'The word of the LORD came to Elijah, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “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.” Elijah said 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.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate 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.'
-- I Kings 17: 8-16
'As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who 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 devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “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.”'
--Mark 12: 38-44
This past Sunday was only my third one serving the folks of the Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill. The seats are set up monastic-style, facing each other, so for the first two weeks I chose to preach from the center aisle. Not only does it feel more natural, but the Advocate doesn't exactly have a pulpit, more like a lectern/ambo that is used for the readings and prayers. However, at least for one Sunday, that lectern/ambo served the purpose of a pulpit, which is the visible symbol of the authority given to a preacher to proclaim the Good News. Despite the tumultuous week that we had just experienced, that is what I intended to do for the people whom I have been called to serve.
It's times like this when I’m glad that the burden does not fall on me to choose our Scriptures for the each Sunday. I might have resorted to something like Psalm 3, which says in its seventh verse:
“Rise up, O Lord; set me free, O my God; surely you will strike all my enemies across the face; you will break the teeth of the wicked.”
Because that’s where I’ve been since last Tuesday. I’ve wrestled with a lot of anger, and also fear – for myself and my spouse, for my queer siblings, for our immigrant neighbors, and for everyone who faces an uncertain and unclear future when the calendar turns to 2025. I’m not going to tell you that things are still ok because Jesus was Lord the day before the election and he’s still Lord now; that things are bad but God is still good. That’s called spiritual bypassing, and it’s a form of gaslighting and abuse. I’m not going to do that. Because for so many things are not ok, and that kind of rhetoric does very little to heal the hurting that folks are feeling or assuage the legitimate concerns that the most vulnerable among us face. I’m not compelled to lean into that right now.
As I told my folks on Sunday, I don’t exactly feel like I have much to give right now. Maybe you don’t either. And that’s ok. We say it every week at the Advocate: bring what you’ve got into this space, bring it this Table, give it to God and see what happens. I’m gonna try to give what little bit I have and see what happens.
I’ve heard it said before, and you’ll hear me say many times, that there is a difference between fact and truth. Facts are things that are provable, while truth is something deeper, it’s about meaning and feeling. I studied for a summer in the Holy Land several years ago, and our guide regularly told us that if we had come there looking for facts we would leave disappointed, but if we came looking for truth we would find it. Facts, as we have seen recently, aren’t always enough. Our Scriptures, likewise, are not always factual, but they are filled with truth, with meaning, with life lessons told through myth, metaphor, hyperbole, song, prose, and poetry. It might be hard to believe that God factually did all those things in our Bible stories, but it matter that we hold to the truth God that can do them. And there is truth in our Scriptures this week that maybe, just maybe, can send us on our way with some modicum of hope.
That truth is conveyed by two widows, separated by roughly 900 years. The first is caught up in a time of drought and famine. Her household has succumbed, and all that remains is her and her son. There’s not much left, just enough meal and oil to bake one last cake for the two of them to share before they die. She’s met by Elijah, the so-called Man of God, who has the audacity to ask her to make a cake for him first. A bit presumptuous, if you ask me, but the widow has nothing to left to lose. She offers what little she does have, and dips into her jar of meal and jug of oil to make the Man of God’s cake…and then she makes one for herself…and another for her son….and another…and another….for days on end. The jug and jar did not fail. It was all she had, but it was enough. That’s the truth of this story, even if such a miracle is, perhaps, not factual.
We find Jesus today, on the Tuesday before he died, in the temple teaching and preaching. Beware, he warns those gathered, of the scribes, of those who were the entrepreneurs of the religious establishment, a literate class in an illiterate society who, as Jesus puts it, devoured widow’s houses, usually by administering loan agreements and then foreclosing on widows’ property when they couldn't repay the loan. It just so happens, there in their midst, is another poor widow, who gives two copper coins worth a penny into the general treasury. What an unlikely candidate to be teaching in the temple. Others are certainly considered more powerful, more important, more holy than she, yet it is her faithfulness, her willingness to bring all she’s got, no matter how insufficient it may appear, and in so doing, offer a lesson on the quality of real power, which doesn’t look like the pomposity of the scribes but the humility of this widow. Does it factually make sense that a woman would hand over, as our translation puts it, “everything she had, all she had to live on.” Not really – why would anyone do that? - yet the truth of her story remains, that real power comes not from the top-down or from an abundance of privilege, but from the bottom-up and from self-emptying when it would seem there’s nothing left. The mite of this widow not only blesses her but everyone who witnessed it.
A Greek word so often used in the New Testament is kenosis, which means to empty oneself. Paul uses this word to not only describe what Jesus does on the cross, but also what we are meant to do for one another. Both of the widows in these stories embody kenosis, they empty themselves. They’ve got no idea what is going to happen, how God might show up – if at all. Yet here, at the end of their ropes, and because they do not fear to lose what little bit they still have left, they can offer it with the slimmest of hopes, that something – anything – might be possible.
What little bit you have right now is enough. As I said on Sunday, even if you feel empty, the fact that you are even here is enough. If all you have is a lament, or even a curse, it’s enough. For this place and this time, it’s enough. I wish that all we have experienced in these latter days had not happened in our time. But as Galdalf reminded Frodo, all we have to decide now is what to do with the time that is given us. I don't know about any of you, but what I intend to do, like those two widows in our stories this week, is give what little I have each day, with the slimmest of hopes that, to quote another prophetic voice from The Lord of the Rings, there is some good left in this world and it is worth fighting for! And I promise you that I will fight and I will preach – with words, when necessary – in the name of the Lord Jesus and all that he lived, died, and rose for, until I have emptied myself of all that I have to give. And it will be my greatest honor to do that by your side.
It is important that we acknowledge the grief that is all around us and to honor that every person may be in a different stage of that grief – whether denial, sadness, anger, bargaining, or acceptance. As an aside, for any of you who are not experiencing grief right now, I say, "Thanks be to God!" But for those of us who are, it's important to name it. No doubt the two widows were also grieving for what was going on in their own times. Yet we also know that, to paraphrase Richard Rohr, those who do not transform their grief and pain will transmit it. Hurt people hurt people, after all. We're watching that play out in front of us. Perhaps not today, but some day, together, we will transform this grief and this pain and will steel ourselves to do what we are called to do as followers not of Caesar but of Jesus!
Our Psalm for this past Sunday was Psalm 146 which, in the second verse, says it pretty plainly: "Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them."Our trust is in, again to quote that Psalm, the One who gives justice to those who are oppressed, food to those who hunger, who sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, who cares for the stranger, sustains the orphan and widow, and frustrates the wicked. That is our work and it always has been, and our work does not change. We keep showing up, we keep emptying ourselves, we keep filling one another with the Bread of heaven and Cup of salvation, we keep praying, and we keep letting what we say and do every Sunday inspire us to go out there and live it every single day. The meal and the oil did not fail. The widow’s mite blessed her and those around her immeasurably. Did God really, factually, do these things? Maybe, maybe not. But the truth is God can. And at least for right now, that is enough.
