“A JUG, A JAR AND A LITTLE BIT OF JOY”
I KINGS 17:8-16
8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
9 "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there
to feed you."
10 So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow
was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink."
11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread
in your hand."
12 But she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of
meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; 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."
13 Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make
me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.
14 For thus says the LORD the God of Israel:
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."
15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for
many days.
16 The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the
word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.
Children say it all the time.
I’m afraid.
You hear it when they go to bed
and you turn out the light.
You hear it when you take them to
the bus for their first day of school.
You hear it when they ride their
bike for the first time without the training wheels.
I’m afraid. That’s something
we grown ups also say from time to time. Everyone’s afraid of something. How
about you? What are you afraid of? Maybe
you’re afraid of flying or public speaking or snakes or bridges or rejection or failure or death. Everyone’s afraid of something. Of course fear isn’t always bad. Sometimes it’s good
to be afraid.
A young Georgia Tech football player
learned that lesson one day. The young man was the team’s quarterback and
he learned the lesson during a game that Georgia Tech was leading by a score of 7-6. As the game was winding down the Georgia
Tech coach called a timeout. Coach Bobby Dodd later said that during the timeout he gave the young quarterback explicit instructions. “Whatever you do hold on to the football,” he said. “Don’t
try to pass the ball. Just keep the ball on the ground.” Well, after the timeout was over the young quarterback went back into the game and did exactly what he
was told to do. He kept the ball on the ground. After several plays though the young quarterback inexplicably dropped back
and threw the ball. Much to everyone’s horror the pass was intercepted. The player who intercepted the pass immediately
started running for the Georgia Tech goal line with several Georgia Tech players in hot pursuit. One by one though the Georgia
Tech players decided they couldn’t catch the speedy runner and gave up. One
player didn’t give up though. He kept running as hard as he could and eventually
tacked the speedy runner. Not only did he tackle the speedy runner, but he also
caused a fumble which he then recovered to save the game. The Georgia Tech player
who saved the game turned out to be the quarterback who threw the interception in the first place. After the game the coach
for the other team went over to congratulate Coach Dodd. After he shook his hand he shook his head and said, “I can’t
believe your quarterback was able to do what he just did.” Coach Dodd wasn’t surprised at all. “Well,” he said. “It was really very simple. Your boy was running for a touchdown. My boy was running for his life.”
Sometimes fear is good. More often
than not though, fear doesn’t help you. It hurts you. Just ask the widow of Zarapeth.
She knew what it was like to be afraid. In fact, you can see her fear
by looking at what she said when Elijah asked her to give him something to eat. Instead of giving him something to eat she
gave him a tale of woe. She told him that her jar of meal and her jug of oil were just about empty. Then she said, “I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare (the meal)
for myself and my son that we may eat it, and die.”
Now I don’t want to minimize
the predicament that the widow of Zarapeth found herself in that day. Because
of the ongoing famine times were tough; really tough. At the same time though, there’s a very good possibility that
the widow and her son weren’t exactly on death’s doorstep.
How can I say that? I can say that
because we know that the widow of Zarapeth wasn’t your typical widow. Most
widows back then were often destitute and desperate, but that wasn’t true for the widow of Zarapeth. You see as the story continues we’re told that Elijah stayed with the widow of Zarapeth for some
time and he was able to stay with her because she owned her own home. Now, if she and her son were really on death’s
doorstep she could have sold her home and used the money to keep both herself and her son alive. She may have had to sell the home for less than it was worth, but she could have sold it.
So, this raises the distinct possibility
that the widow of Zarapeth overstated her predicament so she wouldn’t have to help Elijah. Why did she do that? She did it because fear crept in that day and crippled her heart.
That’s what fear does. It makes you irrational and illogical. It pushes you to make unhealthy and at times
unholy decisions. Fear leads you to selfishness and hate. Fear pushes you into
the clutches of hopelessness and despair.
