Trinity 15 2020
1 Kings 17:8-16
September 20, 2020
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Around 900 years before the birth of Jesus, Elijah bursts onto the scene with the force and impact of a prophet of the true God, bearing the Word of the Lord to God’s people in a straightforward and fearless manner. Elijah is God’s answer to King Ahab and Jezebel’s attempt to make Baal the false god of Israel. Baal, was the Canaanite storm god to whom sacrifices were made for good weather. Now, Elijah calls on the God of Israel, the God who does not tolerate idolatry, to prove that Baal was helpless before Him, that in fact, Baal doesn’t even exist. The Lord would withhold dew and rain for a period of time and the land would go into a severe drought.
Ahab and Jezebel were filled with a murderous rage. So God told Elijah to flee from there to hide in a secluded place and that God would provide for him. Twice a day with a supply of bread and meat, God provided by sending ravens to deliver the food and drinking from a nearby brook. After a while, when the brook dried up because of the drought, God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and was in Phoenician territory, and dwell there. Elijah could have gone to the Jordan River, where the water doesn’t run out, but he obeys God who has reasons for sending Elijah to Zarephath, to the home of a particular Phoenician widow.
That’s where we pick up in our Old Testament reading today. Elijah goes as he was commanded and meets the widow. After asking for a drink, he calls out to her again and asks for food. She balks at this request, not out of a lack of hospitality, but because she has no such bread to give. She has only enough for one last meal for her and her son, and then she is prepared to die. She backs up her point in the strongest possible way with this Israelite prophet, “As the Lord your God lives…” Notice, she says, “your God,” implying that this Gentile, Phoenician woman, did not yet claim the Lord as “her” God.
But Elijah responds by telling the widow, “Do not fear.” Despite what the widow had said, he tells her to make some bread anyway. But notice as well what he says, “First make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.” Elijah knows there isn’t enough to do this, but he deals with her fear by indicating that a miracle was going to take place, that the flour and oil would be miraculously renewed.
And it was. The jar of flour was not spent, and neither did the jug of oil become empty. They ate for many days, until the Lord sent rain against and ended the drought, until crops could once again grow and there would be adequate food. And this, according to the word of the Lord that He spoke by Elijah. The word that the woman had heard and believed, and in her faith, and that of Elijah, we are reminded that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
In the religious crisis during the days of Elijah and Elisha, more “signs and wonders” witnessed to the power of the true God than in any period since the Exodus (Ex 7:3). In this miracle, the wondrous provision of food recalled God sending manna to sustain Israel while the people were wandering in the wilderness during the Exodus. And it foreshadowed the miracles of the greatest Prophet, Jesus. This Jesus who by His own power and authority, multiplied bread and fed thousands, not once but twice! This Jesus, whose only excursion beyond the borders of ancient Israel was “to the region of Tyre and Sidon,” where He, too, met a Syro-phoenician woman of great faith (Mk 7:24–30), whose daughter was plagued by a demon and who simply begged for the crumbs that fell from her master’s table, for that would be enough.
And this is the greater miracle we hear of in our Scripture readings. It is not just that God is the Creator and therefore greater than false gods made up in creation. Nothing and no one moves or breathes apart from our Creator God. The Lord who took up our Flesh, who walked this earth, has never been separate from the physical stuff of His creation or ashamed of it. He does His creative work through and with and for His creation. The Lord works a miracle in Zarephath but it is inside creation. Elijah, the widow, and her son eat it. But it is always the Lord who is acting, who is doing, who provides, whether it appears miraculous or mundane and ordinary.
So by faith, by the trust in God’s promises and provincial care in Christ, we see the hand of God working throughout His creation and for the good of His people. Through Elijah, the Lord miraculously provides food for a widow in Zarephath. This account illustrates God’s never-ending goodness. He daily and richly provides for all our needs, blessing us far beyond what we deserve or what we ask. In a wicked, harsh, and hostile world, God watches over those who are His. No matter how much everything may seem to be against us, the Lord is with His people, a haven of everlasting love.
This faith in Christ castes out anxiety, fear, and leads to a dependency and freedom in being a beloved child of God. God cares for the birds and the flowers, and all His creation, but God has a closer relationship with you. God did not become a flower of the field or a bird of the air. He became a man in order to save, to preserve, to care and provide for mankind, for you.
Do not fear. You may have little or may have an abundance. You may be going through a time of drought and despair, worry and concern over life here in this fallen world. But God is still God, and Christ is still risen from the dead. He attends to the needs of your soul; He attends to the needs of your body. The sinful world and the powers of hell cannot touch you, for even in death, God will preserve your life. Your last meal here on earth will not be your last, for God has prepared an eternal banquet for those who belong to Him. Those who have God as their care will have no other.