Giving God Your Nothing Left

 Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
    People think priests have a hard life.  And, in some ways, we do.  We’re on call 24/6 (I do get one day off per week), it’s not uncommon to have evening meetings after a full day of work, because that’s when people are most often free to meet.  Because people have their own ideas (sometimes based in theology, sometimes not) about how long homilies should be, how warm (or cold) the church should be, what songs should be sung, etc., the priest often gets peppered with complaints from all sides.  So yeah, it is tough at times, but we are also taken care of and loved pretty well.
    I think parents have a hard life.  If it put myself in their shoes, I wouldn’t want to be working all day, probably putting up with many similar things as priests in terms of working conditions, complaints, expectations, etc., and then come home, only to have to prepare some dinner, often from scratch, clean-up after dinner, help the kids with homework, and then, hopefully, have some time to catch up with a few things around the house, maybe have a little alone time with the spouse, before going to bed to start all over on the next day.  That sounds like a tough vocation!!
    I know I have been, and I’m sure parents have been, at the point where I feel like I’ve got nothing left.  Maybe it’s been a long day, or there’s a long day coming on the following day, or an earlier start, and I’m exhausted, and then there’s a call to go to the hospital, or, because I work with MSP, to go out to a homicide or meet with a Trooper who can use some comforting words.  And I know parents are in a similar boat so frequently.  So you give, even though you think you’ve got nothing left to give, and somehow, it works out to be enough.
    The same was true for the widows we heard about in the first reading and the Gospel.  Can you imagine being in a famine, and all you have left is a handful of flour, just enough to make a couple of cakes for you and your son, and then this man of God comes and asks you to make some for him?  I think if I did that, I’d be run out of the house, maybe even the parish and county!  But the woman gives, and Elijah makes sure that the woman doesn’t run out during the famine.  She gave beyond what she thought she could, and God rewarded that generosity.

Examples of the widow's coins

    Or in the Gospel, the widow is giving two coins that she needs probably to feed herself to the temple, to offer to God something.  The value wasn’t large, but the sacrifice was her everything.  She gave, even after she had nothing left.  And yet, the Lord commends her gift, more than those who were putting in large amounts of money, because she was giving when she had nothing left, while the others were giving while making sure they had something left over.  
    God invites us to trust in Him as we give to Him.  And I’m not talking only about money (though, we’re always happy to receive that from you).  I’m talking about giving to God time and energy and whatever is going on in your life, even if you don’t think you’re giving God much, even if you feel like what you have to give to God isn’t worth giving.
    Maybe life is crushing you right now, and it takes all you can muster to come to Mass.  It would be so much easier to stay home and rest.  And yet, you came to give God that little bit.  And God will reward that.  Or maybe you’re just trying to make sure your kid doesn’t run away during Mass, or trying to make sure that he or she is not a major distraction (though, truth be told, I am rarely distracted by kids and love having them around at Mass).  You don’t think you’re getting much out of Mass, but you’re giving to God what little attention you can call up while you supervise your child at Mass.  And God accepts that and makes it a loving sacrifice, received with gratitude because it’s your gift.
    Parents often get gifts from their children that are made at school that are not that expensive, and maybe are not Michelangelo sculptures or Rembrandt paintings.  But those are still treasured gifts (how many moms have kept those little gifts throughout the years!?) because the child is giving what he or she can.  The same is true for God: when we give God what we can, He treasures it as the perfect gift.
    God even receives the fallen parts of us, our sins.  Through the Sacrament of Penance (aka confession or reconciliation), God deigns to take our brokenness and failings from us, so that we can be made whole.  I know that sometimes it seems like the sins may be small, or maybe the sins are awkward to acknowledge, or maybe it’s just that we confess the same sins over and over again.  In any case, God wants to receive that as our small gift, the last little bit we have left, so that it doesn’t stand in the way of our relationship with Him.  Obviously our sins are not good; they’re not our finest moments as human beings.  But God takes it upon Himself so that we might have life in place of death, grace in place of sin, light in place of darkness.
    I don’t know about you, but I feel like more and more people are at their wit’s end these days.  I meet people who feel like they have nothing left to give.  At that moment, offer to God that nothing, that fatigue, that exhaustion.  It may not seem like much, but neither did the two coins offered by the widow in the Gospel, or the handful of flour offered by the widow in the first reading.  But if it’s what you have, God will accept and bless it, and will make it enough.