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.
Showing posts with label 1Kings 17. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1Kings 17. Show all posts
Sunday, June 05, 2016
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.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Lightning Strikes
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 6, 2010, the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
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.
Here’s a bit of grade school humor that I recall from many a long days past. Does lightning strike the same place twice? No, because after the first strike, the place is never the same. I think it was out of the Boy Scouts of America’s “Boys’ Life” magazine from the 1960’s or early 70’s. Then again, I suspect it gets reprinted every five years or so, as the readership of “Boys’ Life” turns over to a new generation of scouts.
At my high school, as on many other tall buildings, on the top of the tall exhaust stack were lightning rods. The purpose of this type of lightning rod is to attract lightning, not to repel it. Placed in the highest point possible on a building, the rod attracts the lightning bolt and its electrical current and directs it safely to the ground so that there will be minimal if any damage to the building or disruption to it’s electrical system. Larry and Margaret have seen first hand what happens when lightning strikes a building.
Unfortunately, this technology doesn’t always work. My high school also had a two story stairwell that had a spire at the top that accidently acted like a lightning rod. It’s a beautiful feature; it’s even the image on the school’s logo and letterhead, but about every five years of so, it takes a bolt instead of the nearby lightning rods or trees. Sitting in one of the rooms within ten yards of the spire tip during a thunderstorm could be a spectacle. Believe me; I was there for one of those times. The experience definitely reminds me of the lightning strike joke, where I was sitting was not the same place it was moments earlier.
But lightning strikes once and lightning strikes twice in the stories of the widows whose sons have died.[1] The stories themselves from 1Kings 17:10 and 17-24 and Luke 7:11-17 are nearly identical.
Both of these stories take place when the prophet came to town. In the reading from 1Kings, it was Elijah; in the reading from Luke, it was Jesus; the prophet, priest, and king. In both stories the woman whose son had died was a widow. Elijah stretched himself across the child three times. Jesus touched the bier and said, “Young man, I say to you, rise.” Life returned to both of these widow’s sons. Elijah and Jesus both gave the young man back to his mother.
There are two differences though. The last (and least) difference is that in 1Kings, only the woman proclaimed “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” Where in Luke we read, “The crowd said ‘God has looked favorably upon his people.’” I say this isn’t much of a difference because in the Kings reading only the woman was present when her son returned to life. In Luke not one crowd, but two were there when the man received new life. In both stories, everyone who witnessed the miracle praised God. In the first case, it was one woman; in the other, it was the whole crowd.
The other case is quite different, wonderfully different. In 1Kings we read that Elijah cried out to the Lord. In Luke we read that he had compassion for the widow. The glorious difference is this: Elijah cried out to God and for Jesus this action would have been unnecessary. Since Jesus is God, there was no need for Jesus to call out to anyone else.[2] Jesus sees what the Father has done in 1Kings and follows.
It is said that Luke’s gospel fully and intentionally formatted this miracle, which appears only in this gospel, to resemble the reading from 1Kings 17. The genre, structure, detail, and even the vocabulary connect these two stories beyond what could be expected by coincidence.[3] I’m not saying what a skeptic might say, that this didn’t happen it’s just a “copycat miracle.” What I am saying is that the way this story was recorded in Luke’s gospel intentionally tied these together.
I am not saying that the writers of Luke’s gospel put this story in here because they thought that it was a good story to copy and a good place to put it either. For doubters, I just want to remind you of the end of John’s gospel where it is recorded, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” This could be one of those things not written anywhere else.
What I am saying is that lightning struck twice, and neither time was the place the same after it struck.
It is easy to focus on the triumphant aspects of these readings, everybody loves a happy ending. But before every happy ending, there is a time of trial and tribulation.
Elijah has seen his trials. In the reading immediately before our reading from 1Kings, Elijah went to Ahab, King of Israel, and told him of the coming seven year drought. Especially in instances like this one, the only thing worse than a prophet being wrong is a prophet being right. Directed by the Lord, Elijah is sent to a place for fresh water and promised bread and meat. But it didn’t take seven years for the wadi, stream, to turn bone dry. So Elijah is sent to Syria, to Zarephath, where he is met by a widow who is also in dire straights.
Elijah asks for water, which she provides and then he asks for a morsel of bread. This is when we find out how nasty things are for the widow. In so many words, she apologizes for not keeping the sacred responsibility of hospitality but she is preparing the last meal for her family. The death sentence has been handed down by the drought and she’s making their last meal. Elijah shares the greatest invocation God ever gives the people, “Fear not.” “Do not be afraid,” he says, “because the Lord, the God of Israel promises that their meal will not run out and their oil will not run dry. Fear not, the Lord will provide.
