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"When elephants fight, the grass suffers." So goes an old African proverb.1 The elephants in question here, Yahweh and Baal -- gods competing for a nation's allegiance with the original weapons of mass destruction. Drought and disaster, the grass, this widow and her son, were caught in this cosmic struggle between fertility and famine.

We meet one of faith's greatest heroes as this story begins. With Elijah there is no question whose side he is on; his name means Yahweh is my God. He gets no introduction other than the fact that he is from an obscure northern village called Tishbe. "As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve," Elijah announces to King Ahab, "there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word" (1 Kings 17:1). Not a welcome word in the arid Middle East. The prophet hightails it out of there at God's instruction and takes refuge in the country, where he drinks the cool, clear water of the nearby brook and is provided for morning and evening by some divinely appointed ravens, an interesting choice in itself since ravens were considered "unclean." Go figure.

All is well for a while, but with the passage of time, the drought took its toll on the brook and Elijah is given instruction to travel north to Zarephath, a Gentile city, along the Mediterranean coast near the mighty cities of Tyre and Sidon, and close to the ancestral home of Ahab's Queen Jezebel -- no doubt, a little divine "in your face" business going on here. God says, "I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food" (1 Kings 17:9).

A foreigner -- woman -- widow -- can you go much lower on the totem pole, Lord? But Elijah does as he is told, meets the widow at the gate of the town where she is gathering twigs for what she says will be a fire to prepare a last meal for herself and her son -- the food is about gone, and there is no likelihood of anymore. This is it.

Elijah is Mr. Pastoral Sensitivity here. He immediately inquires as to the poor woman's situation and offers to provide needed assistance through the food pantry of the local synagogue plus money for other expenses from the prophet's discretionary fund. No, he just says bring water ... and some bread, while you're at it. He hears that this is all they have, but it makes no difference to him. As to why the woman did not simply tell him to take a flying leap, we have to recall the Middle Eastern culture that holds hospitality high, even today, as the most solemn of obligations.

But Elijah does more than ask for food. After he hears her dire straits, he offers this surprising promise.

First make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: "The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land."
-- 1 Kings 17:13-15

Then we read, "She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family" (1 Kings 17:15). This was a miracle.

As we read both scripture and history, one of the things that is continually striking is God's penchant for using the unlikely to accomplish divine purposes. There were those ravens and then a destitute widow. I mean, if you were God and Elijah was your prophet, and you had to provide for him, would you send him to a woman who only had a handful of grain and a little oil in a jar? I would send him to Bill Gates, somebody who was loaded. After all, as Goethe said, "Giving is the business of the rich."

Then again maybe that would not work. A survey done by the Gallup folks shows that almost one half of charitable contributions come from households with incomes of less than $30,000. Perhaps God knows we do better as givers if we have less to start out with.

We live in a society vastly richer than the one our grandparents inhabited. Even as our income has gone up, our spending has gone up even faster. As income has climbed, many people's giving to others has decreased; it may perhaps have stayed the same in dollars, but it has not kept pace with inflation. Recent studies regularly indicate that churchgoing Protestants in America give an average of 2.5% of their household income to the church. Now that may sound fine, as an average (although still not what it should be) -- until you consider that in the depths of the Great Depression, Protestants gave an average of 3.3% of their income. As a people, we are earning more but giving less.

In my files I have something intriguing I saved from a pastor in Bellingham, Washington, some years ago. Donel McClellan said that in downtown Seattle a few years back (though it could have been any city in this land) a man was out walking one day, just before Christmas. He came upon one of those Salvation Army kettles. As he approached the volunteer ringing the bell, he felt an unaccustomed spirit of generosity wash over him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out all his change. He dropped every last coin into the kettle with a smile.

The man turned to leave, but then he stopped. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and emptied every last bill into the kettle as well.

Grinning like an idiot, he walked away with a bounce to his step. But about two blocks later, the bounce wore out. Suddenly it hit him! "What have I done?" he asked himself.

The man turned around, walked back to the old woman, and asked for his money back. He got it, and left again, walking very quickly this time, head down, looking neither to the right nor the left.

For two blocks that man walked in the kingdom of God. For two blocks he was free of the burden of his possessions. For two blocks he put other people above himself. For two blocks he was self-giving and generous. For two blocks he was blessed, but, like most of us, he could not stand the uncertainty that goes with that much blessing. He wanted to continue to think that he was in control. He walked back, out of the realm of God and back into the well-worn grooves of his weary world.

You have heard that old fund-raising admonition, "Give until it hurts." This one is better: "Give until it feels good!"

You remember Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a man so stingy he would not even let Bob Cratchet have the whole of Christmas Day off from work. By the end of the story, through insight into the hollowness of his own life and heart, he was changed into a person who gave out of joy. He discovered that it was indeed more blessed to give than to hoard.

Perhaps our widow can attest to that. Do you want that feeling 52 weeks a year? A year-round Christmas? You can have it. Remember that verse you learned, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). Or remember the prayer of Saint Francis that concluded, "For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

A year-round Christmas. You can have it. Yes, indeed, and "God bless us, everyone!"

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1. Quoted by Carlos Wilton in The Immediate Word commenting on the texts for today, via internet, http://www.sermonsuite.com/the-immediate-word.com.html.