The Jar Of Food Will Never Run Out:
There is a story in the Old Testament of the Bible in a book called Kings, about a wayward king, Ahab of Israel, who displeases God. God sends the prophet Elijah to him, to prophesy that no dew would drop or rain fall on the land, except at God’s command. To undertake his task in hostile territory, Elijah hides himself by the Cherith, a brook, east of the Jordan. There he drinks from the brook and eats food brought by the ravens -- bread in the morning and meat in the evening.
The woman replies that all she has left is a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. To prepare a meal for both her son and herself (her husband was no more), she is gathering sticks, so that both could eat them and then die. But Elijah tells her: “Do not be afraid”. He assures her that if she first makes a cake of it for him, and then some for herself and her son, Yahweh would provide: “For this is the word of Yahweh: ‘The jar of meal will not be emptied nor the jug of oil fail’.
From that day on, the woman had food for herself and her son. When we reach the brink and are just about to give up hope, God provides. There are many parallels of this story in our own lives. Sometimes our needs are physical and sometimes our deeper needs are spiritual. God answers every prayer of faith but in his own way and time. Faced as we are by drought, one disaster after another, hopelessness; sometimes all God is asking us is to share the little water we may have left, so that there is enough for everyone.
We, however live selfish lives. We cannot think beyond ourselves. We feel with our own resources, we have the first right to what is scarce in the world today. Defeat makes us cower instead of making us brave and able to stand up to evil and selfishness. Farmers’ suicides are a blot on our conscience as a nation. Many are driven to despair and lose the will to live. Yet, we make merry and behave as if all these things happening are remote from ourselves. That is why Jesus said: ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven’.
Going green is one solution to many of the problems we face today. Redistributive justice requires a change of attitude and being able to sacrifice at some cost to oneself. The woman of Zarephath did not give from plenty but from the mite that Jesus once praised in a woman he saw putting her few coins into the treasury. My prayer is that the God of the impossible will provide for all of us with sufficient rain, sunshine, food, clothing, shelter and a decent standard of living. For all things and much else are always possible for those who believe – who never give up faith and hope.
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