1 Kings 17:8-24
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Receiving Good Gifts
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Henderson, Texas on Sunday June 9, 2013, the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1 Kings 17:8-24
1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
When I was in junior high school, we read stories by the great American author William Sydney Porter, the writer known better as O. Henry. We read “The Ransom of Red Chief,” and it was a lot of fun. Who doesn’t know a little hellion child like Red Chief? It was easy to catch the ironic twist of the story’s ransom in reverse, even for a bunch of middle schoolers. One that caught us off guard was “The Gift of the Magi.” Let me say that I did not understand the story or the literary concepts being explored.
I just didn’t have a grip on the story. As a twelve year old boy I thought it was heartbreaking, though I didn’t have the words to express that concept yet. Getting the most wonderful gift in the world and having no use for it was tragic. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, especially at Christmas; especially since at the time I thought more about getting presents than I did of giving and receiving gifts.
This scene from 1Kings is positively heart wrenching. The editors of the New Revised Standard Version do it no favors when they title the reading “The Widow of Zarephath.” The plight of a widow was tragic in these most ancient of days. Literally widows had no social standing. There was no one to care for them. It wasn’t as if there was life insurance. If your job is to take care of the husband and the household, and your husband dies, you are in big trouble.
Often a woman would not be able to return to her mother and father. Addressing Elijah she says “As the Lord your God lives” implying that she is not an Israelite but an immigrant which brings its own ill tidings. It is obvious from our reading that this woman’s son is not old enough to work or else he would be providing for them. Finally let’s remember that all of this is in the middle of a drought and it’s a recipe for the perfect storm of spiraling poverty. She has nothing, literally nothing but the clothes on her back, enough meal and oil for one cake of bread, and the want for it all to end.
If you think that last statement is bleak, it’s actually rosier than what’s found in scripture. When the prophet asks the widow for a morsel of bread from her hand she replies, “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.” There may be no greater words of despair in literature. She has seen her plight; she knows what’s coming next. This world has nothing for her. The hope she had for her son and the future of her family is gone. She is helpless and hopeless.
Then comes the promise, the promise of an extravagant gift. Elijah promises the widow that if she prepares him some bread using her meal and oil, and then prepare a little something for herself and her son, then the meal and oil will not forsake them before the Lord brings rain again on the earth.
At this point in the narrative I wonder what the widow was thinking. She called Elijah a man of the Lord, but did she wonder who he would be to her and her family? Did she suspect that this miracle could really happen? Did she think she would receive her own private manna to lead her through her wilderness? Was there hope or was this just a man trying to take advantage of her? Scripture is silent so the world will never know. All we know is that she did as the prophet instructed.
If the scripture ended here we would only have the promise, we would not have the fulfillment. Reconciliation in the form of a gift of bread is still a pipe dream at this moment, a gift she takes the risk to receive.
Luke’s gospel gives us another widow, the widow of Nain. Things haven’t changed for widows since the time of the Kings. Her situation was no better than the widow of Zarephath. Actually her situation was worse because with her son’s death, her one remaining link to family and the community was laying on a bier. Of course she was crying. Her son was gone and her place in the world was gone too. Her place in the world was gone.
Jesus and his disciples saw this. They all knew what was happening. Sorrow would be their natural reaction. Compassion and pity, which is the same word in biblical Greek, were in order too, but only Jesus could do something more than compassion and pity. Jesus could do more than react, he could act.
Elijah tells the widow “Do not be afraid.” Jesus tells the widow “Do not weep.” Elijah comes in the name of the Lord: Jesus comes as the Lord incarnate. Elijah shares with the woman what the Lord has instructed him. Jesus shares the presence and the power of Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus says “Young man, I say to you, rise!” and he does. The dead man sat up and Jesus gave him to his mother. The man who was dead now lives. In addition, his mother is alive again in the eyes of the community. By her son she is restored to the community. By the Son of God she is restored to life with her son.
A fear seized all of them, as they rejoiced this miracle fear seizes them. One of the things that could have scared them is that action, even the action of the Lord, comes with consequences. The scripture tells us this was “some time later” in relation to the events we read last week. Other translations say the next day. A little day counting and we discover that these events happen on a Sabbath. Healing is dicey enough, but healing on the Sabbath is a point controversial in scripture. Something else that may have scared the funeral procession is that Jesus touched the dead man. Jesus touched him and when he did cultural taboos and purity laws ring in their heads.
