2 Kings 4: 1-7 Making Something out of Nothing
I hear many people going on about how hard this time of lock down is, and how we haven’t experienced anything like this in our lifetime. I know, because I am one of these people thinking a lot about this. The other day however, it struck me – that to many, if not most people – this time is not the hardest time they have been through and it’s not the hardest time they will ever go through. It sounds a little morbid, I know, but think about it. A saving grace of our time is that we are “all in this together”, not only locally in Canada, but globally with the rest of the world. But sometimes our experiences differ, as some find themselves locked down, while others are free to move ahead. It feels like some flourish while others suffer and fade.
If someone is dealing with the heartache of a cancer diagnoses and the uncertainty of a difficult treatment plan, while others are planning their next boat cruise, it is not only the chemo that is hard, but the loneliness that goes along with it. When you get laid off from your job, while your friend keeps his job, its not only the question of how to pay the bills that causes pain, but also the fact that you feel lonely. Lock-down is one thing. Isolation is quite another and both at the same time are awful.
In 2 Kings 4, we read of a widow who was quite lonely in her struggle. For her it was a dangerous time of uncertainty and scarcity. Back in the day if a woman’s husband died it was often a death sentence for the widow. Her sustenance and means of income dried up with her husband’s death. Struggling through the loss of your husband also meant suffering other losses in a very cruel way. The woman in this story was not only in danger of losing her income, but also her hope. In order to survive, her two living sons – her only future means of income – would have to be sold into slavery to repay her family debt! Not only did she have nothing, she had less than nothing. And yet, even in that “less-than-nothingness” she discovered she had something. We will get to that later.
There will be times in life when you feel you have nothing. You might be in such a time right now. You might meet that time tomorrow. It is never easy. Even just to acknowledge this is quite painful. But its often also a season for discovery and miracles. If we breathe, we have something very precious. Something called life. And when we discover that “something in our nothingness”, we can with faith in God make something of it. Let us allow Elisha and this widow to teach us how…
You see, Elisha did something very good here. He took responsibility that empowered the woman to also take responsibility. He asks her two questions. The first has to do with his responsibility and the second with hers. He asks her what she wants him to do for her and then he asks her what she has in her house. These are two important questions to ask ourselves. What can I do for a someone, and what can that person do for him or herself? If we really want to help people, we have to take responsibility for some things and refuse to take responsibility for other things, so that the person may be empowered. Too many people just ask the first or just ask the second question. If you ask only the first question, you create dependency. If you ask only the second question, you walk by the need of your fellow (wo)man. So, lets sharpen the focus and take a closer look at what this passage can teach us…
To make something out of nothing, we have to evaluate our current situation.
This woman was instructed by Elisha’s question to go and take stock of her “nothingness”. It is easy and comes naturally to take stock when we have abundance. It gives us a feeling of security when we do that. When we have too little, taking stock can be a painful thing. We avoid it and postpone it. We don’t like to be reminded of our scarcity and that we are lacking.
But in God’s Kingdom, it is empowering when we do – because in taking stock of our “nothingness” – we discover that there are things we have that we can utilize. Even if it may seem too little, it can be useful. And what this story teaches us is that when we use what we have, it can empower us and release us from anxiety. This is what it means to live into God’s Kingdom of abundance.
The other day I saw a headline that said up to 40 percent of businesses in Surrey are not going to make it through the Covid pandemic. It put me on this train of thought about what businesses will be the ones closing and about how families are going to cope and how my own family will make it. And then I thought: but the headline also could have read: “More than half of businesses are going to make it and new businesses are going to arise in the aftermath”. Immediately I felt my spirit lift as I dreamed about the surviving businesses and how they are going to flourish and employ people.
By this stage you have probably gone through all your closets and taken stock and sorted your home. That is great! However, don’t let your life and your spiritual well-being lag behind during this time. They need a good stock-taking as well. Ask yourself what you have that can really be helpful to you and to others if you should cherish and use it. So many people have discovered new skills, new things people appreciate about them during this time. The widow had some oil and realizing that she could utilize that oil was the beginning of positive change for her and her family. Let God show you what your “oil” is and how to use it in a way that glorifies his name.
If you have the opportunity, point others to what they have and if you try to help somebody, start by pointing out what they have rather than lecturing them on what they lack. During our food parcel extravaganza, I saw this principle in action. We used what we had and this led to our needs being provided for consistently. It led to us being able to do more than we had thought possible. Had we focused only on what we lacked; we couldn’t have done what we did.
