The Bible is very fond of speaking of God’s special love for the poor. When the Bible talks about the poor, it is not simply referring to those who lack money or cannot afford the basic necessities of life. The poor include a special category of people who, on account of their vulnerable condition, have a special place in God’s heart. They are the stranger, the widow and the orphan. Psalm 146:9 puts it well: “The Lord protects the stranger, and upholds the widow and orphan.” What is special about the stranger and widow and orphan? The stranger is someone who is on the move. Sometimes strangers are fleeing from war, plagues, hunger and impossible living conditions, searching for peace and safety and a better place to live. As such, they may be stranded, because they may be moving into places where they do not know anybody or have family or friends to welcome them.
The widow has lost her husband, and may sometimes be subjected to inhuman treatment. There are many widows who suffer terribly from their late husband’s family relations. They are accused of being responsible for their husband’s death, and sometimes are subjected to barbaric cultural practices, such as drinking the water used in washing their husband’s corpse, to prove that they have no hand in his death. In other situations, since the husband is the breadwinner of the family, when he dies, the widow goes through hell to be able to fend for herself and her children. Such widows sometimes do not have people to fight their cause. An orphan is a child who has lost either father or mother or both parents. The death of parents often deals a devastating blow on the children, who are left to fend for themselves. Sometimes, their parents are not dead, but they are not alive. They are there, but they are not there. Pope Francis calls these children “orphans of living parents.” They are children whose parents are alive but are living like orphans because they do not experience what it means to have a father or a mother or what is means to be loved. Sometimes, the parents of these children are poor and are suffering from severe emotional and psychological trauma on account of how unfairly life has treated them.
We are familiar with children who instead of being in school, have to hawk wares in the sun or in the rain. Sometimes they do not even have a house to live in, and are constantly roaming about in the streets during the day and at night. These children are exposed to danger. In the process of hawking on the road sometimes, oncoming vehicles hit them and they are killed. Some of these children sleep on pavements, in doorways, in motor parks, under bridges, and in uncompleted buildings. Sometimes they construct makeshift shelter for themselves with cardboards, rusted zinc, torn clothes and rags, grass or unused wood, already eaten by termites. Imagine what it is like to be an orphan today. Imagine that you are shivering in the cold, almost naked, without a home and without the warmth and love of parents or family. On account of the harsh living conditions, some of these children die due to malaria and pneumonia illnesses.
These innocent children are also exposed to a lot of danger and exploitation. Some of them are kidnapped or even violated. How many unimaginable stories have we heard of little children of 5 to 10 years who are sexually abused by adults! Society often fails to defend and protect these innocent children. But God never abandons them. God never forgets them, and he has asked us too never to forget them. At a point in his life, Jesus too and his family were strangers and refugees in a foreign land, Egypt (cf. Matt. 2:13-15). He knew what his family went through. That is why during his public ministry Jesus showed special affection for vulnerable people. At one point, he acknowledged: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Lk. 9:58).
In the Second Book of the Kings (4:8-16), the Bible gives us a good example of a wealthy woman of Shunem who showed hospitality to the prophet of God, a stranger. The Prophet Elisha, the successor of the great Prophet Elijah, went to the town of Shunem to preach the Good News. There in the town lived a wealthy woman who constantly showed hospitality to the prophet. She would often invite him to come and have a meal in her house. Being a prophet who was constantly moving around, she thought that providing a guest room would be nice so that whenever he came around, he would have somewhere to rest. She discussed this with her husband and he consented. She then spent her money building a small room, which was attached to the main house. She furnished the room modestly with the basic things a prophet would need: a bed for sleeping, a table and a chair for reading and writing perhaps, and a lamp to give light to the room. A prophet does not need a lavishly furnished room. He is on the move. Is this not how prophets of today should live?
When Jesus sent out his disciples, he warned them not to carry purse or haversack or sandals or spare tunic, but to rely on the generosity of those who welcome them. In other words, travel light. Don’t carry much baggage. Make your journey easy, so that you are not weighed down by the heaviness of the load you’re carrying (cf. Lk. 10:1-9). I think of many prophets today, how much they have made their missionary work so burdensome on account of the material things they have acquired, which often hinder the effectiveness of their work. How many truckloads of possessions we often carry around when we are transferred from one place to another. The woman of Shunem teaches us a very important lesson. A prophet should be free of material things, so that he can have the inner freedom to do the work of God. The prophets of today should make do with only what is necessary.
Elisha is so touched by the extraordinary kindness of this wealthy woman, and he asks his servant Gehazi: “What can we do for this woman to show that we appreciate her generosity of heart?” Gehazi replied: “The woman’s husband is old, and she has no son.” Perhaps, this is why she is so kind to the prophet. She looks at him like the son she never had and takes care of him. Those women, who are childless, who are often full of sorrows for not having children of their own, need to learn something from this woman. You can show love to other people’s children even when you don’t have a child of your own. You can also choose to adopt orphans and vulnerable children and bring joy and happiness to their lives. We cannot do everything just because we want to have a child, as if children are objects of possession or property. Children are gifts of God, not possessions. God invites parents to love not only their biological children. There are many vulnerable children who are hungry for love. Treat them with a father’s love and a mother’s love.
In the end, the prophet Elisha proclaimed a blessing on the woman of Shunem, on account of her hospitality. He said: “By this time next year, you shall carry your own son in your arms.” Jesus wasn’t mincing words, therefore, in the Gospel of Matthew when he said: “He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward, and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward” (Matt. 10:40-42).
Father Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.
