losing every time but i don't know where

you're on my side again

A sermon on Elijah & the widow; 1 Kings 17:1-16:

On any given Sunday you leave the bills on the counter, the to-do list undone, get the family in the car and head off to church. 

On any given Sunday, with more prayer requests than you can keep straight and all the predictions of destruction the radio blared on your way in, the pastor climbs up in the pulpit and tells you something like, ‘Do not be afraid.’

Really? Don’t be afraid?

Here you are, doing everything you can just to tread water, and the pastor tries to tell you something like ‘don’t be afraid.’

All you can think is, “how can he dare to say something like that to me?”

As scripture says, there’s nothing new under the sun.

In 1 Kings 17, the great prophet Elijah begins his career. The Bible doesn't have a lot to say about him. Just that the word of the Lord came to him instead of anyone else, and told him to go and pick a fight with a king that was as wicked as he was powerful.

And I’m sure Elijah found himself wondering how God could dare to say something like that to him.

But, Elijah went and did according to the word of the Lord.

Now, if he thought that first assignment was bad, it only gets worse…

Out of nowhere the word of the Lord comes to him again. Telling him he’d probably better run and hide. To go east and take cover by a brook. 

From standing up to kings, Elijah’s reduced to hiding by a stream, getting food from birds. No doubt thinking, “how could God say something like that to me?”

But Elijah is obedient. He went and did according to the word of the Lord. Only to have the brook dry up on him. It was a drought, after all though…

If Elijah thought that assignment was a step down, it only gets worse…

The next thing God says to the poor guy is that he’s to go and hide in enemy territory, Sidon; and he’s to get his daily sustenance from a widow -of all people. 

If hiding by a brook and getting fed by birds was a precarious plan, this one threatens to fall apart before it’s even out the the lord’s mouth!

You don’t run from the enemy by going to their turf! And you don’t get your daily bread from someone who doesn't even know where their next meal is coming from!

How could Elijah not wonder how God could say something like that to him. 

But still he went and did according to the word of the Lord.

There, at the enemy’s gate, he sees a widow. Calling out to her, he asks for a little water and bread. 

Empty-handed, he goes begging to a woman who has even less!

Because that’s the thing, if Elijah’s plight was bad, the widow’s is even worse. 

Here she is, raising a child alone, when the rains fail. That whole summer she watches as the crops whiter. And her only child along with them…

After a week she’d just as well forget, she goes out to gather a few sticks for a fire. She's planning one final, meager meal for her and her son. Their last supper…

When out of nowhere, this foreigner comes along asking for a free lunch!

No doubt she was about to tell him, “if you only knew, you wouldn’t be saying that to me.”

The two of them, there: him reduced to begging from a widow; and her with nothing, expected to a feed a stranger. There, looking at each other, thinking the exact, same thing; ‘how could they say that to me.’

…Well, before the widow can tell Elijah just where to go, Elijah says the last thing the widow wants to hear. “Do not be afraid.”

Starving. Her only child is languishing. All she has is barely enough to make some bread for one final meal before they die. And this guy tells her not to be afraid? How else could she be feeling?!?!

You know it, in the back of her mind she's screaming, ‘how could he say that to me?’

Well, Elijah goes on to assure her that her that jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. That they will not fail until. Until…

Now did you catch that?

There’s so much action in this story, that it’s easy to breeze over Elijah’s word that creates assurance. 

Not that, that’s the only reason we breeze over Elijah’s word, though… 

Honestly, we want more than just not empty, not failing.
Deep down, we all want God’s provisions to come super-sized. We want God’s sustenance to come in the big-gulp, bottomless cup.

God, however, is constantly providing from, not our abundance, but our scarcity. This is the way God always works. The way God prefers it, in fact.

Isn’t that true of your own life? Or our life together? Of the witness of scripture? 

Well, it’s true of this passage, certainly. 

When Elijah needs safety, God sends him to a brook with a flock of ravens. When the brook dries up, God sends him to a widow.

When the widow is making her last supper, God won’t let the jar of meal hit “E’” or the jug of oil run out until there’s rain again.

That’s how God always works. God takes our scarcity, and provides.
Isn’t that what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 12:9, when he said God’s power is made perfect in out weakness?

Our need. Our weaknesses. Our shortages, these are the tools of God’s power. These are the raw materials God uses to make you and me into witnesses. Witnesses of God’s deliverance, God’s provision, God’s mercy… 

…On any given Sunday, you come to church as the story you’ve been telling about your life, threatens to come apart. And you hear something you can't help wondering how the pastor could say to you. 

Just like that day at the gates, when the widow’s life was unraveling at the seems. When Elijah’s career had hit bottom. We to hear a word of the Lord we can't help but wonder how anyone could say, and to us of all people!

What held the widow and Elijah’s stories together, though. What holds our story together too. What holds every story together, is what’s at the center of them all. 

The one who keeps on turning up at the margins of them. 

The one who makes a way out of no way. The one who provides when all there is, is just a little oil and even less meal. 

God. 

God who would send a messenger to the likes of a starving widow, with a word like ‘do not be afraid.’ God who would use a woman with nothing, to feed that fleeing prophet.

The same God who would take the likes of us, and make us into a people who would be witnesses of God’s power. The same God who would take our humble assembly, and use it to reveal God’s provision. 

On any given Sunday, after a week you’d just as well forget, you leave the dreadlines in the paper, come to church and hear the pastor say something like ‘do not be afraid.’

It’s hard, on those days, not to think, ‘how could he say something like that to me.’

With the God we have, though. With what God is always up to. With what God can do with just a little oil and even less meal, what else is there to say?

So it bears repeating, “Do not be afraid.”

So you who came here as the gas gauge on “E.” Do not be afraid. 

You who came here after a week of hearing about an election gone off the rails. Do not be afraid.

You who came here, wondering how your family is going to hold together. Do not be afraid.

You who came here with the news from the doctor still ringing in your ear. Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid.

How could God say this to you, you wonder?

Well let me tell you, this cup of God’s mercies, this bread of God’s goodness, they will not fail you. They won’t. God promises you, they won’t.

So I tell you again, do not be afraid. 

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. 

Do not.