HOMILY FOR THE 32ND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME — YEAR B
HOMILY THEME: “Never in Israel have I seen such a faith (or trust) before!”
BY: Fr. Mike Olumba
1 Kg 17:10-16, Heb 9 : 24 – 28, Mk 12:38-44
The gospel of today brings together two teachings of Jesus given on two different occasions.
In the first part, He criticised rather the hypocrisy in the life of us all, especially when religion becomes a smoke-screen behind which injustice could be perpetrated and permitted or even glorified, and pride nutured. He stood against these.
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The second part was on the issue of giving gifts or offerings to God here presented in the context of religious worship etc.
For Jesus and the Jewish people, their world view was that; all that we have comes from God. Be it the fruit of the earth or the fruit of the works of our hands. God is at last the ultimate giver. After all said and done; “my father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous”. (Deuteronomy 26: 1-15 especially 5). He thus merits our show of gratitude etc.
As St. Paul would argue; “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)
God has rules concerning his demand from his people to support the organised worship and cultic service rendered to him. These gifts support the temple clergy and the temple itself and her charity works towards the poor.
The rich Jews bring their gifts and offerings sometimes with much ostentation and fanfare. Jesus did not come out that day to face them on this.
In terms of gift and giving to the temple, he actually did not expect the widow to give so much as she did out of her poverty. But he realised that she gave ALL that she had to live on. It was in such situations that Jesus often used the expression: “Never in Israel have I seen such a faith (or trust) before!”
The widow lived to the letter the idea of relying on God on daily basis. In fact she brought her bank account and dropped this into the offering box. The amount of money in the account is not the issue this time. Jesus simply drew our attention to the TOTAL nature of the widow’s offertory gift in which the giver left no reserve for her personal security in thinking of echi na ihe o ga eweta. She gave it ALL.
Jesus was just showing us something special in the offertory made by the widow of Zarefat and the widow of Jerusalem. We may not speak to the people as Elijah did to the widow of Zarefat. Yet, faith in God still moves his people till date to give such TOTAL gifts relying solely on their faith in God. Their faith in God moved them to give, not the wish of those who want to pauperise widows.
Jesus could almost say to the rich and those who were often praising themselves for their gifts: “I nyekata, i nyere ka nwanyi isi mkpe Jerusalem, onye nke nyere ihe niile o nwere? I nyekata onyinye, i nyere ka nwanyi isi mkpe bi na Zarefat, onye nke nyere Elijah nri ikpeazu foro na be ya maka ya na nwa ya nwoke?”
(“She is a Gentile, not an Israelite. She is from the same country as Jezebel and is presumably a Baal worshiper. She appears to have little economic or social standing, particularly as a widow”. She was likely a worshipper of Baal who lived in an area that was a stronghold of Baal but who here trusted the God of Israel and had confidence in his word and that of his prophet. And the God of Israel here showed that after all said and done, all people belong to him and he can have people who have faith in him in unlikely places, among people who apparently may not appear like believers in him). And he did a miracle for the widow who trusted in him.
Eventually, Jesus gave the TOTALITY of himself up for us as a sacrificial lamb whose blood was poured away and his body was broken for us. He became our food and our drink.
Thus he says: Give as much as you can, but before you praise your own self and your gift, check and see what I gave you and what the two widows gave too. They gave all that they had to live on or survive on.
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