If you’re having trouble falling asleep and need a good soporific, you might try reading the 15th and 16th chapters of 1st Kings. Wanting to understand the context for this morning’s ancient word, I decided to look at the chapters preceding our text. Though it helps us to understand what is going on, the listing of the kings of Israel and Judah over the years from the reign Solomon to the captivity in Babylon is not exactly scintillating reading. Mostly we hear how this king or that was unfaithful to the covenant with God and how this sorry lot of leaders spent most of their time and resources trying to expand their territory and power and fighting with each other. It reminded me of how history used to be taught in school, using the wars in which our country has been engaged as the primary markers of the passage of time and the glory of the nation. Though perhaps our national leadership has not been quite as scandal ridden as the kings of Israel and Judah, we have had our share of stinkers.

Last summer we looked at the very human dimensions of David, the greatest of all the Jewish kings, who managed to unite the tribes of the north and south into one kingdom, with a proud capital in Jerusalem. His son, Solomon, renowned for his wisdom and for building the magnificent temple that was seen as God’s dwelling on earth, in the end was no saint either. His showy harem, with its many wives and concubines, served not only his carnal appetite but also his craving for power and glory. He seems to have been a lover of luxury and public display, qualities frowned on in the Hebrew tradition. Though he focused his own worship on Yahweh, he was tolerant of the worship of other gods and seemed to treat Yahweh as just another, albeit his own, tribal deity, one among many, rather than as the great and only God of the universe. He also experienced rebellions within his kingdom on several fronts, from the lands of Edom and Syria, conquered by his father, David, and ultimately among his own people in the northern territory.

It was not long after his death that the kingdom, unified by David, split back into its old division between the northern and southern tribes, a division that reached back to the time that the children of Israel had first occupied Canaan. For the next several hundred years the enmity between Israel and Judah was the stuff of bloody legend and deep seated hatred among sisters and brothers. In Judah, we have Rehoboam, Abijam and Asa; in Israel, we have Jeroboam, Nadib, Baasha, Elah, Zimri and Omri, all ruling for longer or shorter periods, until we come to the time to today’s text. In the account of 1st Kings, just before today’s reading, Ahab has ascended to the throne of Israel, from which he will rule for 22 years. Ahab, following in the footsteps of Solomon was one of those who supported “tolerant, syncretistic religious policies” as opposed to those who favored the “ancient and distinctive religion of Israel.” This was nowhere more evident than in his marriage to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, who brought with her her own god, Ba’al, whom she wanted to see worshipped in Israel. (See Robert C. Dentan, The Layman’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 7, p. 58.) The scripture itself says that Ahab “did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:30.)

Starting with the ascendancy of Ahab to the throne, the tone of the text changes. We no longer find a dry account of the lineage of kings. A new figure strides across the pages of the text, a larger-than-life figure named Elijah, who is the prototypical prophet of the Hebrew tradition. Elijah brings passion and color to the account of the kings because of the way he stands in powerful opposition to the king and his evil ways. Elijah the Tishbite, son of Tishbe from Gilead in the eastern part of the kingdom, appears at the royal court in Samaria, unbidden, most likely bringing the word of the Lord directly to King Ahab: “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1.) Well, you can imagine that neither Ahab nor Jezebel nor anyone at court was pleased to hear this news. Essentially, Elijah was telling them that there was going to be drought from now on until they changed their low-down, evil ways. Of course, this was a direct challenge their entire way of life and, in particular, to Jezebel and her deity, Ba’al, a god of rain and fertility.

As the drought spreads, it seems wise to Elijah to get out of town, and so, following the word of Lord, he heads for the Wadi Cherith, an oasis where he not only finds water to drink but also where he is fed bread and meat morning and evening by ravens. (It is interesting to note that the text may mean literal ravens, or the word may be translated as Bedouins, hospitable nomads camped at the Wadi.) In any case, the Wadi eventually dries up and the word of the Lord comes to the prophet with an even stranger instruction. He is to go Zarephath in the region of Sidon, the very area Jezebel hails from and a center of Ba’al worship. There he is to seek out a certain widow who is to provide him room and board. Though later we will encounter the very human side of Elijah that wonders at God’s plan and questions God’s ways, here he simply does what he is told and faithfully follows God’s instructions.

We come to the scene at the gate of the town of Zarephath, which is either achingly poignant or wryly humorous or possibly a little of both. Elijah does encounter a widow just as God had said. Both symbolically and literally, no one is in a sadder state than this widow. She is in a precarious position, without means of support or social standing. She is at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale and we know that people in this position are the hardest hit by any natural disaster like a drought. She is operating in what looks like a mode of sheer desperation.

“Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink,” the thirsty prophet says, perhaps a little too glibly. Amazingly, she responds by going to get him a drink. But as she goes, he calls out to her, “Oh by the way, ‘bring me a morsel of bread…’” Now she turns to him either with the terror of one looking death in the face or the sardonic humor of one who has managed to hoard a little food for herself and her young son. “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little jug of oil. 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.” Can you imagine being so poor and desperate, that you fear any given meal may be your last? Whether she is really down to the dregs or she does have a little saved away, her situation is still starkly frightening, however familiar she may be with poverty. Her situation gets worse by the day and the drought only compounds the threat to her own life and that of her son.

