Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, June 9, 2013.
Elijah and the Widow’s Son
Struggling to survive a lengthy drought, the prophet Elijah follows God’s instructions to travel outside Israel to a Gentile town called Zarephath, where an elderly widow and her starving little boy will share their meager food with him. The widow is understandably not eager, but upon Elijah’s command, her tiny portions of meal and oil prove sufficient to feed them all. When the little boy dies just the same, the widow is truly angry, but Elijah – with God’s help – restores his life, prompting her to recognize him as a man of God who speaks God’s truth. In moving to protect a widow and child in poverty, God shows love for the weakest and most vulnerable, a truth that runs all through scripture.
Psalm: Psalm 146
This is another of the final five Psalms that conclude the book in a roaring chorus of praise for the glory of God. This psalm takes particular note of God’s righteousness; God’s preferential care for the weakest and most vulnerable of society. God protects the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoner; the blind and those who are bowed down; and, not least, the stranger, the widow and the orphan – like the widow of Zarephath and her child.
Second Reading: Galatians 1:11-24
In these verses that follow last Sunday’s reading from Galatians, Paul continues pushing back against other evangelists who came to Galatia after he left and taught a less inclusive Gospel. The competitors demanded that Jesus-followers follow all the details of Jewish law, but Paul has heard a different message from the Spirit, and he is on fire to preach it. Paul lays out the strength of his credentials, reminding the Galatians that he was once one of the most ardent persecutors of Christianity, but now he proclaims Jesus to the Gentiles through revelation not from humans but direct from God.
Gospel: Luke 7:11-17
We hear familiar echoes of Elijah and the widow and child in this story from Luke, which comes next in Luke’s Gospel after last week’s story of Jesus healing the Roman centurion’s servant. Much like the widow in Elijah’s story and, for that matter, like the centurion, this woman responds to her son’s new life with shouts of joy, declaring Jesus a prophet and a man of God.