Sermon Title: How much do you trust God?

Sermon Text: 1 Kings 17

Sermon Date: November 20, 2005

I have a favor this morning. I’d like you to close your eyes as I read our passage from 1 Kings. I’d like you to visualize the scene -- what Elijah looked like and what it might have been like for him in the cave. I’d like for you to visualize the widow and her son. Visualize her home. Just listen.

¹Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, "As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives--the God whom I worship and serve--there will be no dew or rain during the next few years unless I give the word!"

²Then the LORD said to Elijah, ³"Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook at a place east of where it enters the Jordan River. ⁴Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food."

⁵So Elijah did as the LORD had told him and camped beside Kerith Brook. ⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. ⁷But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.

⁸Then the LORD said to Elijah, ⁹"Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. There is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions."

¹⁰So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, "Would you please bring me a cup of water?" ¹¹As she was going to get it, he called to her, "Bring me a bite of bread, too."

¹²But she said, "I swear by the LORD your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die."

¹³But Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid! Go ahead and cook that `last meal,' but bake me a little loaf of bread first. Afterward there will still be enough food for you and your son. ¹⁴For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: There will always be plenty of flour and oil left in your containers until the time when the LORD sends rain and the crops grow again!"

¹⁵So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil for many days. ¹⁶For no matter how much they used, there was always enough left in the containers, just as the LORD had promised through Elijah.

¹⁷Some time later, the woman's son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally he died. ¹⁸She then said to Elijah, "O man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to punish my sins by killing my son?"

¹⁹But Elijah replied, "Give me your son." And he took the boy's body from her, carried him up to the upper room, where he lived, and laid the body on his bed. ²⁰Then Elijah cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, why have you brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?"

²¹And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, please let this child's life return to him." ²²The LORD heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he came back to life! ²³Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. "Look, your son is alive!" he said.

²⁴Then the woman told Elijah, "Now I know for sure that you are a man of God, and that the LORD truly speaks through you." (New Living Translation, www.biblegateway.com) THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD. THANKS BE TO GOD.

This is a rich story, one of the greatest passages in the entire Bible about stewardship.

I wanted you to intentionally visualize this so that the people in the passage would be real to you.

Elijah, a prophet. This is the first time we hear of him and we will learn much more in the continuing chapters. Elijah told King Ahab about a drought and that didn’t please him at all. You might remember King Ahab; he was married to Jezebel and that is a whole other story! Still the continuing story is not critical for us today except to realize that Elijah is hiding from the authorities and God is providing his meals.

Then there is a widow, poor and old? Young? How many of you envisioned her as a senior citizen? How many thought of her as a young woman?

I envision her as a young woman but I haven’t always. The word “Widow” does encourage us to think of someone older, rather than younger, but we know that isn’t always true.

Think of her as a young single mother, with a child, say, four or five. Imagine that she and her husband had worked hard to make a go of their business, but there was an accident and he died. So without insurance or family assistance, she lost everything, except the house and her son. Time is running out. The drought has hit the community hard and folks aren’t sharing with her. The only thing for them to do was to eat and die. But God had other plans for her, for this story is not just about Elijah, but also about rewarding a woman who took an incredible risk.

You probably know someone like her. Someone whose live didn’t turn out exactly as she had planned. Someone that had to make do with what was available. Like our nameless widow who teaches us much.

She teaches us about loving our neighbor as ourselves. Don’t imagine for a moment that she was calm, cool and collected as she made preparations for that last supper for her son and herself. Resigned perhaps, but she is dying inside. This was the son she labored to bring into the world. This was the son that came running to her when he fell and scraped his knee. This was the son that comforted her when her husband died, in a way that no one else could. This was the son for whom she had great hopes….to grow strong, run the family business, marry and have many sons and daughters, all whom would gather around her in her old age. But no, that was not to be. Now they are out of resources, food, income. The drought shows no signs of ending. So, together they will die until this stranger shows up asking for what little she has left. And she gave it to him. She gave him all she had, taking away from her child his last meal. Hospitality was extremely important in their world.

She teaches us about taking risks. She didn’t know if Elijah could do what he said he could but she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If this magic trick worked, her son would live. And if it didn’t….well, she was willing to do anything to ensure her son’s life.

There are numerous moder day widows of Zarephath. Here is one story.

Burnice, a single mother who'd dropped out of school when her first baby came along. A series of men battered her, just as her alcoholic father had done. She sought relief in beer and crack, and ended up selling her body to get more. She moved to the Bronx to escape an abusive husband, but she couldn't get away from drugs.

