June 6, 2010 - Proper 5, Year C (RCL)
Today
is the first Sunday
after Trinity,
the first Sunday
after the series of fasts and feasts
that takes us all the way
from Lent through Easter
to Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.
Its the first Sunday in what has traditionally been called
“ordinary time”,
a time that runs all the way through to
the feast of Christ the King in November.
We’ll get used to the green vestments
and the stories of Jesus’s ministry,
his travels and teaching and miracles.
we’ll hear more of the wisdom of the early church in the epistles, the readings from the New Testament.
And in the Old Testament
we’ll hear the words of the prophets,
beginning with the prophet
Elijah.
Elijah’s story
takes up relatively little of the bible. Just five chapters in the first book of Kings,
and a couple more in the second to tell how he died.
And yet Elijah is one of the great prophets in Judaism.
Each year at Passover
a fifth cup of wine is prepared
for Elijah, who is expected to appear and herald the coming of the messiah.
And even in Jesus’ time,
Elijah was expected
as a forerunner to the Messiah.
That’s why people thought
that maybe John the Baptist
was Elijah,
or even Jesus himself,
and it was Elijah who appeared
at the Transfiguration.
So you have to ask, for someone who commands so few chapters of the biblical narrative,
what was so special about Elijah?
We really don’t know a lot about him. His name means
“Jehovah is my God”, but there’s no story of God calling him before he was born,
like Jeremiah,
no record
of a miraculous birth,
like Samuel;
there’s no account of a dramatic vision of God like Ezekiel,
and no retelling of a commissioning
like Isaiah.
Instead,
he just appears on the scene, in 1 Kings, chapter 17,
verse 1:
“Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab.”
Ahab
is the king of Israel.
And he’s not
one of the good guys.
You might remember
that the first king was Saul, and then David,
and then Solomon.
Each of them had their faults,
but overall
they were good kings.
But then the kingdom broke into two parts,
Israel in the north,
and Judah
in the south.
Ahab
was king of the north,
the seventh in line
after Solomon.
And each one of the seven
was slightly worse than the one before.
And Ahab
was the worst of the lot.
The kings had abandoned God
generations before;
but it was Ahab
who led the people
in the worship of the false Canaanite god, Baal.
He set up altars
and built a temple;
he erected sacred fertility poles to Baal’s consort.
He himself
served Baal and worshipped him.
And it was under his leadership
that the city of Jericho was rebuilt,
the city that had been destroyed under Joshua
and which had been prophesied
to never be rebuilt
without the death of the oldest and youngest sons of the builder.
Under Ahab, Jericho was rebuilt,
at the cost of the builder’s sons.
And behind it all
was Ahab’s wife,
Jezebel.
It was she
who worshipped Baal and Asherah,
she who led him, albeit willingly,
to give up on God.
Jezebel is the one
who later organized the massacre of God’s prophets,
and replaced them
with her own men.
Her name has become
synonymous
with evil.
Ahab and Jezebel
rule Israel.
And then along came Elijah.
Elijah the Tishbite,
a prophet from a place
that no one
had ever
heard of.
And Elijah went to Ahab and said,
“There shall be neither dew nor rain for three years.”
And somehow
Elijah escaped being executed for his insolence,
and went and hid in the desert
and was fed by ravens,
and there was no rain
for three years.
And eventually
even Elijah ran out of water.
And so we come
to today’s reading.
The country was the grip of drought.
Three years
of no rain,
three years
of no harvests.
And suddenly God spoke to Elijah
and told him
to go to Zarephath.
You could have understood
if God had sent Elijah south.
Out of the land controlled by Ahab,
and far away from the power of Jezebel.
Perhaps even
as far as Egypt,
which had a history of helping out the people of God
in times of famine.
But instead
God sent Elijah to Zarephath,
a town on the coast
under the control of Sidon,
under the control
of Jezebel’s family.
Right into
the hornet’s
nest.
