Have you ever seen the movie Pirates of the Caribbean? The main character is a pirate named Captain Jack Sparrow. As Captain of his beloved ship, the Black Pearl, Jack was betrayed by his mutinous first mate and crew who left him stranded for dead on a deserted island. When we meet Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time in the movie, he is alive and well, having somehow escaped certain death. The phenomenal story of his unexpected survival that gets spread around is that Jack spent days sitting in the ocean water till all manner of sea creatures acclimated to his presence, coming close to him without fear until, one day, he was able to rope a couple of sea turtles together to make a raft and sail to safety.

The scriptures we are considering today are tales of two women who, much like Captain Jack, also experience unexpected life in the midst of circumstances that presume looming death. This is a pair of stories full of pairings that surprise. A pair of women, meal and oil, two coins, poverty and abundance, death and life.

They are also a pair of stories, like most, that benefit from applied curiosity. What do I mean by that? Let’s go back to the story of Captain Jack’s unlikely survival for just a moment. The story of his escape from the island on a raft made of sea turtles is passed around and eagerly accepted with wonder by most people. Until one person, upon hearing it, asks the simple question: what did he use for rope? When we apply curiosity to what we are experiencing or encountering, when we make space to ask questions, it can change how we experience the encounter at hand, it can shift our energy, open up possibilities, and expand our capacity in the midst of the experience at hand.

Let’s apply some curiosity to this pair of tales to begin to unravel the insights they might offer and how the stories themselves might shift and expand when we ask questions about them.

We’ll start with Elijah – a prophet of God who, a few verses before this, declared that there will be a drought in the land and is now, like the rest of the people of the land seeking tangible sustenance in the midst of the drought. For a brief while he was sustained by water from a small brook and the provisions of bread and meat that ravens would bring to him in the morning and evening. The brook quickly dries up and so God instructs Elijah to leave that place, to rise and go to Zarephath where he will find a woman that God has instructed to provide for Elijah.

Upon arrival, Elijah finds the woman gathering sticks and asks her for some water, which she turns to go retrieve. As she goes to get it he calls out and expands his request to include water and a bit of bread. It’s a curious thing that, even in the midst of a drought, water seemed to be an easy ask for the woman – she was willing to go and bring some to him without much hesitation. Yet when he asks for bread, she turns and reveals to him, testifying in the presence of God, that she has none to spare, that in reality, she has only a small bit of meal and a little oil and that she is currently gathering these sticks to prepare a final meal for herself and her child before they lay down to die.

Upon hearing about this dire reality, Elijah asks again anyways, saying – prepare a little cake for me first and then afterward make something for yourself and your child. If we stopped reading here I imagine we wouldn’t be left with a very favorable impression of Elijah. How can someone who has just learned that a woman, about to prepare a final meal before dying for herself and her child, request that she use those resources for him first? Who gets prioritized when times are hard and the needs are many?

I think about the woman in this moment of her life. She has resigned herself to the reality of death, not only for herself, but also her child. I wonder if she is fearful? Or maybe she moved beyond the fear? How is she to respond to this stranger telling her to prioritize his provisions before her own, before that of her child? How on earth did the widow hold this request from Elijah?

Let’s pause for a moment in this story and consider the story of the second woman in the scripture selections today. The woman who goes to the temple with her gift is also a widow. Those who have also come to the temple to give their offerings before her have been rich and offered large sums. And here she comes to offer a meager offering of two small coins. Jesus sees this offering and calls his disciples to take note – pay attention – this meager offering is worth more than all the sums of money offered by those who had plenty from which to give.

Often when we hear this story we are invited to think about the generosity of this poor woman to give her last coins as an offering to the temple. Yet if we apply a bit of curiosity to interrupt that interpretation, we begin to remember that this woman, who is likely being judged by other temple attendees for her ridiculously small offering, is a widow, a widow struggling in a patriarchal system. A system that should be caring for her in the face of her husband’s death. A system that has not cared for her, has instead brought her to the brink of survival, to a place of death dealing poverty. This is not only a story of a poor woman’s generosity. It is a call to account for the community, a reminder of the need for the community to be on the lookout for each other, to be caretaking instead of prioritizing wealth and prestige, to prioritize care for one another in times of need.

What a pair. What a pair of stories showcasing some of the most challenging and desperate spaces people can be in. Revealing the ramifications of systems that prioritize wealth and power over humanity and essential needs. Stories that invite us to hold them with curiosity. To ask challenging questions of the players within the stories, the societal structures on display, and to turn those questions towards ourselves – to our own patterns of living, to the systems we participate in in our daily living.

This week, in the aftermath of the presidential election, it has been easy to wonder about such things. To wonder about who we are as a people in this country. To wonder about how our country will be guided in the next four years. To wonder about what kinds of seemingly impossible positions some people and communities will be put in by that leadership and the systems and structures of power they are guiding. And to wonder all of that, and more, has opened us up in moments to worry, anxiety, desperation, anger, confusion, disheartened spirits, and has left us wondering if and where hope might be found.

And in that space we are invited to turn again, with curiosity to the stories of these women in spaces of desperation and need, to seek within them signs of hope that we too might embody. When I look to these stories for spaces of hope and possibility, I find it alive, well, and on display in these two brave women who each made a choice – choosing connection and community. Against reason, in the face of fear, danger, and the unfathomable, they chose to participate in the possibility at hand, they chose to value and care for community even in the face of death.

