1 Kings 17:7b-24
There
was no rain in the land.
8Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying,
9"Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there;
for I have commanded a widow there to feed you."
10So 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."
11As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said,
"Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand."
12But 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."
13Elijah 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.
14For 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."
15She went and did as Elijah said,
so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days.
16The 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.
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.
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!”
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
. 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?”
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.”
The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah;
the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.
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.” 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.”
SERMON
(PASTOR)
I
was only a boy when Elijah came to my mother and me, but I remember it well.
Our town, Zarephath, was dust brown. Plants were shriveled and broke off
underfoot with a snap like a wishbone. The people too were shriveled up with
hunger, as was their money and jobs. The sea lapping against the harbor seemed
a mockery of our thirst for rain, so much water, yet a land unquenched.
After a journey in the wilderness,
Elijah came into town like a wild man. His beard was long and white and his
hair likewise was in disarray. His clothes were the same dust brown of the
city, and he was one of the few people who looked poorer than my mother and me.
Since she was widow, and thus in turn I an orphan, we had no means of
supporting ourselves, until I grew old enough to work. I remember the day
Elijah came because it was the day our food was to run out. I had heard mother
weeping at night, muttering to herself that we were to die for lack of food.
She didn’t know I knew, but I knew.
I often peeked in my mother’s meal
jar. When you have so little to eat, you want to know how much is left. I knew
we could starve. I had seen other children starve from the famine. We had only
one measly portion of meal left, enough for one small cake between us both. The
day Elijah came, my mother was out by the town’s gate gathering sticks to build
a fire to bake the last cake.
This wild man, who was a Jew, not a
worshiper of Baal like us, called to her. This was very extraordinary because Jews and
worshipers of Baal do not mix. Yet, I suppose because he was so desperately
poor he said to her,
"Bring me
a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink."
In our culture,
when a stranger asks for food and drink you must give it to them. So, my mother
went toward home for the vessel and the water than she carried the day prior.
It had become a wonder to me how she carried our water jug on her head. She was
so weak with hunger, that to look at her, I would have assumed the weight would
crush her, but somehow the routine of lifting it and placing it in line with
her bones was still routine. The wild man even asking my mother for this drink
seemed too much, didn’t he know the weight she must lift?
11As
she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel
of bread in your hand." I remember the fear and anger I felt when he asked
this. He was asking for our last piece of meal. He was asking for our final
meal. The meal my mother cried over, and the meal I checked every day as it’s
contents became smaller and smaller. I looked at my mother and she at me, and
although it was contrary to custom, she tried to say no. 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."
It was the
first time she said it in front of me, and I was glad she did. It felt like a
secret weight lifted off us both. Neither of us had spoken of the impending
doom, we can kept it locked away, but there it was, plain, simple, truth. The
wild-man’s countenance changed; with compassion he reassured 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.
14For 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."
Looking back, I
don’t know what it was about the way he said it, but we trusted him. We trusted
a man poorer than ourselves that, there would be food to eat. My mother, almost
as a final offering, brought him the little cake, and ourselves a tiny cake.
She had wiped the jar and the jug empty in making them, two tiny cakes, one for
us, and one for Elijah, and yet, they filled us, belly full.
Each day after
that, I would rise in the morning and peak in the jar of meal, and the jug of
oil, and there was always just enough for that day. I still, to this day, do
not know how my mother and Elijah came up with that meal and oil every day. I
think they knew I was peaking. I wonder if they too wanted to relive that
miracle and instead of filling it, put in that little bit, just to see me peak
and be reassured with wonderment every day. It was as Elijah, the wild-man
prophet said, 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.
Another miracle
happened with Elijah too. He stayed with us, as odd as it was for a man to to
live with a widow and her son. Not only being a widow did my mom not have much
of a choice, but I think as long as the meal and oil kept coming, she was glad
to have him there. She was glad to have him until I became very sick.
My mother
seemed to think that if Elijah could cure our hunger, he could cure anything.
Anything perhaps but my mother’s grief over my father’s death. She, like many
who grieve, blamed herself. She would weep her, ‘if only’s,’ and, ‘I should
haves,’ out in the night. I knew it was not her fault. I knew peopled died
because they died, not because of someone else’s sin, but it was the belief at
that time that God was somehow punishing us for our sins. They tell me, I got
so sick that I had no breath left in me, that the life in me was all out. My
mother supposedly, 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!”
My death would
have been a grief to big for her to bear. People would have blamed her for both
my father and my deaths, and moreover, she would have blamed herself.
Elijah said to
her, “Give me your son.” He took me from her arms, and
carried me up into the upper chamber where Elijah was lodging,
and laid me on his own bed. From downstairs my mother heard Elijah, the
prophet, cry 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?”
He asked it as
a question to God, “Have you?” Was God responsible, was God punishing my mother
for our sins? Was this God’s doing? “Have you?” Elijah questioned. It was like
a test to my mother’s theory of sin and death.
Then as if to
test more, to make an experiment of he and my mother’s grief and a trail of God’s
compassion or punishment, he tried to revive me. He said he stretched himself
upon me three times, and cried out to the Lord,
“O
Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”
The Lord
listened to the voice of Elijah; the Lord seemed to prove that it was no one’s
sin, nor was it the Lord who killed me, because I was brought to life. I
remember taking a huge breath, and opening my eyes to see Elijah’s eyes staring
at mine right over my face, face to face, he was stretched out on top of me,
this wild-man, this prophet. The absurdity revived me instantly, and I began to
cry.
Elijah picked
me up, though I fought him in doing so. He had really scared me, to wake up
with someone staring in your face, but he carried me down from the upper chamber
into the house, and gave me to my mother; who was so astonished and overjoyed
that she just clung to me.
Then Elijah
said, “See, your son is alive.” My life was the proof of a loving God, who did
not punish people for their sins, but instead sought to bring life, and love,
and abundance into an unjust world.
My mother 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.”
My mother
changed that day, she lived as one free from grief. She lived as one who knew,
the truth of the Lord was a truth that brought life to the dead, that brought
food to the poor, and brought joy to the grieving.
