If MasterCard was to use the first reading from today’s Mass in one of their commercials, I think it would go something like this:
1: A bundle of kindling-$5.99
2: A loaf of bread-$1.99
3: A jug of olive oil-$6.99
4: Giving away your last morsel of bread to a stranger during drought and famine trusting that God will provide for you-Priceless.
5: for everything else there’s MasterCard.
Some things are priceless, and trust is one of them. In the Word of God today we find three examples of trust. In the first reading we encounter a widow whose situation, or reality, says one thing but of which God says something different. The widow in the first reading is living in a country ravished by famine and drought. She has no visible means of support and her food supply is just about gone. Reality says starvation lies ahead for her. Elijah, a stranger to this woman, comes to her door asking for food and even after relating to him her dire circumstances he not only continues to ask for food but that she feed him first. He also asks her to trust that God will provide for her in the hopelessness of her situation. She is being called not only to be charitable in her poverty but to put radical trust in the words of Elijah. For the widow this is a do or die situation. God either shows up big time in her life or this is the end for her.
In the Gospel we come across the other two examples of trust. The first example comes from the widow who gave recklessly trusting God to take care of her in everything. Her trust is like the trust one has who walks a tight rope without safety equipment. The second example comes from those who gave out of their abundance. Their trust is also like the person who walks the tight rope but with the addition of the safety net. This second example of trust says: “God, I will trust in you but first I will need a back up plan.” The example that the widow gave was praised by Jesus because she sacrificed her independence. The example given by those who gave out of their abundance did not cost much and this kind of trust placed limits on the work of God in their lives.
In the two cases involving the widows God is saying that it is ok to trust him in what appears to be hopeless situations. Both widows gave till it hurt. They trusted in God’s faithfulness even when their reality told them not to. Some of us may even claim that this kind of trust is unrealistic but what we may fail to see is that God is much, much bigger than our reality. It is okay to be realistic but when God invites us to something that seems a little out there remember that God has power even over our reality. This invitation to trust which was extended to the widows was an invitation to step outside of their comfort zone and experience reality as God sees it. This same invitation is extended to us.
In life, God is calling us to give our all in his service, but we are a wounded people who often times seek to compensate for our weaknesses by establishing ourselves in other ways upon foundations built by us. Our wounds are never hidden from God and so he is calling us to trust him to provide, love, heal and forgive. We must however step off our platforms of safety into the mystery of God. What is it that your reality is telling you that is holding you back from trusting God to heal your most secret wounds, to provide for you despite your helplessness, to forgive your most hideous sins and to love you in the midst of it all.
In the Bible there are countless examples of God providing for his people supernaturally such is the case in the first reading. To some extent he still does provide supernaturally but his preference is to provide by using ordinary means. I think that the following saying speaks to the reality of God’s preference. “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” God desires to use each and every one of us as his hands and feet in this world. God can provide for our every need supernaturally if he wants to but to do so would be like giving us a fish, we would eat for a day. But in choosing to use us to bring his blessings to the world he wants to teach us how to fish as it were and thus be nourished for a life time. In choosing the natural to provide for us, God wants us to become instruments of his providence. He wants to generate within the natural, which means you and I, an ongoing atmosphere of communal love in which no one suffers from want.
Do we trust that God is still at work in our midst despite what our reality throws at us? For example, let us look at the Psalm. It says that “the Lord opens the eyes of the blind,” well I haven’t seen anyone given physical sight or have I? As I look around this room I notice many people wearing glasses and I think it would be fair to assume that if I were to ask some of you to remove your glasses you would have great difficulty in seeing. Is it possible that God has chosen to use natural means to heal the blind? I think so.
Another example from the Psalm says that “the Lord watches over the stranger in the land.” Well what do you think? Does he provide for the stranger? Who in your midst is a stranger? I am still new to this area but I have witnessed God caring for Angela Portnoy and her family, strangers in this land, through people like you.
One final example from the Psalm that shows how the Lord chooses to provide for us by natural means is seen in the words: “The Lord sets the prisoners free.” Anyone who has had a bad sickness knows what its like to be a prisoner of pain. Well, my father died of cancer about 8 years ago but a few months before he died a priest visited his room and my mother asked him if he happened to have a miracle in his pocket. The priest responded that the morphine that the nurse was administering to my father was a miracle. Because of this medicine my father was freed from his prison of pain. It’s so true when you think about how many people have died throughout the ages without any pain relief. Each of these examples shows how God has used ordinary means to provide for his people.
Let us penetrate the obvious and discover the new. It is God’s desire to provide, love, heal and forgive this world through people like you and me. But we must, however, be willing to trust God recklessly with our lives because there will be times when our reality will appear empty and impossible. Last of all; remember that God may be challenging John Doe to trust in him in a radical way while at the same time he may be planning to use us to provide for John Doe. We may be the only Bible that our neighbours ever read and when they are finished reading our story may they cry out: Amen.
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