Pentecost +25 – The Far Country

Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church

Charity Never Faileth – Widow of Zarephath by Elspeth Young

Pentecost +25 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
1 Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44

Jesus is teaching in the Temple. He is engaging with Sadducees, Scribes, and his disciples. He sits down near the offering box and is watching people go into the Temple. Many fine people with long robes walk past and fill the treasury with large sums of money. If we were following common church building advice, we might say, “Quick put them on a committee.” “Make sure to greet them.” “We need to get them involved!”

Then comes a widow woman. She’s so poor that her two copper coins only equal one penny. Suddenly Jesus turns to the disciples. “Did you just see that?” I wonder if the disciples were about to comment on her tiny gift. Before they can complain, Jesus says, “She just gave more than all those wealthy folks combined!”

What!?

They gave out of their abundance. She gave out of her poverty. That was all she had and she gave it. She gave all she had to live on.

What!?

How could she survive? Jesus doesn’t tell us, but her act recalls another widow who gave all she had.

Before we tell her story, let’s get the picture in our minds. Elijah is a wild prophet of a man. He seems to move across Israel like the wind and speaks or acts as the Lord directs. In fact, he is almost like YHWH in the midst. His words don’t fall to the ground. It goes forth from His mouth and does not return void. I am not suggesting that Elijah is a preincarnate appearing of God, but rather, the word of God rests upon him and sounds through him like the roaring wind.

Israel is corrupt. The king, Ahab, has married the daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon. She is from a culture that worships Baal. This worship can involve sexual perversion and even human sacrifice. Baal is an agricultural god, assuring fruitful harvests, but he eventually is seen as a storm god, which also connects him to agriculture but also emphasizes his power. This power is bought through oppression, perversion and blood.

It must be stopped because it is corrupting all the people of Israel. Elijah launches an attack against Baal worship. If Baal worship is about controlling harvest and the rain, Elijah will stop the rain. James 5:17 tells us that “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.” ^[1] He shut the heavens. His word did not return void.

After Elijah prays, he goes to Ahab and tells him that there will be no rain except at his word. See how Elijah is acting like God-in-the-midst? Elijah must also survive this drought. The Lord sends him to the brook Cherith, and he drinks the water and is fed by the ravens. Think about this, Elijah does what he sees “the Father doing or what the Father tells him to do. This sounds a bit like Christ. But Elijah is an incomplete image. He is not the exact image of the Father but is speaking and acting out a word of the Father for a specific place and time.

He has come to bring judgment upon Israel for abandoning her God. At the same time, he will raise a remnant of the faithful who will learn to trust God is the darkest and most difficult seasons of life. Even when Israel falls and the people are taken captive, there will be a righteous community who trust God and will serve the Lord in the pagan lands.

Now back to Elijah and the widow. The brook dries up. No more water or food. The Lord tells him to go see a widow in Zarephath (zehr fath). He goes to the city gate and sees her gathering some sticks. “Bring me a drink of water.” “And while you’re at it, bring me some food to eat.”

Elijah is not longer in Israel. He has left Israel and entered a pagan center, and yet his authority is still recognized. She replies, “As the Lord your God lives (notice she refers to Elijah’s God not her god). She says, “I have just a little flour and a little oil.” I’ll make a fire with these sticks and make one last meal for my son and myself. We’ll eat it and then we’ll die.

Elijah looks at her. “Do not fear.” He has walked into a pagan city. Met a widow who is at the end of her rope. And invited her into the feast of God. But she doesn’t know it yet.

He says, “Don’t fear. Do what you said but first give me a little bite to eat. Then you fix some food for you and your son.”

Then suddenly the Word of the Kingdom of God breaks out in their midst. For when he speaks, we can already sense the coming Wedding Feast of the Lamb, we can already get a sense of Christ’s body and blood given for us.”

Elijah says, “Here’s why my God, the God of Israel, says to you, “Your jar of flour will not run out. Your bottle of oil will not become empty before God sends rain on the earth.” This is the Gospel. God knows your fears. He knows your struggles. He has not abandoned you.

Think of all the struggles in our church community, in our county. In our world. We face health crisis. We face fears that we ourselves might not have enough. We may fear the liberals. We may fear the conservatives. Our world can make it tempting to give in to despair. I assure you there are many people all around us who face the dark cloud of fear and pain and even despair. Some of us may feel that at times.

We know there are others in this county who struggle and at times feel like giving up. Many of these people may not go to church. Some may even be in the county jail. But God has not forgotten them. God has not forgotten you just as he never forgot the widow. He knows our cares and worries and struggles and stress.

One more thing about this widow who gives all she has to feed Elijah. She is from Zarephath (zehr fath). This is in the land of Sidon. The king of Sidon is King Ethbaal. His daughter is Jezebel and she is married to King Ahab of Israel.

God sends Elijah into the far country. The very land of Baal worshippers. The very culture that oppresses the weak, commits sexual perversion, and even spills human blood to appease Baal. He sends Elijah there to redeem the widow and this pagan people from their deathlike ways.

The widow does survive the drought. But her son dies. She is distraught. She finds Elijah and cries out, “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!”^[2] She seems to think her son has died because of her own sin.

Listen to the next couple verses, “And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”^[3]

Did you hear that. She had made a room in her home for Elijah. Her house had become a dwelling place, a Tabernacle for the man with walked with the Word of YHWH on his lips. As he cries out to God, the Lord hears his cry and raises the boy back to life.

Listen to the final verse of this story, “And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” ^[4] This pagan woman who lives far from the covenant is brought near by the Word of God to and through Elijah. Her house has become a dwelling place for the Lord’s prophet.

Idolatry dehumanizes and destroys people. It is everywhere we turn in our world. But Christ is not afraid. He has come to redeem those who are far off.

Karl Barth says that, “[Jesus Christ] goes into the far country, into the evil society of this being which is not God and against God. He does not shrink from him. He does not pass him by as did the priest and the Levite the man who had fallen among thieves. He does not leave him to his own devices. He makes his situation His own. He does not forfeit anything by doing this. In being neighbour to man, in order to deal with him and act towards him as such, He does not need to fear for His Godhead. On the contrary. We will mention at once the thought which will be decisive and basic in this section, that God shows Himself to be the great and true God in the fact that He can and will let His grace bear this cost, that He is capable and willing and ready for this condescension, this act of extravagance, this far journey. What marks out God above all false gods is that they are not capable and ready for this. In their otherworldliness and supernaturalness and otherness, etc., the gods are a reflection of the human pride which will not unbend, which will not stoop to that which is beneath it. God is not proud. In His high majesty He is humble. It is in this high humility that He speaks and acts as the God who reconciles the world to Himself. It is under this aspect first that we must consider the history of the atonement.”^[5]

God goes into the far country to rescue the widow and her son. God goes into the far country to rescue you. He loves our pagan world full, and in Christ, he has already gone into the far country to rescue all who are sick, lost, discouraged, disillusioned, hateful, sick, in utter darkness and despair. He is reconciling this world to Christ.

Let us cry out like Elijah for his healing grace in our lives, in our family, in those still trapped in the bonds of sin and death. Lord, help follow you into the lives of those you are leading home by your saving grace.

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^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jas 5:17.

^[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Ki 17:18.

^[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Ki 17:19–20.

^[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Ki 17:24.

^[5] Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of God, Part 1, vol. 4 (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 158–159.