Pentecost 23, Year B
November 12, 2006
1 Kings 17: 8-16
ark 12:38-44

Two Widows

The Rev'd Jonathan Hutchison, Vicar - St. David's Episcopal Church, Bean Blossom, Indiana 

Today is the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost. If you look at the calendar of the Church year, you will see that no special feast is celebrated on this day. But I think there should be. On our bulletin inserts this morning, in great big letters, italicized, it should read “The Feast of the Widows”. The Feast of the Widows. I like it. Of course, on the surface, it doesn’t make sense. Because you know, in the world of the Bible, widows generally don’t have very much food.

In the world of the Bible, widows and orphans are the royalty of the poor, the ones God favors most because they have the least. In the world of the Bible, women who survive their spouses are then taken in marriage by a brother-in-law. A woman who remains a widow is a woman without an extended family, without any social or legal status, without rights and without property. Widows play a major role in two of our Bible stories this morning and the storytellers don’t even tell us their names. In the world of the Bible, widows are non-people, the poster children of the disenfranchised and powerless.

And in the upside-down world of the Bible, into which we peeked this morning, it’s two widows (both without two shekels to rub together), who become examples of sacrificial stewardship, giving beyond their means. Now, some of you are thinking, “Oh no…there he goes. As soon as I heard that old Widow’s mite story, I knew it was going to be a stewardship sermon.” My friends, every sermon is a stewardship sermon… stewardship is what we do with all that we are and all that we have received, in the time we have. And that is the basic stuff of the Christian life. But that’s another stewardship sermon.

This stewardship sermon doesn’t focus on the sacrificial giving part, except as a natural consequence, a outward, visible sign of an inward, spiritual grace, evidence that something more fundamental and important has taken place. These widows just can’t help themselves. They give because they’re in love.

We ought to call this the Feast of the Widows because these two women, no less than Peter, no less than Paul, stand as giants of faith. Their desire for God transforms their scarcity into abundance.

Apparently, Jesus is far more impressed by those who turn scarcity into abundance than he is with those who parlay their abundance into big-donor status. He sits in the Temple, watching the rich leave large money offering at the Temple treasury, and teaching about false piety, about religion practiced for the sake of appearances. Then arrives the most famous widow of all time, having come with nothing but two small coins, worth about a penny.

Now, we don’t think much of a penny these days. The other day, I saw a penny lying on the ground and I had to debate whether it was worth bending over to pick it up. But to that poor widow, those two small coins were all she had to give. And here is Jesus’ famous assessment: "Truly I tell you, 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."

Hearing this story today, and digesting Jesus’ teaching, it is tempting to rationalize, to defend ourselves against the implications. You’ve heard the one about the IRS tax form? “Line #1. How much money did you make this year? Line #2. Send it in.” That’s not how most of us make our gifts to the Church at pledge time. But that’s what this widow does.

“Oh”, we say, “well, she’s probably already paid her taxes and her rent and bought her food…those two coins are she has left over. Well, maybe…but then we’ve made it our business to second-guess Jesus. In any case, she didn’t hold back. Why? And what does that have to do with us?

You know, Jesus isn’t giving a seminar on technicalities of stewardship. He isn’t advising us on pre- or post-tax income, or the IRS deductions for charitable giving. He’s talking about the spiritual difference between guarded calculation (what can I afford, what will make me look good?) and the desire to give that arises out of devotion. The first is the product of the head…the widow’s gift is an expression of the heart.

Something has happened within her being. The story of the Widow’s Mite is a portrait of mature faith, grounded in the experience of the God who brings living water from the rock in the wilderness of our life experience. In such a faith, money is indistinguishable from acts of mercy or songs of praise, a medium of exchange of holy energy. She comes to the Temple, the dwelling place of the Holy One, to participate in a spiritual exercise, a discipline, a way to make tangible something intangible inside.

Even more fascinating to me, though, is the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. Guided by God, Elijah seeks her out and imposes on her the ancient obligation of hospitality to the stranger. "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, 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." Translation: this is the very last of her food. She has no hope. She has nothing to give.

Or so she believes. What makes this story even more fascinating, to my mind, is that we do not see in her the effects of a mature, internalized faith. We see a person who harbors a desire for faith, but has not yet learned to trust God. The presence of a dependent son suggests that perhaps her bereavement is recent and that she is only beginning to come to terms with the hardships of widowhood.

And so, Elijah, while appearing to be an unsought burden, a drain on her scant resources, is actually the instrument sent by God to help this poor widow transform her scarcity into abundance. Elijah says to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me 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."

In this season of harvest, it is well to consider the land. It does not bring forth increase, except the farmer commit part of the last harvest back to the earth. Likewise, faith does not grow without a willingness to step out in faith, to trust God enough to take that morsel we cannot seem to spare in the present time and offer it up for a more abundant future. The story tells how the widow of Zarephath goes home and does as Elijah says, so that she as well as he and her household were able to eat for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.

As we continue to reflect on the mysteries of stewardship and of faith, until the conclusion of our pledge campaign, I hope you will take one thing away from this stewardship sermon. Like faith itself, stewardship is about transforming our perception of scarcity into one of abundance. It is not about abundant giving…that’s just a technique for growing in faith and a happy side effect. It’s about abundant living. AMEN