The Church is nearly ready to complete the Ordinary Time year or Mark, and chooses the short passage from chapter 9 as the passage that centers our prayerful consideration today.  The text challenges us to pay attention to what God is asking of us at this moment in time especially as we consider what Jesus teaches us about generosity.

The Mark text is anticipated by a text from that Book of Kings that places us on the journey with Elijah into the harsh drought that Israel’s neighbors are trapped in.  Elijah encounters a woman who recognized that the lack of rain will take many lives of the poor and unprivileged.  We could say that the more things change the more they remain the same!

When asked by Elijah for food she states that she has none, but is about to use the last of the flour and oil to make a small loaf of bread, eat it and prepare to starve.  Since Elijah is outside of Israel the woman is not Jewish but is recognizing the hospitality of the best of her culture.  Even starving she will share her food.  She gives from the limits of need rather than those of excess.  It is also the message of Jesus who says to his disciples that God is honored by this ground of gift.  As I prayed with these texts what came in grace, was that this stance is the one of humility.  We are all needy but I do not want God to be God.  I want to dictate to God what he may be allowed to have from me.  I forget that all belongs to God that I can not give to God what does not already belong to God.  This says that if I give a gift from my need and according to God’s will, I am responding rather than initiating.

Real poverty of spirit requires that I live with the surprise of God’s desire and the gift of that desire is that I will have the joy of living in God’s reign rather than my own.