Sermon at All saints Parish Church,
Whiteparish – Sunday 5 June 2016
1 Kings
17:17-24; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
No one hearing those readings this morning can escape the
amazing similarity between our Old Testament reading and the gospel reading. It’s as though Jesus is copying almost
precisely what the Jewish scriptures had written about Elijah many hundreds of
years previously – during the period of the kings of Israel and Judah. In the first instance, Elijah is raising to
life the son of a Phoenician widow – a non-Israelite – and this is the first
instance in scripture of the raising to life of a dead person. Jesus, we are told, raised three people from
the dead – his friend Lazarus, Jairus’s daughter and the widow’s son. In each of the first three instances
(including Elijah’s raising) it is the Faith of the bereaved which brings about
the miracle – the Phoenician widow recognises Elijah as a great prophet, a Man
sent by God, Mary and Martha had great faith in Jesus to have saved their
brother Lazarus, as did Jairus; but in the case of the son in the coffin, Jesus
takes compassion on the widow and without being asked touches the coffin and
raises the son. It is after this miracle
that the family and mourners believe in Jesus’s power as “a great prophet”, no
doubt remembering their scripture and the recognition of Elijah as a great man
of God in the Old Testament reading. A
man taken up into the Heavens and whom many believe will return to eat with
them at their Passover supper table.
The importance, therefore, of Jesus’s miracle is to establish
him, first and foremost as a great prophet – by emulating Elijah he can
establish himself amongst the Jewish people as being sent from God, being a man
of God. It is another great step
entirely for him to establish himself and his divinity as the Son of God and as we know the Jewish
leaders could never accept this and crucified him, ironically, thereby
establishing it themselves for him and us through the power of the Cross and
his own Resurrection which lives with us today.
However, we need to look at our widow in the Old Testament
reading in a bit more detail.
The period of time of which this was written was a terrible
time for Israel. They were ruled by King
Ahab who “did more evil in the sight of
the Lord than those who went before him” (1 Kings 16:30). We read that he married Jezebel and
worshipped Baal. Elijah then told Ahab
that there would be “neither dew nor rain
fall on the land for the next few years” unless Elijah commanded it at the
word of the Lord. Elijah was then told
by God to flee and hide in the Kerith Ravine east of the Jordan where he would find
a brook to drink from and would be fed by ravens. Eventually the brook dried up
and Elijah, at God’s bidding, went to Zarephath where he met the widow whom he
asked for a drink of water and some bread.
Because of the drought which Elijah himself had summoned up, she had
very little water and no bread, only a small amount of flour and oil – enough
just to feed herself and her son for one meal. Elijah commanded her to first
make a small cake for him to eat with what little she had and told her that in
so doing her jars of flour and oil would not dry up. She did as commanded and
indeed both flour and oil were replenished miraculously day after day.
Later, despite the ever restored ingredients for making
bread, her son fell ill and gradually got worse until he stopped breathing. The
widow’s immediate response was “What do
you have against me, you man of God? Did
you come to remind me of my sins and kill my son?” This response immediately tells us two things
about the woman, first of all she recognised and acknowledged that Elijah was
indeed a man of God – the miracle of the ever filling jars was tangible proof
of this, but also, as with many Jewish believers, God’s wrath was punishment
for sins committed. Clearly, she had in
mind sins which she herself knew of but which are not stated in the scripture
or, presumably, apparent to Elijah.
As we read, Elijah performed some ritualistic kiss of life on
the boy and his life was restored. At
this the woman again declares – “Now I
know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is
truth”; and this is precisely the response Jesus was seeking when he chose
(not asked but chose) to restore the life of widow’s son in the coffin. To get an acknowledgement that he was sent
from God, that by the resurrection of the boy he could show not only his power
through the miracle but also that, in Jewish terms, the resurrection also wiped
away any sins of the deceased or his family.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians is writing to a bunch of
Christians who are having doubts about Paul’s authority and authenticity. As with many of Paul’s letters, this letter
to the church in Galatia is in response to one written to him by Judaisers (or
by those influenced by them). These were newly converted Jews to Christianity
who believed that the old rituals and laws of the Jewish Faith in the Old
Testament should continue including the practice of circumcision. Paul was of
the view that the New Testament teachings of Christ, the New Covenant,
overruled this and that new converts to Christianity did not have to adopt the
old Jewish customs and practices. They therefore needed to know whether Paul’s
teaching were right or whether they were being led along by a false prophet.
The letter is somewhat of a rant and in particular Paul needs
to assert his authority and authenticity in a situation where it is known that
he was never an apostle or disciple of Christ before the Ascension. He appears
to be in direct conflict with Peter, Jesus’s right hand man during the years of
his ministry on Earth. Paul, therefore,
like Elijah and Jesus, has to somehow prove himself as a true man of God. In this he speaks of his amazing
transformation from bigot and Jewish zealot to an apostle of Christ. In effect, his experience on the road to
Damascus is like a resurrection or re-birth.
Another miracle to show that he is indeed a man of God and that he
should be listened to and followed seriously.
The language adopted by Paul in describing his conversion
carries an ironic reference to Elijah – this time to 1 Kings 19 when Elijah has
once more fled from Ahab and said “I have
been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your
covenant, broken down your altars and put your prophets to death with the
sword. I am the only one left and now they are trying to kill me”. You will
also remember that God’s response to Elijah was heard not in the wind nor the
earthquake nor the fire but in a gentle whisper. And where was Elijah asked to
go – the Desert of Damascus!
People often say to me “Why
is it, in this day and age of so much evil we never see any miracles like those
described in the Bible?” Well my
answer to this is that day in, day out there are indeed miracles. I constantly hear of people coming to Christ,
repenting and giving their lives over. I
read of the marvellous Christian revivals in Africa, Asia, especially China and
other parts of the world and even in my own life some wonderful miracles have
happened in recent times. Yet, so often,
miracles are not recognised as such. We often brush aside events as
co-incidences, yet they can often be signs from God. I tend to call them God-incidences when I
cannot explain something yet it leads to a strengthening of my Faith. Sometimes they seem to be a miracle but in
many cases simply answers to prayers.
The bottom line is the courage to have Faith, to accept that
God, when called upon can do great things in our lives and in the lives of
others. The important thing is that we
continue to strengthen our Faith, continue to connect with God through his Son
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit so that we can say, like the widow and the
bereaved at the funeral and indeed the Galatians “I know that the words of the Lord and the prophets are truth”.
Amen
MFB/80/01062016
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