GeeDubya's Sermon Site: 1 Kings 17: 8-16

(today’s sermon by Rev Greg is accompanied by several images from https://www.freebibleimages.org/photos/elijah-widow/ under a Creative Commons Share alike license)

Our United Church Creed begins with the words, “We are not alone, we live in God’s world” and it ends with the words “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God”. The first words and the last words are about God, present to us.

There are times in every life when we need to feel that sense of divine accompaniment, whether it’s a sense of a personally present God, or the loving presence of others who make hope real for us. If you’re in the war zones of Gaza or Ukraine, you need to know that. If you’re still cleaning up from a Florida Hurricane, you need to know that. If you’re grieving, if personal struggles are about to overwhelm you, if you’re stunned by the US election results, you need to know that. And our forebears knew this as well, as we recall all the impacts of 66,000 Canadian and Newfoundland soldiers killed in World War I and 45,000 more in World War II, among nearly two hundred million civilians and soldiers killed worldwide in wars since 1914, In those times when anguish and despair seem to have the upper hand, we need to know that God is with us, we are not alone.

The powerful story we just heard from 1^st Kings 17 speaks of such a time: there was the prophet Elijah, a widow and her son, there was a desperate need for food, and there was endless provision by a concerned, personal, miraculous God. Such stories remind us that anguish is not a new thing.

As always, there are details in the story that suggest something bigger. The location, Zarephath, is on the Mediterranean in the land of Sidon & Tyre, where the religious rivalries with the Israelites were fierce. It is a story in which patriarchy plays a large role. And it’s a story of bread, which connects it to all other Biblical stories of bread.

Some day, there’s a good sermon to be preached about all of that, but not today. Today I am drawn to stay in the intimate, deeply emotional space that contains the prophet, and the widowed mother and her child, and the invisible yet palpable presence of a loving God.

Lisa Appelo is a Christian blogger; she is also a widow and single mom to seven children, and as such understands this scripture story firsthand. retells the story like so:

“When Elijah arrived at the Zarephath city gates, he spotted a young widow gathering sticks.

“You can almost hear the despair in this single mom’s words as she told Elijah she had ‘only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it – and die.’ (1 Kings 17:12)

This was a women “at the end of her hope.”

“Elijah answered: ‘Do not be afraid.’ He instructed her to make a small loaf for him first and afterward, some for herself and her son with this promise from God: the flour jar would not become empty nor the oil jug run dry until the day the Lord sent rain again”. And so it was.

In both the request and the response, we hear a sense of grim reality. The widow had no further resources in sight and had resolved herself to her own death and, heartbreakingly, to the death of her child; and into that space comes this seemingly misplaced request for her to offer hospitality one last time. As Lisa puts it, this was a single mom at the end of her hope.

Yet amidst this stark picture of hopelessness, there was hospitality – and there was provision.

We note that the hospitality was not, initially at least, based in her faith in Yahweh God. In fact, at one point she refers to “the Lord your God” (verse 12): i.e., “Your God, Elijah, not my God”. So even though we have here Elijah, one of the renowned prophets of Israel, it’s the willingness of this woman outside the Faith to enter into the sacred power of hospitality that opens the door to the ongoing provision of flour and oil.

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of hospitality in that part of the world, then or now. When someone was thirsty, you gave them a drink, when they needed food or shelter, you provided that. There was no “if you had extra to share”, it was simply understood - even when you figured that this nub of flour and splash of oil, was going to be your last meal. So we have this understanding that to live in this world is integrally connected to the act of sharing – that same sacred space named by Jesus in emphasizing the commandment to “love our neighbour as ourselves.” I remain troubled that Elijah asked for food when things were so dire and yet, in the quiet, desperate moment these three people share, there is also a sense of Divine beauty.

As we sit with these three, we do well to acknowledge that this same exact type of despair is experienced daily, around the world in 2024 by people who have nothing left, people who, like this widow, had no family or community supports to act as a safety net. Every large news story, about people who have been pushed to the end of their hope, by famine or by food insecurity or by the cruelty of people or governments who have labelled them as “problematic”, contain thousands of these smaller tragic spaces, like the one inhabited by this mom and her son and Elijah. As we consider their hunger, we hear sobering statistics from the World Health Organization indicating that roughly 1 person in 11 on this planet – some 733 million souls – face hunger on a daily basis; in Africa, the fraction is more like 1 person out of 5. As we approach Remembrance Day tomorrow, we are confronted by the reality of 110 wars ongoing in our world, right now; at the end of last year, there were 117 million displaced people, refugees and other landless people caught by war or persecution or famine. If we break those kinds of figures down to tiny little groupings, like the widow of Zarephath making what she thought would be her last meal, we get a sense of how these things work: there are the great big reasons, and the intense, personal, heartbreaking results.

We picture these small spaces in the world today, where a glimmer of hope is needed, and as we do so we lift up the importance of the work done by human rights and humanitarian relief agencies, some directly through Churches and faith-based charities, others through a network of non-governmental agencies and visionary non-profits. The need is widespread and urgent, and there are pathways to alleviating the immediate need while also addressing the need for far-reaching systemic change. And in addition to these practical supports, there is also the need for holy hope, and today we reaffirm our belief in a God who does not leave us to our own devices.

Even in the hardest times of life, there is grace: something small, unexpected and life-affirming, often accompanied by a gift of food, or an offer of help. In the reading from 1^st Kings, the solution to the widow’s problem is not grand or showy, it’s not a new house and servants and rich foods aplenty. As the story proceeds, we see that she is not shielded from tragedy, there is simply the pledge that there will be enough flour and oil to get her through this day, and then the next day, and then the next day. As she prepares and shares one last life-giving meal – a meal she thought would be her final meal, ever - she receives the gift of grace, one day at a time, signified and sealed in the provision of bread.

We share this morning, in a sacred ritual that goes back some 2000 years: breaking the bread, sharing the fruit of the vine. This act of sharing is a connection between us, and is also an invitation for the Holy Spirit to find a home here, as part of our ongoing commitment to be communities of faith where the grace of our God has the room to act, whether times are good or frighteningly bad. This act of sharing connects us with all our siblings who are, for whatever reason, feeling unsettled, hopeless, hungry in body or spirit on this day. As we feed on these symbols of grace, as we open ourselves to the God who has accompanied humanity through war and famine, earthquake, fire and flood, may we invite life and hope and provision and peace to be with us and between us and to be mobilized through us, to embody God’s own hospitality and grace and hope reaching into the world around us. Amen, and Amen.

References cited or consulted:

Apello, Lisa. https://lisaappelo.com/when-you-need-hope-elijah-and-the-widow-of-zarephath/ and https://lisaappelo.com/our-story/

Claasens, Juliana. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-2/commentary-on-1-kings-178-16-3

Gehrz, Chris – quoting Gaudino, Rebecca - https://pietistschoolman.com/2020/03/30/the-with-god-life-the-widow-of-zarephath/

Geneva Academy, https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts

https://www.gotquestions.org/Elijah-widow.html

Government of Canada, Veterans Affairs. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/wars-and-conflicts/second-world-war

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/timeline-of-20th-and-21st-century-wars#:~:text=Conflict%20took%20place%20in%20every,number%20is%20likely%20far%20higher.

Kadari, Tamar. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/widow-of-zarephath-midrash-and-aggadah

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-in-armed-conflicts-by-country?time=2023

https://www.rescue.org/article/what-happening-children-and-pregnant-mothers-gaza

UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glance