TO A STARVING, FOREIGN WIDOW

Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.” —1 Kings 17:13

Centuries after the time of Elijah, Jesus would reference this story in His first sermon in His hometown synagogue: “I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon” (Luke 4:25, 26). Jesus also quoted from Isaiah 61, announcing “good news to the poor” and “freedom for the prisoners” (Luke 4:18, 19) but omitted “the day of vengeance” against Israel’s enemies (see Isaiah 61:2). Jesus was echoing Elijah’s “Don’t be afraid” to “outsiders.” However, He broadened the invitation originally given to one starving, foreign widow to include all nations. The people in the Nazareth synagogue that Sabbath morning knew what He was saying, which is why, in their national pride, they became furious and tried to kill Him (see Luke 4:28–30). But what was going through that hungry, anxious widow’s mind when confronted by this strange, “hairy” prophet (see 2 Kings 1:8)? And what did she think of his presumptuous request as she was preparing the last meal for her son? Maybe she figured she simply had nothing to lose, or maybe there was something about the confidence with which Elijah made his request. Whatever the case, she chose to trust Elijah’s “Do not be afraid” and the God he introduced her to. Not only did this choice ensure her survival through the remainder of the drought, but it also gave her a place in the teachings of Jesus. Centuries after it happened, her act of faith became a model for the countless outsiders who would be invited into the kingdom of God that Jesus announced on that Sabbath morning in the synagogue in Nazareth.