Pentecost 2C (1 Kings 17:8-24; Lk 7:11-17)  06/06/2010

This morning, we appear to have a single story to consider as we listen to our Scripture lessons. And the story is this: a poor widow is met at the gate of the city by a man who is busy fulfilling the mission of God. The widow, living with very little to her name (other than her only son), eventually loses her child…her last great treasure. Through the divine will of God, the dead son is brought back to life. And the man who has acted on God’s behalf to bring about this miraculous event is proclaimed to be a great prophet and God’s favor is believed to be with the people. Surely, this story is an amazing story to tell and retell throughout the generations. A story that exemplifies the power and authority of God, but when we hear this story from Luke’s Gospel account, the meaning of the story expands beyond the power and authority of God and speaks of Christ’s particular mission of redemption…and as a people redeemed through the saving grace of Jesus, the redemptive power of this Gospel lesson holds special meaning and is a lesson for how we might live our lives with each other.

Our first lesson this morning tells the story of a man named Elijah, perhaps one of the greatest prophets in all of Hebrew Scripture. The story takes place during the reign of Ahab, the king of Israel. And in the Scripture verses just before our lesson, we learn that King Ahab is not a very good man. The Bible says, “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the Kings of Israel who were before him.” (1 Kg 16:33) We also learn that Ahab did not listen to the Lord; he did not take care to worship the God of Israel; and he married Jezebel and turned away from the Lord to worship the foreign gods of the Canaanites. The God of Israel set out to show the weakness of the Canaanite gods by bringing about a drought that lasted for more than 3 years…and it is during this time that Elijah is sent to Zarephath in Sidon, which was the center of worship for the foreign gods that Ahab has turned to worship. Elijah is directed by the Lord to live with the poor widow – a person of no means who is down to her last meal and has prepared to die with her son. Elijah’s success in fulfilling God’s mission in the midst of such extreme poverty would prove the power of God to overcome the deadly challenges of the severe drought. After living together for many days, the poor widow’s son becomes ill and dies. The widow is greatly distressed and Elijah immediately takes the boy and seeks the privacy of an upper room, where he pleads and prays to God for the boy’s life. Elijah’s prayers find favor with God and the boy’s life is restored. The restoration of the boy’s life, in the midst of drought and poverty and despair, demonstrate God’s power and authority: God’s power over nature – even as the foreign gods try to end the drought without success; God’s power over people – allowing Elijah and the widow’s family to live through the drought, in spite of the scarcity of their food and water; and God’s power over life and death itself – bringing the boy back to life. If there were any questions before, we should now be very certain that the Lord, the God of Israel is in charge of all that is in heaven and on earth.

The story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath was known to Jesus and we hear him use this story as an example to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth early in Luke’s Gospel account. The stories of Jesus, as represented in Luke’s Gospel account, pay particular attention to people who are forced to live on the margins of society due to their poverty, their gender or their beliefs. Jesus seeks those who are in need and helps those who have great faith in God – there are no boundaries to Jesus’ miraculous works of love and mercy. In our Gospel story this morning, Jesus meets the poor widow at the city gate as she follows her son’s funeral procession. Like the Elijah story, this story is also about the power and authority of God, but the author of Luke’s Gospel account does not spend much time dwelling on this point. Jesus simply touched the man’s funeral bier and the entire procession stood still. Jesus does not plead; he does not pray; he does not stretch himself over the man, as Elijah did, but simply commands the man to rise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak. Jesus acts with the full power and authority that is his as God – God the Son.

But there is more in this short story than can be found in the Elijah story from our first lesson. We hear Luke tell us of Jesus’ reaction toward the poor widow, “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’” (Lk 7:13) In the 1^st century world of this story, women were granted very few rights and were dependent on their fathers until they were married…and dependent on their husbands until they had sons…and if their husbands died they were dependent on their sons for the remainder of their lives. But this poor widowed woman had just lost her only son – his death was not only the grief filled personal loss of a mother’s child, but the loss of her son was her guarantee of a life lived in destitution. The man’s life was very visibly restored and prompted the crowd to proclaim their praise of Jesus. But Jesus had compassion for the poor widow and said to her, “Do not weep;” The man’s miraculous rebirth is Jesus’ gift of redemption for the woman. With the new life of the son, Jesus has purposely and miraculously redeemed and restored the widow.

We too are people redeemed and restored by Christ. In the course of our lives, we will all have occasion to come up short; to find ourselves apparently lacking in the gifts and resources that we might believe we need. But the promise of the New Covenant through Christ is that we, like the poor widow at the city gate of Nain, are redeemed and restored to wholeness. But as followers of Christ, we are also expected to follow Jesus in the way of his compassion. Jesus restored the son’s life and the widow’s future was restored as well. We have opportunities throughout our lives to touch the needs of others (others in our homes, others in our community, others in our world); to restore and redeem their lives, filling their futures with hope and wholeness. This is the promise of Christ; this is the promise of the members of the body of Christ – to fulfill the mission of God in the world today. May we, like Elijah, be strengthened and inspired by the Spirit of God to seek and serve others as we have been called by Christ. AMEN.