and what we have to God.
So speaking of Elijah, we might have some bias against him. What kind of God’s prophet would ask to be fed by someone who seems poorer than himself? Why can’t he ask someone who is wealthy enough to provide him with food and drink? Here, Elijah is strictly faithful to God’s commands. Even before his attempt to get food from the widow, he receives God’s commands that there would be a drought. God tells him to go east and hide himself. He will drink from the wadi or ravine and will be fed by the ravens who will bring him bread and meat in the morning and evening. Believe it or not, he is hydrated and fed. And when the ravine also dries up, this is when God tells Elijah to move to a different place. First with the ravens, now with the widow, his life is not easy at all. God tells him, “I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” At this time, Elijah might have thought that there’s some kind of divine arrangement that he doesn’t have to worry about food, perhaps thinking to himself, “Finally, God is treating me as I deserve!” Well, that is not the case at all. Elijah doesn't get the bread easily from the widow who also has her son and others to take care of. Getting water isn’t too difficult. But Elijah faces resistance from the widow. He asks, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” Then she responds, “I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” This widow’s answer is serious and powerful. This is almost like her last will. It’s like saying, “This handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug are the last meal for myself and my son before our deaths. Don’t take away the very last meal from us.” she is realistic enough to know that she and her son have no chance to survive the drought. The main reason why we consider Elijah being too much to ask food from this woman is right there. Not only she faces her own reality as well as her son whom she loves most but also prepares her death. I would call this existential crisis she’s in as the state of spiritual poverty. Her life utterly depends on God alone. In this state, her situation, not her faith in God, pushes her to realize that everything is up to God. It’s like her existential crisis of spiritual poverty takes her faith in God to another level. There’s a sense of complete surrender to God at this point. But we don’t sense any hope in this. That hope that God brings comes only after Elijah demands the last meal from the widow. That hope of God’s life is revealed to the widow only when she lets go of the last thing she would like to hold onto before her and her son’s deaths. Elijah delivers the message of God, the good news, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the god of Israel: the jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” What we see is not how great Elijah is or how great the widow’s faith is. Neither do we learn if we have enough faith, God will fill us with good things. What we do see, however, is whether or not our soul is in the state of spiritual poverty. In other words, do we really see that we are in complete spiritual poverty before God? Do we admit and remind ourselves that our lives are at the mercy of God? Often, material poverty can push us to experience that spiritual poverty where we are completely dependent on God. Or physical poverty through serious illnesses can push us to surrender everything to God. It is not surprising in this sense why people who have done the so-called born-again experience often talk about how they encounter God’s love in their most challenging struggles in their lives. Poverty in the monastic tradition is one of the three vows along with obedience and chastity that monks must make. This poverty is really about putting oneself in the state of constant longing and anticipation for God’s presence. This poverty, whether material, physical, or spiritual, is a means to see what’s most important in our lives before God. It exposes what’s substantial and what’s not. And in this poverty, there’s always the hope of the resurrection that Jesus brings. In this light, we can understand why the widow in today’s gospel lesson is able to give everything she has. Jesus says, “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” She can only do this act of complete surrender because she is in the state of spiritual poverty which is helped by her material poverty as well. In comparison to this widow, rich people who put in large sums are far from spiritual poverty. What about the scribes Jesus criticizes? They are also far from spiritual poverty. They like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. They are spiritually and religious spoiled. They know enough to look spiritual. I must confess that Jesus would talk about clergy in our church the same way he regards the scribes! My friends, today’s gospel lesson calls us to go to the place of spiritual poverty where our hearts are longing for God alone, nothing else. Only the Holy Spirit can fill our existential void of aloneness, loneliness, fear, anxiety, and resentment. Do we have this desperate longing and anticipation for the Holy Spirit? Do we acknowledge our spiritual poverty in our church? Let us go to the place of spiritual poverty, personally and communally. Let the last will of the widow be ours. Only then, we can hear the hope of the resurrection in which Jesus revives our souls and bodies, the jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. Only then, we can put everything we have. May that spiritual poverty be welcomed in our hearts in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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