Robert Barron - Trusting God in Dire Straits
Peace be with you. Friends, our first reading is that wonderful, wonderful story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. It's one of my favorites. It's a kind of hidden gem, I think, in the Old Testament. Like so many of the stories in the Bible, it is very laconically stated, very understated, but chock-full of spiritual meaning. To get it, though, we have to back up a little bit to understand Elijah and what he's all about. Remember, Elijah emerges as the great critic of Ahab, king of Israel, who is described as the worst of all the kings of Israel, which means he's a pretty bad guy. He's married to Jezebel, and through Jezebel, he gives the country over to the worship of false gods, which, in the Bible, is always the wrong thing to do.
So, Elijah challenges him. Ahab says, "I'm having none of it". And so Elijah declares a drought. Now, as always, in the Bible, this is not God being capricious, it's a spiritual symbol. Turning away from God means turning away from the source of life. Just as Adam and Eve are kicked out of a garden and they go into a desert, not God being difficult or punitive, it's spiritual logic. If you turn away from the source of life, life is going to dry up. So, same thing here, this great drought descends upon the land. Elijah finds himself caught up in the dire situation, and he's told by God, listen, now, "Go to the wadi Cherith and you shall drink from the wadi. And I've commanded the ravens to feed you there".
So, it's not the Four Seasons hotel he's been sent to, it's a pretty primitive situation. "Go drink from this little rivulet, and I'm going to send ravens to feed you". The main thing here, everybody, is in this time of great trial and suffering and difficulty, Elijah is called upon to trust. It's so essential in the spiritual order. We're going through life, and we think we're kind of in command, and we're doing what we need to do. But there's certain times we run out of energy, we run out of life. What do you do at those times? It's precisely at those times you're called upon to trust in God's providence.
And notice, please, that sometimes it unfolds in a way that you'd never expect. Is this the way that he'd expect to be fed and given to drink? Well, no, it's this very strange way, but so it often goes. We trust not in our own powers, but in the powers of God. The story goes on. Given the drought, in time this wadi, this little river, dries up, and Elijah finds himself again in desperate straits. I put myself in his shoes at this point. So, okay, you've been kind of hanging in there, God has been providing food and drink, but now even that little inadequate source of water, even that's drying up. How panicked he must have been. I would've been panicking if I thought, "Here's my one source of sustenance and it's just given out".
At that moment, again, what's he called to do? Trust. Trust. Think, everybody, of times in your own life of depression, times when you feel pretty lost, when you feel that the things that used to give you joy, that used to give you life, they're kind of drying up. And maybe you're panicking a little bit, at the psychological and spiritual level. What do you do? You trust. You trust in the power of God. At those moments, the providence of God becomes not just a theological abstraction, it becomes a whole manner of life. And so at the second moment, he hears this message from the Lord. "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there. For I've commanded a widow there to feed you".
Now, we might read this in the 21st century and say, "Okay, that seems to make sense". In Elijah's time, that would make not a lick of sense, not any part of it. Go to Zarephath, it's a little town in Sidon. That means outside of Israelite territory. Okay, so I'm in desperate straits in my own country, and you're telling me to go into a foreign land, presumably with people that don't speak my language, that don't have my customs, that don't share my religion? Is that the most natural choice, when you're in deep trouble? Wander into a foreign country. Then, more to it, He commands a widow there to feed you. There's no candidate less likely to be a source of sustenance than a widow, because in the ancient world, a widow, someone whose husband had died, was someone almost by definition in dire straits.
So, before there were anything like public programs to support the poor and the indigent and all of that, none of that existed, if your husband died and you had no other means of support, maybe the rest of your family was gone or they wandered away, you were pretty much destitute. "So, I know, Elijah, you're in serious trouble. You're starving. Not enough to drink. Okay, here's the plan. Leave your own country, wander into foreign land, foreign customs, a foreign country, and then go see a widow, and I will command her to feed you". And see what's happening here. But God, as He often does in the Bible, is summoning people into this attitude of trust. Because what seems like the least likely scenario is, in fact, what God is planning to do. So, he goes into Sidon, comes to this little city of Zarephath, and he comes, indeed, across this widow.
