I was wondering: how many of you like to make jig-saw puzzles? I do. Especially on a rainy day when there is nothing else to do. Perhaps you, too, have taken a jig-saw puzzle with you on a week-long vacation to the beach or to the mountains, just in case the weather happens to be bad, and you can’t get outside. We certainly did it when we took the kids on a family vacation.
I got to thinking about jig-saw puzzles when I was reflecting on today’s scripture readings. It seems today’s excerpts are like pieces of a jig-saw. They need to be fitted together in order to make sense of them. This need to fit things together, to make sense of the pieces in our lives, may be a major reason why a lot of people like to work on jig-saw puzzles. The focus for this morning’s reflection is just that: our need, our human need, to make sense out of the pieces of our lives. Our desire to make sense by looking for the cause and effects in our lives.
First of all, let’s begin by looking at the piece of the Bible from which our first reading comes. By looking at it more closely, we might be able to see how our gospel reading also fits into the overall picture and how it may fit into our lives.
You probably recall that Elijah was one of the major prophets of the Old Testament. But you might be wondering what he was doing in that widow’s house and why she thought Elijah might be responsible for the death of her son.
This reading is taken from the first Book of Kings, a history of the Jewish people. Elijah appears for the first time in this book, only a few verses before today’s story. Today’s story begins with verse 17 of Chapter 17. In the beginning of this chapter, Elijah prophesies to the king that there will be a drought in Israel which will last until Elijah prays to the Lord to end it. With a start like that, it’s no wonder Elijah leaves the country and high-tails it to a city in Sidon. There he meets a widow and asks her for a cup of water and a bit of bread. She tells him she was gathering sticks for a fire so she could make her last meal for herself and her son, since she had only enough flour and oil left for only one more loaf of bread. Elijah tells her to make the bread and not to worry, that there will be enough flour and oil until the rains come. She bakes the bread; and sure enough, the flour and oil are miraculously replenished. The widow is obviously no fool; she invites Elijah to stay with them. He is given a room on the roof of her house, which in those days wasn’t too bad a deal, since you had evening breezes to cool you.
It’s about a year later, that today’s story occurs. When her son becomes ill and dies, the widow has second thoughts about whether she had done the right thing. Perhaps she was being punished for letting Elijah stay there. After all, he might have been fleeing from the wraith of God. However, when Elijah prays over her son and he is returned to life and to her, she recognizes that Elijah is a man of God, because only a man of God could pray to the Lord and have him return her son to life.
So those are the pieces of the puzzle that come before today’s story. There are many pieces after this too. I’d urge you to read the First Book of Kings to find out how Elijah out-prays the priests of Baal and ends the drought; and finally, how in the presence of his disciple, Elisha, he is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. But those are pieces of the puzzle for other Sundays.
For today, another piece of the puzzle is the gospel story of Jesus raising from the dead the only-son of another widow. The Jews who heard this story told by Luke, immediately recognized Jesus as another prophet like Elijah who also gave back the only-son to a widowed mother. But there is a great difference.
Elijah had to pray three times to the Lord. It was the Lord, Yahweh, who raised the dead boy because of the prayers of Elijah. But in today’s gospel story, it was the Lord, himself, who raised the boy and gave him back to his widowed mother. Our gospel reading says: “The Lord was moved with pity upon seeing her and said to her, ‘do not cry’.“
This is the first time in the Gospel of Luke that Luke refers directly to Jesus as “the Lord“. It was not lost on those who heard his story, although it may be missed by us. Luke was saying: this is not merely a prophet, one who speaks for God. This is not someone who is as good as Elijah. No. Here is the Lord, himself, who has compassion. Who, in his compassion, raises the widow’s son. Indeed, as the people proclaimed, “God has visited his people.”
Just as in the puzzle piece of the story of Elijah and the widow, there are important pieces that go before and after the one we’re looking at in today’s gospel story. Let’s look at the piece attached immediately before today’s reading.
You heard it last Sunday: the story of Jesus curing the centurion’s servant. And the piece afterwards: it’s the story of how John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask if Jesus is the Messiah. When they asked him that, Jesus replied: “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind recover their sight, cripples walk, lepers are cured, the deaf hear, dead men are raised to life, and the poor have the good news preached to them.” In order to have this reply make sense to his listeners, Luke first had to tell the story of Jesus curing the centurion’s servant and raising the widow’s son from the dead.
But what about us? What meaning do we attribute to today’s gospel message? We have been given pieces to a jig-saw puzzle. How do we fit them together? One way is to take them merely at face value. Just as I’ve done so far. To see how they fit together to tell a story. But if that is the only way the pieces of the Bible fit together, then much is missing from our life.
We are all given the same puzzle by God. It is our task, our mutual task, to fit them all together. Is it not possible to view God as the maker of this jig-saw puzzle we call life? Only he knows how it fits together, what the final picture should look like.
However, as we try to fit those pieces together, we run into problems. It seems that certain pieces just don’t make sense. Let me tell you about some of the pieces I’ve seen during these past weeks.
One piece is labeled “the flood of 1989”. Our house had twelve inches of water. There are questions I might raise about this piece of the puzzle in my life. Questions like: why did we get flooded this time when we have never been flooded before? Why did others have even more water in their homes? Why did some not get flooded at all?
Each of us has other pieces with similar names to them.
● Names like “graduation.” And questions like: what am I going to do now that I’m out of school? Will my new job be what I hope it will be?
● Or a piece named: “birthday”. With questions like: what will this next year bring to me? Will I even be alive next year?
● Or a piece named: “move to a new city”. With questions like: will I be able to make a go of it here? Will I have new friends? Will people like me, accept me?
● Or a piece named: “marriage”. And the questions: is this really the spouse for me? Will it last? Will we be happy?
God has dumped out on the table of this world, the pieces of the puzzle he has created. He, alone, knows what the final picture should look like. He has asked us to put those pieces together. Some of the pieces I can fit together with no big problems. Some I want to force into place, to shape the puzzle as I think it should go, rather than how the artist intended it to go. Some pieces appear to be a great mistake. With some of them, I need the help of others. And perhaps that is the key to the completion of this puzzle. My need to accept help from others in fitting them together. My need to offer help to others with the pieces they have.
The widow we heard about in the Old Testament story asked for Elijah’s help. Elijah prayed to the Lord; and the flour and oil were multiplied and, later, his prayers returned her son to her. At first she blamed Elijah for her misfortune. Then she thanked him.
When Jesus cured the centurion’s servant, he did it at a distance. Jesus did it because others pleaded the centurion’s case for him. But when Jesus raised the widow’s son, he, himself, saw the need. The Lord, himself, had compassion and spoke his life-giving word to the dead youth.
As humans, when we try to force the pieces of our puzzle together and they don’t seem to fit, we ask “why”. Why me, lord? What have I done wrong? We ask the same questions the widow asked Elijah.
However, when the pieces do fit together, when they all seem to fall into place, almost on their own, how often do we then ask: why me? The widow in our gospel story did not inquire why the Lord raised her son from the dead when no one had begged him to, when even, she, herself, had not asked.
Perhaps there are times in our own lives when we are blessed by a compassionate Lord who responds without being asked; when he, himself, puts together the jig-saw pieces of our disjointed lives. When this does happen, can we join with the widow’s friends to sing the praises of God and proclaim: “God has visited his people“? God has visited me!
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time; June 11, 1989
1 Kg 17:17-24; Gal 1:11-19; Lk 7:11-17