- Zarephath is a Phoenician city — the woman was not an Israelite woman; she was likely a worshiper of Baal. She came from the same region as Jezebel!
- The unnamed woman was a widow, and she has nothing to spare. She obviously knew something about Elijah and his God, because she swore by his God that she was down to her last meal.
- In spite of her extreme situation, the woman shared what she had with Elijah the prophet; in turn, she was sustained through the famine.
- Elijah remained with the woman for many days.
- Sometime later, the son of the woman became ill and died. Elijah carried him into an upper chamber of the house, cried out to God for the child's life and God restored the child to life. (Compare this miracle to a similar one in 2 Kings 4, under Elisha's ministry, and to the raising of the son of the widow in this week's gospel lection — Luke 7:11-17.)
Breaking Kosher. Elijah was in a strained situation. He had just told the King of Israel, Ahab (husband of Queen Jezebel), that Israel would experience a drought. From there, he was sent to a stream of water near Jordan and was told to expect to be fed first by the ravens, and then by a foreign woman in the region that wicked, idolatrous Queen Jezebel came from! Ravens were considered unclean and so was this Gentile woman — yet God told Elijah that his sustenance would come from them. This raises questions about lines of division between peoples, classism, sexism and all sorts of things. Where do lines of separation come from, and when should they be crossed?
Moving Beyond Stereotype. It is interesting that the widow of Zarephath came from Jezebel's region. Jezebel was the daughter of King Ethbaal (1 Kings 16:31) of the Sidonians — a place where Baal was worshiped. Commentaries speculate that Baal worship spread through Israel because of Jezebel's influence. Elijah had just confronted King Ahab and Queen Jezebel in 1 Kings 17. If you were Elijah, would you find it difficult to accept help from any person from Jezebel's region? Did everyone in Sidon worship Baal and stand in opposition to the worship of Israel's God? Perhaps, as the woman was learning something about Elijah's God, Elijah was learning something about people. We cannot sort and classify people as we do buttons or screws. Each is unique and endowed with an ability to respond to the grace of God.
- Paul received the gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul's conversion is described in greater detail in Acts 9:1-31.
- Although Paul was highly trained in Judaism, he embraced a call to ministry to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:16).
- It is important to note that Paul was, in some ways, isolated. He did not spend a great deal of time in the company of the apostles; in fact, he was practically unknown in the churches in Judea. What Paul learned was revealed to him by the Lord. This was due, in part, to the fact that he had a terrible reputation for persecuting Christians before his conversion (Galatians 1:23).
Overcoming the Pain of the Past. Paul was haunted by his past. At times, the Jews persecuted him as one who had wandered from the faith. At other times, the Christians shunned him because he once persecuted them. The records of Paul's conversion mentioned his checkered past frequently (See Acts 22, Acts 26, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Timothy 1 etc.). The good news of Paul's story is not hard to find: Paul was not imprisoned by his past. He made no attempt to hide the evil things he had done in ignorance and unbelief. He always made sure that his audience knew that it was only the grace of God working in him, and not his own giftedness, that caused him to become one of the most influential men in the church of his era.
Paul's ability to overcome is good news both for those who sin in secret as well as for those whose sins have been made public. The way that Paul overcame his past is good news for ex-offenders who have genuine encounters with God in prison. It is good news for converted middle-aged women who still mourn when they remember shoplifting for 'kicks' as teenagers. Paul was so convinced that his relationship with God through Christ had changed him that he was able to pen these words:
"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5:17, NRSV)
- The miracle takes place early in Jesus' ministry.
- Nain was part of the land allotted to the tribe of Issachar; the city continues until this day. Nain was in the foothills of Mt. Moreh (near Shunem where another woman's child was raised from death when Elisha prayed — see 2 Kings 4).
- The widow lost her only son (Luke 7:12). Compare her loss with other only children in the Bible: the synagogue ruler's daughter (Luke 8:42), the father's only son suffering from convulsions (Luke 9:38) and the one and only Son of God (John 3:18).
- Notice the two processionals: the funeral procession and that of Jesus and his disciples.
Miracle in the middle. Jesus and company met widow and company on the road to complete a burial rite. But a strange thing happened: instead of the dead defiling the living; the living infused the dead with new life. What happens when we meet death — in the form of drug-infested communities, in the form of despondent youth who increasingly do not graduate from high school, in the form of people who have lost all hope? We are called to prove that goodness is stronger than evil, and light more powerful than the shadows.
Death is not the last word. What looked like the end of life as the widow knew it was reversed in an instant. What seemed to be the beginning of a life of poverty and penury was turned into a concert of praise. The widow of Nain received her only son back from death. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. We, who believe in him, need not fear Death.