Thank you for joining us here at Resurrection Parish. We have come to the fifth and final week of our message series, “Confessions of a Control Freak.” We have also come to the beginning of the National Vocations Week, and the start of the Diocesan “Called by Name” program. Some of you might remember that two years ago the Diocese also ran the “Called by Name” program, where we are asked to prayerful discern if we think there are some men in our parish who God might be calling to the priesthood. Two years ago the program got off to a great start, with over 400 names submitted throughout the Diocese, and 40 of those men attending a Mass and dinner with the Bishop. Then the pandemic hit, and we were not able to do the kind of follow-up that we wanted to do. So we are going to try the program again. There are index cards in the pews, and we ask you to take one or more home with you, spend the week praying about what men, age 16 and up, do you see in the parish who are faithful disciples of Jesus and whom Jesus might be calling to the priesthood. Bring those card with the names back next weekend, when I will share with you my vocation story.
But back to “Confessions of a Control Freak.” We are all control freaks in one way or another, about something: cooking or cleaning, driving or working, health and fitness, diet and exercise, saving or shopping, scheduling and planning, and, of course, raising kids. Each of us clutches onto something or several somethings that become an issue of trust for us that can actually get in the way of our relationship with God.
Three weeks ago we talked about letting go of our preconceptions of what a great life looks like. Turns out, a great life is found in serving others. Two weeks ago we looked at how trying to control our public image can slow us down. Last week we said that instead of trying to control people we should be more interested in influencing people.
Today we are looking at control when it comes to a hugely important area of our lives: possessions and money. Most of us, if not all of us, are in some ways control freaks about money. Money is very powerful. Money gives us a power to act and get things done. We like to control money because it brings control of everything else. When you don’t have it, there is a loss of control.
Money is powerful and so our desire to control it is powerful as well. For some people that comes in the way of saving. For others it comes in the way of spending. Spending is about using the power of money in the present. Saving is about using money’s power in the future. Either way money brings power.
The issue isn’t spending or saving, both are necessary and are going to be held in balance
if you have a balanced life. The issue is actually how we’re holding it; with a clenched fist or an open hand.
God isn’t against money, he just has very specific ideas about our attitude toward it. Throughout the Bible, God encourages us to hold our money with an open hand. In return, he promises to get involved in our finances.
God teaches us this lesson in today’s readings through two widows. We are going to look more closely at the widow in today’s first reading from the First Book of Kings. A quick note of background, the Prophet Elijah has been preaching in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, condemning the fact that the king and queen has led the people to abandon the worship of God, and replaced it with the worship of the idol Baal. After defeating the prophets of Baal in a challenge, Elijah predicts that there is going to be a drought. To say the least he is not very popular, and people are trying to kill him. God tells him to flee to Zarephath, a town in the Kingdom of Sidon, where God has a widow who will take care of Elijah.
Women in that time couldn’t own property and were often left destitute after their husbands death. That God’s plan for Elijah hung on the charity of a widow would not have inspired much confidence.
“As he arrived at the entrance of the city, a widow was gathering sticks there; he called out to her, ‘Please bring me a small cupful of water to drink.’” (1 Kings 17:10). He asks her to get him a drink of water. This is to test her to see if she would be available to help him. She agrees, but before she can fulfill the first request, he makes another, just to see if this is the woman the Lord had promised would provide for him. “Please bring along a crust of bread” (1 Kings 17:12).
She answered, “As the Lord, your God, lives, I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die” (1 Kings 17:12). Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid” (1 Kings 17:13). To which the woman must have thought, “Of course I am afraid.” I am afraid because I am about to die and probably watch my child die before my very eyes.
We all worry about money. Because money brings so much power and control, we fear losing it or not having enough of it. And so we hold it with clench fists.
Look what happens in the story: “Do not be afraid. Go and do as you propose. But first make me a little cake and bring it to me. Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the LORD send rain upon the earth’” (1 Kings 17:13-14).
The antidote to fear and worry about money is giving. That’s completely counter intuitive
to our human natures. God’s ways are not our ways. And so Elijah, speaking as God’s prophet tells this poor woman to give not from her abundance but from her scarcity, with the promise that she will be blessed in her giving. “She was able to eat for a year, and he and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, as the Lord had foretold through Elijah” (1 Kings 17:15).
The challenge for each of us this week is to grow in our giving somewhere. Do it for yourself. God wants us to give because giving helps us to release the worries and fears we have about money. Giving allows us to move from worry about money to trust in our heavenly Father.