One day, after dropping off her children at school, Burnice came by a pastor’s office. She'd heard that the church gave out Christmas gifts to children. Burnice's plan was to pick up presents for her children and then sell the presents to buy enough drugs for an overdose. She told the pastor later that she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. On Christmas morning, she came to get the gifts and met their intern Janell. Janell saw something in Burnice's face that made her stop and invite conversation, listening and prayer. Soon they were sitting in a wordless, tearful embrace. Burnice later said Janell's tears opened her heart.

Burnice came back for women's Bible study that focused on women whose messed-up lives had issued forth miracles. Hagar, Tamar, Ruth, Rahab and many others are not prominent in our tradition, but their stories resonate with marginalized women. She asked if she could detox by sleeping in the church and they agreed. She slept on the rug by the altar and made it through that first week clean. By Easter, she was baptized.

Burnice began to help other women, reaching out to addicts as they hit bottom and listening and counseling them into detox and rehab programs. Her own relationship struggles continued. One man she'd been with broke her ribs. The next one was unfaithful. Hoping to hold him closer, Burnice became pregnant. Twice. The apartment they shared became infested with rats. When city officials did not respond to the situation, Burnice took her children to a shelter.

She went through training and found a parttime job as an HIV/AIDS outreach worker and met her future husband. But before long, he began using crack. Later she found that he'd infected her with the HIV virus.

Still, Burnice did not give up. She began working on a GED in preparation for a full-time job. She serves as the president of the church, Transfiguration Lutheran Church in South Bronx. "From crackhead to council president," she likes to say, "Transfiguration has made a transformation in me."

On Sundays, she stands before the altar holding out bread to share with all who come to receive it from her hands. Her pastor, Rev. Heidi Neumark says: Just as Elijah received the bread of life from a widow who defied the certainty of death, we come to take the bread of life from Burnice, a woman who defies doomsday statistics, offering counsel and comfort, leadership and challenge, even when her heart is near collapse. (Heidi Neumark is pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the HuntsPoint/Mott Sections of the South Bronx, New York and she told this story in Christian Century magazine)

God said, “Burnice, give me your life so I can transform you.”

God, through Elijah, said, “Give me your bread, so I can bless you.”

God, through Elijah, said, “Give me your son, so I can breathe new life into him and renew your zeal for living.”

God wants to do that for you and me too. Do you really believe that? God wants to bless you. God wants to transform you. God wants to breathe new life into you and renew your zeal for living.

It’s true, but there is risk involved in being a Christian, of that there is no doubt. There is risk involved in saying, “Here, God, take the last of my bread. Here God, take my son. Here God, take my money, my time and my resources so that you can use them.”

By the way, the famine continued for another two years. For two years, the flour and oil fed the widow and her son who most likely grew up to take care of his mother. Because she risked, because she said, “yes,” her life, like Burnice’s, was absolutely transformed.

Today God says….

Give me your resources so that I can bless you for risking.

Give me your church so that I can bless you for risking.

So that God can…..change us and the world in which we live.

While I really want to keep the church budget separate from the need for stewardship in your life, it is important to see that the two cannot be kept totally separate. Let me share with you some startling information. You know that stewardship is giving to God which allows the church to exist to share Jesus for the good of the world.

But did you know that if 100 givers tithed on a poverty level income, giving would be over $95,000 a year. If all 179 resident members were all living at the poverty level of $9,570 and tithed, giving at First Baptist Church would be $171,303. That is 179 members giving $957 each over a year’s time. If 150 members tithed at the poverty level, giving would be $143,550. That is a lot of money from people living on the edge. And most of us are living above the poverty level.

Before you say, “I can’t tithe,” reread this story of a nameless widow. Don’t be afraid that God doesn’t know your needs. God isn’t asking us to give what we don’t have, but instead out of what we do. Remember that. Pray about that. Claim that. As individuals. As a community of faith.

Why? Let me close today with a quote from Clive Calver:

You see, we’ve got a job in this world. It’s a very simple one. Our job in this world is to take our responsibility, that bit that we can take, and pray, love and give to make a difference. We’ve got a responsibility to find the God who can come to our lives and change those lives and do what we’ve never seen Him do, make us useful in His service. And, you know, He starts in the small and then works in the big. He started with one widow, then a nation. God starts with the small, then He goes to the big. He starts with you, starts with me. May God bless us everyone. Together let’s change our world.”

We can do it, with God’s help. Together, let’s serve Jesus for the good of the world.