The Author and Giver of Life
The Second Sunday after Pentecost Church of the Good Shepherd
Text: 1 Kings 17:8-24 The Rev. Ross M. Wright
The prophet Elijah suddenly appears, as if out of nowhere, on the scene of 8th century Israel – like a meteor, to use R. B. Y. Scott’s phrase.1 He comes during a period of great prosperity. The economy has never been better. Israel is recognized for the first time as a major player on the international scene. The king at the time, King Ahab, reigned for 22 years, one of the longest and most stable reigns in the northern kingdom.
But into this apparent calm and prosperity, Elijah falls like a rock, disturbing the peaceful waters. He enters Ahab’s court and makes the following announcement: “As the Lord lives, the God of Israel whom I serve, there will be no dew or rain except at my bidding.”2 This word from God challenges Ahab where he is most sensitive – the economy. Without rain, the crops will dry up and wither. Without a harvest, the celebrated prosperity will quickly come to an end.
Elijah’s preaching exposes what is really going on in Israel under Ahab’s reign. Beneath the surface prosperity, the nation’s foundations are rotten. The problem is Ahab. For all his abilities to govern, he has one huge liability: he permits the worship of Baal, the god of the Canaanites, the god of fertility. Ahab is married to a Canaanite woman, Jezebel, who worships Baal, and he arranges for a temple to Baal to be built for her in Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. Outwardly, Israel continues to acknowledge Yahweh as their God. But true religion has been co-opted by a false religion of syncretism. The people look to Yahweh for the stability of religious tradition, but it is Baal who is relied on for rain, fertility, and prosperity. They think of Baal and Yahweh as two gods representing two religions, existing side by side. This may sound like enlightened tolerance. But in fact, the religion of Baal will not tolerate Yahweh’s claim that he alone is Lord, he alone is Israel’s God. And this intolerance has a violent streak. Jezebel has the faithful prophets of Yahweh executed. Those who remain, like the prophet Obadiah, live in fear; many go into hiding. The worship of Baal also leads to the oppression of the poor and the dispossessed. With Jezebel’s encouragement, Ahab begins to annex land. This practice violates Yahweh’s laws, established in order to maintain equity among God’s people and to prevent any one family from dominating the others. For example, every fifty years, the people were commanded to proclaim the year of Jubilee. During this year, all debts were o be forgiven and all land is to be returned to its original owners. Whether or not these laws were actually observed among the Israelites is debated. Nevertheless, they reveal God’s concern for the poor. This is one way to distinguish between true and false religion: true religion promotes concern for the poor and the dispossessed. False religion promotes greed. Finally, under the influence of Baal worship, people began to consult mediums, soothsayers, and the 8th century equivalent of horoscopes. They no longer turned to the Lord for guidance.
When we meet Elijah in this morning’s reading, he is living with a widow and her young child in the town of Zarephath. The word of the Lord which he announced to Ahab has proved effective – there has been no rain or dew, and Israel is suffering from a catastrophic drought. But the Lord provides for Elijah, first by sending him to the wadi Cherith in the Jordan Valley, where he drinks from the stream and is mysteriously fed by ravens, which bring him meat and bread, morning and evening. Then, when the wadi dries up, the Lord sends him to Zarepheth, where he promises Elijah that a widow in the town will take care of him:
After some time the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land. And the word of the Lord came to [Elijah], “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there; I have designated a widow there to feed you.” So he went at once to Zarephath. When he came to the entrance of the town, a widow was there gathering wood. He called out to her, “Please bring me a little water in your pitcher, and let me drink.” As she went to fetch it, he called to her, “Please bring along a piece of bread for me.” “As the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I have nothing baked, nothing but a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am just gathering a couple of sticks, so that I can go home and prepare it for me and my son; we shall eat it and then we shall die.”3
Everything in her response evokes a sense of scarcity and helplessness. She is a widow, with no financial security. She has run out of food, run out of options. Her back is against the wall.
The tension in the narrative is heightened by Elijah’s command to serve him first and by his promise that her provisions will not run out: “For thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: The jar of flour shall not give out and the jug of oil shall not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the ground.” Is the prophet’s word true? Can the word of the Lord be trusted? The woman does as Elijah says. Miraculously, the jar of flour and the jug of oil are continually replenished, providing food for the household. The Lord can be trusted to provide for his servants. The word of the Lord is effective.
This narrative is far more than a legend about a man of God providing for a helpless widow. It points us to the source of our life and sustenance. The Lord is the author and giver of life. The word of the Lord is life-giving. To listen to this text is to be confronted with the question: Whom or what are we trusting to give us life and to provide security, to remain virile and productive? The preaching of Elijah exposes us at the points where we seek life from sources which cannot give life in and of themselves. Elijah’s message invites us to return to the Lord, who is the author and giver of life.
The world is a beautiful place, full of life and life-giving. This is particularly evident in Virginia at this time of the year when the trees are newly green and everything smells like summer. “God has created all things for us richly to enjoy.” He has given us these bodies, which are also beautiful and complex beyond comprehension, so that we can enjoy his world; see the beauty which surrounds us, hear good music, enjoy good food, and encounter another person through the gift of our sexuality. But we did not create life and we cannot sustain it. All life as we know it is a finite resource. It is non-renewable. It runs out. St. Paul puts it like this: “For the present form of this world is passing away.”4 In other words, our life runs out, like the jar of wheat and the jug of oil. Our energy runs out. Time and money run out. Our bodies testify that human life, like everything in this world, is passing away. Health is enclosed in death.