And then God said
that a widow would feed him.
Someone without
any means of support.
You would have thought
God would have a better plan.
But Elijah packed himself up
and headed west to the coast,
and as he came to the gate of the town
he came across a woman
gathering sticks.
And he asked her
if she would get him a drink of water.
And then, as if an afterthought,
he added, “And God says
you’ll give me some bread too.”
She’d been willing to give him water,
precious as that was,
but didn’t he know
there was a famine?
Yes, hospitality demanded
that she share what she had,
but what she had
was barely enough
for one last meal.
If he ate it,
she
and her son
would starve.
“But I don’t have anything,”
she said.
“Just a handful of grain
and a tablespoon of oil.
I was going to make
a barley cake for my son and me,
our last meal,
and then prepare
to die.
Would even your God
deny me
this last meal?”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Elijah.
“I promise you, there will be enough.
Not just for this meal,
but for tomorrow,
and the day after,
and the day after that.”
And the woman made the barley cake,
and somehow, when she looked in the jar again
there was a little more grain,
and in the jug
a little more oil.
Enough
for her and her son as well.
And the next day
it was the same.
Just enough for another meal
and another
and another.
And Elijah stayed there,
and the drought continued
and the famine,
but they always had
enough
to eat.
Does that remind you of anything?
Remember
when the Israelites
were wandering in the desert on their way from Egypt
to the promised land?
They were terrified
that they would run out of food.
They complained to Moses;
they complained to God.
They wanted to go back to Egypt.
Anything
for a meal.
And God sent manna,
a flaky white substance
and each day
enough appeared
to feed them for that day.
And if they tried to gather extra,
just to make sure there would be some for the next day,
when they opened it up in the morning
it would be full of worms.
Each day, there was enough,
just enough,
and they ate,
and were satisfied.
And there’s another story.
Remember the day
when Jesus was by the lake of Galilee
and a huge crowd of people
gathered to hear him speak.
And the disciples began to panic.
“It’s getting dark. People are getting hungry? What are we going to do?”
And Jesus said,
“Well, give them something.”
“But we don’t have enough!”
“Well, what do you have?”
“Just enough for us - at the most. Five small loaves of bread, and two fish Even that won’t go far between thirteen of us.”
But Jesus took the loaves, and broke them,
an the disciples handed out the food.
And everyone ate
and they were satisfied.
And there were twelve baskets full
left over.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s the widow
or the Israelites
or the disciples.
Each time
they are worried about eating.
Each time
they think they won’t have enough.
Each time
God provides.
It’s something to think about.
Many of us - me included - spend a lot of our time
worrying about whether we will have enough.
Perhaps not food so much,
but whether we have enough money,
and how we’re going to pay the next bill, and what if we need a new car,
and what about the mortgage?
And every time
I write a check for my pledge, I think. “But what if I need this money?”
But if Scripture is anything to go by,
God will provide.
Remember Jesus’ words?
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” (Luke 12:22-27)
Of course, if you’re like me, you say,
“But what about all the people who don’t have enough to eat, or clothes to wear?”
And maybe if I were preaching this at a refugee camp in Haiti,
or a homeless shelter in Queens
God might have a different word for us.
But for most of us here in St James,
going hungry or cold
isn’t a huge danger. And worst-case-scenario, we can seek help from the food pantry and from the Rector's discretionary fund.
For most of us,
the danger is
that we’ll keep what we have for ourselves,
that we’ll fail to respond to God’s call to be generous,
that we won’t, in the end,
trust God.
It was her last meal. she faced starvation. And even worse, she faced watching the starving death
of her only child.
But still, the widow
trusted God
and shared what she had.
And God was worthy
of her trust.
The story isn’t ended. We’ll hear more
for the next three weeks,
more about Ahab,
more about Elijah,
more about God.
But meantime
ask yourself,
what would it mean for me
to truly
trust
in God?
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010