Skip to main content

Tragedy & Community



The narrative lectionary reading for this week is 1 Kings, chapter 17.  In this story, Elijah goes off into the wilderness.  God cares for his needs.  He drinks from a creek and is fed by ravens.  When a drought comes to the land, his creek dries up, and God tells him to go find a widow in a nearby land.  The widow was preparing her final meal before she and her son would lie down to die from starvation.   Elijah had the audacity to ask her to feed him first.  She figured she had nothing to lose, and so she fed Elijah, but then found she had enough to make another meal.  Her pantry always had enough for one more meal, for the duration of the famine/drought.

"Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.  Then the word of the Lord came to him: 'Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there.  I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.'" - 1 Kings 17:7-9

Most often when focusing on this story we focus on the faith of the widow, but this week I want to focus on the command for community in crisis.  If God can command the ravens to deliver food, God could have certainly continued to feed Elijah in the wilderness, so why did God send Elijah to go to the widow?

God uses Elijah to provide for the widow, just as much if not more than the widow provided for Elijah.  The widow was making her final meal before laying down to die, but God provides food through the blessing of Elijah.  Later in chapter 17, when her son dies, God provides healing and resurrection through Elijah.  In the end, the scriptures tell us that the widow believed in everything Elijah taught because of God's provision.  Don't we experience the same provision through community?

When we regularly break bread with others, we find ourselves fed when we don't have enough.  When we find ourselves hurting, wounded, or sick with grief, is it not the community that helps us through?  I think that Elijah was sent there, not to meet his own needs, but to be in community with that widow.  In times of crisis, God drives us into community because we need each other.  

With COVID and the tension surrounding the upcoming elections, I feel we have a nation that is suffering and wounded.  We have a drought of another kind, and I think God is calling us towards community.  Don't you?

Lord, help us to find our community.  Help us to support one another.  Amen.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Death Will Lose it's Sting

Our reading from the Narrative Lectionary this week is 1 Corinthians 15:51-57. In these verses, Paul reveals a mystery, that in the end some will be transformed, given a new body, instead of facing death.  In other words death is not one of life's two certain terms.  It seems taxes may be the only guarantee.   "...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except  death and taxes ." - Benjamin Franklin. Ok, all jokes aside, these verses are difficult to read.  Paul looks forward to a time when death will have no victory, it will have lost its sting.  But today, we are in the middle of a pandemic, surrounded by death.  Many are scared for their lives, or their loved ones, and too many have already been lost.  Death does not seem to have lost its sting at all, it feels as if it is closing in. When I worked in wilderness therapy I remember holding a child who was desperately trying to kill himself.  We cried together as he struggled to end it, and I struggled
Post a Comment
Read more

Fool for Christ

Our reading from the Narrative Lectionary this week is 2 Corinthians 5.  Verse 13 stood out to me. If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. - 2 Corinthians 5:13a (NLT) John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard churches did a famous sermon called "I am a fool for Christ, whose fool are you?".  Reading this week's text reminded me of this wonderful sermon.  Wimber's sermon reminds us that, as christians, we are called to something truly radical.  The christian walk is strange and counter cultural.  Jesus once explained this to his disciples in John 15 "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. You don't belong to this world, I have chosen you out of it.  That is why the world hates you."   Peter, in a letter to the church, later referred to all of us as strangers just passing through this world.   Do you feel like a stranger?  Do you feel like the world hates you?  Are you a fool for Christ? Here is the thing, you are going t
Post a Comment
Read more

Looking Back?

"Remember Lot’s wife!  "   -  Luke 17:32 This is one of the shortest verses in the Bible.  Jesus was talking about the terrible circumstances that will be present when he comes back.  He was warning people that they would not see it coming.  People will be going about their business and then suddenly, without warning, chaos will take over.  People will need to flee, and he warns them not to go back for their possessions, for anything.  This is where he says "Remember Lot's wife!".  In desperation he pleads with them to remember the fate of this woman.  To his listeners it would bring to mind the story of Lot and his family fleeing the destruction of Sodom.  They too were warned not to go back for anything, not to even look back, but Lot's wife did look back.  And when she did, she turned into a pillar of salt.   Metaphorically speaking this is often what happens when we look back.  We get frozen in place and we cease moving forward.  I have a childhood frie
Post a Comment
Read more