“In God We Trust”
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Anna Pinckney Straight
University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 10, 2007
1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)
8Then 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.
17After 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."
Luke 7:11-17
11Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep." 14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!" 15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!" 17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
Elijah is fleeing the wrath of King Ahab. Ahab and all of Israel are being punished for his, well, his and his wife’s, lack of faith. They are being punished with a drought. Elijah, at God’s direction, is the one who has named the disobedience and whose words have ushered in the drought. And Elijah has declared, just a few verses before today’s reading, “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."
Ahab, understandably, thinks that if he can just get his hands on Elijah he can get rid of the drought. Ahab doesn’t want to get his hands on Elijah so they can become good friends. And so Elijah runs.
It is our introduction to Elijah in the Bible, and from these first words we know that he is no shrinking violet. Saying these things. Speaking the truth so boldly. It made him a target. Running was a good idea.
At first Elijah is fed by a raven in the wilderness, drawing water from a wadi, a small creek or gully. It is just as God told him it would be. But the wadi dries up. There is, after all, a drought.
And then God sends him to the widow.
But not just any widow. A widow who worships Baal.
A widow who takes seriously the call to hospitality. It is a time of drought, and she is willing to share her limited water. It is when Elijah wants to share her food that she has some concerns. She has only a little food. Enough food for one more meal. It is all that stands between her, her son, and death.
But when Elijah tells her what God has in mind, she trusts.
And that trust is rewarded. Not with riches or wealth, but enough. Enough food for them to survive.
Which has to be one of the reasons she is so perplexed when her son dies.
A son to a widow is more than a beloved child, it is an economic necessity. Without a son, a widow’s plight was beyond dire. Beyond difficult.
And to Elijah’s credit, he is not deaf to her complaints.
He goes in and prays. He places himself on the boy, three times, and the boy’s life is returned.
It is a sign of God’s faithfulness. A sign of Elijah’s promise.
It’s not quite as much work for Jesus to raise the widow’s only son in the account from Luke.
Yes. Jesus also raises a widow’s only son from death to life.
If you noticed some similarities, that’s not an accident. You are supposed to.
For many people, Jesus earned his credibility by being the next Elijah, and so there are supposed to be parallels between these two texts. With some exceptions.
In the text from 1 Kings, it takes quite a bit of effort for Elijah to bring about this miracle. And the glory goes to God, not Elijah.
It is much easier for Jesus. And it is he that does the raising.
Jesus comes upon the funeral procession and is moved with compassion. He does not know this family. He does not know their situation, beyond knowing that the deceased is a widow’s only son. Breaking purity rules, he touches the funeral bier, and commands the man to rise. That’s all that is required for Jesus.
When he does, the crowd is, understandably, surprised. And more than a little bit frightened. They begin to call Jesus a great prophet. Jesus’ reputation begins to spread. It is because of this miracle, and its connection to the story of Eljah the people would have known.
Today’s texts are built on these miracles. Miracles. Amazing miracles.
When I was pregnant and then a new mother, just a few years ago, there was one thing that people would say to me that just irritated me to no end. And lots of people said it.
The would look at me deeply and smile and say, “It’s just a miracle, isn’t it? A miracle.”
A miracle? Gaining weight, having my body stretch in places I didn’t even know could stretch. Heartburn. 26 hours of childbirth. And then sleepless nights and postpartum depression.
And so, when people offered me this little gem, I may have smiled and agreed, my inner voice was saying, “miracle? This isn’t a miracle. This is really hard work.”
There is a tendency to want to describe everything as miraculous as a way to honor God.
Like in one of my favorite poems from Walt Whitman
“As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,…
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,”[1]
There is a tendency to want to describe everything as miraculous as a way to honor God.
And that seems nice, this understanding of even the smallest wonder as miracle, a credit to an amazing God, it seems reasonable, until we are face to face with accounts of scripture like those for today.
Food from scarcity. Life from death. Now those are miracles.
William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury
“Miracles… are as much the manifestation of God immanent as are the regular processes of Nature. God immanent is a principle or energy of adjustment and therefore of variation; God transcendent is the eternally self-identical—the I Am.”[2]
And miracles can be tricky things. Miracles are tricky things. They are so wonderful. So surprising. So inspiring. So much so, that they can seem to be the point. But here’s the thing with miracles. They are never the point.
