DATE: June 9, 2013
SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 146; 1 Kings 17:8-27
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Seabury Center
The Widow of Sidon doesn’t get a name in this story, but she gets a voice, and it is a powerful one, a weary, stubborn, exasperated voice. It’s a voice I recognize, because it has spoken from the depth of my own spirit, on days when I have felt utterly overwhelmed, during seasons when everything has piled up. “You want me to feed you… Really? To drop what I’m doing and bake you a cake? In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a famine in the land. I am a widow, which means I have no source of support, especially when the rain refuses to fall. I don’t even have enough to feed my own child, but you’d have me bake the last of my meal and oil to satisfy your hunger??”
It’s the voice of someone who has been pushed to her limit. She doesn’t run to set the table when Elijah appears on her doorstep, as ancient Middle Eastern hospitality dictates. Instead, she lets him know just what that hospitality would cost her and her son. She is not gracious, but how many of us are, when we are at the end of our rope?
It’s one thing to welcome folks when we are at our best: when the house has just been cleaned and decorated with fresh-cut flowers, we are well-rested and in good spirits; when we are excelling at work or in school and have stories about our successes to share, and when the larder is full of fine foods to serve.
But when life feels out of control, when we can barely get ourselves out of the house in the morning, and the dishes have piled up, or the bills, or doctor’s visits, or the demands on our time… When we can’t figure out how we’re going to make it through the next hour, much less the whole day, then what patience do we have for the needs of strangers? Then, it is tempting to batten down the hatches; to turn aside even well-intentioned gestures or, worse, take out our distress on innocent bystanders. That’s when our anxiety can molt into anger, so we mutter about the person who cut us off in line, yell at the ref behind home plate, or snap at people who’ve had the bad luck to cross our path at precisely the wrong moment.
Imagine how much harder to be gracious when you are actually hungry. Do you know what that feels like? Not just that time-for-dinner feeling at the end of a busy day, or that sugar-crash after a good workout, but real hunger. Maybe you have participated in a fast, or maybe you’ve lived in a household that didn’t have enough to eat – like 14.5% of United States families, who routinely struggle to put food on the table. That’s 49 million people. Maybe you know children who never get breakfast, and so can’t focus in school. Or families who survive on cheap noodles and canned raviolis with virtually no nutritional content, because they can’t access or afford a head of broccoli or a fresh melon. Some of those families were featured in the documentary film “A Place at the Table,” that Saugatuck Church screened in collaboration with the Westport Cinema Initiative back in May.
That film, and perhaps our own experience, reminds us that hunger clouds our judgment, dulls our senses and distorts our emotions; as do fatigue and physical pain and stress. And the widow of Sidon and her young son were hungry to the point of starving. So I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for her to clear a space – at her table, in her home, and in her heart, for Elijah, the wild-haired fugitive who stumbled in out of the wilderness and demanded that she feed him.
Yet somehow, she did. Somehow, she mustered the inner reserves to do as Elijah suggested, and share that last bit of cornbread with a stranger she had no good reason to trust.
As for Elijah, he took a risk, too. He was on the run from an angry monarch. And although the ravens had fed Elijah in the wilderness, the water in the wadi had eventually dried up, leaving Elijah in a desperate situation. Plan B?1 Go stay with the widow at Sidon, said God. And again, I hear that exasperated voice: “you want me to go stay with a widow? The poorest person I’m likely to come across? A woman who can’t even feed herself? Not even an Israelite woman, but one who comes from the same culture as my adversary Queen Jezebel, to boot… Really?? At best, she’ll be able to feed me on dust and sticks; at worst, she’ll report me to the queen!”
And yet, despite the risks, Elijah went, asked the widow for help and promised that helping him would not mean the end for her and her son. And here’s where it gets interesting. Because they did, in fact, survive. Elijah’s word was good: The jar of meal did not run out. And the jug of oil, it did NOT fail.
This is an extraordinary story. One I find myself turning to again and again: This tale of two strangers both running on empty, nothing left to share, who are somehow sustained, despite… everything. When I find myself overwhelmed, when I am at the end of my own rope, I need reminding that this is how God works. God meets us at the bottom of the barrel, meets us in our most hungry moments, and amazingly, mysteriously, feeds us.
We need that kind of God, don’t we; that kind of grace, persistent and overflowing. In a country where 49 million people are at risk of running out of food, and another four hundred million are running out of hope, or inspiration, or faith … We are hungry in so many ways, both physical and spiritual. We are cancer patients hungry for healing and workaholics hungry for rest; bullied young people hungry for inclusion and neglected children hungry for a home; same-gender-loving couples hungry for acceptance, people of color still hungry for justice and folks of all stripes hungry for love…
You might say there’s a famine in our land: a famine of compassion. Maybe it’s because we can’t see past our own distractions and distress; maybe it’s because we’re running on empty ourselves, so what do we have left to offer strangers? Whatever the reason, this much is clear: we all have empty jars that need to be filled, and a longing for One who can call forth new life…
So we need this story, about Elijah, the widow and her son. Because of the meal that never runs out. Because of the oil that never fails. And because of something else, too, a miracle a little less visible than the never-run-out oil, but just as striking: See, this is a story about complete strangers, called together by God and told to rely on each other, despite all their differences, despite fear and hunger and an unknown future. And they do. They trust, and turn out to be trust-worthy: The widow does feed Elijah; doesn’t turn him in, even gives him his own room, where he boards for three full years, which is how long the drought lasted. Elijah, for his part, brings his faith in God and promises that God will sustain them. And when they make it through the drought only to be broadsided by the life-threatening sickness of the widow’s son, Elijah intercedes, raises his own voice (maybe he learned a thing or two from the widow?) and chastises God. “Really? You would let this child die after all we’ve been through? She trusted me; we trusted you, and this is what we get?” Elijah pours out his distress, and that of the widow. He speaks up on behalf of the widow and her son: “You are a God of life,” Elijah says. “Don’t you remember?” And God does remember. And the boy lives.
In fact, they all live. Remarkably, almost inconceivably, the widow, the boy, and the prophet, each one of them profoundly vulnerable in some way, every one of them lives… which tells me that one of the ways that God fills our jars of oil is by sending us strangers, companions for the journey on whom we must rely and who will, like as not, rely on us.
This is awkward Good News, at best. We don’t always like to share our struggles with others. I, at least, would prefer to appear strong and grounded and together all of the time! The funny thing is, church is supposed to be one of those places where we can admit that we are running on empty, that we are out of time or options or patience and don’t know where to turn. This is the place where we can remind each other that God meets us (as you’ve heard me say before) right in the middle of the muddle.
Here, we bear witness to God’s love and grace, because we’ve seen it in action. Here, we can hold one another, and hold each other up. Here, we may just learn something about faith from a stranger, maybe even a wild-haired stranger who bangs on our door and demands a meal. Here, we feed each other. And here, when we find ourselves running on empty, there is always someone to raise a voice on our behalf. Because that’s the rest of the story: not just that we are fed, but that we are called to give voice to the Good News that God sustains us: “Now I know that you are a man of God,” said the widow, “and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
Sisters and brothers in Christ: What do you know to be true? What word is in your mouth? In the face of famine, do you have a word of hope to share? Like the widow before us, will you raise your voice – to express indignation. Demand justice. Convey compassion. Proclaim faith…
Sisters and Brothers in Christ, here’s my word, my prayer for you today: May you be nourished by the love of God so deep, so vast, so abiding, that it penetrates your most fearful days and your most lonely nights, may you find the hope and courage you need every day. May you find here, companions for the journey, and may you come to trust the people that God sends your way. May you find yourself with compassion to spare, and may the widow’s voice echo in your own spirit: Hear it, feel it, and proclaim it loudly and with joy: Ours is indeed a God who calls forth new life: and the jar of meal will NOT run out, and the jug of oil will not fail.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Scripture Texts
Psalm 146
1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! 2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long. 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. 4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. 5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, whose hope is in the Lord their God, 6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; 7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; 8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. 10 The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
1 Kings 17:8-27
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2 The word of the Lord came to him, saying, 3 “Go from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi. 7 But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
10 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.” 11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 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.” 13 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. 14 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.” 15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16 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.
17 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. 18 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!” 19 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. 20 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?” 21 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.” 22 The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 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.” 24 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.”