Gloriously, the Lord provides. Even after the cruelest twist of fate, the later death of the widow’s only son; gloriously, the Lord provides.
By the same turn, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, the Word become flesh, is the Word threatened by those who would take his life. Between Luke 4 and our reading today, Jesus is tempted by the devil, tempted with the most wonderful treats of this world if he will only betray God.[4] He discovers the truth of the old adage that no prophet is accepted in his home town.[5]
He healed the paralyzed man, this healing being more than the physical healing of the man’s body; Jesus forgave his sins as well healing his entire being, raising the ire of the scribes and Pharisees.[6] Eating with the outcasts, Jesus is scorned by those he has been sent to save.[7] He teaches on fasting[8] and the Sabbath,[9] turning from conventional wisdom and showing the world new constellations in the midst of the oldest stars.[10]
Jesus is nearly in constant danger from those who rule the land where he lives, those who he has come to save, and finally by one of his disciples. Jesus knows his woes so he knows the joy of restoration. He knows the joy of the Father’s presence, the presence that enters our lives like a bolt of lightning, making it so that we will never be the same.
Elijah and Jesus were both surrounded by those who would have their heads should the opportunity arise; so as we read their words, as we soak in their actions like the waters of our baptism, we are reminded that they knew the woes of the world as well as and better than we do. They don’t come to us as some lofty above-it-all types that promise new life without experiencing our life. They come as the Lord’s emissary and as the Living God, the ones who know our pain by experience, not by just hearing the story. Woes surrounded one of the greatest heroes of the faith, Elijah and the subject of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, and yes, woes surround us too.
There are some things I want to repeat that I have said in the last couple of minutes:
-Before every happy ending, there is a time of trial and tribulation.
-Elijah shares the greatest invocation God ever gives the people, “Fear not.” “Do not be afraid,” he says.
- Fear not, the Lord will provide.
I believe this, truly I do. I know that only in Christ is life worth living. Christ is the Victor over the forces of this world. I know this and I believe it.
The psalm from our Call to Worship makes this abundantly clear, the Lord cares and sustains those who the powerful push to the sides of society.
Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!
whose hope is in the LORD their God;
who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
who gives justice to those who are oppressed,
and food to those who hunger.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous
and cares for the stranger;
the LORD sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.[11]
I know this to be true. I have faith that sustains me, even if some days I’m hanging by a thread. One of the recurring themes that can come from our readings is “Don’t worry, be happy! Fear is a sin, trust and believe because God is greater than the world.”[12] But this can be offered naively, and like the whitewash that covers Aunt Polly’s fence, it doesn’t last long. I say this because I know that there are many, many who live daily in the space between the joy of dancing in the morning and living in long, dark times that are always darkest before the dawn.
Pain and suffering is as close as the foodbank. It is as close as the hospital. For people sitting on either side of the visitor’s glass, pain and suffering are as close as the jail. They are as close as the city square and the skate park. They’re as close as these pews and this pulpit. We know that Jesus is calling us to life triumphant, we know that we should have no fear, we know that the Lord will provide; but there are still many who can’t be sure if that next call is salvation or (more likely) a debt collector.
To me, this is the hardest part of speaking the truth to speak; the truth that God provides and in the meantime there are widows and orphans in this world, like the families restored by Elijah and Jesus. The hardest part of this truth is that there are people in this world who wait and wait faithfully for restoration. They wait faithfully for the dawn that never seems to rise.
There are a couple of quotes from the Reverend William Sloane Coffin that I want to share with you. The first is like a whetstone for my sharp tongue. Coffin quotes the Reverend Reinhold Niebuhr saying, “Despair is the fate of realists who know something about sin, but nothing about redemption.”[13] And yes, as I say the hardest part of speaking the truth of God is the reality of people waiting in pain, this quote speaks to me. I know Niebuhr’s despair, I know realism, and I know about redemption. Some days the difference between knowing about and truly knowing 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”[14] When the wolf is at the door, when it is darkest before the dawn, that is when all we have left is hope. This hope is not in might or power. It’s not in the princes of this world. Our hope is in the love of Christ, Christ who walked in our shoes 2,000 years before we did.
