Letter 50

From: Ambrose, Bishop of Milan To: The Church at Milan Date: ~386 AD Context: A homiletic letter on the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17), using her example to teach about faith in extremity and the spiritual meaning of hospitality. Ambrose to the faithful. Consider the widow of Zarephath. She had nothing — one handful of flour and a small amount of oil. She was gathering sticks to prepare a last meal for herself and her son, and then they would lie down to die of starvation (1 Kings 17:12). Into this extremity walked Elijah, and he asked for food. He asked the starving woman to feed him first. From any ordinary perspective, this is outrageous. The prophet demands the last morsel from a dying widow? But the widow obeyed. She fed the prophet before she fed her son. And the flour did not run out, and the oil did not fail, until the rains returned and the famine ended (1 Kings 17:16). The lesson is this: God tests our generosity at the point of greatest scarcity. It is easy to give from abundance; it costs nothing. The gift that matters is the one given from the last of what you have, when giving means going without. I know this is a hard teaching for a city as prosperous as Milan. Most of you have never faced genuine starvation. But there are other kinds of scarcity — of time, of patience, of emotional energy — and the principle is the same. God asks you to give precisely what you feel you cannot spare, and when you give it, he multiplies it. The widow did not understand why the prophet was asking what he asked. She obeyed anyway. That is the pattern: obedience first, understanding later. If we waited to understand before we obeyed, we would never obey at all. Feed the prophet. Trust the promise. The flour will not run out. Farewell.

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