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My wife watched a movie about a widow the other day.\u00a0 It was set in modern day India.\u00a0 It seems a Hindu girl was married at just 8 years old to a much older man.\u00a0 But her husband suddenly died, and she was forced to live in a home for widows for the rest of her life- for the rest of her life!\u00a0 She was in a hopeless situation, caught up in the cultural limitations of Indian society.\u00a0 There was no way out for her!\u00a0 It is something we cannot even conceive of, how a person can be imprisoned for life at just 8 years old through no fault of their own.\u00a0 Imagine the hopelessness of such a person.<\/p>\n
The movie was very timely because two of our readings today are about widows.\u00a0 And just like the very harsh treatment of this modern day 8 year old widow, many widows in biblical times were faced with a similar hopeless situation.\u00a0 You see, women in biblical times needed to be represented by a man in all matters.\u00a0 It could be her Father, her brother if the Father was deceased; her husband if she had one; or her son if her husband was deceased.\u00a0 But without this male representative, a woman was helpless, as helpless as this modern day Indian girl was.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t inherit property; she couldn\u2019t conduct business; she couldn\u2019t hold a job.\u00a0 And back then, there was no Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security- nothing at all to fall back on.\u00a0 So, a widowed woman who lost a son was in very dire straits, indeed.\u00a0 It is understandable then, how biblical widows without a son could be pitied.<\/p>\n
Indeed, both Jesus and Elijah were moved by deep compassion for the widows in our two bible stories.\u00a0 It was this personal emotion that drove both men to action, compassion for the plight of widows who lost their only sons.<\/p>\n
By contrast, in most of the Gospel stories about healings or people who had died someone always approached Jesus and asked for help, and when he acted, Jesus always said that it was their faith that saved them.\u00a0 But in the Gospel today, Jesus was moved by compassion; nobody asked him for help, and there was no faith involved.<\/p>\n
Likewise, in the story from the Old Testament, the widow doesn\u2019t ask for help either.\u00a0 Rather, she complains that Elijah\u2019s presence may have somehow caused her problem; guilt by association, so to speak.\u00a0 Elijah responds out of compassion as his prayer to the Lord implies.<\/p>\n
Now in both of these cases, the people who are helped are strangers and not from the mainstream.\u00a0 Elijah has travelled into a foreign country- so this woman who gave him hospitality was not part of Elijah\u2019s people.\u00a0 Likewise, the widow Jesus encountered in the funeral procession was not part of his group of followers; he was passing by a small town in Galilee, not at all the center of Jewish society.<\/p>\n
Also, both of our bible stories today have an element of spontaneity to them.\u00a0 Jesus and Elijah are going about their business and the events unfold before them in a flash.\u00a0 These events are up front and personal to them, and it is their immediate reaction that is recorded.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And so these two miracles carry a different message than the ones where God responds to faith.\u00a0 Rather, the message of these two miracles is that we need to show compassion for the suffering because God\u2019s mercy and goodness are meant for all people not just the people who follow him and are faithful.\u00a0 The miracles are worked by God because Jesus and Elijah are both moved to compassion for people who are marginalized by society- such as widows; and people who are not close to them.<\/p>\n
Elijah and Jesus are acting as role models for us.\u00a0 We are called to the same kind of spontaneous compassion for the marginalized and strangers of our society.\u00a0 Not only that, but extraordinary action might even be called for.\u00a0 In both of these stories, someone was raised from the dead, and that\u2019s about as extraordinary as it gets.<\/p>\n
What about our spontaneous compassion?\u00a0 Can we, and do we show immediate compassion like Jesus and Elijah did, personal compassion for strangers and the marginalized right in our midst, like someone that just had an accident; the victim of a home fire; the homeless person in the street; the tourist we encounter that is in some kind of trouble; or even the stranger we meet in some unexpected manner that for whatever reason shares a tragedy with us?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, each of us is faced with unexpected encounters like this with total strangers.\u00a0 They happen so fast that we often times don\u2019t think about them \u00a0\u00a0But they are God incidents; they are opportunities rather than burdens, just as they were opportunities for Jesus and Elijah.<\/p>\n
The next time you have such an experience, remember how Jesus and Elijah responded.\u00a0 Remember their compassion.\u00a0 Remember Elijah\u2019s sincere prayer.\u00a0 Be open to help out; and let God work through you to do the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Kgs 17: 17-24; Gal 1: 11-19; Luke 7: 11-17 Dc. Larry Brockman My wife watched a movie about a widow the other day.\u00a0 It was set in modern day India.\u00a0 It seems a Hindu girl was married at just 8 years old to a much older man.\u00a0 But her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[216],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}