Is this a counsel of despair? Not at all. It is precisely when we recognize the source of life that we are able enjoy life as God intended it. Let me say a word to those in the congregation who are under 50. At this point, your life stretches out before you, seemingly endless with possibilities. Your life is a “unique possibility,” which consists of the particular gifts God has given you, the family in which you have been born, your education and experiences, the time in history when we live, and all the particular circumstances which make up your situation. 5 Our unique possibility also has boundaries, established by God – our birth on the one side and our death on the other. The day will come for each of us when God draws a line in the sand and says: This is as far as you can come, and no further. You have used your unique opportunity. What has been done has been done. What is said is said. There are no more opportunities to edit the story of your life. Recognizing these God appointed boundaries is what gives meaning to our lives and enables us to make the most of our unique opportunity.
And now I have a word for those of us here who are over 50. We are forced to come to grips with our limitations. This is one of the tasks for the second half of life. Does this make you anxious? Can we trust God for renewal and strength? Will he continue to fill us as he filled the jar of wheat and the jug of oil? Sometimes, God only provides enough strength, enough energy, or enough hope for the day. We must wait for it, like the manna which comes in the morning or like the delivery of the morning paper.
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
They shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. 6
Are you facing a crisis—a health issue, a financial setback, a painful loss or humiliation? You may be asking yourself: Is this life? Is this what I was created for? The word of God teaches us that it is precisely when we face death and diminishments, in whatever form they come, that we discover life. The message of the cross is that we discover strength in weakness, wealth in poverty, life in death.
You have been born anew not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. For
“All flesh is like grass
And all its glory like the flower of grass
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”7
This is the word that you have heard in the Christian good news. This is the enabling word which God announces to us this morning.
There is a kind of life which has entered our world but which is not subject to decay – the resurrection life of our Lord Jesus Christ. This life is qualitatively different from the life of this world, because it is not passing away and it never runs out. The second half of the Elijah narrative points us to this kind life.
Elijah’s presence in the widow’s home does not bring unalloyed blessings. After we hear of the miraculous provision of wheat and oil, the story takes a strange turn. The widow’s little boy dies, and Elijah is somehow responsible.
After a while, the son of the mistress of the house fell sick, and his illness grew worse, until he had no breath left in him. She said to Elijah: What harm have I done to you, O man of God, that you should come here to recall my sin and case the death of my son?” “Give me the boy,” he said to her; and taking him from her arms, he carried him to the upper chamber where he was staying, and laid him down on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, will You bring calamity upon this widow whose guest I am, and let her son die?” The he stretched out over the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, saying, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life return to his body!” The Lord heard Elijah’s plea; the child’s life returned to his body, and he revived.8
As before, life hangs in the balance.9 Only now, it is even more evident that life belongs to the Lord alone. The boy “has no breath left in him.” This is meant literally – he has stopped breathing – and spiritually. He is like the “Adam” or “man” that the Lord fashioned out of the dust of the earth: the Adam was lifeless, until the Lord breathed his breath into him, and he became a living being. And notice how the breath of life comes into this boy. Elijah lays on top of him three times – face to face, mouth to mouth – until the spirit of God is breathed back into him through Elijah. We think of the risen Jesus with his disciples on the night of the resurrection. In John’s account, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”10 The Lord is the source of life. In him, the dead live. This miraculous sign prefigures Jesus’ raising of the widow of Nain’s son, described in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. And both miraculous signs point to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from dead.
Where do we find life? Where do we find energy? When we are exhausted, where can we find renewal and rest? In the perfect vacation? A new kitchen? A bigger boat or a new bike? None of these has life in and of itself. Have you ever gone shopping, in search of some thing that promises to make life better, only to discover that at the end of the day, you feel drained? Have you gone on vacation or pursed your hobby, desperate for rest, only to discover that the desired rest eludes you? These are small reminders that our life, the life of this world, is passing away. Nothing that we create or make happen has life in and of itself or has the capacity to give life. The Lord is the author and giver of life. Rest and renewal come from him – as a gift. The risen Christ stands among us this morning and says: “Come unto me all you that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 11 And when this life is over and our unique opportunity has come to an end, we will wait for the Lord to say to us what he said to the widow’s son: “Child, arise!”12 For the dead will hear the voice of the Lord and will arise to eternal life.
1 The Relevance of the Prophets
2 1 Kings 17:1. The translation of 1 Kings 17 here and throughout is from The Tanakh (Jewish Publication Society).
3 1 Kings 17:7-12.4 I Cor. 7:31
5 Karl Barth develops this concept in the latter volumes of his Church Dogmatics, written as an older man.
6 Is. 40:30-41
7 1 Peter 1:24-258 I Kings 17:17-22.
9 At this point, it is apparent that this woman is not as innocent and helpless as she makes out. She is referred to as “the mistress of the house.” Is she a prostitute? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Lord’s messengers found refuge in a house of ill repute (see Joshua 2, where the spies hide in Rahab’s house). Though we know nothing of her history, in Elijah’s presence she becomes acutely aware of her sins. Her response to Elijah accentuates the distance between her world and Elijah’s: “What have I to do with you?” She perceives him as a messenger of Yahweh’s judgment. According to the narrator’s point of view, there are two worlds: the world of sin and death and the world of the life-giving word of God.
10 John 20:22
11 Matt. 11:28
12 Luke 8:54