“Elijah and the Widow of
Zarephath”
1 Kings 17:8-16
Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Third Sunday after Pentecost—June 5, 2016
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
A few years ago I scanned in old slides taken by my father mostly in
the 1950’s and 60’s, so that everyone in our family could have a CD with these
wonderful old pictures. Many of them needed touching up, and in the
process I zoomed in on my computer, and looked them over very closely, a
wonderful journey through those days.
I grew up in McPherson County in central Kansas, where my father was a
farmer before I was born. The 1950’s started off as 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 beautiful new 1955 Mercury Monterey. Boy, I’d love to have that 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 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
after that. Decades later, after Dad had died, Mom related that someone
once said to him, “I don’t see how you can afford to have so many children.”
Mom said that Dad replied, “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
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, with death and damnation looming before us like the widow
and her son, God intervenes. Just as he sent Elijah, with a word of
comfort, to save the widow and her son, God intervenes and spares us from death
and damnation, 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.”
“Don’t be afraid . . . for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel,
says . . .” TO YOU!
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. Just as the widow and her son were saved by that miraculous oil,
Peter says, “Baptism now saves you also.”
“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 today in the house of the mother Church. One of our Communion hymns
today
expresses the parallel between the miracle of the Sacrament and the miraculous
jar of flour that was never used up:
Now in faith I humbly ponder
“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 Canton was a small farm with about ten acres.
Throughout the decade that 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 the story of Elijah and the widow of
Zarephath, and from my father. 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 says 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.”
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