THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY "B" WIDOWS

THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

Cycle “B”: 1 King 17, 1016   Mk 12, 38-44

Introduction:           Today’s liturgy takes its cue from the story of the poor widow who gave all she had to God’s service. Today’s liturgy calls us to serve God in thankfulness and generosity. So we beg his forgiveness for our reluctance and sluggishness, even for our anger when we imagine that God is too demanding of us. Let our minds be at peace and allow the dear Lord to take over our lives.

  

The Homily

Does religion make people good, or is it because people are good that religion survives? According to today’s Gospel, people in the forefront of religious practice don’t give a very good example of goodness, while someone who is less learned in matters of religion shows great generosity. The opening frame of today’s Gospel is Jesus’ remarks against the “experts” in religion, the scribes. Some of them had found in religion a success route that was similar to the modern corporate ladder. They liked to go around in long robes, using their prayer shawl (“tallith”) outside of prayer time as a showy display of what passed for “piety.” They accepted the deep ceremonial bows of the people as marks of respect for their alleged superiority. In addition, they wangled the places up front facing the ordinary people in the synagogues, got seats on the dais at banquets, and made their public prayers lengthy. To Jesus’ charge of pride and hypocrisy against them, he added the savings of widows.

Now enter the widow. Widows are a Bible favourite. The widows always get a favourable mention in the stories of the Bible. We heard the story of the poor widow and her starving son in the first reading, and how she was helped by the prophet. In Luke 7, 11-16 there is the account of Jesus’ meeting with the widow in the funeral procession of her only son, a young man who was the sole support of his widowed mother, whom Jesus gave back to the grieving women. And you can be sure Jesus was sweetly gracious to his dear mother Mary, especially from the start of her widowhood – she was probably 33 years old then and Jesus an 18-year-old adolescent. (If Mary died at 45 years, she was a widow for at least 12 years)

 Widows were powerless and unprotected, usually presented as poor and weak, unable to help themselves, the object of other people’s kindness. We don’t even know the name of the widow of today’s story, yet she’ll be remembered for as long as the Gospel is preached. She had little to give by worldly standards: two copper coins called “lepton” in Hebrew, about 1/64^th of the daily wage of a labourer. Poor as she was, she was going to play her part for a good cause.  She gave unobtrusively, with a loving heart, because the Temple meant so much to her. Expecting nothing in return, the widow’s faith meant a great deal to her. Were it not for Jesus she would have gone back into the vast unknown of millions of nameless people. But from then on she stands as the representative of those generous though anonymous people whose names are inscribed in the heart of God. Our hearts have to warm to Jesus who knows the hearts of little people, because for him little means a lot. With God it is not the amount of money one gives that counts, but the heart that gives it.

 And as for that widow we heard of in the first reading, remember she was a pagan, a non-Jew, and she was generous. She didn’t realise that the person asking for water and bread was the great Hebrew prophet, Elijah. She didn’t need any religion to tell her that here was a needy fellow human. She gave whatever she had before she fed herself and her son. And God fulfilled the promises Elijah made in his name. Her food did not run out until the famine was over.

Jesus considered the story of Elijah and the poor widow so impressive that he told it in a synagogue instruction in Nazareth. In order to teach God’s love and care for all people, he quoted the example of this pagan widow, and another pagan, Naaman the leper who was cured by the prophet Elisha. These pagan examples didn’t go down well with the Jewish townsfolk. They hustled Jesus out with the intention of killing him (Lk. 4, 20-30). They need not have gone berserk. All that Jesus wanted to say was that before God it is not the amount given that counts, but the amount it costs to give.

Someone has enumerated four types of giving. The first is grudge giving. I hate to part with this money but I will. The second is duty giving. I must give so as to keep up with the Joneses. The third is shrewd giving. We part with our money with what Dr. Johnson deliciously called a “lively sense of favours to come.” Raffle tickets fit in very nicely in this category. The final category is thanksgiving. I part with my funds precisely because God has been so generous to me.

Let us face our difficulties - at work, within our families, and in our community  - with faith, courage, and generosity. Let us help rather than hinder, to build rather than tear down; to encourage and not to criticise; to be thoughtful and kind, a ready listener to the others telling us their troubles, motivated by genuine caring as taught and lived out by Jesus.

 This really is Christian communication and interaction. Archbishop Martin of Dublin said last month that Christian values are under threat because of believers who relegate their faith to their private lives. He called such Christians “nine-to-five atheists”. He saw the biggest challenge to Christian values as “resignation, indifference, apathy or simply giving in” and complained of a tendency to privatise faith – a Christian in private life, an atheist in the work place.

PRAYER: (Ignatius of Loyola)

Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous;

Teach me to serve you as you deserve;

To give and not to count the cost,

To fight and not to heed the wounds,

To toil and not to seek for rest,

To labour and not to ask for any reward,

Save that of knowing that I do your will.

Sunday, Nov. 11, is the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Mass Readings: 1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44.

We are presented with two widows this week, two women who in the eyes of the world had nothing, yet in the eyes of God were blessed in a measure beyond man’s estimation.

The prophet Elijah is led by God to the woman in the first reading. Disgusted with the idolatry of the tribes to the north, who have hardened themselves against his repeated warnings, Elijah calls down a drought, a reflection of the sterility of their hearts. The widow in Zarephath is not a Jew, yet she, too, is suffering from near-starvation.

Elijah asks her to share with him the handful of food she has, the last bit she plans to consume with her son before they succumb to death.

“Do not be afraid,” he assures her. She trusts him and the promises he makes in the name of the God of Israel, and she is rewarded with flour and oil for a year — a miracle in the midst of famine.

In the Gospel, Jesus watches another widow place her last two coins into the temple treasury, offering all she had, and points out to the disciples her faith. He also warns his friends, who will someday be religious leaders themselves, not to be like the vain and self-seeking scribes who “devour the houses of widows.”

In stark contrast, the disciples will be asked to be leaders who will lay down their lives in service and to give all they have, too, for the sake of the Kingdom.

There is another widow who Jesus may have been thinking of, who surely was never far from his thoughts: his mother.

A poor widow, too, Mary may not have even had two coins. But she had a Son whom she loved with everything she had. When she was asked to surrender him, there was no hesitation. He could not be contained. He was for the world, and she opened her heart and released him.

From the moment at Cana, when, at her request, he began his “hour,” she watched him walk closer and closer to his death, and she followed unhesitatingly, giving him away day by day. Finally, at the cross, they both spilled themselves out for the salvation of the world, holding nothing back. And in the empty space Mary’s continuous “Yes” carved out in her heart, we, the faithful, flooded in with her silent assent to his anguished words, “Behold your son.”

This time, the reward was the world’s. Even her recompense was not for her — it was for us. Her generosity won us his own mother.

This is a treasure beyond all telling, a prize to claim despite all our unworthiness. This is heavenly wealth spilled into the treasury of our souls. She is the first fruit of God’s love, and in astonishing grace, he gives her to us.

Notice that Elijah’s words to the widow are echoed by the angel to Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home” (Matthew 1:20); and so we, too, should receive this immense gift with gratitude and imitate her without fear. Like the widows, like the disciples, like Jesus and Mary, we are asked for complete detachment from the world and to be ready to give away all we have, even in our poverty. And because we have a God who has done this for us, we know we can trust him to provide for all we need. Do not be afraid.