Asking Big Things

1 Kings 17:1-16

“Asking Big Things”

30 October 2016 St. Andrew’s Military Chapel Singapore

            Kings isn’t one of the Old Testament books we rush to read in our daily devotions. Because of that, we tend to miss a bit of Israel’s history. The writers of 1 and 2 Kings cover a span of about 400 years of history from the ascension of Solomon to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, the exile to Babylon.

            But, this isn’t a normal history of just the facts ma’am. The writers of these two books, which originally began as a single scroll, sought to not just tell the history of the various kings of Israel after David, but to offer a theological explanation of how Israel went from David to exile, to include how the kingdom split into Israel in the North and Judah in the South after Solomon’s death.

            As with any monarchy, there were factions and divisions; one of the reasons God originally established a system of Judges over Israel. Late in life, despite his supernatural wisdom, Solomon defied God so God promised Jeroboam control over ten of the houses of Israel. After Solomon’s death Jeroboam came to Solomon’s son Rehoboam and asked him to lighten the taxes and yoke upon Israel. Rehoboam lacked the wisdom of his father and rejected the advice of his oldest and wisest advisors and actually raised the taxes and made the yoke heavier. This caused Jeroboam to lead the ten tribes away from Judah and split Israel into two kingdoms.

            The kings of Judah receive mixed reviews from the writers of Kings. Some followed God’s heart, others not so much. Up in the North in Israel however, their kings without exception are declared evil by the writers of Kings. Despite being the one chosen to care for the majority of Israel, Jeroboam was declared evil because he built two golden calves as gods for the people so they wouldn’t go back to Jerusalem and align with Judah. God sent a man speaking his word to Jeroboam to help him turn from his evil ways and even that didn’t work, so evil was brought upon his house. And this continued until the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE.

            All of this is behind the writing when we are first introduced to Elijah. He appears out of nowhere with a powerful prophetic word of a three year drought in Israel, the “evil” Northern Kingdom. Not only is he sent to proclaim the drought, but he is told to go live by a wadi, a creek bed. Now we tend to associate the word wadi with a dry creek bed, but this one had water which sustained him along with ravens bringing him bread and meat.

            Eventually the wadi dries up due to the lack of rain, so Elijah is commanded to head to another area and find a widow to feed him. This widow is also down on her luck during this famine. When Elijah meets her she tells him she is headed home to fix the last bit of food she has for herself and her son so they can die together.

            Elijah has some recent experience in trusting and relying on God, so he tells the widow, “Do not be afraid.” Just do what I say and your meal and oil jugs will not run empty until the rain returns. The widow probably didn’t believe a word Elijah said regarding her salvation. She most likely indulged his request because she had nothing to lose at this point. If feeding him didn’t result in food, she just died quicker. If giving him bread worked, then she and her son stay alive.

            Isn’t it weird how God seems to be waiting when we are at our worst, when we are at “rock bottom” with nowhere to go but up? I’ve lost count at the times people testify that God was there at their lowest moment. When things seem to be going well, God seems distant and far away, but when the struggle is real, God is right there with them lifting them up, holding their hand, clearing a path, whatever is needed for them to get through the challenge.

            What we tend to forget is that God isn’t just there in the fire and the storm, God is always beside us, always working in the world. The struggle of Elijah and this widow demonstrate that while God is there, God may not always provide a permanent or overabundant solution to the problem we face.

            The first wadi ran dry for Elijah, so God’s first solution wasn’t the permanent answer for Elijah’s hunger and thirst. When he met the widow, even then the three of them lived on the edge of starvation because the jars of oil and meal never overflowed, they just didn’t run out. Just enough for them to live. Later Elijah revives the widow’s son, but that too is temporary because the son will eventually die.

            But, does a non-permanent solution negate the power and goodness of God? When we think about it we’d all probably say no, but in reality we’re quick to complain when God doesn’t meet all of our demands. Society tells us that we can have it all, that we aren’t worthy unless we can have all of the money, all of the fame, all of the things so we get angry when God doesn’t deliver our demands.

            What if not giving us an abundance of everything is how God gets us to trust God again and again? What if God gives us what we need so that we learn that God is all that we need? In this story three people are cared for with exactly what they need, nothing more, nothing less.

            There is another aspect of trusting God that may not make sense at first. Asking, even demanding, God to take care of our needs is a form of trust. Elijah demands the woman to provide him food without worrying about how it will affect the woman or her son. Now, Elijah didn’t speak this demand lightly because God told him a widow would provide for him, so Elijah was demanding the food from God.

            Sometimes we need the level of trust Elijah had in God in this story. Too often our trust in God wanes making us tame our requests of God, it shrinks God and places God in a box we design. That box will never contain God. God won’t give us everything we ask for, but if we never ask big things of God we limit God to a God of the small and insignificant. God is the Lord of the impossible.

            God creates, God loves, God forgives, God does the impossible. The good news is that no matter what I’ve done in the past, God will still be God and will always be there with me. So let us go forth knowing that there is no sin too big for God to forgive, no request too large (or small), and let us honestly ask God for big things including the forgiveness of whatever sin makes us think we aren’t pure enough to trust God enough to ask big things for us and the world.