Giving Everything – 32nd Sunday, Year B

By e November 9, 2018 Jesus Stuff No Comments

What does it mean to give everything, and why would we do that?

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B
1 KGS 17:10-16, PS 146:7, 8-9, 9-10, HEB 9:24-28, MK 12:38-44

The reading from Kings shows us a foreign widow who gives a prophet everything she set aside for herself and her son to eat. The letter to the Hebrews reminds us of our high priest, Jesus, who offers himself as a sacrifice. The gospel relates how a poor widow put her whole livelihood into the offering.

In each of these stories, someone offers everything.

What is our everything? Do the widows’ examples propose that we give everything to the church? That seems… extreme.

The Church fathers wrestled with this too, and offer several perspectives.

St. Jerome, or maybe one of his disciples, proposes that the rich are those who are highly educated or gifted with understanding, and who present to the church the obscure and hidden wisdom in the Old and New Testament scriptures. The poor are the rest of us, who may have only a single small and poorly formed idea, but share it as well as we can.

Theophylact, a 7th century Byzantine author, suggests that the two mites are our flesh and our mind. He proposes that we offer our flesh by fasting and abstinence, and our mind by humility.

St. Bede suggests that the poor widow represents the simplicity of the Church. We are poor, because we cast away pride and the desire for worldly things. The Church is a widow because Jesus, husband of the church, died for us. Our two mites are love of God, and love of neighbor, as we heard last Sunday, or perhaps faith and prayer, which are looked upon as insignificant, but are immeasurably valuable.

This leaves us a little fuzzy still on what it means for us to give everything. I’d like to come back to that in a moment; I think it might help to consider what “give everything” means if we first explore why we would give it.

Why does the widow gave her child’s food to Elijah? There is a terrible drought, with no end in site. The widow must have access to water despite the drought, since she gives Elijah a cup earlier in the story, but the food? What kind of a mother would take food from her child and give it to some dude from the desert?

I have a new perspective on this after reading over the story in context. This is the very beginning of Elijah’s ministry. He comes out of nowhere, tells Ahab there’s going to be seven years drought, without even dew, then promptly hides in a wadi out in the desert.

Elijah had enough faith in God to put his life on the line twice here. First, he told Ahab some very bad news. That’s not a super great idea, and likely to result in his execution. Then, he was obedient to the Lord’s command to go hide in a wadi. A wadi. A place where, if it rained at all upstream, he’d be almost certainly killed by the flash floods that run through the wadi when there’s any rain at all. Elijah definitely had faith that God’s word was certain.

The widow may have heard something about this prophecy, but I can’t see that she has any way of knowing or even suspecting that this thirsty man from the desert is the same prophet who told of their doom.

No way, that is, except what the scriptures tell us right before today’s readings.

The Lord tells Elijah (v9) “Arise, go to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”

So, the widow receives a command from the Lord, then a prophet of that same God shows up and asks for food, and promises that the food won’t run out. Perhaps it’s not so unreasonable to think she has reason to make an offering out of faith that God will provide for the future.

So, the first widow gave everything because she had faith.

What about the second widow? It seems safe to assume she’s giving out of faith, but I don’t see any promise here that she’s going to get dinner tomorrow if she gives everything today. Why does she give everything?

I don’t know.

I have a theory, though.

Well, actually, I stole a theory from St. Bede.

St. Bede suggests that the widow understands that even her very living is not her own, but a gift of Divine Grace. She gives everything, because she has real faith in God’s provision for tomorrow arising from her understanding that all she has is a gift from a loving God, whom she loves in return.

Last week, we heard that the first two commandments are to love God, and to love our neighbor, and that these are worth more than all the offerings and sacrifices we might present. Giving everything, as Christ does upon the cross, and as the widows do, is the very essence of love.

As I meditated, upon this, I was reminded of Pope St. John Paul II, who brought St. Louis de Montfort’s “Totus tuus” back to our attention.

St. Louis writes in his prayer to Mary: “Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt… I am totally yours and all that I have is yours.”

I went back to re-read the rest of his prayer of consecration to Mary. St. Louis goes on to say “Thou art all mine by mercy, and I am thine by justice. But I am not yet sufficiently thine. I now give myself wholly to thee without keeping anything back for myself or others.”

For St. Louis, and I think for Pope St. John Paul II, perhaps “Totus tuus” is not only an offering. They are saying, but perhaps not only saying “here, take everything.” Pope St. Paul II even says, in his Threshold of Hope, “It is more.” How is it more?

It is more than an offering, it is a statement of fact.

What does St. Louis say, again?

“I am thine by justice.”

Exactly what St. Bede proposes the widow realizes.

All I have. All you have.

All I am. All you are.

All of it.

All of it is a gift from our God, who chooses to give himself to us through Mary.

The widow gives everything because she, like St. Louis and Pope St. John Paul II, understands the reality that everything she has is his already.

What do we do with this? How do we give everything? How do we believe in our heart and live out the reality that our everything is gift, and how do we give it back?

I don’t know. My faith, and my love… they aren’t big enough yet.

For now, I am going to do what I can do – what we all can do.

First, I’m going to say “yes.” Yes, I want to have the kind of faith and love that I can freely give everything. Yes, I admit that I don’t, yet. Yes, I give permission to “let it be done to me.”

Then, I am going to cooperate with that “to me.” I am going to focus on learning to love God more, and allowing the gift of faith to grow within me.

I am going to nourish the gift of faith by taking seriously the stories of God’s people in scripture, those of the historical church, and those happening around me today.

I am going to nourish the gift of love by joining the psalmists in saying “Praise the Lord, my soul!” in response to the goodness of the Lord, and by remembering how good God has been to me, and by spending more time in the presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament.

I encourage you to join me in admitting where you might be lacking in faith and in love, in giving God permission to work, and in striving to cooperate with God’s work.

As our faith grows, and our love grows, perhaps we can begin to give of ourselves to the degree we are gifted with those virtues. If we do, then whatever it is we have to offer will be accepted, whether it is the widow’s mite, food for a stranger, or our very life poured out as an offering.

What do you think?