Changes

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 5, 2016, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

With thanks and praise to God and grateful thanks to the people of The Federated Church, this is my first Sunday as Pastor of The Federated Church.

1Kings 17:8-16
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

I want you, for a moment, to consider the plight of the family in our reading from 1Kings. At the beginning of this chapter, Elijah declared a drought upon the land because Ahab, the son of Omri the King of Israel had built a temple to worship Baal. At the same time Hiel of Bethel sacrificed two sons, his oldest and his youngest, to rebuild Jericho.

Joshua’s son Nun warned this would happen. These chickens have come home to roost at Bethel. It’s ironic that Bethel is the Hebrew word for “House of God.” This would be the First Commandment, “The Lord is our God” God, not the god Baal. So yeah, ironic. Hence, the prophet has declared a drought.

This also reminds me of wealth distribution like it is today, the powerful cats play, the weak mice pay. While everybody was hurt by the drought, those who were better off weren’t hurt so badly nor so quickly. For the rich things hurt, but not immediately. For those on the fringes of society, the widowed, the single parents, pain already knew their address.

As we read, sometime later the brook died up at Zarephath. Everything dried up at Zarephath. Even hope dried up at Zarephath. In a time when without a man you were nothing, she became less than nothing. She had a son to feed, we’ll never know his age, but he wasn’t old enough to earn his keep. Imagine how she scrimped and saved to get meal and oil for bread.

So here comes Elijah. The Lord commands him to see the widow who has likewise been commanded to supply him with food. So he arrives asking for some water and a piece of bread.

How does the widow prepare for the prophet’s arrival? She’s fetching sticks. Her words, not mine, “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.”

Prepare a meal for myself and my son so that we may eat it and die. Desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation—poverty caused by a drought caused by men who would not follow the Lord the God of Israel. The powerful curse the prophet, all the while the poor prepare to die.

Take just a moment in her shoes my friends. You know her decision was not made lightly. It’s not that she hit a quick bump in the road and said, “Well,
it’s time to shut off the lights.”

She had a family. She has a son who is dying of malnutrition. All they have left is nothing but one more meal and sticks to heat it up. She has nobody, nobody to fight for her in this life. No husband, she literally has no breadwinner. There is nobody else she can rely upon since there is no other family. If there was a widow’s share from life insurance or the union or social security or food stamps, it’s long gone because the economy has gone to… yeah, you know, the drought.

On death row you can get steak and lobster, she doesn’t even have any more oil to put on the bread.

How distressed is she? How depressed is she? How hopeless does she feel? Verse nine says the Lord tells Elijah the woman has been told to give the prophet food. God has spoken to her and still as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing to do but to have a last supper, curl up and die.

She acknowledges the Lord God lives and she still can only see death for her and hers. Desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation.

Elijah cries out, fear not! (Are lovelier spoken in scripture?) Do this for me and the Lord God promises you have meal and oil until rain comes again upon the land.

Now take a walk in Paul’s shoes. The shoes that have lived the life he now shares with the Galatians. How he has changed, and how he hasn’t, is the heart of this part of this letter. Paul who persecuted the church. Paul who was Pharisee Employee of the Month at the Stoning of Stephen is now Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles. Changes don’t get much bigger. This one is so big he isn’t completely trusted.

Paul makes it clear that he is not the disciple of any man. When he received his revelation it came from Jesus himself. He then spent three years on the road before going to Jerusalem. When there, did he go to “All Disciples Temple” to get his teaching approved? No. He did go see Peter (Cephas in our reading), James, and John, and he didn’t seek their approval.

Now it’s time to put on our gospel shoes and walk with the widow of Nain from Luke’s gospel. This reading takes the setting from a step further. Her stresses are raised exponentially when her son dies. This woman now has no family. There is nobody to take her in. Her life is lifeless on a bier carried by bearers.

As hopeless as the widow in Kings was, this woman’s plight was much worse. Imagine the crying. Imagine the wailing. Imagine the horror. Imagine the people thanking God it wasn’t them.

They weren’t thanking God it was her, but they were grateful it wasn’t them.

Burying a spouse and an only child, nobody is prepared to face that change.

These folks have faced changes that are absolutely brutal. Paul’s life was set. He was a learned man from a good family. He could have been head of the Sanhedrin. Instead his life, socially, politically, and economically were ruined. He went from being greatly esteemed by one group and greatly feared by another to being loathed by everyone. Now he is hated by his fellow Jews and not easily trusted by the followers of Jesus.

The women, the widows have faced changes that have taken their lives away. With no other family they have nowhere to go. With no means of support they have no way to put a roof overhead or put food on the table. The widow of Nain also lost any hope of gaining a place in her son’s home in the future. One woman was preparing for death and the other was as good as dead already.

But they had one thing in common, one thing. They had an encounter with the Living God. An encounter that changed their lives. Paul went from trying to destroy the Church to being the its greatest evangelist. It is rightly said if not for Paul the Good News would have died as a limited reform movement in Judaism. If you are looking for proof, the Christian movement came out of Rome and Constantinople, not Israel.

As for the women, they received something more important. Their very lives were redeemed. Through the work of God delivered by the words of Elijah a family was saved. As for the widow of Nain, not only was her son raised from the dead, but in a very real way, she too was raised from the dead.

By the work of God through Elijah, Paul, and Jesus; in the power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; changes were made in the lives of these people lives were saved.

Yes, oh yes, there was terror. There was no promise that the terror would not return. The story of the woman in 1Kings parallels the story of the woman in Luke’s gospel. This even after she meets Elijah and is blessed by the Lord God. The fate of Paul is well known, ultimately ending in exile from the Holy Land. Terror, oh yes, but there is salvation in God.

These are interesting texts to use for my first sermons with you as your pastor. They come from the Revised Common Lectionary, a group of readings which ensure that I don’t focus on one book of the Bible or one topic for years on end. So in that way, these readings picked us.

They became special to me because they describe tragedy and turmoil that lead to wonderful changes. These are people who know God is in control and still have to face demons.

I’m sure the widow in 1Kings would have loved Elijah to have arrived well before she was at the brink of passive suicide. The woman in Luke never knew she would meet her redeemer on this side of the tomb. There’s a surprise I can only begin to imagine.

As for Paul, he knew his Lord. He didn’t know he was persecuting his Lord’s people. Now he’s sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ until the people came to know him as a great prophet of the Risen Lord.

As for me, I have faced my share of demons. I have faced horror and turmoil I had rather not. At least if I had to make them I wish there was another way to make them. I seemed to have taken the hard road for a good long time.

I know too there is relief that there is a pastor here in the pulpit, in the office, and in town. That was a long and difficult road to hoe and as the old saying goes, no job is done until the paperwork is finished and that’s not all done either.

Still, here’s the good news.

We have faced these changes.

By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we have survived and thrived in these changes; even when the world was intent on making the road seem like an Everest summit.

In relying on Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are stronger. Our faith is stronger because it is based on the Christ revealed to us through scripture, prayer, and work.

Together these are the things that will take us into the future Jesus intends us to live together.

In Christ, there is hope. That is what we know from our readings and from our experience, there is hope and it is only in Christ.

No, it won’t always be easy. But what it can be is joyful. Glorious. Peaceful. Fun. We don’t have to give into the drama Paul saw in the ways of men.

Rather let us together seek the way of God. Yes, we will do that for one another, and we will do that for our community too.

Above all, the first reason we will do what we do as the Body of Christ is for the Glory of God and the Kingdom of God.

By our hope in God the love of God, in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.