Home
1 Kings 17:8-24 Psalm 146 Galatians 1:11-24 Luke 7:11-17 In today’s old testament reading, God tells Elijah, during his travels, that he will find shelter and food with a widow at Zarephath. When he meets the widow and asks her for some food, she says, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.” Yet when she opens her home to him, she is able to feed him, her son, and herself. But then her son grows ill and dies. What has God done, she wonders, to take my son at this time, after this miracle? Elijah prays to God, pointing out the injustice of the son’s death, and he comes back to life. In a parallel story, Jesus brings a widow’s son back to life, and the people say, “God has come to help his people.” And in Psalm 46, the psalmist sings, “The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow…”. All of these stories are about new life, about God’s love and generosity, but they are also, in ...