Elijah And The Widow Transcript

We did jump forward quite a bit. We did skip over the Solomon building and dedicating the temple. We skipped over Solomon's wisdom. We come to Solomon's lineage. And this king had married a foreign woman, Jezebel, and she had brought the worship of those foreign idols with her.

And so it happened again, like it happened with the other kings. They all seemed to fail what God has commanded them to do. And a prophet's role, more often than not, whether inside the court or outside of the court, whether paid for by the king or not, Nathan last week was an example of one of those prophets paid for by the king. Elijah is one from the outside speaking to the king.

And Elijah comes and says, because of what you have done, because you have led the people astray, because under your reign, people are turning away from the worship of God to the worship of other gods, there will be no rain on the earth, no rain in the land until I say otherwise. Some of us wonder, maybe perhaps as Elijah is alive and well today and waiting for him to speak so that we might have rain again in our area. But because Elijah has said this, he has had to go into hiding.

So God sends them to a wadi, a ravine. A ravine where water tends to collect in the rainy season. And as the dry season happens, it will shrink and shrink and the water becomes less and less available. And God sends a raven to take care of Elijah, bringing bread and meat, which is not really in a raven's nature.

A raven is a scavenger bird. It will scavenge food. It will scavenge meat. It will scavenge bread to feed itself. And so this raven, these ravens that God was calling to take care of Elijah, were working against their nature by bringing him the food and the bread that he would need.

Now, if there is any hint among our beliefs that when we do the will of God, when we speak for God, things will go easy and we will not be impacted, eventually Elijah too is impacted by the drought that he said was going to happen. The wadi where he was hiding out from the king, the wadi where ravens were taking care of him, that was providing water, dries up. And he is impacted by the very drought that he said was going to happen.

And he says this rain will come when he says so. So at any point, he could have ended the drought. And this drought is impacting not just him, not just the king, it's impacting all of the people in regions outside of Israel. For when the wadi dries up, Elijah is sent out to where Jezebel was from.

He is sent out to a foreign land. He is sent out to a foreign land to find solace and help from a widow. And remember, in this culture, in this society, widows had very little standing. If they had no husband to take care of them, no husband, a brother, or family to care for them, they really had very little.

And that's who Elijah has to go to, to ask for help. And she has some meal with her, a little jar. She has some oil to mix up and to make cakes to feed her and her son. But she knows that that is coming to an end. That jar is becoming empty. She is afraid that she and her son will die.

You can see that she is at the end of her resources. And here this stranger, this foreigner comes and says, give me something to eat. First feed me, and then make the cakes for you and your son. That's where she says, I don't have much to give.

Now she makes a statement. Early on to Elijah and says, she refers to your God a lot. She refers to your God. This isn't her God. She's a foreigner in her home country. She doesn't worship the God of Israel.

And so here this prophet from the God of Israel is making these demands on her that he share what little she has so that he might eat, which, like the ravens, is probably against her nature. As much as we would like, we would like to care for those that ask of us, there becomes a point where if we know we are at the end of our food stores, that we are at the end of our rope, where we are looking at potentially death, not just for me, but for my child as well, it really does have to go against our nature to take what little that we have to offer it to this stranger, this foreigner, asking of her.

And yet she does. But she has a little bit of an assurance from Elijah who tells her, do not worship, do not worry, you will not run out of food. This meal, this jar of meal that you have will not go empty. And this jar of oil that you have will not go empty until God sends rain on the land again.

Much like Hannah's prayer that we talked about a few weeks ago, this woman has to trust what Elijah is saying in order to make a next step. This woman has to in some ways believe that what Elijah is going to say has to happen, or is going to happen, in order for her to give up her meal to make the bread, to make the cakes. She doesn't have the assurance right away. It's not like the jar just miraculously overflows onto the ground in front of her and the oil overflows as well, that she can see, yeah, this is a magic jar.

It's not going to empty. She has to see, trust, that this man from this foreign land and the God that he follows is going to follow through. He's going to follow through on the promise. And somehow she does. She makes the cake for Elijah. She makes the cake, gives it to him, and she still has meal left, but there's still that ongoing trust that God will take care of her no matter what may come, that she will have the food she needs, she will have the oil she needs, she will get by, that she can share with Elijah.

So God has set up the story with Elijah, with two main characters that have to go against their normal instincts with scarcity. When they're living in a scarcity mindset or they have that natural tendency to be scavengers, you have to go against that tendency in order to give. And they were both able to do so because of a trust in God.

