Beauty Outside a Garbage Dump
Homily for Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
November 10, 2024
Homily for Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
November 10, 2024
Homily for November 10, 2024
The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
By The Rev. Todd Miller
Preached at Bethany Convent, Arlington, MA
Mark 12:38-44
This past Sunday in my parish we had a Baptism. As you may recall, in our Church’s Baptismal rite we ask multiple questions of a candidate before we baptize them. Among those questions is: “Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?” And the candidate responds, “I do.”
In this morning’s reading from I Kings and then again in our reading from the Gospel of Mark, two widows put their whole trust in God’s grace and love.
In 1 Kings, during a time of extended drought, Elijah came to the Widow of Zarephath and asked for bread. The widow replied that she had nothing save for a handful of meal and a little oil. But Elijah told her not to be afraid, and that if she were to make him a little bread, her “jar of meal would not be emptied and the jug of oil would not fail until the day that the Lord sent rain upon the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, and – true to Elijah’s word – her jar of meal was not emptied and her jug of oil did not fail until the day that the Lord sent rain upon the earth.
In the Gospel of Mark, as Jesus watched people put money into the treasury outside the temple, he noticed that many rich people put in large sums, but he noticed a widow come and put in two small copper coins. Jesus said to his disciples that this poor widow had put in more than any of the rich people,because “all of them contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
These two widows in a time of great uncertainty – the one during an extended drought, the other at a time when she was a widow who had nothing – [these women] “put their whole trust in his grace and love.”
I have a hunch that we all have places of uncertainty in our lives: perhaps financial, perhaps in regards to our health, perhaps in regards to our employment or housing, or perhaps in regards to a relationship. Or maybe we are experiencing uncertainty in light of the elections this past week. I wonder, what might it be like to put our whole trust in his grace and love?
Father Arrupe, the one-time Superior of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), tells the story of visiting a Jesuit house that served a community that lived by scavenging in a garbage dump outside a large South American city. One afternoon, after he had celebrated Mass, a large , rather scary-looking fellow invited Father Arrupe to his home. Fr. Arrupe initially was afraid, but the others assured him that he was a good man and that he should accept the invitation. So Fr. Arrupe went with the man to his home near the garbage dump. The house was a hovel with collapsing walls and roof, and the man invited him to sit in his one rickety chair.
“From there I could see the sunset,” wrote Fr. Arrupe. “The big man said to me, ‘Look, sir, how beautiful it is!’ We sat in silence for several minutes. The sun disappeared. The man then said, ‘I don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done for us. I have nothing to give you, but I thought you might enjoy the sunset. You liked it, didn’t you? Good evening.’ And then he shook my hand.”
This man, too, put his whole trust in God’s grace and love. And in so doing, his eyes were opened to see beauty even living outside a garbage dump. I wonder, in those places of uncertainty in our own lives, what might it be like to put our whole trust in his grace and love? I wonder how the world might look to us? I wonder if we might find beauty? Maybe, if you are experiencing uncertainty in your own life, and if you would like to put your whole trust in God’s grace and love, [maybe] ask God for the grace to put your whole trust in him. I have a hunch that,were we to ask, God would say “Yes.”
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