1 Kings
17:8-24 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go now to
Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow
there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the
gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and
said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was
going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in
your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked,
only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering
a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son,
that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do
as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and
afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the
God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not
fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as
Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The
jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the
word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house,
became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She
then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to
me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” But he
said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up
into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He
cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the
widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself
upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this
child’s life come into him again.” The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah;
the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the
child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to
his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” So the woman said to
Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in
your mouth is truth.”
+++
We have been hearing news of deadly
floods in many places – Texas, France, Germany – and we remember how deadly
water can be. It is something that is
both life-giving and life-threatening. I
talked with my daughter in Austin a few days ago and she reminded me that two
years ago the lake was so low you couldn’t take boats out on it. Now it is too high and they have needed to
open the dam to let some water out. Such
is life in Texas, where it is usually either hell or high water – drought and
wildfires or floods. Extreme weather.
Weather is more extreme, more frequently,
these days. But it’s not something new –
extreme weather was what Israel was experiencing during Elijah’s prophesying
days. Not floods, though – it was
drought. It was the crisis of the time,
creating an intense focus among the people of the land. Naturally, it didn’t observe national
boundary lines. Israel was suffering
from the drought, and we see in today’s reading that the land of Sidon,
Jezebel’s homeland, was also suffering.
It is important for us to remember how
much people do suffer from drought. For
us, a drought means our lawns might not do as well. Drought is a threat to our grass. But for ancient people, and for millions of
poor people today, drought is a threat to their lives.
This episode from the story of Elijah
takes us right into the drought and the severe effects of it, and shows us
something about the relationship of God to the world and all that is in it, and
how God uses those who are willing to follow God’s call. Let’s just look at this story.
Look: God
sends Elijah to the home of a widow and her son in Zarephath, in the land of
Sidon. He asks her for a little precious
water. Yes, it’s precious; remember, it’s
a drought.
Then he asks her for something to eat,
and her response is extraordinary. She
says, “I have only this little bit of meal and oil. I am going home now to make a fire and cook
these meager provisions for myself and my son.
We will eat it and then we will die.”
This is the last of her stores of
food. She has no more, and sees nothing
on the horizon, so she has come to the hard, realistic conclusion that she and
her son will die.
But Elijah, who has been subsisting
mostly on the word of the Lord ever since God called him, doesn’t accept what
she says. He resists the certainty of
death. “Do not be afraid,” is his reply.
He invites this woman to join him in trusting the Lord, the God of Israel, and
see what happens.
She doesn’t know the God of Israel, but
she puts her trust in Elijah and does as he asks. She shares generously out of the meager
amount she has.
Look: She
does the first thing we are all asked to do when we are called out by God: let go of the notion of scarcity and believe
in God’s abundance.
The results are inexplicable. The tiny bit of meal and oil don’t run out
the way they should have. Every day
there is enough. The woman and her son
don’t die. She is able to feed herself
and her son and Elijah as well.
That would make a nice ending, but it
isn’t the end. There is more to the
story. Very abruptly we are told her son
becomes ill and dies. Her reaction is to
be angry. It is as though she feels that
she has been lulled into a false sense of security. This man of God whom she let into her home,
put her dangerously close to the power and potential wrath of God. God saw her sinfulness and now her son is
dead. How cruel, how terribly cruel.
Elijah is almost as distraught as the widow. He lays his body over the body of this child
and begs– even demands – that God return this boy’s life to him. It is as if Elijah is trying to transfer some
of the life from his own body into the body of this child. It is as though he
himself is a conduit of life, from God to this child.
And miraculously, the child breathes
again. The boy is revived. In one more way God’s power is demonstrated. And now this widow of Zarephath knows the God
of Israel. At first she did not know
God. Then she thought she knew God. Now she truly knows God.
What are we, you and I, to make of
stories like this one? Hearing these
kinds of miracle stories, I am no more likely to believe that the jar of peanut
butter in my cupboard will be perpetually full.
I do not assume that my mother would have risen up from her deathbed if
a man or woman of God had been on hand.
These are not the messages in such tales. They are too simplistic. Let me suggest
something else. Listen:
Our transformation team has been reading
a book together. It’s called Holy
Currencies[1]. I believe we chose this book primarily
because of the title. Theology can be
pretty abstract, but currency is something concrete. Currency is something we know.
But the book has challenged us to view
this concrete notion of currency in new ways.
We have been stretched to expand our definition of currency beyond money
– to relationships, wellness, gracious leadership, truth, time and place. We have discussed the basic economic reality
that currency is valuable as long as it’s flowing. And we have been reminded again and again
that increasing the wealth of all these currencies means keeping them flowing –
which usually means putting our trust in God.
The widow of Zarephath wouldn’t have
allowed Elijah into her home if she had not been willing to trust in this man
of God. She would have gone home alone
to prepare her wee bit of meal and sit down to her last supper with her son,
expecting nothing other than that they would die. But instead, she did something
different. And something different
happened.
We learn from this story that trusting in
God we are empowered to move beyond our instincts, our fear, our static view of
reality. We learn from this story to
trust in God, taking steps in a certain direction even when we don’t know what
the outcome will be, but only that this one thing is the next right thing to
do.
What we learn from the story of Elijah is
that every gift comes from God – everything from the ordinary to the
extraordinary, including life, itself.
And following God’s call and claim on our lives opens up many joys
previously unknown to us. We set these
holy currencies flowing. All thanks are
due to God, the giver and creator of all things.
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