The people say “A great prophet has risen among us!” but it takes more than a great prophet to do what Jesus has done, taking on the law and bringing grace to the people. It takes a prophet, a priest, and a king; a Messiah. As the people say “God has looked favorably on his people!” God has given us the greatest gift of them all.
There are ways scripture invites us to see beyond what’s written on the page. There is an intimate nuance to the foreshadowing of God’s word that invites us to know that what happens isn’t an accident. There is connection and relationship and redemption within God’s creation that doesn’t invite us to look for an intelligent design, but at the intelligent designer.
As we consider the widow’s bread in Zarephath, the bread that will sustain her and her family during the darkest time in her life, I invite you to consider the bread we are given. In the simple bread of the Eucharistic meal we are given the bread of life. The bread of life which sustains the church is present in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The staff of life is offered by the Old Testament prophets and more exquisitely by the King of Kings.
As we consider the rising of the man from his funeral pallet we find restoration to life only the Lord can provide. In the return to life of one family we see the foreshadowing of a future where all humanity is restored. In the life and death and resurrection of Jesus all life is restored to what God intended before the beginning.
The gift of nourishment is offered to the church through the bread. The gifts of reconciliation and redemption are offered to all creation through the resurrection. Together they offer new life to every crack and crevice of our lives. We are washed anew in the good gifts of God, but now I ask, what do we do with these gifts? How do we receive these good gifts?
There are a couple of quotes from William Sloane Coffin, the late pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, that I want to share with you. The first is like a whetstone for my sharp tongue. Coffin quotes Reinhold Niebuhr saying, “Despair is the fate of realists who know something about sin, but nothing about redemption.”[i]
The hardest part of speaking the truth of God is the reality of people waiting in pain, so this quote speaks to me. I know Niebuhr’s despair, I know realism, and I know about redemption. Not separating them one from another can be quite difficult. Some days the difference between knowing about and truly knowing the truth of redemption can be measured by inches, other days by light years.
But the other thing Coffin says is “Hope is what’s still there when all your worst fears have been realized”[ii] When the wolf is at the door, when it is darkest before the dawn; that’s when all we have left is hope. This hope is not in might or power. It’s not in the princes or principalities of this world. Our hope is in the love of Christ, Christ who walked in our shoes 2,000 years before we did.
We have been given great gifts, gifts of bread and life; reconciliation and hope, and they become more when we use them in ways that give glory to God.
The joy of scripture, like the joy of reading O Henry, is the way layers and layers of the tale peel away like an onion. Each reading is a chance for a new revelation through the narrative. Each reading is a chance for something new to come around.
Something I got out of this reading is that God’s good gifts bloom into full flower only when we take the risk to accept them. The widow of Zarephath took the risk that Elijah could do as promised. The widow of Nain took the risk to allow Jesus to approach the funeral party. When these women took the risk they received the good gifts of God. Jesus took the risk of violating cultural norms (You know, the way we always do it...) to bring new life, eternal life to the world.
What are we willing to risk? Our last meal? Our place in society? The norms we know to experience the grace we don’t? This is the cry of the Lord, when we risk to receive life in Christ we will receive gifts greater than we could ever imagine.
Some forty years later, reading “The Gift of the Magi” isn’t much easier. Different, but not easier. Now I see it as a tale of sacrifice. People risk giving up their most precious possessions so that they may give good gifts to the one they love the most. Now I know that the “gifts of the Magi” aren’t the things the sacrifice buys, but the sacrifice itself. Through this all too familiar tale I can now imagine the depth of true love. I can imagine the cost of sacrifice.
I can now begin to imagine the sacrificial love the Father has for creation by giving his Son so we may all be reconciled. I can now see the blessing of receiving the gift of grace in the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ. I can see that like anyone who knows separation and loss; through the word of the Lord, words which are actions unto themselves, we are given redemption.
As we heard in our Call to Worship this morning:
Hallelujah!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
Blessed are those who put their trust in you, O God.
[i] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 66.
[ii] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 1, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 137.
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