Down and
out.
That is how
life was for the two widows in our stories today.
The woman in
Zarephath was preparing what she thought would be her last meal.
The woman in
Nain was burying her son and, being a widow and unable to inherit from her son,
she was facing immediate homelessness.
This was as
down and out as anyone could be.
When such circumstances
crash in on people today they might have family supports to carry them through,
they might have access to some Social Security safety net income, but they
might not – and for them life is very tough.
But the
story emerging from these two tales is one of hope.
Firstly they
encourage is to trust that God will provide.
I have seen
communities in which this encouragement has expanded into what we might call a
“Prosperity Gospel” – if we pray the right way God will give us what we ask
for. I don’t think either of these women
became rich beyond their wildest dreams.
But in their desperate need, God became present in Elijah and Jesus to
meet their need give them a new way forward.
The second
thing emerging from these stories is the encouragement to be content with what
God has given us. This is very hard in
our modern consumer society – we grow up being taught that we can do anything
we aspire to and that if we work hard enough we can get anything that we want.
It becomes
really hard for us to even imagine what enough is let alone be content with
enough. I would dare to suggest that
“enough” is probably far less than you currently think you need in life.
But these
stories encourage us all to trust that God will make sure we have enough.
I know that
some of you think of our church here at Holy Cross as a “little church”. Sometimes we feel desolate about the future
of the church because we have become so small.
But I want to encourage you to trust that God will ensure that we have
ENOUGH.
You may
remember that parable of the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 13: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this. A woman takes some yeast and mixes it with a
bag of flour until the whole batch of dough rises.”
If we are to
trust that God will make sure we have enough, we also have to trust that in God
what we do have is enough to be the Kingdom of Heaven in this place.
