10th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

        Readings: 1 Kings 17:17-24   Galatians 1:11-19        Luke 7:11-17

            In this Sunday’s readings both the prophet Elijah and Jesus raise to life the dead sons of two grieving widows.  These mighty deeds foreshadow the good news of the gospel: Jesus own victory over the powers of sin and death through his cross and resurrection and our hope of bodily resurrection.  Let us identify with the raised sons and the grieving widow mothers as we sing the lyrics of the responsorial psalm.
                        I will extol you, O Lord, for you drew me clear
                        and did not let my enemies rejoice over me.
                        O Lord, you brought me up from the nether world;
                        You preserved me from among those going down into
the                 pit.  (Ps 30:2)
            The story of Elijah the prophet and the widow from Zarephath in 1st Kings manifests the life-giving power of the Lord’s word to defeat the powers of famine and death.   The widow is a pagan from Zarephath in the territory of Sidon who has trusted the Lord’s promise through Elijah that if she gives him a meal from her scanty fare of flour and oil in time of famine, “The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the lord sends rain upon the earth” (1 Kgs 17:7-16).  But now mysteriously her son falls sick and dies, and she presumes that despite her hospitality in hosting Elijah she has caused her son’s death by her sin.  In anger she chides the prophet, “Why have you done this to me, O man of God?  Have you come to me to call attention to my guilt and to kill my son?”   Elijah immediately orders that she give him her son and he carries him to the upper room where he was staying, lays him on his own bed, and calls out to the Lord in the following prayer: “O Lord, my God, will you afflict even the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?”  He then stretches himself out over the child three times and calls upon the Lord, “O Lord, my God, let the life breath return to the body of this child.”  The Lord hears the prophet’s prayer and revives the child.  When Elijah returns the boy to his mother with the words, “See . . . your son is alive,” she proclaims that Elijah is indeed a man of God because “The word of the Lord comes truly from your mouth.”
            The Epistle from Galatians is part of Paul’s long apologetic defense of his apostleship to the Gentiles (1:10-2:21).  In this section he insists that his version of the gospel which did not demand circumcision and Jewish observance by the Gentiles comes directly through a revelation of Jesus the Christ and not through the human agency of the apostles in Jerusalem.  He also addresses the charges that he was once a persecutor of the Church of God by honestly admitting them.  “You have heard, I know, the story of my former way of life in Judaism.  You know that I went to extremes in persecuting the church of God and tried to destroy it. . . .”  His zealous observance of Judaism makes his call to be an apostle to the Gentiles all the more remarkable.  In contrast to Luke’s dramatic versions of Paul’s call in Acts (see chs 9, 22, 26), Paul’s own description is quite simple and uses the language associated with the call of a prophet to the nations (see Jer 1:4 and Isa 49:1).  “But the time came when he who had set me apart before I was born and called me by his favor chose to reveal his Son through me, so that I might spread among the Gentiles the good tidings concerning him.”  Paul goes on to insist that he immediately began his apostolic mission in Arabia and Damascus and only three years later went to consult with Cephas (Peter) in Jerusalem.
            The story of Jesus raising up the dead son of the widow of Nain is unique to Luke’s gospel and is closely related to the story of the widow from Zarephath in our first reading and the evangelist’s theme that Jesus is mighty prophet like Elijah of old who is fulfilling the passage from the Book of Isaiah which he reads in the synagogue at Nazareth to inaugurate his ministry (Lk 4:16-30).
                        “The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
                        because he has anointed me
                        to bring glad tidings to the poor.
                        He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
                        and recovery of sight to the blind,
                        to let the oppressed go free,
                        and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”  (Isa 61:1-2)
When Jesus announces “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” the people of his hometown reject him as the mere “son of Joseph.” Jesus, in turn, states, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place,” and cites the story of Elijah being sent to the pagan widow during the time of the famine rather than to one of the many widows of Israel (Lk 4:25-26; cf. 1 Kgs 17:7-24).
In today’s Gospel selection, Jesus, like Elijah, has compassion on the widow who would have no financial support if her “only son” is dead.  His words and actions in performing the miracle both look forward to the resurrection and back to the miracle of Elijah.  Jesus steps forward and touches the litter as he says, “Young man, I bid you rise,” and in the same words as were used of Elijah in our first reading, Luke tells us, “Then Jesus gave him back to his mother” (1 Kgs 17:23)  The reaction of the crowd is like that of the widow in the Elijah story; fear seizes them and they praise God: “A great prophet has risen among us . . . God has visited his people!” (1 Kgs 17:24).  The widow and her son are among the poor and oppressed who are finding salvation in Jesus who, like Elijah of old, is destined to return to his Father in his ascension (2 Kings 2; Luke 9:28-36; 24; Acts 1).