Jars of Oil

 Earlier this year, I read the story of the widow's oil in 2 Kings 4:1-7, NIV, and it has stuck with me, so I thought I'd share it with you. (NOTE: This is not the same story as the widow's oil in 1 Kings 17, in which Elijah asked the widow to use her last drops of oil to make him a cake, and the oil didn't run out. There are several miraculous Elijah stories that are similar but not the same as miraculous Elisha stories, and they are all fascinating to study and compare, so I recommend it!) 

WHEN WE HAVE "NOTHING"

The dilemma of 2 Kings 4 is that a prophet of God dies and leaves his widow vulnerable because of debt and a lack of resources to provide for their family. Elisha asks how he can help and what she has on hand. The widow responds that she has "nothing at all" with the exception of "a small jar of oil," which surely is inconsequential in such a catastrophe. 

To me, this sounds suspiciously like the account of Jesus feeding the 5,000 in John 6. He asked the disciples what was available, and Andrew says, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" 

We are so often reluctant to offer what we have because we don't think it will be enough, so we disqualify ourselves and show that our faith is more in ourselves than it is in God. But God didn't need a thing except his own voice to create everything. And Jesus didn't even need someone to offer five loaves and two fish; he could have turned stones to bread, called fish to jump out of the sea into a basket, or simply spoken a feast into existence! But he wanted people to acknowledge the blessings of provision that he had already given, even if they looked small, and realize nothing he gives is insignificant. 

"God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him" (1 Corinthians 1:28-29)

JARS OF CLAY

Elisha's answer to the widow's conundrum is to ask her community for help. But she wasn't to ask for money or advocacy or even oil; she was supposed to ask them for jars - empty jars. And he even encourages her not to be hesitant or conservative: "Don't ask for just a few!" Empty jars would have been an easy ask, actually, kind of like asking for Tupperware today. Everyone had them, and lots of them, laying around the house. 

I'm sure the widow thought it was a weird ask, and maybe it took people off guard when she came to their door and said, "Could I borrow some jars?" Asking people for things is awkward and difficult for most of us, because it means admitting a need and dependency. But Elisha's instruction was really kind for several reasons that I see: it preserved the widow's dignity, it helped her see that her resources were a lot more abundant than she first thought, it gave her a support system, and it allowed a whole community to participate in something greater than themselves. 

I wonder if they were skeptical at first, especially if they knew the hardships she was facing. Maybe they had been looking on her suffering from a distance, feeling helpless to fix it because they didn't think they had anything worth offering. "Just jars? Nothing in them? Um, sure, how many do you want?" 

Some people probably had more than others, and they likely came in a hodgepodge of shapes and sizes. It didn't really matter though - Elisha didn't specify a quantity or even a quality, just lots of jars. That's because the thing that would matter most in the end was the abundance of what filled the jars, and the more jars she had, the more that abundance would be on display. 

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (2 Corinthians 4:7). 

MORE THAN ENOUGH

I have friends who do big canning parties every fall, harvesting and preserving things like apples or tomatoes. It's a whole event with neighbors or the multi-generations of their families. That's sort of how I imagine the widow and her sons looking when they close the door and turn to the kitchen project at hand, only instead of bushels of fresh produce, they have one small jar of oil and empty jars stacked all around the house. 

Oil does not spontaneously reproduce, or multiply itself, or grow like yeasty dough. Mathematically, scientifically, this makes no sense and will not work. But that is why it is called a miracle. She kept pouring oil in the jars, and it kept filling up the jars. In fact, it kept filling until she ran out of jars, which means it probably would have just kept flowing if the quantity of jars was infinite. Without looking, she reached out to take the next jar, but her son shrugged: "But he replied, 'There is not a jar left.' Then the oil stopped flowing."

We do not know how many jars of oil she ended up with, or how many kilograms total, but it must have been a lot. At the beginning of the story, her debts were so great that the creditor was going to take her two boys as slaves, and at the end of the story, the value of the oil she bottled was enough to pay off the whole debt and live on the rest. 

It never ceases to amaze me, the ways God is generously abundant and gracious in his provision for us. We may think that all we have is a small jar of oil that is no good to anyone, but what we actually have are the gifts he has given us, which are far greater than we can even comprehend or deserve. And they are more than enough because He is more than enough.

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe" (Ephesians 1:18-19a).