Theologian Paul Tillich tells us:
"A genuine miracle is first of all an event which is astonishing, unusual, shaking without contradicting the rational structure of reality. In the second place it is an event which points to the mystery of being, expressing its relation to us in a definite way. In the third place, it is an occurrence which is received as a sign-event in an ecstatic experience."[3]
In other words, a miracle is never just a miracle. Miracles are always signs. They always point us to something bigger. To some greater understanding of God.
I found this to be especially important with these texts, today. Texts where it can be a challenge to look beyond the miracle. Because the miracle is so appealing. And seeing that it happened here, it is understandable to then wonder, if then, why not now? Why can’t this miracle happen for all the other parents whose children have died before them? It’s something I have wished for many a parent whose heart has been broken in such a particular way.
But that’s only a reasonable question if you think that the miracle is the point, and what we all know before we even ask the question about “why not now,” what we all know before we even ask it is that this question is a dead end road which only leads to grief, not Good News.
But when we ask that bigger question about that to which these miracles point, the bigger sign which is in play, the dead end disappears, and an open horizon is suddenly in its place.
When we look and ask about this bigger sign, In 1 Kings, we are reminded not only of the power but the universal nature of God. God cares for everyone, not just for those who care for God.[4]
It is an amazing thing to realize, that the immensity of God’s love is not bound by borders or language or even party affiliation. This woman in the text from Kings was supposed to be outside of the circle. Outside of what was acceptable. Except that she wasn’t. For God.
In Luke, we are told in the NRSV that God has looked favorably on the people. The RSV uses a word that many scholars prefer, visitation. “The people glorified God saying, ‘God has visited his people!’”
Visitation. God has visited. “The notion of ‘visitation’ is used at critical points in the Luke-Acts narrative to indicate God’s action with compassion and power to redeem the divine people.”[5]
In Luke, the greater sign is a message of God’s compassion. A reminder that God is not cold or heartless, but moveable and affected. God is not blind to this woman’s grief, and neither is God blind to our own.
A widow acts with compassion and faith to help a man speaking the truth of God. Jesus acts with compassion
Allan Culpepper writes, “The hope of resurrection, therefore, is not grounded in the fact that the widow’s son came to life, but in the fact that the one who had the compassion to bring back the widow’s son has himself triumphed over death.”[6]
I wonder what it was that caused the widow to trust Elijah with her food. That gave her the voice to speak out of her despair with such strength. What it was in that widow that caused her to allow Jesus to get so close to her son’s body. What it was that enabled trust in them. They trusted God. They were witnesses to God’s visitation.
And I wonder. In what ways do we trust this God? In what ways are we witnesses, too?
In God we trust. It is not a statement of assurance that the future is worry free, but an assurance that there is nothing in life or in death that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I still don’t think of childbirth as a miracle. But last week, Sarah Allan asked me if she was there when I was little. I told her “No.” And so she asked the next, logical question, “Where was I?”
And so I tried to put into words, that her life and all of our lives are gifts. That the God who created her and created all of us is the same God who visited us in the flesh to tell us of God’s love and forgiveness. That this love is better than favor or profit or promise. And that we are still witnesses to God’s visitation.
Witnesses to the visitation of God. A God who is moved by compassion and love and both calls and equips us to the same.
I believe that is a miracle. And I believe that it is Good News. And that it is the difference between life and death.
[2] William Temple. Nature, Man, and God. London: MacMillan and Co. 1979, Page 295.
[3] Paul Tillich Systematic Theology: Volume 1. University of Chicago Press, 1951. Page 117.
[4] David L. Peterson, Old Testament Editor, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. III, "1 Kings" by Choon-Leong Seow. [Nashville: Abingdon Press] 1999, p. 129-130.
[5] Cousar, Gaventa, McCann, and Newsome, eds., Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV- Year C. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994. Page 380
[6] Leander E. Keck, New Testament Editor, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XI, "Luke" by R. Alan Culpepper [Nashville: Abingdon Press] 1995, 159.
Share this page:
