Bible
Study: 1st Kings 17, 17 to 24. Galatians
1, 11 to 19 and Luke 7, 11 to 17.
In both our first reading and
Gospel passage this morning, we are presented with two similar cases of total
hopelessness where God miraculously intervened out of compassion to alleviate
the suffering and pain of the victims. These two examples show to us that we
serve a God who is able to feel with what we are going though in life, and he
is God for whom nothing is impossible.
In the opening prayer of
this mass, we prayed: “O God, from whom all good things come, grant that we who
call on you in our need, may at your prompting discern what is right, and by
your guidance do it.” In this prayer, we acknowledged that God is the source of
all good things we can ever desire for ourselves; just name it, could it be a
good job, a nice family, good health, long life, inner peace and contentment,
whatever good we so desire comes from God and that is the reason why we are
here today. We know that by our own power, we cannot get these good things, so
we have come to church today to present ourselves and our needs before God.
If God is the source of all
good things, then we may ask, where does the bad things show up from? Is God
also the source of unfortunate circumstances in our lives? As we see in the
first reading, the woman of Zarephath is so angry with the prophet Elijah that
she indirectly accuses God of being the cause of her son’s sickness by putting
the blame on her past sins. She said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O
man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the
death of my son!”
Indeed, whenever we are
faced with calamity, one of our immediate response is to assume that God is
punishing us for our past sins. By so doing, we unconsciously painting for
ourselves a picture of God as a judge who takes record of our sins in other to
use them against us. When a man born blind was presented to Jesus, his
disciples asked: “Who sinned? Was it this man or his parents that he was born blind?”
Jesus’ answer makes us understand that there is no connection between sin and
calamity. He said: “It was not this man that sinned, neither was it his parents
but through this blindness, God’s glory would be revealed today.” John 9, 1 to
3.
That is to say, as much as
God is not capable of doing evil, he sometimes allow us to experience
misfortune so as to shake up our faith, so as to make us realise that we are
completely dependent on him alone, that we may never stop giving him glory and
praise. Going back to our first reading again, do you notice how the woman of
Zarephath responded when her son become well again? She said: “Now I know that you
are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
This clearly shows that before
her son before her son fell ill, she was already beginning to doubt if Elijah
was truly from God. This was the same Elijah that had come to her when she had
nothing to live on except a small handful of meal in a jar and a little oil and
was gathering sticks to prepare her last meal. Elijah said to her, “Fear not,
for thus says the Lord, the jar of meal shall not be spent and the jug of oil
will not fail.” This prophecy actually came to pass. She moved from a situation
of prepping for death to a time of abundance, she had more than enough and as
time went by, she started doubting Elijah and even God.
Does this not strict a chord
in us? How easily do we slip into doubting God when things are moving well for
us? How often do we forget that it is the hand of God that is providing for us
and we begin to think of ourselves as just being lucky? How often do we go
about even boasting of our talents and abilities, brandishing our C.V. and
telling people what we are capable of doing? Dear friends, I am afraid to say
this but the bitter truth is that, we should always thank God for adversity, because
it allows us to know whether or not we really have faith.
There is a prayer I like so
much in the book of Proverbs, it says “O Lord, give me neither poverty nor
riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you,
and say, "Who is the LORD?" or I shall be poor, and steal, and
profane the name of my God.” Proverbs 30, 8 to 9. Like the woman of Zeraphath,
we become full too quickly and we begin to doubt God unconsciously. Too often,
we have had to ask “Who is God?” without realizing it. Moments of adversity
come our way so that we may keep our faith alive, so that we may not suffer
from overfamiliarity with the man of God, so that we may realize how much we
have begun to doubt God, so that we may wake up from the slumber of ego and self-pride.
In raising up the widow’s
only son to life, Jesus shows the depth of his compassion to us in moments of
adversity. Note that this was one miracle that Jesus worked without demanding
faith from the woman in need of the miracle. For instance, he said to the woman
with the issue of blood, “Go, your faith has made you well.” The widow of Nain didn’t
shout like Blind Bartimaeus, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” She didn’t climb
a sycamore tree. She didn’t come to Jesus like the Centurion. The mere sight of
her was all Jesus needed. In a society where women and children were never
counted, Jesus could see that as a widow, she was doomed, without a son to
provide her with needed support for survival. So he came, touched the bier, and
raised the dead son to life.
Like the miracle of turning
water to wine, Jesus was moved to work this miracle on the basis of a mother’s
love for her son. No wonder the saying goes that nothing sustains a home as
much as prayerful Mother. As the mother of the house, you must be a prayer
warrior! Jesus was not moved by the wailing and mourning of the crowds. Jesus
was not moved by the sounds of those playing the harps and flutes. He probably wasn’t
moved by what might have caused the death of the boy. But the moment he saw the
mother, the moment their eyes met, Jesus was touched!
Mothers, never take your
eyes away from Jesus. Mothers, never take your eyes away from Jesus. Remember St.
Monica? How she prayed fervently for her stubborn son? And how that wayward
child eventually became not just a priest, a bishop but one of the greatest
Saints in history?
Lastly, the encounter between
Jesus and this widow goes to show that there are different types of prayer.
Unlike the woman of Zarephath, who was obviously shouting at the prophet
Elijah, this woman did not even utter a word. All she did was to gaze at Jesus.
There are times we pray with words but there are times that words are not
necessary. Whether we pray violent prayers or we just come before the Blessed
Sacrament to sit and look, what is important is that our hearts connect with
God in faith.
To conclude this long
homily, let me summarize the points again.
1. God is the source of
every good thing. We cannot provide for ourselves.
2. Our sins are not the
cause of adversity in our lives.
3. God does not deliberately
punish us with adversity but when it occurs, it is always to our advantage. (Romans
8, 28: “all things work together for good for those who love God.”)
4. Mothers are powerful
intercessors. Both the woman of Zarephath and the widow of Nain were directly
involved in the resuscitation of their children.
5. There are different types
of prayer. At times, all we need to do is to just look trusting that we serve a
God whose heart is compassionate.
Let us Pray:
Lord Jesus, in times of my prosperity,
may I never doubt your providence so that in times of adversity I will never
forget that you are still the same God. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday.
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