32 Sunday OT B: Letting God to love you in your poverty and weaknesses
Dear brothers and sisters:
The widow of Zarephath and her son are just a meal away from starvation and death when Elijah arrives begging for a meal. For her sake and that of her son, the widow could have held on tightly to her last meal, but she does not. She gives her last meal to the stranger because she trusts in a divine promise: “The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the LORD sends rain upon the earth.” In total trust, she gives over her last meal to a stranger who, like herself, is starving.
The other widow in the familiar gospel passage does similarly. Unlike the rich, who hold on to their wealth and only give from their abundance, she does not cling to her two cents. She gives it all. Those two cents represent her poverty and vulnerability. She gives all that over to the Lord.
There are many lessons that these widows teach us. But we can focus on a couple.
First, you can ask yourself if there are things that you are holding onto or clinging to too tightly: Is it your time, resources, ideas, projects, past experiences, resentments, expectations, how you want things to be, etc.? How is that clinging affecting you, your interior freedom, and your relationships? Positively or negatively?
Second, what is the Lord inviting you to give over to him that represents your poverty and your vulnerability?
As I present these questions to you, I present them to myself as well.
The two widows show us how to give over to the Lord our poverty, and our vulnerability and letting God love us in that poverty, in that vulnerability. To the extent that we know how to give over our weaknesses to the Lord, it is to the extent that we experience his love in those weaknesses.
As we come to the altar of the Lord, let us not only give him what we have in plenty, our strengths, but also our poverty, our vulnerability, and our weaknesses. Let his promise and love be the source of our confidence.