If we are going to make something out of nothing, we have to involve our community
Elisha next advises the widow in verse 3 to lean on her neighbours, her local community. Quite heavily actually. He told her to not borrow “just a few” jars. Her community’s involvement was crucial to her survival and flourishing. It was a key ingredient. Today we tend to have an individualistic rather than a community mindset. Independence is valued more than interdependence. This is something to pay close attention to. Our culture is very skilled at creating autonomous individuals, so called “self-made men” that are adept at putting our needs ahead of others. We think of people that win Survivor not as selfish people but as competent ones. But we, church, are God’s children and we belong to His kingdom and that Kingdom is only realized through community. Independence will eventually end in lacking, while interdependence is beautiful, healthy and abundant. God gives us the gift of community so that we can collaborate and experience the mutual joy of giving and receiving in the body of Christ. We read in the text that the neighbour’s of widow’s community were glad to help her. It says her children kept bringing her containers.
With what we have done during Covid with the food parcels, I saw a very interesting thing. Ever since I got here, I was scratching my head as to how to make contact with the people in our community. Then two neighbours from three houses down, walked by, inquired as to what we were doing and the next thing we knew they were coming in every day to help. One of them, Fred, took it upon himself to help us with maintenance and even took some graffiti off of our door. They introduced me to Rosa who lives right next to the church and recently lost her husband. We brought a gift of some healthy bread that we received from a donation, and she adored it. Then I got to meet another family that lives just down the road. We have wonderful neighbours. We need their gifts and insight if we really want to serve our community well.
I used to ask myself what I can do for my church. I recently learned to replace that question with a better one. One that asks not what I can do but what we can do in collaboration with each other and our community for the Kingdom. What can we do? Good things happen with this kind of posture! Rosa asked me why we don’t do a community garden on the patch of grass behind the church. Maybe that would be a great way to involve people and bring a sense of community and flourishing to our neighbourhood!
To make something out of nothing we need the confidence that when we have done all we can, God will make up the difference
Your real faith is shown in what you do when the numbers don’t add up. People who trust God do what they can and leave the rest up to God. This woman’s oil supply flowed and stopped according to her needs (not her anxieties). Sometimes, since we don’t know our needs, we need to trust God when things ebb. Trust him that He is still caring for us. There were so many unknowables. This widow wasn’t experienced in sales or business or income, but God provided what she needed. She focused on doing all she could and put the rest in God’s hands.
I don’t know about you, but during this time I have find things necessary and useful to do…but also I have reached a stage where I would like to do more and couldn’t because of things that is not under my control. I think maybe it is one of the hidden gifts of this time. That we often encountered times where we did what was necessary to do and what was overdue but then entered a stage where there is not much else we could do. In normal mode there is always options to do one more thing, work one more hour, earn a hundred more dollars. To manage our anxiety with the drug called business. This way of life is a recipe for a empty soul and a heart attack. It is a life posture that simply refuses to just put some things in God’s hands and we end up playing god by doing that. To look your limitations in the eye and acknowledge them, is sometimes a way to find God.
As we move forward as a church through this time, may we have the grace to be at peace with our limitations. May we do only that which we can do and trust in God’s provision and faithfulness. May we never confuse absentminded business and consumption with mindful productivity and engagement ever again.
My father in law used to be a farmer. I learned that farming is something that humbles you. In a very vivid and direct way you are reminded that your part may be important and time sensitive, the planting, fertilizing and reaping and so on. But by far the most important part comes from things you cannot always predict or control like the weather, the markets etc. I am not sure what gives us the illusion that we have more control than we actually do, but I pray that Covid 19 will free us from the illusion of control so that we can live freely into God’s providential hands.
Close
I told you about Rosa next door. She is 78 and immigrated to Canada from Portugal some 50 years ago. Last year her husband died. She is still dealing with that. I complimented her on her garden, and we had a chat. Slowly but surely, she opened up. She started talking about her husband. She told me he had a dream. He always wanted to start a school. A school to teach children how to live with less. What a visionary, I say!
How do we live with less? We open your eyes up to what you do have and what you can do. To how our community can both help us and benefit from what we have to give.
Let us all in our own way live the dream that Rosa’s husband carried in his heart. Let us show the world like this widow did, that we serve a good that can make so much with what we have to give.
Amen