The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.
Proper 27, Year B
1 Kings 17:8-16
The widow in our text is preparing her last meal for herself and her son. She has become the victim of a
severe famine in her country. As a widow she will be one of the early victims. She probably has already
seen others starve to death, and has been attending their funerals.
Now she is preparing for her own turn. As she gathers the sticks to make a fire to cook her last meal she
may well believe in her heart this is the last task God has for her on earth – to prepare a last supper for
herself and her son. Then God will have no more use for her in this world.
Yet God’s plan for her is completely different. Where she sees no future, there God is going to make it a
specially blessed time for her.
You and I don’t know our future, although we might try to guess and plan as carefully as the widow
gathering her sticks. We can be as completely wrong about tomorrow as she was! We need to come to
God and ask him to make our time and work a blessing for us. He says, “You trust me and I will. I give you
my word on it.” In his grace, God extends the call of faith to us, as he does the woman in our text: to live
by faith in God for the future, to trust him to lead us through each day.
When the prophet Elijah comes to the widow, he asks her to cook a meal for him BEFORE she cooks one
for herself and her son. She has only a little food left, barely enough for herself and her son. If anyone has
good reason to refuse to share her food, then it is this woman. If anyone could have first claim on that
little bit of oil and food, then it is surely the woman and her son. Now there is the call from God to share
it.
She only has a man’s word for it that God will provide for them in their desperate and seemingly final
situation: a hopeless situation from which she can see no earthly hope to escape. Yet she puts her trust in
the word of God as it comes to her from another human being, just the way God’s Word comes to us,
through our fellow human beings. She knows it is her duty as an Israelite to offer hospitality and provide
for a stranger first, the way Abraham did when three strangers visited him, and he gave them the best he
had [Genesis 18]. But her situation is completely different. Abraham was wealthy, and she is down to her
final meal. Surely God won’t let her stand there and watch Elijah eat her last meal! Yet this woman shares
what little she has with the stranger in the blind faith that somehow God speaks to her through him. She
relies totally on God to help her out of this seemingly hopeless situation.
The faith of this poor widow puts us to shame. We, who in comparison have so much – and are prepared
for many days and weeks ahead with food in the fridge and the freezer – often don’t have the courage to
trust God gladly with the first part of all we receive from him, week after week and year after year. Her
faith puts us to shame because we share so little with people in need. When we do give to those who
need it more than we do, we often give the leftovers from our wallet. We aren’t giving out of faith that
God will provide for our needs. We tend to give only when we are sure we are first getting more than
enough for ourselves. What blessings can we expect from that? How weak and empty our faith must
appear to God.
God could well bring us to our knees by taking away our jobs and income so we put our faith in his
promise to always provide for our needs. What sort of financial crisis would it take to lead us to a
renewed trust that God can bless us and provide for us in our threatened poverty? What would it take for
us to share more and show a greater concern for other people? So often we find in our society that it is
the poorer people who will reach out with financial help when you are down and out, rather than help
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coming from the rich. It is the experience of the Church that the Church’s buildings as well as help for the
needy often comes from the gifts of faith from the poorer people, and not so often from the rich.
No wonder that God sends Elijah to a poor widow for food and lodging in a desperate time of famine. God
could have sent Elijah to a wealthy family who had lots of food stored away. They might well have said to
Elijah, “Look at that poor widow over there. If we gave everyone like you who comes past here some food
and lodging, we’d soon end up like that widow, with nothing.” So God sends Elijah to the poor widow, and
he blesses her wonderfully because of her faith and her generosity. Little wonder that Jesus says that the
richer you are in this world, the harder it is to enter the Kingdom of God. Even the world knows that we
take nothing with us when we leave this life.
The joy of life comes when we trust that God will provide. Then we are open to God’s blessings. Then we
are better prepared to share what we have received from the generous hands of God. Then we are better
able to give to God first, rather than put him last on the list. Then we have the joy of living out God’s plans
for us. Jesus points out to us that worrying about food and clothing is for heathens. God knows we need
these things. We can put our trust in him and he will provide.
The miracle of the oil and bread continuing day after day is truly still a miracle for us today. It reminds us
of Jesus, when he feeds the five thousand – and the bread continues for all who are there. It is the same
miracle God is working for us in our time through the Lord’s Supper. It is the Last Supper. Yet it continues
forever. The body and blood of our risen Lord Jesus are continually available for us. The forgiveness the
Holy Spirit brings to us in the Lord’s Supper is in no danger of ever running out. The body and blood of
Jesus, given and shed for us, never fail. We have God’s word on it. Today we have every reason to rejoice.
God continues his miracle for you and me.
Some evenings, when the woman prepared the meal for Elijah, and her child and herself, she might have
wondered whether the miracle would continue the following day. We could almost understand it if she
said to Elijah, “Maybe you should leave after tonight. This miracle might not continue on for another day
or week!” But she continues in her faith that God is in control. Jesus tells us in the parable of the maidens
whose oil for their lamps ran out before the bridegroom came. Their faith runs out waiting for Jesus to
come.
We wait for Jesus to come. Our oil supply of faith might already be running low. But God wants to
replenish our faith so it can burn more brightly within us. He has an inexhaustible supply of faith to give us
when we are humble enough to ask for it. His Spirit is at work to replenish us with a stronger faith through
continually listening to his Word.
Elijah promises the woman that the food and oil in the jar won’t run out until the day God sends rains on
the soil again. The day the rains come will also mark the time when the oil and meal will no longer need to
be supplied in this unique and unusual way. Food and drink will be available again in the natural way God
provides for us. Then we can work for it.
God tells us that one day our hope of heaven and our faith in Jesus Christ will no longer be necessary. That
day will be both the end of our stay here on this earth, and the beginning of life in heaven, with a
welcome and a lodging in the Father’s home. We shall have returned to the normal plan of God: living in
fellowship with him and each other. It will be as St Paul says:
So faith, hope, love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.
For the time being you and I are called by God to live by faith – taking God at his Word. In hope we look
forward to the day we can be with the Father in his home, and we will have no more earthly cares and
worries. In love God calls us to share our gifts from him with one another.
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Both our faith and our time of hope, like the oil and the meal, will both come to an end, but the love
continues with us into eternity. Love never ends, because God is love. By God’s grace we shall live in his
love forever. Amen.
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
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