Recently the Sunday readings had two stories of the poor widows. One told the story of Elijah asking the widow to give up her last piece of bread that she and her son were to have before they would both die. Elijah said give me some and God will look after you. She did and was never in need again.
The second tells the more familiar story of the widow putting a couple of coins into the treasury. Jesus noticed her generosity and commented to his disciples on how she had given more than all the others. This was because it was all she had to live on.
These two stories challenge us to our own generosity and the faith and trust we have in God that he will look after us. Also, can we give till it hurts not just what is left over? In other words we won’t really miss it, because is this any real sacrifice?
In a sense, it’s impossible to sacrifice anything for God. If you get back more than you gave up, have you sacrificed anything at all? We know this is true when we equate this with eternal life – the reward outweighs the temporal sacrifice. What about the rewards in this life? On Judgement Day, our only regret will be whatever we didn’t give back to God. It may seem strange that the key to self-fulfilment is self-denial. The selfish part of us has a nearly distinctive reaction to the word deny. This is a tough call when we enjoy so many luxuries. These luxuries become a part of our way of life and it is hard to imagine life without them. And when this happens we keep looking for more. The more we indulge the more we seek. This is the difficulty of a consumerist society.
I have the firm belief that whatever you do or give to God it will be returned somehow. I know for example that if I put in the time into daily prayer even when under pressure to give that time that I will get the time back twofold. This was the point Elijah was making with the widow.
We mistakenly thing the more we give, the less we’ll have. Worldly logic would tell us this was so but not if we trust in God. The following is an interesting statement and worth pondering.
You ultimately lose what you keep, and you ultimately keep whatever you lose for the cause of Christ.
The author Mark Batterson writes: ‘The more you give away, the more you will enjoy what you have. If you give God the tithe, you’ll enjoy the 90 percent you keep 10 percent more. You’ll also discover that God can do more with 90 percent than you can do with 100 percent… One of our life goals is to reverse tithe and live off 1 percent while giving away 90 percent. It’s the sliding scale of joy!
If we would gradually do this in our lives, even a little, we will reap great joy. The challenge of the two widows is when we reach the 10 percent to live on! What a world if only?
Fr Michael Morley
Parish Priest
28 November 2018
