Unlikely Heroes from the Bible: A Widow's Story

2 Kings 4:1-11

She was desperate. Known in her small community as the widow, she was not allowed to hide her loss.  The fact that she was also a single mother of two boys only made matters worse.  But it was the famine that left her cupboards empty.

Her husband had died, leaving her to face the creditors.  She knew she couldn’t pay them.  That meant the creditors would conscript her two sons as slaves to repay the debt.

She is desperate when she sees the prophet, Elisha, on the road.  She interrupts him shamelessly,  shouting:

“Your servant, my husband is dead. . . But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.” (2 Kings 4: 1)

Elisha recognized her as the wife of one of his students and answered quickly

How can I help.? 

Before she could answer,  he asked for an inventory of her resources.

I only have a little oil left.

It was olive oil, of course.  But still, what can you fix for dinner using only olive oil?  She was destitute.

 Then Elisha gave her the most unusual task for a woman with no resources.

              “Go ask your neighbors . . .

Here we might think he was going to send her to beg for food.  However, no one would have been able fill in this blank correctly.

Ask your neighbors for empty jars . . .

Empty jars?  How would that help?  About all she could do with empty jars was collect rainwater. Fortunately, he had more instructions.

              . . . collect the jars, and shut yourself inside your house with your sons, and fill

each jar with the oil you have.

Here is where the story becomes more about faith than food.   The widow followed the strange directions. Did she think Elijah had a secret source he would bring back to the house after she collected the jars? 

Whether this was blind faith or hopeful thinking, we’ll never know.  All we know is that she began knocking on doors and collecting empty jars.

Let's stop here for a moment. What would you have done? Laughed? Asked questions? Argued about the absurd direction? All of the above?

When we rejoin her story, we know that she and her sons returned to the house with armfuls of jars and began pouring from the nearly empty jar she started with.

There are two steps of faith in this story.  Both speak volumes to me.

• Her first step of faith was her willingness to involve her neighbors.

  Do you understand how the widow exposed herself to ridicule and serious doubts about her sanity when she embarked on this scavenger hunt?  Her need was more important than keeping face.

  
  

• Her second step of faith came as she lined up the empty jars and began filling the first with contents from her almost-empty jar. 

Of course, we know what happened.  The more she poured, the more she had.  The oil supply was limited only by the number of jars she collected.

And what do you think her boys learned? Faith matters! You don't have to understand everything to obey.

She is my unlikely hero because nothing stopped this woman from following the simple but curious instructions of Elisha. Me? I would have asked more questions!

Of course, the oil alone didn’t bake any bread.  But when she sold it, she could buy the food that kept them from starving. Just as Elisha promised, it was enough “to live on” and stave off the creditors.

What “fillings” do we miss when we don’t obey the nudges and instructions that make no sense to us?  Where do we play the know-it-all when we don’t know at all? 

This single mother was an unlikely hero in her community.  Don’t you think her story of their empty jars miraculously filled stayed with that community for a long time?

She remains an unlikely hero for us, too.  Each step of her obedience led her to another. and another. 

We may not need to fill empty oil containers, but we have other needs that obedience will answer better than we expect. And there is always the possibility that it could lead us to become an unlikely hero in our circles of needy friends, too.

Where are your empty jars?