The Seventh Sunday after Trinity

The first of the kings to build is Solomon, who builds the Temple for the Lord to dwell in. The second king is Jeroboam, who builds a calf shrine at Bethel, and the third is Ahab, who, at the end of chapter 16, just before today’s reading, builds a temple to Baal. At the end of chapter 16, Ahab takes for himself Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Zidon, as a wife.

The verb “to take” carries a lot of meaning in the Hebrew scriptures, beginning with the first humans in the garden, reaching out and taking what looks good in their own eyes. It is part of a theme which develops quickly throughout the scriptures and it is quite commonly a sign that someone has done something which was not a good idea. In this instance, Ahab takes for himself Jezebel, a princess in Zidon, a costal region west of northern Israel, in what is likely a marriage for political purposes.

Then straight after this marriage, the narrator records that Ahab built a temple to Baal in Samaria, the capital in northern Israel at the time. In the next paragraph, and what feels like an aside, Hiel from Bethel rebuilds Jericho but he does it at the cost of his firstborn Abiram and his youngest Son, Segub. As is common in Hebraic writing, we aren’t told why Hiel’s children die and we aren’t told if there is any connection between Ahab’s decision and these deaths, we are left to meditate on it and fill in the blanks. I suspect there is a connection, political, religious, or economic, between Ahab’s decision and the death of these children. This is partly because I don’t think the narrator would have put this little paragraph in if there wasn’t a connection, and partly because it mirrors today’s reading where Elijah, instead of bringing death, brings life.

Ahab has made a decision, he has taken for himself, and it has unleashed death into his kingdom. Pause

The threefold repeation in the book of Kings begins with a king building and is followed by a prophet confronting. The prophet who confronts Ahab is Elijah, with today’s reading coming from the beginning of the Elijah/Elishah narrative. God commands Elijah to go and dwell in the region of Zidon. Ahab has gone to Zidon, taken what looked good to him, politically, religiously, and sexually, and brought death to his people. The irony of course is that Israel are meant to be a nation of priests, bringing life to the nations around them. God cares for his people, Israel. But a detail that is often missed is that he cares for the nations around Israel too. He sends Elijah to live in Zidon to bring life and to fix the brokenness caused by Ahab’s decisions. God sends Elijah to Zidon and tells him to dwell there. To live there, to have life there and all that that entails. Rather than go to the princess like Ahab did, God sends Elijah to a widow woman. Those at the bottom of the social order and those most suffering from the famine and drought seemingly also connected with Ahab’s decision to take for himself. Strangely, the way Elijah is to bring life to Zidon is to first receive from the widow. “Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.”

When Elijah arrives and asks the widow for food the words of the widow are extremely moving and show the extent of the famine. She says that she only has a small handful of food left and that she is preparing it so that her and her son may eat it and die.

Elijah and Elisha can be described as “eucharistic prophets,” who bring life by providing bread and spreading a table. In today’s reading, Elijah tells the woman not to fear, to make him a small loaf first and that her food and oil will not run out until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.

As is often the case, hidden behind the actions of the main protagonist in Israel’s story, there is a woman with a concern for a child and whose faith is the beginning of the story. Pause

We come to Mass this morning, perhaps like Elijah, to receive the bread of life, the blessed fruit of a virgin’s womb, or perhaps like the widow, we come to offer what we have, in order for Jesus, the prophet of God, to multiply it and bring life to ourselves and the world.