A sermon preached on 10th July with 1 Kings 17 in hand, from St Leonards, by James, (the photo is of Damien’s ordination and has no obvious connection to the sermon 🙂
I once asked some year 6 children, top year in Primary school, if you could replicate any single miracle of Jesus which would it be? And quick as a flash one lad said – turn water into wine! I don’t know what I had hoped for but I could instantly see the financial appeal of such a gift – perhaps I had hoped for some suggestions of healing powers – it would at least lighten the load on the NHS – or maybe walking on water though I’m not sure what skills you could use it for. I wonder what would you say.
Here’s this widow and she has in her cupboard a jug of oil that never runs out and a jar of flour that never runs out. I don’t know if it just fills up overnight or if it’s the sort of jug you just keep pouring and pouring and pouring. I wonder.
I suppose its possible that you could be sick of pancakes by the end of all this.
These are the days of Elijah – we have king Ahab, queen Jezebel – and if this was a pantomime you would know when to boo!
God is tired at dealing with a King is so wilfully avoiding divine guidance that through Elijah He says – No more Rain until I say so.
The idea is to humble Ahab. But he doesn’t get it.
By the end of today’s reading an unnamed widow will get it – now I know that you are a man of God, that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.
Good for her
But alas for the King, and as a result alas for his people.
Elijah goes into hiding and initially his hiding place is a ravine and here he is fed morning and again in the evening by Ravens bringing him bread and meat.
We have no idea where they got the bread or meat from – perhaps they stole it from the kings palace!
I like that its Ravens who bring the food. Ravens have had a bad press ever since Noah’s Ark when they flew away and didn’t come back. At least the Dove had the decency to return with an olive leaf in its mouth.
And I’m pretty sure that Ravens also come under the category of Unclean birds – so that adds to the pariah sense – and here they are doing God’s bidding, feeding this prophet. I realise of course that from the Ravens perspective, being unclean means that you’re not going to be eaten by Elijah.
But alas what’s happening here is worse than a prophet fearing for his life. We are at a time when there aren’t many scrolls of God’s Bible. Its early days, most of it hasn’t happened – so this means that Elijah is effectively God’s word – and that means that when Elijah goes into hiding that so does God’s word. And that’s not good at all.
We so readily take for granted our bibles. I’ve got loads of them, in different languages, with pictures, but unless I pick it up and read it, unless I mull it over and chew it over with others and endeavour to let it feed my soul, then it might just as simply be flung into a ravine for all the good that it’s doing me.
So point one for you is Stay Close to God – read your bible, chew it over and let it feed you. If you don’t have a bible ask me and I’ll give you one. If you’re not sure where to start, start with the Gospel of Luke or John and then see me later.
Elijah is sent from the Ravine deeper into enemy territory, where he hides with a widow and her son. And we have this wonderful act of kindness from a woman who expects to die – you could contrast that nicely with the Priest and the Levite from the Gospel Reading – this unnamed widow is a Good Samaritan to Elijah. It warms the heart to see such kindness.
And now we have this miracle of the oil and the flour. I wonder if she was generous to her neighbours or if it only produced just enough for these three. I have so many questions.
But here’s my biggest problem. What do you call a miracle that happens every day. I’ve a tap at home and when I turn it water comes out. Its astonishing. It works every time. Fresh drinking water. I could show this tap to half the planet and they would say ‘Wow that’s a miracle’. And I because I am clever would say ‘No its science and plumbing and things’. And they would gaze at it in wonder and say ‘No my friend that is a miracle’.
That’s the problem with every day miracles we take them for granted, they have about them the promise and reliability of science and no amount of prayer or praise will change the water –
but I have noticed that a little bit of prayer and praise will change me and how I see and appreciate the water – and the plumber when it goes wrong.
Whilst we are a good deal cleverer than this woman, we have the internet and we have taps, and things – yet I tell you – you cannot have more faith than this woman, who gets up every morning and there is the oil and there is the flour.
So if point 1 was Read your bible, start with a Gospel.
Point 2 is to look out for daily blessings.
Judaism has a prayer you can pray when you have gone to the toilet. Sort of goes like this – “Blessed are you Lord God king of the Universe, who formed us with wisdom and made us with many openings and hollow spaces – without these working properly we could not stand before you – and so we give you thanks! Amen” Brilliant!
Here’s this widow and her son and they have this daily miracle happening in their kitchen. Wow.
But somehow the boy starts to become ill and slowly grows worse and worse. We don’t know if they tried the local doctor, we don’t know if Elijah offered up a prayer or two along the way, but then suddenly the son is dead.
Stay with the pain of this – you’ve got God in your kitchen doing a daily miracle with the oil and flour – but you’ve also got your son dying and now dead. How do you process this pain?!
The woman is angry. Fair enough.
But she says ‘Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?’ We know nothing of this woman, we don’t know anything about her ‘sin’.
We know that she has sinned because I suspect she is no different to you or me.
But alas we are no different to her –
we know we are loved by Jesus, we know that God surrounds us with His angels, promises not to leave us – and yet when something happens – we default to some crude view of God,
you know the nonsense:
that this is what God does He waits until we’re happy and then punishes us for some sin or other – we default to a capricious deity who toys with us.
She isn’t the first suffer in this way – we have Job to thank to for that and I dare say he wasn’t the first either. And we won’t be the last to struggle with this.
But note Elijah – here is the man of God, here is the one who gets to say if it rains or doesn’t rain, and here we see that he has nothing extra super – there’s no abracadabra in what he says.
Hear the pain of his prayer: Dear God what are you playing at! Have you brought tragedy on this widow? Let the boy’s life return to him!’
His prayer is full and earnest and he has not short cuts to leveraging a miracle out of God.
I find that oddly comforting.
Because we pray and pray and we wonder – maybe if I was a vicar, maybe if I had some holy water, maybe if I had a blessed handkerchief – then maybe the Lord would hear my prayer.
But we are like Elijah, at least in the simple sense that like Elijah we do not have an answer to what is happening here or why this is happening –
What we do have is a Throne to go to. We have a God and through Jesus we have access to the Father, to walk straight into the throne room in prayer and say
“Help me Lord! Help me Jesus!”
People that we love, suffer and struggle, and rarely do we have an answer but we do have Friend, a brother, in Jesus.
We meet Him in prayer and praise and in the pages of our bibles – so
- Pick it up and read it,
- Look for the daily miracles and blessings and may they cause you to give thanks to God – yes even when you rise from the toilet!
- Pray.
There’s no special tricks, no cunning combination of words, throwing in thees and thous wont make much of a difference,
but knowing that Jesus invites us to approach the heavenly throne,
knowing that Jesus loves you and calls you, and draws alongside you –
this is the God who lives, who hears us and who blesses, so Pray. Amen.