• Ruth 3:1-5;4:13-17

The Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth, has cast her future with her Jewish mother-in-law, Naomi, who becomes concerned about Ruth’s future “security.”  Naomi instructs her to go to where Boaz could be found at evening.  She also tells Ruth to “put on your best clothes” when she goes to where the men will be working that evening during harvest season.  Naomi also instructs her to “not make yourself known” to them until after the men have celebrated with a heavy meal and plenty to drink.  After Boaz and the others have fallen asleep, Ruth is to lie down at his feet. [The appointed excerpt skips over the part of the story in which Boaz acts with propriety before he takes Ruth as his wife.]  Their marriage produces a son, because “the Lord made her to conceive….”  The women of Bethlehem express their joy to Naomi that this grandson “shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you… has born him.”  Naomi “became his nurse.”  And the women named him Obed.  (Now comes the kicker to the story.  The non-Jewish daughter in-law, whose loyalty to her mother-in-law was ‘thicker than blood’ is the grandmother of Jesse and, therefore, great-grandmother of David!)

• Psalm 127

The first half of this psalm establishes that without the Lord’s beneficence human labors are in vain.  The second half celebrates that “children are a heritage of the Lord/and the fruit of the womb is a gift.”  Parents are blessed with children who can protect them in old age.

OR

• I Kings 17:8-16

Elijah is on the run from King Ahab, because he had prophesied a drought, which actually came to pass.  During the ensuing famine, the Lord instructs Elijah to go to Zarepath, “for I have commanded a widow to feed you.”  At the entry to the town, he spots a widow gathering firewood and asks her for a drink of water.  Then he asks for something to eat.  She has only a little food at home, which she intends to finish with her son and the they will both die, presumably from starvation.  But Elijah insists she prepare a meal for him as well as for herself and her son, “for thus says the Lord the God of Israel: the jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail…” until the drought is over.  Miraculously, there was plenty to eat for the duration of the famine, “according to the word of the Lord spoke to Elijah.”

• Psalm 146

The psalmist considers whom should we trust.  Do not trust “princes,” he concludes, because when they die all their plans go with them.  Instead, trust in “Jacob’s God,” who is “the maker of heaven and earth” and “who keeps faith forever/does justice for the oppressed/gives bread to the hungry….”  This Lord restores those who have been put at a disadvantage, including “widows and orphans.”

• Hebrews 9:24-28

This “letter” addressed to the “Hebrews” continues an elaborate reinterpretation of Temple worship.  This excerpt contrasts the repetitiveness of Temple worship with Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice.  “He has appeared once and for all at the end of… [this] age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.”  He will appear a “second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

• Mark 12:38-44

Continuing Jesus’s denouncing religious hypocrisy, (but with less fervor than Matthew or Luke), Mark’s narrative takes particular aim at those who “devour widows houses and [then] for the sake of appearances say long prayers.”  This stinging criticism sets up the story Mark pauses to spend some time telling and which has an unforeseeable conclusion.  One day in the Temple. Jesus positions himself so he has a clear view of the faithful as they approach and put their offerings into offering boxes.  The wealthy put in large gifts of money.  The prestige and satisfaction for the size of their gifts is its own reward, the reader is assured.  But one person in particular catches the eye of Jesus.  “A poor widow came and put two small copper coins, which are worth about a penny.”  Jesus directs the attention of his disciples to what the woman has just done and the says this poor widow has put more than those who gave such large gifts.  The explanation for the conclusion Jesus reaches turns conventional expectations upside down and inside out; “Those who gave large amounts gave out of their abundance, but she gave out of her poverty… everything she had, all she had to live on.”

The wonderful story of Ruth, the tale taken from the life of Elijah, and Mark’s distinctive telling about a widow who catches Jesus’s eye and inspires him to make a statement about genuine generosity comprise an exploration of giving/gift that still surprises.  Elijah’s survival depends on the generosity of a widow who is literally down to her last meal.  Ruth’s entire story is one amazing episode of unexpected generosity from people who have no actual social, familial or moral obligation to each other.  Although an alien herself, she demonstrated loyalty to her adopted family and their God and elicits their love and protection.  (And out of this story of crisscrossing non-obligatory acts of generosity comes the direct lineage of David, and, thereby, the Messiah!)  Mark provides us with one of the most enduring, surprising sayings in the gospels when, after noticing a widow drop a few coins– “all she had”– into the offering box, Jesus declares that she has given more than the wealthy.  Giving/gift are not discretionary, these narratives remind us, gift/giving are existential to our social, moral and own psychological well-being.

It is Jean-Luc Marion who writes about “pure giveness”  He describes a slow-growing realization that “begins when the potential giver suspects that another gift has already preceded her….” (The Visible and the Revealed, p. 91)  He reminds us that that we are not born and we do not survive without the generosity of  many others, our parents most obviously.  I begin to understand that I would not be who I am were it not for the generosity of others, some known to me and many others forever anonymous, who nurtured me and opened up the world to me.  This dawning realization, Marion continues, leads one to realize “she owes something, to which she owes herself to respond.”  A cycle/ habit/ personality change/ conversion is set in motion by a conscious decision to be one who gives.  Marion’s own words are: “…the gift comes about by the decision, by the giver, to give, but which also means that this decision implies that the giver feels herself obliged, and hence, obligated…” by all the gifts that preceded her and benefit her.  Simply put, “The decision to make a gift implies, first of all, the decision to make oneself a giver.”  This is not just some warm, fuzzy feeling–reinforced by the praise of others– that arises occasionally; this is how I chose to live my life habitually, this is who I chose to become when I have plenty as well as when I have next to nothing and whether anyone else sees my giving or not.

Ruth, Naomi, the widow who sustained Elijah with the last food in her home and the widow whom Jesus noticed were “givers” not out of abundance, because they were down to nothing, but gave out of “poverty.”  The decision to be a “giver” is not made when I already have more than I basically need and can easily afford to be “generous.”   Rather, it comes only after we have come to the realization that we have always been the beneficiary of unmerited generosity.  Giving/gift/”pure giveness” is that “secret” that brings Life to life and sometimes can even bring something out of nothing.