1st Sunday after Pentecost, 1st Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY

When All Else Fails
By Rev. Steven R. Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 6/6/2010
Based on 1Kings 17:8-24 and Luke 7:11-17


[Show power point of ‘A Duck Story’ first] “Like all of us in the big times of our life, they never could have made it alone without lots of helping hands” quote from power point This story about a mother duck and her little ones is a modern fable that speaks to this morning’s reading from Hebrews. A story that speaks about two strangers helping one another out and through that cooperation survives a terrible drought.
Let me set the scene of this morning’s reading. Most of us are familiar with the name Jezebel and at the very least know that when we are referred to as a “Jezebel” we have just received a denigrating remark! Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, a man described in 1 Kings as the worst King up to that point in time. He seemed to work hard at doing things that were displeasing to God. So much so that he built a temple for the worship of the god Baal, which was the hometown god of Jezebel. Baal was the god of storms and was believed to be the god who brought the rains in which to water the crops.
Under the direction of God, the prophet Elijah goes before King Ahab and tells him just how displeased God is with his behavior and idolatry and tells the King that there is going to be a severe drought in the land as a result of the Kings actions. Of course, this is a direct challenge to the god Baal and this makes King Ahab and Queen Jezebel really unhappy, so unhappy that God tells Elijah to leave town for his own protection. Don’t you find it interesting at just how upset some people become and how violent they can be when God is trying to tell them something and how it is usually against those persons who are bringing God’s word to them?
So where does God send Elijah, right to the homeland of Jezebel. I think this is another way that God is challenging Jezebel’s mischievous behavior and speaking to the irony of Baal’s so called power over rain and ability to nourish the crops. God tells Elijah to go stay with a widow in Zarephath, a small suburb of Sidon. When he gets there, he sees a woman who is picking up firewood and asks her for some water, as she goes and draws some from a well, Elijah then asks for some food. It is at this point that the woman speaks up about her situation of only having just enough flour and oil to make her and her son’s last meal. In other words, she wasn’t going to fulfill this part of Elijah’s request.
But Elijah, says, “Do not be afraid” and tells her to go home and make her bread, then if she brings him a small piece, she and her son would always have enough flour and oil to make bread enough for all three of them to survive this drought. For whatever reason, probably out of sheer desperation and wanting to believe that there was a brighter future ahead for her and her son, she does as Elijah asks and even invites him into her home to live during this time.
From a practical sense, this woman being a “widow” had nothing more to lose, as she was at the bottom of society, not having a husband to fend for her or to speak for her. She had no money and no voice; she was literally living on the streets of Zarephath. The only hope she has is to survive long enough for her son to become a man, who could then provide financial security and elevate her to at least an acceptable social standing. But even in all of this misery, her son does die and she feels she has been betrayed by Elijah and his God and it is again another punishment for her past life.
Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, proposes a frame for understanding traumatic experience, that is, for why we human creatures are so upended when tragedy strikes us. We live, she says, with certain core assumptions about the world, that is, that the world is benevolent (bad things will not happen) and meaningful (events of the world should make sense), and that the self is worthy (events in our world correlate to the good or bad that we bring into the world.) At first glance most of us might argue that we are certainly smart enough to know that the world is not fair and that sometimes tragedy follows no line of reasoning. Yet in that moment when our world comes crashing in around us, very often one of the first questions to rise from our lips is, how could this happen? Or why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? These questions imply the very assumptions Janoff-Bulman suggests. Pg 118Feasting on the Word
Without a son, the widow had truly lost everything at that point. Elijah feels that possibly he is responsible and in his prayer actually shames God into bringing the boy back to life. Very much like the story of Jesus when he was in Sidon and encounters the Syro-Phoenician woman who is asking Jesus for help and she shames him into giving her the crumbs from his table.
Widows stand for the image of all manner of poor people in the Bible. Widows are also metaphors for spiritual or emotional poverty. Too many around us are that widow or that child, literally or figuratively. Too many around us feel lost, hopeless, hungry, and thirsty for something beyond the tangibles of daily living, for more than meager leftovers, scraps of food, love and justice. We are all indeed needy, we are all the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in spirit.pg 100 Feasting on the Word Yet in our hope and trust in God we are led to open our hearts and reach out for that bread and that cup of life, which we find at the communion table.
I don’t know how many of you watch the T.V. reality show Extreme Make Over, but when I think about a person being at the end of their rope, so to speak, this show comes to my mind, and how a person’s life can be so altered when a group of people come into that individual’s life and work together to help improve their living situation. The family that is chosen usually has done tremendous community work in selflessly helping others while living in housing that would be considered substandard to their own personal needs. The crew of Extreme Make Over come and sends the family on a two week vacation while they demolish and rebuild a house that will be more than adequate for the family in order for them to continue to reach out into the community in their own special way. Usually this help comes not from just the Extreme Make Over staff but from many people within the community who recognize the value of this family and wish to help as a way of saying “thank you” for all that the family has done within the larger community. When the family comes back from vacation and sees how much their home has transformed, you can see through the tears in their eyes a renewed spirit. I almost always am in tears watching them and my heart is deeply warmed and my spirit renewed as well.
We do not live isolated lives; the things that we do and say affect other people. Like the people within a community that help the Extreme Make Over crew or as we saw in the power point presentation, it takes many hands to help us all through the big moments in our lives. To coin a modern battle cry, it takes a village to raise a child; it takes that same village to help and love each member. As individuals, we generally are not ready to receive this type of love until we become vulnerable enough to accept it. Generally, we only look to God or to the larger faith community for help, when all else fails. The irony of it is, God is already there wanting to walk beside us, hold our hand, and provide what we need, we just have to have our hearts open to it, both in times of need and in times of great plenty! Amen