That kind of fear is everywhere
these days. Terrorism, illegal immigrants flooding into the country, global warming,
bird flu and rising health care costs, nuclear bombs in Iran and North Korea, Hamas and Hezbollah, drugs dealers, pedophiles
and immorality everywhere. The list goes on and on. It’s enough to make
you feel just like the cowardly lion did in the Wizard of Oz. You remember the
cowardly lion right? Do you remember what he did when they went to rescue Dorothy from the Wicked Witch of the West? As they approached the witch’s castle he saw a sign that said, “I’d
turn back if I was you.” The only reason why the cowardly lion didn’t do that is because the scarecrow and the
tin min wouldn’t let him.
In the same way Elijah refused to
let the widow of Zarapeth give in to her fear. So, maybe we should take a closer look at Elijah and what he did that day. Maybe he can help us with our fears. Maybe
he can help us cope with all of the chaos and confusion that’s swirling around us these days.
The first thing that needs to be
said is that Elijah wasn’t immune to fear. Elijah was undoubtedly wrestling
with some fear himself when he asked the widow of Zarapeth to give him something to eat.
Don’t forget. The same famine that was making things difficult for the widow of Zarapeth and her son was also making
things tough for Elijah. He also didn’t know where his next meal was going to come from either. In fact, that’s
why God sent him to the widow of Zarapeth. God told Elijah to go to the widow of Zarapeth because she had been commanded to
feed him. Now Elijah must have had his doubts when he heard what God wanted him
to do. Why would the widow of Zarapeth feed him when she couldn’t even
feed herself and her son? Why would she feed a total stranger and a man who was
a foreigner to boot? Not only that but the God who told her to feed him wasn’t even the god of her people. Elijah knew
that the widow of Zarapeth had every reason to turn her back on him.
Elijah didn’t let all that
that fear get the best of him though. Instead he put his faith in God and went to Zarapeth.
You see that’s the difference between fear and faith. Fear isolates
you. The more you fear the more you end up feeling like it’s you against
the world. Fear drives you away from people and it drives you away from God. You end up thinking the same way a little boy did one day when his Sunday School teacher
asked each of the children in the class to go home and write a letter to God. So
that’s what the little boy did. He went home and wrote a letter that short
and to the point. “Dear God, We had a good time in church today. Wish you could have been there.”
Fear drives you away from God. Faith, on the other hand brings you closer to God.
It brings you closer to God and a conviction that you’re not alone. Now when you have faith it doesn’t
mean that all your problems are going to immediately disappear. When it comes
to faith it’s more like the valley of the shadow of death. Take another
look at those wonderful words in the 23rd Psalm and you’ll see that God doesn’t promise to help you
find a way around that valley. God doesn’t promise to pick you up and whisk
you to the other side of that valley. What God does is promise to be with you
as you make your way through that valley. “Yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no
evil, for Thou art with me.”
Faith isn’t a promise that
things are going to turn out the way you want them to turn out. It’s a
promise that God is always there to work with you and for you and through you.
Faith is the conviction that the
Apostle Paul knew what he was talking about when he wrote that “we know that God works for good in all things with those
who love him who are called according to his purpose.” That’s the
faith that the widow of Zarapeth saw that day in Elijah. It was a faith that
invited her to let go of her fear and to walk with Elijah and God through the dark and difficult days of that famine.
You can see that same God at work
in a story that newsman Charles Osgood told in one of his commentaries. The story was about two women who lived in a nursing
home. Each of the women had suffered a paralyzing stroke. The strokes were especially
hard for the two women because it robbed them of something they loved to do. It
robbed them of their ability to play the piano. The joy of playing the piano
returned though when the activity director at the nursing home sat the two women down in front of the same piano. She did that when she realized that Margaret’s stroke had paralyzed the left side of her body and
Ruth’s stroke had paralyzed the right side of her body. So, even though
they couldn’t play the piano by themselves they could play the piano together.
Faith brings you closer to God and
the people around you. Suddenly you don’t feel like it’s you against
the world any more. Suddenly you see possibilities that weren’t there before. Suddenly you begin to believe that together with God’s help you can not only
survive but thrive in a world full of fear. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes
November 12, 2006
