Luke 4:25-26 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.
The “I” is Jesus explaining to the people in the town in which he grew up that he focusing on some other people also and not just them. They don’t like it very much. Why did Jesus go to other towns and not stay in Nazareth? Why did Elijah go to the widow in the neighboring realm rather than helping his fellow countrymen? Why did the Patriots win another Super Bowl? Is life simply a series of decisions made by humans that determine winners and losers, who gets helped and who doesn’t? Or is there a divine guidance to these things that we can’t always understand or even recognize? We find ourselves asking “why me?” when things are difficult. We ask it less so when things go well for us or are difficult for others. The people who recorded the story of Jesus, those whom we call the gospel writers, present it as a story with a purpose and a divine author even when they can’t explain all the details. Are you living your life as a series of human decisions and reactions that determine the outcome or as part of a divine story, even if that story is a mystery?
Logan Memorial Presbyterian Church 