A Prophet's Reward

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16A

One day Elisha came to Shunem,
where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her. 
Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine.
So she said to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God.
Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof
and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp,
so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”
Sometime later Elisha arrived and stayed in the room overnight.

Later Elisha asked, “Can something be done for her?”
His servant Gehazi answered, “Yes!
She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years.”
Elisha said, “Call her.”
When the woman had been called and stood at the door,
Elisha promised, “This time next year
you will be fondling a baby son.”

The Prophet Elisha was the companion of and successor to the Prophet Elijah, and you do have to wonder if anyone was ever confused by their similar names. Elisha asked for and was granted a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, the same zeal and prophetic gifting that allowed him to continue ministering the spirit of Elijah (see 2 Kings 2:9-10). After his mentor was translated into heaven by a flaming chariot, 2 Kings 2:19-8:15 records a series of sixteen miracles performed by Elisha, twice as many as Elijah performed. The promise of a child given to the couple from Shunem described in the first reading takes place at the beginning of the catalog of Elisha’s miracles. 

Elisha had a sustained relationship with this family, not unlike Jesus’ deep and lasting friendship with the siblings Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Elisha visited often enough that the couple set up a room for him on their roof. Several years after they miraculously bore a child, the grown child died and was laid out on Elisha’s bed. His mother quickly set out to tell Elisha, and he returned to their home and performed another miracle for this family by bringing their child back to life (see 2 Kings 4:18-37). Theirs was a deep, personal friendship that also involved a few miracles, and it all began with a simple dinner invite. 

The Shunamite couple’s relationship with Elisha is a concrete illustration of people who receive a prophet because he is a prophet and who receive a righteous man because he is righteous. It also illustrates the result promised by Jesus: they received a reward. This Shunamite woman stands in a long list of barren women to whom the Lord granted a child. But notice that Jesus spoke of receiving a prophet because he is a prophet and not because of the reward that is promised. The emphasis is on our intention for doing the good deed. Doing good is its own reward, and sometimes the Lord sees fit to sweeten the pot a bit in this life all the while keeping the true prophet’s reward for heaven. 

This week, the Spirit invites us to consider how we receive prophets and holy people. Who are the prophets in your life, the people who speak the truth of God both in season and out of season? Who are the men and women of God, whether priests and religious or someone from church, who always help you to refocus on the Lord? And how do you receive them? It does not have to be by putting an addition on your house like the couple from Shunem. Jesus said a cup of cold water is enough. Perhaps the Lord is asking us to affirm the people closest to us who keep us focused on him.