Now, like everybody else in the vicinity, she's suffering from the effects of the drought. She's starving. She has nothing grown. She has nothing to eat. And so the prophet goes up to her, and he asks her for a drink and for a morsel of bread. Now, here's her response. "As the Lord God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug". And then she specifies, I love this detail, that with this little tiny bit, she's now going to prepare her last meal, the last meal for herself and for her son.
So, see, what's Elijah thinking at this point? "Okay, Lord, I was a little worried about this, and now I see precisely why I was justified in my worry. You've sent me into a foreign country, you've sent me to this widow, and, as predicted, as anybody would see, she's got nothing. She's the least likely person to feed me". Someone with practically nothing is sent to someone else who has practically nothing but, what? Trusting in the Lord. See, that's the motif, all through the story. Trusting in the Lord, Elijah says, "All right, go and do as you propose. But first, bring me a little cake".
Now, what I want you to see here is I think this is something out of Mel Brooks. There's something that's kind of deliciously Jewish in the humor here. She must have thought, "Okay, are you deaf? I just told you I've got nothing. I've got enough for one meal for me and my son, and then we're going to die. That's how little I have. And now you're asking me, 'Oh, fine, go ahead and prepare your last meal before you die. But before you do that, make me a little cake.'" It's like we're defying logic here. If I can put it this way, it's a leap into God's providence, that requires a sort of overturning of the logic of the world. Because what Elijah is assuming here, everybody, is what I would call divine logic. Theo-logic. It's God's way of thinking.
What's going to happen here is the widow and Elijah, each at the end of their rope, each destitute, but the widow and Elijah are effectively going to feed each other. Because the lady now... And see, who knows what she's been told by God? We hear Elijah's side of the story. Who knows? Did she hear a message? "I know you're starving. I'm going to send you somebody".
See, because what does she do? She does, with the little tiny bit she has, she prepares this cake for Elijah. She risks everything, lets go of even the little she has. She gives that away. And then what happens? And this is the beautiful climax of the story. She finds that the oil and the bread, the sustenance, does not run out. It multiplies, and multiplies, and multiplies unto the feeding of herself, her son, and the prophet Elijah. At the moment of truth, at the end of their respective ropes, each one gives away, and finds life and sustenance multiplied. He gets the cake, and she and he get this endless supply of food by which they can survive the drought. Now, this is the spiritual lesson.
Those who've followed me over the years know I love to cite John Paul II's Law of the Gift. It's a pure paradox. It says, "Your being increases in the measure that you give it away". See, that's theologic, not ordinary logic. The logic of the world? No, no, fill yourself up. Get as much as you can. If a drought's coming, make sure you've got enough to get through it. Fill yourself up at every opportunity. That's the logic of the world. God's logic is when you find yourself at the end of your rope, you find yourself at the end, give away, listen, even the little you have, and you will find it multiplied, and multiplied, and multiplied.
So, let this story, everybody, sink in your hearts, because there are a number of these key lessons, and I find, over the years, I've gone back to this story at moments in my life. When things are going tough, the instinct should not be, "Find out what I got. How can I summon my powers"? No, no. When things are toughest, trust. Make an act of trust, an act of faith, and then be attentive to even the strange and surprising ways that God responds to you. So, Elijah, originally, "Go to this little rivulet. I'm going to have the ravens bring you food". What? Who imagined that? But that was the strange, unexpected way that God acted. Then, when he finds himself, again, in dire straits, "Wander into a far country, and find the least likely person who could feed you. That's the one I'm sending you to".
See, watch this, everybody. Be attentive especially to the people that God sends our way. Something I've watched in my own life, when you meet somebody, a phone call, maybe a chance encounter, and you think, "Now, how come that person was sent to me precisely now"? And maybe at first glance you think, "Oh, that person is the least likely candidate to help me with what I need right now". And I don't know, that's worldly logic. But God's logic, who knows? That's precisely the person who'll be of greatest help to you. And then finally, at those most dire moments, when you think, "I'm about to lose everything", give away even the little you have, and you'll find it multiplied 30, 60, and 100-fold. So, go at this little story, everybody, Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. Find in it some of the most fundamental principles of the spiritual life. And God bless you.