Now, we don't know the motivation of the ravens. It could have been a supernatural force, of course, overriding them. But for the woman, for sure, the widow, for sure, it was a trust in God that let her give up what little she had for the sake of someone else. And it is this faith that we need more than ever.

It is this faith and this trust that God will provide, that God will give us what we need so that we can break out of our natural tendencies to secure and protect and circle in so that we can open our circles wide to God. To others who need a place of rest. So that we can open up to those who are in need and say, you know, this does take away from what I have. This does take away from what I have secured.

Though none of us are probably at the place where the widow was on the verge of death. And say, for the sake of you, for your sake, and because I have a trust in God who we worship, which the widow didn't even have, I can give up what, what little I have. Or I can give out of what I have for the sake of the other.

A few weeks ago, I did show one of those cartoon videos. It wasn't received very well, so I didn't show you the rest. I'll share them on our Facebook page so that you can go and see them. But there was a one -liner in the most recent one, and I will share this one on our Facebook page. We are three days away from a day that will feel like Christmas. Because we'll finally get what we've been waiting for. For months.

An end to the political ads. An end to the, hopefully, everything that's, it's not going to be an end to everything that's divided us. But at least we'll see less ads on TV and on the radio. Hopefully we'll see less billboards and banners. No matter what happens on Tuesday, Tuesday is going to happen. No matter who's elected, Tuesday and what happens after Tuesday is going to happen.

And we're in that in -between time, where some of us, I don't know about you, I just want to pull the band -aid, find out what's going to happen so that I can start moving forward into that new and next reality. But so much, no matter who you're going to vote for, no matter, there's no perfect candidate. No matter who you're going to vote for, we should be able to agree on a few things that can be moved outside as people of faith in this trust that God will provide no matter what happens.

We can vote. We can move out of a sense of fear. We can move out of a sense of this otherness that people are less than or less worthy of God. We can move out away from the lies that would drive us and that have been said. And we can be a people of faith and go into those poll booths on Tuesday and make whatever decision we feel called to make trusting that no matter what happens, God will provide.

That doesn't mean it'll be easy. That doesn't mean everything will go, well, that doesn't mean that we don't have to worry about our neighbor, ourselves, or those we love. Just as the drought impacted so many other people than what should have been impacted in the story. But we should be a people of faith. We should be moved in such a way that we act different, we live different, we speak different, and we trust different so that we can enter into whatever happens next with a faith and an eye on God and desiring to be a people of faith.

We can only do that. We can only move past the scarcity mindset. We can only move past the fear mindset of what will happen. We can only move past all of the things that have been trying to define us as a people and how we should live by having a complete and utter trust in God's providence, God's ability to provide, and God's desire to provide.

It will require us moving outside of our normal natures, acting against our normalness, our normal way of thinking and doing. But when we do, when we break out of that mindset, when we break out in trusting in God for all things, no matter what may come, we will be seen and we will live as a people with peace, a people of faith, a people of action in the world. This isn't a call to retreat from the world and not be engaged. But we act in the world because we can trust God. We can trust in the God who is with us.

In a few moments after today's sermon, we will go into a time of naming of the saints, which we do every Sunday following Halloween, the All Saints Day, which is the day after Halloween. It is a time to remember those who have gone on before us, to name those who have died. We name specifically those who have died in the last year who are participants in the ministry and life of the church and their life. But we also invite you, we'll invite you to name other names that you want to remember, that you want to remember this day.

And we remember the stories and the impact that their faith had. We go back into the church history. John Wesley loved this holiday, this church holiday, because it was a reminder of those who have gone out and stepped out in faith before to shape the world into what it is now. And it's a reminder to the saints who are still alive, us, to continue on their journey, to continue acting.

Amen. Challenging the powers and principalities of this world, those things that would divide, those things that would destroy. All of those things are hard. All of those things require seemingly impossible feats that work against what we would rather do. But like the widow, like the ravens, like all those who have gone on before us and all those who will come after us, the most powerful and life -changing saints, the ones who are the ones that go about every day, trusting in God's care to make the right choice, the courageous step, the faithful step, for the sake of our brothers and sisters, for the sake of the other, for the sake of the lost, knowing that it may cost us something, but we should do so trusting in the name of the Lord, who will provide and care and provide peace and hope.

And if we can't trust in that, we have no hope. We have no ability to go against, against our normal natures. We will always go back to caring for ourselves first. And if there's still some left, we'll start caring about others afterwards. that's not how we're called to live as people of faith. So may you trust in the Lord who will provide, trust in the one that will always take care of you, trust in the one that will always walk beside you, and in that trust, step out courageously and faithfully. Amen.