Meditation for 9 September 2009

From The Rev. Peter A. Munson

1 Kings 17:1-24

17Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.’ ²The word of the Lord came to him, saying, ³‘Go from here and turn eastwards, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. ⁴You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’ ⁵So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. ⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi. ⁷But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 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. 17 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. ¹⁸She 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!’ ¹⁹But 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. ²⁰He 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?’ ²¹Then 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.’ ²²The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. ²³Elijah 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.’ ²⁴So 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.’

Antidote for a Tough Economy

What was it that offensive lineman (Was it Keith Bishop?  I don't recall.) for the Denver Broncos said back in that 1987 playoff game in Cleveland, when the Broncos got the ball, late in the fourth quarter, on their own 1-1/2 yard line, down by 7 points?  "We've got 'em right where we want 'em."  First down and 98-1/2 yards to go for a touchdown, something like 3 minutes left in the game.  That's faith in your teammates.  (Okay, it helps to have a quarterback like John Elway, I'll grant you that.)  That's staring disaster in the face, keeping your chin up in a hostile environment, and believing.  And both Denver fans and Cleveland fans remember what happened.  The Broncos tied the score with seconds left, and went on to win the game in overtime.  (And we got absolutely killed in the Super Bowl, but that is another story...)

Long before the Broncos of 1987, there was Elijah and the widow of Zarephath - two people who were facing very long odds.  Read the story from 1 Kings again (above), and read it with this lens:  What does it mean to have faith?  What does it mean to really trust in God - in God's love, in God's provision... in God's ability to come through in the clutch, when we really have our backs against the wall and don't know how things can possibly work out?  Elijah goes out into the wilderness, at the Lord's command, and is fed for a while, and then the wadi dried up.  Then the Lord sent Elijah to Sidon, and he meets a widow who is supposed to sustain him.  Only she is so poor that she is getting ready to prepare the very last meal for herself and her son, before she dies of starvation.  And then, when the Lord sustains all three of them, the son of the widow becomes ill and stops breathing.  After all that they'd been through?  What?

If you read the story closely, it seems to me that you must not only give thanks for the Lord's provision, but also admire Elijah's faith.  He had enough faith for all three of them.

No one needs to remind you that we are in a tough place right now in our country, economically-speaking.  Since I have been at St. Ambrose, we have never had this many people out of work, or this many other people wondering if they might be laid off.  In addition, we have had quite a few people admitted to the hospital lately, due to serious illness or accident or surgery (all while the health care debate is raging).  It's bleak.  One parishioner said to me yesterday, "Well, at least there isn't a stigma associated with being out of work anymore, since it has become so common."  That's true.  But how do we react when our backs are against the wall?

Perhaps we should spend some time reading and re-reading this passage from 1 Kings 17. 

My sense is that the Lord has us exactly where he wants us.  By that I mean, if these kinds of challenges won't make you turn to the Lord, nothing will!  When things are sailing along and the stock market is above 14,000, we are tempted to think that we don't need God.  We are tempted to believe that security is found in our salaries, our stocks, our houses, and the money we have in the bank.  But when you suddenly aren't sure how you are going to be paying the bills next month, what then?  When the ancient truth that Jesus spoke is revealed to us anew - that we can't serve God and mammon - then, unless we are the most block-headed people on the planet, we repent, and get back on our knees, and confess our sin of trying to live our lives without God as Lord, our sin of acting as if we are God.  And we return, and begin to walk the path of faith once again.  And in returning, we are reminded of how amazing God is, of how much our God loves us, and how He intends to provide for our every need.

Yes, at times like these, the Lord has us exactly where he wants us.  It's first and 98 to go.  But everything is going to be all right, because God is in charge, not us.  And once we remember that, everything begins to fall back into place, and our upside-down world begins to right itself.  We only lose if we fail to turn to the Lord and be saved.  So let's turn... let's acknowledge God for who God is... let's remember to breathe... let's trust... and let's remember that God is watching over us, much more than we usually realize.