“Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath”
1 Kings 17:8-16
Pastor Kevin Vogts
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Dakota Dunes, South Dakota
Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost—November 8, 2009
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
As I mentioned in the children’s sermon last Sunday, for Christmas this
year I’m scanning in old slides taken by my father mostly in the 1950’s and
60’s, so that everyone in the family can have a CD with these wonderful old
pictures. Many of them need touching up, and in the process I’ve been
zooming in and looking at them closely, and thinking about those days.
I grew up in central Kansas, where my father was a farmer before I was
born. The early to mid 50’s were boom years for farmers there, with bumper
crops and good prices. So, there’s one picture of my brother Ralph and my
oldest sisters Kathy and Barbara standing proudly in front of a new 1955 Mercury
Monterey. Boy, I’d love to have that old car. And, Santa was especially
generous for Christmas that year. There are pictures of Ralph, Kathy, and
Barbara in front of the farmhouse with their shiny new bicycles, and Ralph
sitting in front of the tree playing with his new Lionel train set—which is
something else I wish we still had.
But, the next year a drought set in. The late 50’s in Kansas are
called the “little dust bowl.” By ’58 Dad just couldn’t make it anymore.
He had to give up farming, which he loved, move to town, and take up other work.
About that time my sister Paula was born, and I came along a few years
later. After Dad had died, Mom said someone once said to him, “I don’t see
how you can afford to have so many children.” Mom said Dad responded,
“Well, the Lord gave us the children, and he’ll give us a way to take care of
them too.” Like many boys of his era, my father had left school after
sixth grade. But, though he didn’t have much formal schooling, he was both
very intelligent, and, more importantly, very wise.
Like my family in the 50’s, in today’s Old Testament Reading, Elijah is
also on the move because of a drought. Some people actually blamed this
drought on Elijah. The people of Israel had sinfully turned away from the
Lord and followed false gods. The Lord sent the prophet Elijah to proclaim
that as punishment for rejecting and turning away from him, he would send a
drought upon their land. “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I
serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years . . .”
As the drought grew more severe, Elijah’s life was in danger from the
unfaithful Israelites. “Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, ‘Leave
here, turn eastward, and hide . . . Go . . . to Zarephath of Sidon and stay
there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.’”
These events are not a myth or fable, but really happened historically.
However, they do also have a symbolic meaning for us. As Paul says in
Colossians, “These are a shadow of the things that were to come.”
The unfaithful Israelites symbolize us, in our sinful state. The
drought they suffer symbolizes the punishment of death and damnation that we all
deserve on account of our sin. As the rich man in hell says in the parable
of Lazarus, “Have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in
water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.”
Elijah the prophet of course symbolizes the Word of God, in its two
aspects, the Law and the Gospel. The Law is his proclamation to the
unfaithful Israelites of drought, death, and damnation. The Gospel is the
Good News he proclaims to the widow when she says to him with grim resignation,
“‘I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a
jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my
son, that we may eat it—and die.’ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Elijah said to her.
. . ‘For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “The jar of flour
will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry, until the day the Lord
gives rain on the land.”’”
This miraculous promise of hope in a hopeless situation symbolizes the
Good News of the Gospel which God proclaims to us. In the hopeless
situation of our sin, like the widow and her son with death and damnation
looming before us, God intervenes, just as he sent Elijah to save them, by sending to
us his Word with the Good News of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
“Don’t be afraid . . . for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel,
says . . .”
“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake,
and remembers your sins no more.”
“He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our
iniquities. . . as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed
our transgressions from us.”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God
did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world
through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through
him to reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in
your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by
Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without
blemish and free from accusation.”
God so loved you that he sent his Son to be your Savior, to suffer and
die in your place, taking on himself the punishment for all your sin. You
are now reconciled and at peace with God. Because, through Christ’s blood
shed on the cross you are holy in his sight, without blemish and free from
accusation.
“Don’t be afraid . . . for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel,
says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry
. . .’” In Scripture, and especially in the parables, the Holy Christian Church
is often depicted as a woman. That is why she is often called the “mother
Church.” So, the widow with whom Elijah takes refuge symbolizes the Church, in
whose house we take refuge. And, just as faithful members of the Church
are often referred to as sons or daughters of the Church, the widow’s son who is
rescued from death and miraculously sustained symbolizes you.
“And the jug of oil will not run dry . . .” Throughout Scripture,
oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit. As Peter says in Acts, “God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit.” The widow’s inexhaustible jar of
oil symbolizes the inexhaustible grace of God, and his Holy Spirit, giving you
faith, hope, and love. As Paul says in Romans, “May the God of hope fill
you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with
hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“And the jug of oil will not run dry . . .” The miraculous jug of oil
also has another meaning. It is an old custom at Baptisms to anoint the
baptized with oil, to symbolize the presence of the Holy Spirit. Martin
Luther’s first Order of Baptism says, “Then shall the priest . . . anoint the
child . . . with . . . oil, and say: ‘I anoint you with the oil of salvation in
Jesus Christ our Lord.’” So, the widow’s miraculous jug of oil symbolizes
Baptism, which is the miraculous anointing God has given the mother Church.
“The jar of flour will not be used up . . .” The miraculous,
never-ending jar of flour, and the life-giving bread which it provides, of
course symbolizes the other Sacrament, the miraculous feast of which we partake
here in the house of the mother Church.
One
of our Communion hymns
expresses
the parallel between the miracle of the Sacrament and
the miraculous
jar
of flour
that
was never used up
this way:
Human reason, though it ponder,
Cannot fathom this great wonder
That Christ’s body forever remains
Though it countless souls sustains.
“Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, ‘Leave here, turn eastward,
and hide . . . Go . . . to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a
widow in that place to supply you with food.’” Ironically, when my own
family was fleeing the drought they also found refuge with a widow. The
place they rented on the edge of town was a small farm with about ten acres.
Throughout the nearly ten years we lived there the widow who owned it charged
Dad only $40 a month rent, for the house and the land. Best of all it had
a good well for irrigation that would never run dry even in a drought. Mom
and Dad and my older brother and sister cultivated a big garden, which supplied
food for our family, and earned enough to cover the rent and actually make money
living there.
That widow’s ten acres and its well that never ran dry was for my
family like Elijah miraculously sustained in the house of the widow of Zarephath,
by the jar of flour that was not used up and the jug of oil that never ran dry.
As my father would say, “Well, the Lord gave us the children, and he’ll give us
a way to take care of them too.”
That is the other lesson we learn from Elijah and the widow of
Zarephath, as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday. Paul puts it this way
in Philippians, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer
and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the
peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds
in Christ Jesus.”
“So do not worry,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. “Saying,
‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that
you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all
these things will be given to you as well.”
Amen.
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