Daring compassion is offered by Elijah to this widow, a gentile. One can hardly imagine a more unlikely candidate for God’s grace and the prophet’s compassion, yet Elijah can see her anguish and he offers her the abundance that flows from the God he serves, the God of love. Because she is willing to risk hospitality to a stranger and foreigner in the midst of her own abject poverty, she is rewarded generously. “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.”

In Bible study last Tuesday, we talked about those situations we have read about or even experienced in which the poor have offered gracious hospitality to privileged ones; those folk who have opened their homes, shared their resources, made meals and provided festivities from their meager resources in gratitude for the company of sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors in their lives. Perhaps one must be poor to appreciate truly the riches life offers and to celebrate enthusiastically the solidarity, the community, the love of sisters and brothers everywhere.

From her little or nothing, the widow of Zarephath willingly shares what she has, perhaps because she sees God active in the prophet’s eyes and hears the word of the Lord in the prophet’s speech, but just as likely it is because she knows that human survival is somehow dependent on a willingness to share. Is the wonder here the miracle of the never empty jar of meal and jug of oil, or is it the willingness of this widow to share, to risk all she has for the greater good of hospitality, for the possibility of the abundant life God promises to those who love God.
Process theologian, Bruce Epperly says that “When the widow generously shares her meager meal with Elijah, she is connected with the bounty of the universe and, indeed, ‘her cup overflows.’” He goes on to say, “In our own lives, we find that while generosity does not magically change our bank accounts or reverse the hands of the clock, open-hearted generosity opens us to experiencing a generous universe in which we discover we have more time, energy, and money than we previously imagined. In letting go of our strangle hold on our resources, we discover that we are connected with the resources of the God of the universe.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Following Walter Brueggemann, Rebecca Gaudino suggests that “This story promises God’s power for life on behalf of the powerless and vulnerable. It also locates men and women of God with the powerless and vulnerable…it matters that Elijah dines at the widow’s table and not at the table of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, where the Ba’al worshipping prophets dine (18:19.) Where we receive our nourishment shapes our loyalties, decisions and actions” (Rebecca J. Kruger Gaudino, New Proclamation, Year C, 2007, Easter through Christ the King, p. 91.)
The third act of this little drama involves tragedy laid upon an already tragic situation. I suppose not surprisingly for someone living on the farthest margins of subsistence, the widow’s little son becomes ill and dies. Hear her utter anguish as she cries out in the religious vernacular of her time, “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!” The old belief arises that the sins of the parents are visited on their children. Is her guilt for hoarding food and initially lying to Elijah? Is it for some other wrongdoing? Has she engaged in prostitution to insure their survival? Is she concerned with the multitude of little slips she has made through a life time? We don’t know, but we do know her heart is shattered at the loss of her son, her only child.

Now the humanity of Elijah comes to the fore as well. He cries out to God, his own lament of pain and protest, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” Here we see Elijah’s wonderment at the ways of God. As a prophet, he speaks the word of the Lord and, as a great prophet, we may assume he was intimately connected to the God for whom he spoke. The punishment for Ahab and his crew, he understands and supports. What looks like punishment for the poor widow, who has only done right by him, seems altogether unjust. Again in a daring act of compassion, the prophet throws himself across the lifeless body of the boy, crying out to God for the restoration of the boy’s life. For reasons we will never know or fully understand, at least in this life time, the boy is restored to life. I told the Tuesday group, I can never read these stories of Elijah without thinking of Mendelssohn’s great oratorio. I can even now hear the soaring soprano line, repeated ecstatically more than once, “My son reviveth!” The widow is filled with joy and with new found faith. “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Is there an early lesson here for us about God’s preferential treatment for the poor and outcast? We see a similar scene in this morning’s gospel reading from Luke in which another widow’s son is restored to life by Jesus. In a very similar setting to the Elijah story, Jesus is entering the village of Nain when he encounters a funeral procession. Again, the son of a widow has died. For the widow of Zarephath, her son is her hope for the future; for the widow of Nain, her son is her livelihood, her survival. When Jesus sees the situation, just as Elijah before him, he experiences this daring compassion. His heart goes out to the widow. “Do not weep,” he says, as he proceeds to restore her son to life.

Some in the crowd must be appalled that he would touch a funeral bier, making himself ritually unclean. The violation of the purity codes places Jesus himself on the margin. Yet he seems to know no way other to express God’s love than in the restoration of this widow’s son to life.
If you’re anything like me, these ancient stories leave me wondering about the nature of miracles, the way God works in the world, our own capacity to work wonders by faith in God. In our words of preparation, Bruce Epperly suggests that “God is constantly and universally at work in our lives and the world. Indeed, in the interdependence of life, our prayers and the prayers of others may create an environment in which God’s healing aims are more fully embodied in physical, emotional, relational, political, and spiritual transformation. We live in an abundant, open-system, in which divine energy and inspiration touches each moment of existence. In such a world, we can both expect and accept miracles, ‘lively and energetic acts of divine transformation and creaturely partnership that change our lives and the world.’”
Through widows and wonders, God works Her way into our consciousness and into our hearts, calling us to daring compassion, even when the way seems unclear and the methods unorthodox, even when rationality is challenged and conventional wisdom is turned upside down. It may be in that very moment, through widows and wonders that the Spirit moves with might to set the world right side up. Are we ready to hear and to follow the word of the Lord?