Christ who walked with us. Christ who knew all that this world had to offer from personal experience. Christ who would experience the most degrading death the Roman Empire had to offer. Our hope is not in the sun that rises, but in the Son who calls upon it to rise. Our hope is not in the words of my mouth, but in the one whose Word brings new life.[15]
Today in our Call to Worship, we praised the Lord who sustains the orphaned and widowed; frustrating the ways of the wicked.[16] In our Call to Confession we prayed declaring that the Lord visits “calamity’s child with the gift of new life.”[17] In our Confession of Sin we confessed not only our faith, but our failure to live our faith as we are called to live it.[18] As we prayed together in our Prayer for Illumination this morning, this is Christ’s word to the helpless, the needy, those who mourn, and those who are desolate or wounded by life.[19] In our scripture readings this morning we heard of how Elijah and Jesus both restored life to the sons of widows, and in the eyes of their cultures, restored their mothers to new life too.
This is the joy of life in Christ, we receive new life. We receive life that we could have neither expected nor imagined. In Christ all is new. This is the word that spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country. This is the word that is true in our lives today. This is the word that we must continue spreading throughout the world beginning with our next door neighbor.
[1] My wife Marie noted that given the miracles of modern medicine, the miracle of resuscitation can seem almost commonplace, ordinary, no longer the thing of miracles. I like the point but I really couldn’t find the place to put it.
[2] Comparison taken from a table in “The New Interpreter’s Bible.” Volume IX. Keck, Leander E. General Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 157.
[3] Ibid, 158.
[4] Luke 4:1-13
[5] Luke 4:24
[6] Luke 5:17-26
[7] Luke 5:27-32
[8] Luke 5:33-39
[9] Luke 6:1-11
[10] The “Stars/Constellations” turn of a phrase comes from William Sloane Coffin. I do love the way he preached.
[11] Translation of Psalm 146:5-9 from “Book of Common Worship.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, pages 777-778
[12] Among others, the June 4 and 5 entries of: Chambers, Oswald, “My Utmost for His Highest.” Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1935, 1963, 1992.
[13] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 66.
[14] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 1, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 137.
[15] In the pastoral prayer, I noted that things are difficult for this part of the Body of Christ. Our hope is not in our wisdom, but in the grace and peace of Christ. Amen.
[16] Psalm 146:9
[17] Kirk, James, G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.” Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001, page 313.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Prayer for Illumination, Year C, Ordinary 10. “Revised Common Lectionary Prayers: Proposed by the Consultation on Common Texts.” Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002.
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.
Here’s a bit of grade school humor that I recall from many a long days past. Does lightning strike the same place twice? No, because after the first strike, the place is never the same. I think it was out of the Boy Scouts of America’s “Boys’ Life” magazine from the 1960’s or early 70’s. Then again, I suspect it gets reprinted every five years or so, as the readership of “Boys’ Life” turns over to a new generation of scouts.
At my high school, as on many other tall buildings, on the top of the tall exhaust stack were lightning rods. The purpose of this type of lightning rod is to attract lightning, not to repel it. Placed in the highest point possible on a building, the rod attracts the lightning bolt and its electrical current and directs it safely to the ground so that there will be minimal if any damage to the building or disruption to it’s electrical system. Larry and Margaret have seen first hand what happens when lightning strikes a building.
Unfortunately, this technology doesn’t always work. My high school also had a two story stairwell that had a spire at the top that accidently acted like a lightning rod. It’s a beautiful feature; it’s even the image on the school’s logo and letterhead, but about every five years of so, it takes a bolt instead of the nearby lightning rods or trees. Sitting in one of the rooms within ten yards of the spire tip during a thunderstorm could be a spectacle. Believe me; I was there for one of those times. The experience definitely reminds me of the lightning strike joke, where I was sitting was not the same place it was moments earlier.
But lightning strikes once and lightning strikes twice in the stories of the widows whose sons have died.[1] The stories themselves from 1Kings 17:10 and 17-24 and Luke 7:11-17 are nearly identical.
Both of these stories take place when the prophet came to town. In the reading from 1Kings, it was Elijah; in the reading from Luke, it was Jesus; the prophet, priest, and king. In both stories the woman whose son had died was a widow. Elijah stretched himself across the child three times. Jesus touched the bier and said, “Young man, I say to you, rise.” Life returned to both of these widow’s sons. Elijah and Jesus both gave the young man back to his mother.
There are two differences though. The last (and least) difference is that in 1Kings, only the woman proclaimed “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” Where in Luke we read, “The crowd said ‘God has looked favorably upon his people.’” I say this isn’t much of a difference because in the Kings reading only the woman was present when her son returned to life. In Luke not one crowd, but two were there when the man received new life. In both stories, everyone who witnessed the miracle praised God. In the first case, it was one woman; in the other, it was the whole crowd.
