8 Then the word of the Lord came to [Elijah], saying, 9 ‘Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ 10 So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’ 11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ 12 But she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.’ 13 Elijah said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ 15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah. [1 Kings 17:1-16, NRSV]
Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, by Jan Victors, 1640s.
We want to talk about the law of the gift. A short story may serve to introduce the idea.
One day, a young Asian philosophy student in search of true happiness in life was walking down a busy street in a European city when he saw a fragile old lady climbing into a taxi. She opened the car door, got into the back seat by sitting down first. She put her walking stick down, then hand-lifted her legs one by one into the cabin, and then slumped back into the seat. But the car door remained open! She stretched herself to try and close the door but couldn’t. It looked like if she tried any harder, she might even fall off the car. At that moment, the student, taking all this in, was passing by the car. A few steps later, suddenly realizing what was happening, he turned back, gently closed the car door for the old lady and, without so much as a glance at her or the driver sitting at the wheel for an acknowledgement, he walked on. As he walked, he felt the warmth of the sun on his face; he became conscious of an affirmation from on high. He sought neither human reward nor acknowledgement; he did what he categorically had to do as a human being. And he felt good inside. In freely serving another person in need, he experienced a blessing in return. In giving, he received. There is a “law” operative in all this. In an otherwise insignificant small practical way, he even began to make sense of those maxims, said to be universally applicable, which the famous 18th century German philosopher, Emmanuel Kant, called categorical imperatives: you must live your ethical life; you have to perform your duty; you ought to; thou shalt. No discussion; no two ways about it. To be human, you must be an ethical creature.
(1) “The Law of the Gift”
The Christian faith and life is often experienced and expressed in paradoxes. Once, Jesus called the multitude and his disciples together and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mk 8:34-36). He likewise told them that “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Mt 23:12). To the Twelve, he specifically taught: “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mk 9:35). A core element in the gospel of Jesus is service: “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many” (Mk 10:45).
Drawing from Jesus’ words and life, Saint Pope John Paul II coined the phrase “the law of the gift” and said: “We become most truly human in the measure in which we go out of ourselves and give ourselves for the sake of others.” From Vatican II documents the Pope stressed that human beings, created in the likeness of God, have been so designed that they cannot attain their full identity except through a disinterested gift of themselves: “Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others” (Gaudium et Spes, 24). Pope Benedict XVI thus expressed a supreme truth of the Christian life, saying: “One receives one’s life precisely when one offers it as a gift.” In summation, Bishop Robert Barron says: “Your being increases in the measure that you give it away. Your being decreases in the measure that you cling to it.”
This law is essentially a summary of the Christian life modeled by Christ. Yet, it is counter-intuitive at first glance, for the story of our time is a relentless push for self-fulfillment. Every impulse in the secular culture tends to go in the opposite direction of self-gift. Instead, our natural impulse drives us towards acting with self-assertion, centering and privileging our own needs and concerns. We seek happiness by building ourselves up, filling our ego and our life with things of the world – pleasures, possessions, power. We fiercely defend our personal freedom.
Paradoxically, the Bible is filled with stories telling us that deep down, we have an infinite hunger for God and therefore nothing finite can fill it up. In fact, the more we try to fill ourselves up with the things of the world, the more frustrated and addicted we become. So the law of the gift says that we become more fully human and alive, to the extent that we give ourselves away. In the mystery of the law of the gift, we become more fully ourselves as God has created us to be by becoming other-focused. When we make our life a gift, we will find the divine life flooding into us.
By calling this reality a “law,” John Paul II made it clear that generosity is not optional, but a “must”. It is universal, even though it takes different forms because of our different talents and circumstances. It is written into our humanity. Christians find their identity in Christ only by giving of themselves “in his name.” Christian charity does not merely imitate God’s love. It is a direct expression of that same love, and a real participation in it. When we give to others in Jesus’ name, over and above material help and practical assistance, we also give them the love of Christ in a tangible form – something they can feel and touch, something that is real and concrete. We become, in a mysterious way, the “hands of God.”
(2) Acting as “the hands of God”
This reality of acting as the “hands of God” nestles in the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:10-16). This laconic tale compels us to think, in times of crisis, “How is God helping us? Whom or what is God sending to help us?” In a crisis time of drought and famine, God so arranged to help both Israel’s famous prophet Elijah and a widow in Zarephath that to the widow, Elijah was the one sent and, to Elijah, she was the one to whom he was sent. In the event, both of them would be helped by God so long as they fully trusted in God and gave of themselves to someone else in need. This teaches us that in giving of ourselves in a truly charitable act from the heart for someone in need, we will be blessed in return with the experience of a gift of the presence of God in our heart. Truly, in giving, we receive.
Elijah was summoned out of Israelite territory into a foreign land. There, he was to visit a widow, a nameless nobody at the lowest rung of society, someone who was without financial and emotional support and he was supposed to expect her to feed him and quench his thirst in this time of famine! The poor widow was down to the absolute limit of her food resources, a handful of flour barely enough for one final meal for herself and her child after which they would lie down and prepare to die. Yet, she was asked to trust the God of this prophet and serve him food and water.
The spiritual turning point of the story, as was the case time and time again in the Bible, was when both Elijah and the widow, in situations of utter hopelessness, obeyed God’s summons to trust Him. So Elijah went, and did what God told him to, and made an “outrageous” promise that her food resources would last until “the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth”. And the widow, in obedience to what seemed like a “sick joke”, obeyed what the one sent by God told her to. She gave away what little she had and found her resources indeed so multiplied, just as the Lord had promised. Her one handful of flour and oil lasted until the drought was over! Elijah arrived just in time to meet this woman’s and his own needs, but it was God’s providence that saved the one sent and the one to whom he was sent. This little story is the secret of all the saints. They understood the law of the gift and in turn became the hands of God, the Source of Life.
Another little Gospel story, which is paired with this OT story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath for the readings on the 32nd Sunday of Year B, is the story of the widow’s mite in Mark 12:38-44. Can we likewise say that the Markan story is a story of praise for absolute trust in God? Or is it a condemnation of religious leaders and the social injustices they conduct in the Temple? To that story we shall turn in the next post.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, February 2025. All rights reserved.
To comment, email jeffangiegoh@gmail.com.