Even Elijah, in the boldness of the unfathomable ask he is making of this woman resigned to her own and her child’s deaths, in that moment he begins his ask with a hopeful phrase: Do not be afraid. Over and over, again and again, in scripture when something astounding, miraculous, something unimaginable is about to happen the encounter begins with some form of: Do not be afraid.

In the spaces where things don’t make sense.

In the spaces where there is imminent (or perceived) danger.

In spaces of shock, or surprise.

Come words so hard to receive: do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. God is present in the midst of the unfathomable, the dangerous, the unexpected – God is present.

For the woman in conversation with Elijah, God shows up as meal and oil…an unending supply to see her, and Elijah, and her household through the drought.

For the woman at the temple, it is less clear what her reality will be in terms of daily needs, that’s real, we don’t always get a happy miraculous solution. What we do see is that God’s presence with her empowers her to lean towards life in the midst of the messy, to freely give what she has in the face of death and in so doing to experience life beyond uncertainty and fear.

There have been moments of disbelief, fear, and surprise within many of us this week as the presidential election season has come to a close. Where is the hope for us? Perhaps it is in the same possibilities these stories display – it is in the opportunity for us to choose to participate with God’s presence by choosing connection, valuing community, leaning towards life, especially in spaces with and for those facing desperation and danger. For those that are fixed on destruction thrive on disconnection and discord. We may not be able to solve, fix, or change a situation, we cannot always make spaces safe, however, we can join with and accompany others through whatever comes, there is power in showing up. We can choose to accompany and offer hospitality in body, mind, and spirit. And that is something this community has valued since its inception.

Last week I had the privilege of joining with several others of this community to attend a memorial service for Henry Brunk. For those of you who don’t know Henry and Edna Brunk were founding members of this church. Some who had crossed paths with them as part of the church and I went as a representative of the church as it is now to express our gratitude for the hospitality and care that Henry and Edna gave to this community, to this building, to the people that were here and to the people that continue to be here.

I went to Virginia last weekend and was spending time with my parents before the memorial. My dad had been the interim minister at the church that Henry and Edna were part of there. On Saturday morning, I chose a mug at my parents house out of many options hanging on the wall. My parents have a lot of mugs and I usually use one particular mug but it wasn’t there so I chose another mug that was new to me in their collection. It had Canada written over and over around it.

My dad came around the corner and saw me drinking my coffee and said – ah you chose the Canada mug! I said yes, what can you tell me about it? Where is it from? He looked at me with a glimmer in his eye and said – it was a gift from Henry Brunk!

Dad went on to tell me about how Henry was a person who loved a good deal. One of his hobbies was going to auctions and buying lots of items for low prices – he would sort through those items and determine if any of them might be gifted to someone he knew, and which of them to donate to Gift and Thrift – a thrift store in Harrisonburg whose proceeds benefit Mennonite Central Committee.

Dad had gone to visit Henry and Edna one day and Henry dug through a box of items and pulled out the Canada mug, declaring it to be a gift for my dad who was born and raised in northern Alberta Canada. Henry paid attention, saw an opportunity for meaningful connection and chose to act in generosity. There I stood drinking coffee out of a mug that had been offered as a token of support to my own dad from Henry Brunk. Of all the mugs on the wall in my parents home, I had been drawn to an unexpected point of connection with Henry as well.

I was so glad to have stumbled across this aspect of Henry’s personhood through my morning coffee so that when I attended the memorial service the following day I was able to more fully appreciate the reality of his passion for auctions and gifting items to people. Several folks who offered reflections shared about this part of Henry’s hobbies and a slideshow of pictures included several photos of Henry at an auction or loading up a truck with items outside the auction house and when those pictures splashed across the screen people chuckled with familiarity upon seeing this passion of Henry’s in action.

One of the spoken reflections even shared that Henry not only liked to find good deals and pay them forward, he was even excited to later go walk through Gift and Thrift and see an item he had donated on sale in the shop – exclaiming – I paid 5 dollars for that table and now they are selling it for 50 – that’s a good deal for MCC! Henry’s passion for generosity reminds me of the widow and her meager offering given, not through an abundance of funds, given instead through an abundance of hope and gratitude for life.

Henry and Edna and their hospitality, caretaking, and generosity are some of the deep roots of this congregation. We are grounded, in part, in their vision to create a place that fostered connections and made space for life to thrive abundantly. The ripples of that commitment are still part of the life of this church, this community.

In this season, I find it an amazingly fitting thing that our theme for this church year is cultivating community and deepening joy. If ever there was a time for us to be at work cultivating community and deepening joy. This is a hopeful call to each of us in this season is to dig in, to invite curiosity into our living so we can question what it is that we are encountering, so that we can make space for new things, so that we can choose connection…and here I want to pause and go back to our friend Captain Jack Sparrow for a moment – the real story of how he escaped the deserted island is that it was a secret stash port for the rum runners. Instead of escaping the island on sea turtles, he spent three days drinking rum on the island and was picked up by the next ship that arrived – it was community in action! People showing up to help in unexpected ways! Again, the hopeful call to each of us in the season is to dig in, may we choose connection, to offer what we can, and to trust that even when what we can offer feels meager, inadequate, and insubstantial, it is more than enough, more even than we can imagine.