1 Kings 17:17-24 and Psalm 30 •
Galatians 1:11-24 •Luke 7:11-17
On this Sunday, unusually, the ‘continuous’ and ‘thematic’
readings from the Old Testament overlap. The first takes up the story of the
prophet Elijah again, while the second picks out one element of that story which,
as it happens, resonates especially well with the Gospel of the day. Both readings recount episodes in which an
only son dies and then is restored to his grieving widowed mother. But what we
are to learn from these?
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| Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath |
A striking feature of the two episodes is this. The widows
are grief stricken, and yet their first reaction to the miraculous restoration
of their sons, is not the straightforward relief and joy we might expect. On
the contrary, we are told, a ‘great fear seized all the people’ who witnessed
the Gospel episode, while the widow of Zarephath’s immediate reaction is to
hail Elijah as a bringer of ‘truth’. Why so? The answer is that, though it is
natural to regard events like these as wonderful miracles, this is not their
most important dimension. Rather, they are spiritual pointers. By means of
them, both Elijah and Jesus momentarily draw back the veil of ordinary
experience, and reveal the depths of mystery behind it -- the awesome presence of transcendent power. But more than
this, they also reveal themselves to be at home in that mystery – that is to
say, they are men whose first and foremost commitment is to God.
This is precisely what the beneficiaries declare, in fact. Given the
modern world’s near obsession with health and healing, however, it is easy for
us to be blind to what they saw, and thus miss the true significance of the
Bible’s miracle stories. Were we possessed of such powers, it is most likely
that we would value them primarily as a wonderful short cut to dealing with illness.
For Elijah and Jesus, who did possess them, they are simply the more dramatic signs by
which people can be brought to God.
Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath is a drawing by Aleksandr Andreevich Ivanov, (1806-1858) from the Jean and Alexander Heard Divinity Library at Vanderbilt University
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