July 4, 2010
Widow of Zarephath - 1 Kings 17:8-24
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadWhen I was in basic training with the Army, the chaplain would offer services every Sunday. They could not make them mandatory, but it was mandatory that they offered them. My drill sergeant would tell us when he announced those services that there is no such thing as an atheist in a fox-hole. When the bullets start to fly, when you’re staring death directly in the face, God suddenly becomes much more important to you. What matters in life and what does not matter get really clear, really fast.
1 Kings 17 is a book of death. In verses 1-7, God told Elijah that there would be a drought in the land, to go out of the promised-land, East of Jordan, where he would be fed by ravens. We did not read that passage, but that’s what happened. You’ve got death all over the place there. Drought in those days meant far more than a brown lawn. Drought meant death. East of Jordan, back out of the promised-land, was a God-forsaken place for Israel, and I say that somewhat literally. It was a place of death. Ravens were and are a bird of death. In fact, ravens are even forbidden to touch in the Bible and are considered unclean. It’s all death.
Even given such a God-forsaken assignment, though, Elijah went where he was told. And, lo and behold, God provided out there, even in the face of death. And then God told Elijah to go to Zarephath where he would meet a widow who would care for him. Zarephath was another God-forsaken place. In fact, Zarephath was the center of Baal, the false god that Israel often worshipped. And then God told Elijah that a widow would feed him there, which would be like us depending on a homeless person. Widows were poor, and there was still this awful drought, and this particular widow did not even share his faith. God picked a God-forsaken place, and what seemingly was a God-forsaken person, to care for God’s chosen one, Elijah. It was all death, you see, and it just got worse and worse from story to story in this passage: the ravens, the widow, and the dead widow’s son. Death is all around this passage.
Death, as my drill sergeant told us, changes our perspective on things. We hear a lot about diversity these days. The funny thing is, diversity is most often mentioned in places that have the least of it. The Church, for example, talks about diversity all the time. And yet the irony is that Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour in America. Universities talk about diversity, but most of them are horrible at it. The most diverse organization in the entire world is the US Army, and I can probably expand that to include the entire US military.
The reason that the Army is so diverse, in my opinion, is because it stares death in the face all the time. Fortunately for me, I was in the Army in peace time. Yet even then, the thought was never far from my mind that I could very soon find myself on a battlefield. It always bothered me that that target at the end of my rifle might actually be a real person one day, and that I might be a target for somebody else’s rifle. And, believe me, I therefore did not care whether my battle-buddy was black, or Asian, or Hispanic. I didn’t even care if he was a gamecock. The only thing I cared about was that we were a team.
God becomes much clearer to people in the face of death. And I can’t help but think that the same was true with Elijah. Elijah was in the throws of death when he went to this no-man’s-land east of Jordan, and when he lived by the river bank where the bird of death fed him. He was in the throws of death when he went to this strange widow who took care of him. And God showed up there and showed Elijah every time that God was God over death. God controlled death, and could even reverse it. The death metaphor is mentioned something like seven times. And every time, God overcame it. God made dead things live again.
And He still does. One of the reasons that people love mission trips is because they go to people like this nameless widow from Zarephath. Most people go on a cruise for their vacation or something. But you do the opposite on a mission trip. Our Church goes to Gary, West Virginia. There’s no air-conditioning up there. You’ll be glad to get back home. Gary is a depressing place. The mountains are beautiful, but Gary is depressing. You just want to run away from it. It’s hard to even believe that it’s in America. And you have to hang out with people up there who live in a very different world than we do. It’s a little bit like hanging out with an old widow from Zarephath. But it never fails that people have incredible experiences on mission trips. It’s hard and hot and dusty and sweaty and awkward, but people come back with a renewed and even transformed faith.
God has this tendency of showing up in places where we’d frankly rather not be. Elijah is a tremendous figure in the Old Testament. Nobody was gutsier than Elijah. The first thing that God did to Elijah was to send him on a mission trip to the very heart of death. He sent him to an old, poor, strange, needy widow. And I am sure that the place seemed anything but holy, but looking back, it was holy. Today is July 4th, the day we celebrate America’s independence. I read a book on George Washington lately that talked about the risk it was for him to leave the British army to fight for the rag-tag Americans. In fact, it was essentially a death warrant.
I’m sure he felt totally foolish. Not only did he throw away his illustrious career, but he came dangerously close to throwing away his life. We as a Church have to be willing to take a few risks, too, and to go to places where we’d rather not go and maybe do a few things that we’d rather not do. Jesus told us to go to the lost, and hungry, the blind and lame and the prisoners. He did not tell us to send a committee out there, but he told us to go ourselves. Whatever we do, we have to discern where God is leading us to go, and then have the courage to actually go. And there’s no guarantee that we’ll win, either. I think we have to go a Zarephath, as strange and awkward and frightening as that place may be. And we might meet a widow out there, who actually may teach us a thing or two. Actually, we might even meet God out there. I don’t know. But I do think we have to go, and leave the comfort of home, take a few risks, and let God do the rest.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
