top of page

The Courage of Trusting in God when you are empty

Writer's picture: Church of the IncarnationChurch of the Incarnation

One of my favorite characters in Scripture is the widow at Zarepheth. Do you remember the story? God sends the prophet, Elijah to her with a request to have a little bread. This widow demonstrates incredible courage and humility in making a huge sacrifice, that in turn, allows the whole world to see what love looks like: in spite of her condition - having only enough flour and oil and water for a small cake for her and her son, after which she says she’s going to go home and die - she follows Elijah’s request for some cake because he tells her that God will provide for her.


Her hope and faith in the words of God’s prophet, “God will provide what you need,” are met by God’s fulfillment of that promise. So both she and her son and Elijah are able to eat for the foreseeable future. But it is her choice to make that sacrifice, to share her last bit of food to live on, with a stranger. And that sacrifice that could lead so easily to the death of her son, is instead met by God’s provision, just as happened to Abraham with Isaac, his son. 


Jesus recalls this very story when he’s sitting in the synagogue talking to his people, Jews. But he throws a twist at them: there were many widows where Elijah travelled, but he was sent by God only to her. And he adds to the story, “and there were plenty of people with a kind of leprosy, but the prophet Elisha was sent only to Naaman.” And it was only a servant of Elisha’s who told Naaman to wash in the river 7 times. And it was only when he finally humbled himself to go and wash that he received healing.


The crowd in the Synagogue was enraged after he recounted these two stories from their history, with his particular twist that there were plenty of widows and plenty of Lepers who were not healed when God sent Elijah and Elisha. Why were they so enraged? Because they got his implication: he is not just God’s prophet; he is the fulfillment of God’s love, which is an act of judgment; of sifting the unworthy from the worthy; of those who will receive and those who will not, God’s redemption.


In blunt terms: to say that the Scriptures have been fulfilled is to say that Jesus is the God of promise who is bringing Israel and the gentiles from death into life. Jesus has been sent and comes for those who are willing to sacrifice all that they have to follow him, even to the point of their own deaths. This is what the widow’s witness demonstrates. Her decision of faithfulness to God, and to Elijah, her neighbour, foreshadows Jesus’s own witness in the Garden of Gethsemene: not my will, not even my life, but your will be done so that those you asked me to provide for might also have life. 


So it is that through Jesus, Elijah and the widow, show us how God’s love received with courage and humility make up the substance of God’s own mission. Particular moments in time, particular relationships of giving and receiving, or laying oneself bare to care for another, or letting go of our pride and entitlement so we can face pain, death, loss, poverty, and fear, not alone, but with those God sends into our lives; for it is in and through them that God works to provide for us and to change us so that we can find not the world’s peace, but his peace.          


This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. In this life, then, having received eternal place, purpose, comfort and love in him, we are called to bear through life - an often very difficult life - in and with love not because it's easy to do so but because in our little spheres of relationships, all the common place events of life and of death, we are made to share that love to the extent we can.


Our reading from Corinthians tells us that we are limited in our knowledge and in understanding God’s full provision for all people i.e. how the world is going to turn out and how all things fit together. We are finite and limited and frail. So we can't fix everything. We can’t find rules or laws for everything that will allow us to see and know as God does. Trying to fix everything and being anxious about everything only exacerbates fear, anxiety, and destructive ways of thinking, speaking and acting. 


This was why Jesus went after the Jews worshipping in the Synagogue: stop trying to climb the ladder to become your own gods. Have the courage and humility to follow me so that you can learn how I am calling you to serve, who I am giving you to serve right here and now. Set your mind or your actions to working in the small sphere of influence you have, to help others know they are loved by God; to speak wisdom rather than fear; to find little things of hope rather than dwelling on all the destruction or possible destruction you see around you. What small good borne of knowing you are loved, can you do that day, that week, that month. It doesn't have to be big. You are not the builder of the house of God, only its worker. “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” This is the reality of God's love that is given to us by God, by following God and focusing on him and not the world's ways. And this is the way in which we are then called to live not because we need to earn anything but because living in this way allows us to chart progress and find fulfillment in extremely simple ways of giving of ourselves for others, rather than being swallowed up by our own anxieties, concerns, frustrations and fears. AMEN


4 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


© 2022 by COTI

  • Facebook
bottom of page