Sr. Elizabeth and I have the magnificent joy this week of volunteering at the GIVEN Forum, a leadership conference for young Catholic women. Here, the emphasis is laid on receiving and realizing the gift you are and have from God, and responding to share that with others. I’ve also had the opportunity to reflect on my participation in the first GIVEN Forum a decade ago, and remember a real uneasiness as I developed my Action Plan (the intended outcome of the Forum—to share one’s unique gifts). I felt God was inviting me way out of my comfort zone and I wanted to set a limit on how much I gave of myself. Perhaps this is a fear you’ve also felt: if I give this effort, this time, this offer, what else might be asked of me? It’s like the cautionary moral of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is innate to our relationships with both God and others: don’t give without consideration of future asks and explicit limitations.
Yet in this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus encourages us to give generously, like the Shunammite woman, with attentiveness to the needs of His disciples. We might be tempted to take this transactionally, to think: “well, if I give hospitality, I will get a reward. But… is it worth it? How much, after all, is the prophet’s reward?”
Instead, God challenges us to trust that whatever we give will be met with much greater generosity than even we can imagine: the Shunammite woman of the First Reading certainly desired a son, but probably would never have thought to ask Elisha for one. Likely it seemed out of the realm of possibility for her. Her generosity came from a different place, without considering what it might cost or gain her but rather how her possessions might meet Elisha’s lack. We all possess gifts—some innate, some needing cultivation, some received from others, some as seemingly simple as the ability to notice others’ thirst. God calls us to consider how we might share these gifts with others. Instead of wondering what else it might cost us, can we trust that God knows what we need and has put people in place to provide even more—more than than we can imagine to ask?
