Entrusting Ourselves to God
Homily for Thirty-Second Sunday – 10 November 2024
Many years ago, I was responsible for the Malmesbury and Piketberg parishes. One Sunday in early January, when it was about 40 degrees Celsius, after the Mass which finished around midday, I was just driving off in my air-conditioned car, when I saw in the side mirror a very old woman, who I knew to be very poor, hobbling after the car. When I stopped the car and rolled down the window, she offered me a crumpled R20 note, saying that it was so that I could buy a cold drink since it was so hot.
These women in today’s readings also remind me of some of the social experiments I have seen on social media over the years. One was an incident in the Mpumalanga where a journalist approached a woman scraping together a living by selling handwoven baskets or some basic item,and asked for money. Without hesitation the woman handed over most of what she had. Or of the incidents in the United States, where utterly destitute homeless people are given food, and directly afterwards actors pretending to be homeless themselves, approach asking the people who have just received food for something to eat and how immediately a generous portion is handed over to the actor impersonating a poor person. There was one incident where 100 Dollars was given to a homeless, hungry man, and he immediately went and bought a whole lot of food and shared it with all the other homeless people in the park.
In the readings today we meet two widows who are very similar. Both are ordinary, simple women. Both are exceptionally poor. Widows in biblical times were especially vulnerable. There was no system of social support or of unemployment grants. Women were not allowed to inherit property. For the most part, men were the ones who were economically active and so a widow would have been close to destitute. Over and over again in the Scriptures, we hear of God’s special love for widows, orphans and strangers, representing the least and most vulnerable in society.
And it is in these two widows in our first reading and Gospel today, that we are given two great biblical and spiritual truths, that the grace in your life will increase in the measure that you give it away because God cannot be outdone in generosity, and that we can entrust ourselves completely to God, letting go of all other securities and crutches.
The first widow in the readings is a foreigner to the Jews. She is from Zarephath, a coastal city on the Mediterranean, northwest of the Kingdom of Israel. Elijah travelled through this land during a great famine. When Elijah met up with her, she was putting her last scraps together before she and her son would die of starvation. Just imagine it: a stranger going up to a woman and asking for food in the name of the Lord. And imagine the generosity of this woman putting her faith in God and feeding the prophet. Putting her total trust in God, she received enough to eat for herself and her son, for a full year. It reminds me of the story that Mother Teresa told about taking a package of rice to a Hindu family who she heard were starving. The mother of the family took the rice, divided it, and then left their home with half. When she returned, Mother Teresa asked where she had gone. She told Mother Teresa that she knew that their neighbours, who were Muslim, were also hungry, so she shared what she had received.
The second widow of our readings today is the one who put two small coins into the Temple treasury. The Gospel reading tells how people putting money into the Temple treasury. Of course there were no bank notes in those days, only coins, and we can imagine the scene and the sound of lots of noisy metal coins clanking inside the metal trumpet-shaped collection boxes. The word used for the coins the woman put into the treasury is the smallest, denomination of the time, worth only a few cents. The fact that the woman put in two coins, instead of keeping at least one for herself, underlines her extreme sacrifice. Jesus said that her donation, although it looked insignificant, was tremendous because she gave all that she had. Her “widow's mite” is proportionately far more generous than larger and ostentatious gifts given out of abundance. Others give from their surplus, while she gives from her livelihood. Her donation was an act of putting her faith in God to care for her.
The two widows in our readings gave just about everything they had. In doing this they showed an extraordinary trust in God. Their actions shout that God’s presence in their lives was infinitely more important than anything they owned, even more important than everything they owned. Their abandonment to God and trust in God is the message of the readings to us today.
These women and their total giving challenge us as to where we put our confidence, our trust. To seek happiness in spiritual things and the things of God, rather than material possessions and wealth is takes courage. We acknowledge that this is difficult for us and that it is a process, a spiritual journey. To do this involves a humility before God, recognising our need for God and dependence on God. It means recognising that the presence of God in our lives is fundamental to happiness.
It would be easy to water down the meaning of these texts or rob them of their depth by understanding them merely as examples of generosity. Generosity is of course a beautiful human virtue, and the stories from social media experiments that we heard about earlier are heart-warming. But the meaning of these texts here goes beyond money, wealth, and possessions. Generosity with money or other resources, rather symbolises who we are to others and God. Am I able to make myself vulnerable in the presence of God? Am I able to stand before God, with my arms open and empty, with my mind still searching for answers, and my heart ready to respond to the grace of God? Or am I seeking false security in my past achievements, in my name and fame, in my knowledge and education, in my material wealth, and in my attachment to people?
I remember the first time I walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in 2015. I went carrying a spiritual question to frame my pilgrimage. The question may seem scandalous but really it goes to the heart of the pilgrimage through life that each one of us is on. The question was, “Can God be enough?” Surely each one of us wrestles with this question?
Behind this question are the very real doubts about whether we can entrust ourselves entirely over to God, whether we can give over the last bit of flour and oil, or the last two coins of our lives, entrusting ourselves to God. The fear might be that we would be found wanting, that we would end up lacking in something, that our happiness as we understand it might somehow be compromised.
Our lives are about being on a pilgrimage of trust, of moving from holding back something of our lives for ourselves, just in case, to a complete surrender to God. It is about allowing God’s Kingdom to be established in us. And of course, the spiritual principle is that is only in a total giving of ourselves to the God who gives himself totally to us, that we find lasting happiness. In the words of St Augustine, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
A question that we can all ask ourselves then is: what is it that I am still holding on to; what that prevents me from totally surrendering myself to God? In a long spiritual tradition of prayers of surrender to God, we can pray for the grace to pray the Prayer of Abandonment of St Charles de Foucauld: Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures - I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. Amen.