The other case is quite different, wonderfully different. In 1Kings we read that Elijah cried out to the Lord. In Luke we read that he had compassion for the widow. The glorious difference is this: Elijah cried out to God and for Jesus this action would have been unnecessary. Since Jesus is God, there was no need for Jesus to call out to anyone else.[2] Jesus sees what the Father has done in 1Kings and follows.
It is said that Luke’s gospel fully and intentionally formatted this miracle, which appears only in this gospel, to resemble the reading from 1Kings 17. The genre, structure, detail, and even the vocabulary connect these two stories beyond what could be expected by coincidence.[3] I’m not saying what a skeptic might say, that this didn’t happen it’s just a “copycat miracle.” What I am saying is that the way this story was recorded in Luke’s gospel intentionally tied these together.
I am not saying that the writers of Luke’s gospel put this story in here because they thought that it was a good story to copy and a good place to put it either. For doubters, I just want to remind you of the end of John’s gospel where it is recorded, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” This could be one of those things not written anywhere else.
What I am saying is that lightning struck twice, and neither time was the place the same after it struck.
It is easy to focus on the triumphant aspects of these readings, everybody loves a happy ending. But before every happy ending, there is a time of trial and tribulation.
Elijah has seen his trials. In the reading immediately before our reading from 1Kings, Elijah went to Ahab, King of Israel, and told him of the coming seven year drought. Especially in instances like this one, the only thing worse than a prophet being wrong is a prophet being right. Directed by the Lord, Elijah is sent to a place for fresh water and promised bread and meat. But it didn’t take seven years for the wadi, stream, to turn bone dry. So Elijah is sent to Syria, to Zarephath, where he is met by a widow who is also in dire straights.
Elijah asks for water, which she provides and then he asks for a morsel of bread. This is when we find out how nasty things are for the widow. In so many words, she apologizes for not keeping the sacred responsibility of hospitality but she is preparing the last meal for her family. The death sentence has been handed down by the drought and she’s making their last meal. Elijah shares the greatest invocation God ever gives the people, “Fear not.” “Do not be afraid,” he says, “because the Lord, the God of Israel promises that their meal will not run out and their oil will not run dry. Fear not, the Lord will provide.
Gloriously, the Lord provides. Even after the cruelest twist of fate, the later death of the widow’s only son; gloriously, the Lord provides.
By the same turn, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, the Word become flesh, is the Word threatened by those who would take his life. Between Luke 4 and our reading today, Jesus is tempted by the devil, tempted with the most wonderful treats of this world if he will only betray God.[4] He discovers the truth of the old adage that no prophet is accepted in his home town.[5]
He healed the paralyzed man, this healing being more than the physical healing of the man’s body; Jesus forgave his sins as well healing his entire being, raising the ire of the scribes and Pharisees.[6] Eating with the outcasts, Jesus is scorned by those he has been sent to save.[7] He teaches on fasting[8] and the Sabbath,[9] turning from conventional wisdom and showing the world new constellations in the midst of the oldest stars.[10]
Jesus is nearly in constant danger from those who rule the land where he lives, those who he has come to save, and finally by one of his disciples. Jesus knows his woes so he knows the joy of restoration. He knows the joy of the Father’s presence, the presence that enters our lives like a bolt of lightning, making it so that we will never be the same.
Elijah and Jesus were both surrounded by those who would have their heads should the opportunity arise; so as we read their words, as we soak in their actions like the waters of our baptism, we are reminded that they knew the woes of the world as well as and better than we do. They don’t come to us as some lofty above-it-all types that promise new life without experiencing our life. They come as the Lord’s emissary and as the Living God, the ones who know our pain by experience, not by just hearing the story. Woes surrounded one of the greatest heroes of the faith, Elijah and the subject of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, and yes, woes surround us too.
There are some things I want to repeat that I have said in the last couple of minutes:
-Before every happy ending, there is a time of trial and tribulation.
-Elijah shares the greatest invocation God ever gives the people, “Fear not.” “Do not be afraid,” he says.
- Fear not, the Lord will provide.
I believe this, truly I do. I know that only in Christ is life worth living. Christ is the Victor over the forces of this world. I know this and I believe it.
The psalm from our Call to Worship makes this abundantly clear, the Lord cares and sustains those who the powerful push to the sides of society.
Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!
whose hope is in the LORD their God;
who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
who gives justice to those who are oppressed,
and food to those who hunger.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous
and cares for the stranger;
the LORD sustains the orphan and widow,
but frustrates the way of the wicked.[11]
I know this to be true. I have faith that sustains me, even if some days I’m hanging by a thread. One of the recurring themes that can come from our readings is “Don’t worry, be happy! Fear is a sin, trust and believe because God is greater than the world.”[12] But this can be offered naively, and like the whitewash that covers Aunt Polly’s fence, it doesn’t last long. I say this because I know that there are many, many who live daily in the space between the joy of dancing in the morning and living in long, dark times that are always darkest before the dawn.
Pain and suffering is as close as the foodbank. It is as close as the hospital. For people sitting on either side of the visitor’s glass, pain and suffering are as close as the jail. They are as close as the city square and the skate park. They’re as close as these pews and this pulpit. We know that Jesus is calling us to life triumphant, we know that we should have no fear, we know that the Lord will provide; but there are still many who can’t be sure if that next call is salvation or (more likely) a debt collector.
To me, this is the hardest part of speaking the truth to speak; the truth that God provides and in the meantime there are widows and orphans in this world, like the families restored by Elijah and Jesus. The hardest part of this truth is that there are people in this world who wait and wait faithfully for restoration. They wait faithfully for the dawn that never seems to rise.
There are a couple of quotes from the Reverend William Sloane Coffin that I want to share with you. The first is like a whetstone for my sharp tongue. Coffin quotes the Reverend Reinhold Niebuhr saying, “Despair is the fate of realists who know something about sin, but nothing about redemption.”[13] And yes, as I say the hardest part of speaking the truth of God is the reality of people waiting in pain, this quote speaks to me. I know Niebuhr’s despair, I know realism, and I know about redemption. Some days the difference between knowing about and truly knowing 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”[14] When the wolf is at the door, when it is darkest before the dawn, that is when all we have left is hope. This hope is not in might or power. It’s not in the princes of this world. Our hope is in the love of Christ, Christ who walked in our shoes 2,000 years before we did.
Christ who walked with us. Christ who knew all that this world had to offer from personal experience. Christ who would experience the most degrading death the Roman Empire had to offer. Our hope is not in the sun that rises, but in the Son who calls upon it to rise. Our hope is not in the words of my mouth, but in the one whose Word brings new life.[15]
Today in our Call to Worship, we praised the Lord who sustains the orphaned and widowed; frustrating the ways of the wicked.[16] In our Call to Confession we prayed declaring that the Lord visits “calamity’s child with the gift of new life.”[17] In our Confession of Sin we confessed not only our faith, but our failure to live our faith as we are called to live it.[18] As we prayed together in our Prayer for Illumination this morning, this is Christ’s word to the helpless, the needy, those who mourn, and those who are desolate or wounded by life.[19] In our scripture readings this morning we heard of how Elijah and Jesus both restored life to the sons of widows, and in the eyes of their cultures, restored their mothers to new life too.
This is the joy of life in Christ, we receive new life. We receive life that we could have neither expected nor imagined. In Christ all is new. This is the word that spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country. This is the word that is true in our lives today. This is the word that we must continue spreading throughout the world beginning with our next door neighbor.
[1] My wife Marie noted that given the miracles of modern medicine, the miracle of resuscitation can seem almost commonplace, ordinary, no longer the thing of miracles. I like the point but I really couldn’t find the place to put it.
[2] Comparison taken from a table in “The New Interpreter’s Bible.” Volume IX. Keck, Leander E. General Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 157.
[3] Ibid, 158.
[4] Luke 4:1-13
[5] Luke 4:24
[6] Luke 5:17-26
[7] Luke 5:27-32
[8] Luke 5:33-39
[9] Luke 6:1-11
[10] The “Stars/Constellations” turn of a phrase comes from William Sloane Coffin. I do love the way he preached.
[11] Translation of Psalm 146:5-9 from “Book of Common Worship.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, pages 777-778
[12] Among others, the June 4 and 5 entries of: Chambers, Oswald, “My Utmost for His Highest.” Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1935, 1963, 1992.
[13] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 66.
[14] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Volume 1, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 137.
[15] In the pastoral prayer, I noted that things are difficult for this part of the Body of Christ. Our hope is not in our wisdom, but in the grace and peace of Christ. Amen.
[16] Psalm 146:9
[17] Kirk, James, G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.” Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001, page 313.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Prayer for Illumination, Year C, Ordinary 10. “Revised Common Lectionary Prayers: Proposed by the Consultation on Common Texts.” Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002.
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