Sunday, November 8, 2015: "Putting God First" Fr. Carey Stone


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Proper 27B’15

8 November 2015

I Kings 17.8-16

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

North Little Rock, Arkansas

The Rev. Carey Stone

 

But seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be given to you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. – From Matthew 6.33

 

This being the season of stewardship in the Episcopal Church I have run across a plethora of jokes, stories and cartoons for sermon fodder on the subject.  I ran across one of those single frame cartoons that I thought was pretty good. There is a pig and a chicken standing next to each other while staring at a billboard by the side of the road that says in large letters “Help Feed The Hungry.” The chicken suggests that they should donate some ham and eggs to the hungry. To this idea the pig replied, “For you, it’s a contribution. For me, it would be a total sacrifice.” 

 

Stewardship Cartoon Chicken and the pig.jpg

 

 The chicken’s proposition required something that was in daily supply, expendable, and cost very little, an egg.  For the pig it meant something totally different, it required something that was rare and precious, and would cost everything, his very life! 

 

Stewardship campaigns can be misleading. As we talk about giving of our time, talent, and treasure we can be looking at it more from the chicken’s point of view, where we give away resources that are readily available, that are affordable, and doesn’t require any real change from us. But what if we’ve got the story wrong? What if our chicken story is really a pig story? What if instead of being asked to give up something that’s available, affordable, and costs us very little we are being asked to give up our lives?

 

In today’s readings two women are lifted up as sterling examples of what God’s stewardship program looks like. Rather than two heavy hitters that had plenty of money to donate these two women were widows who lived in the days way before there were careers outside the home or anything close to a pension or social security. With their husbands dead it meant both of them would have been extremely poor, destitute in fact. Hardly an example of anything any of us would aspire to yet in God’s economy they are viewed quite differently; for each of them it was about giving their lives to God - that just so happens includes some time, some talent, and some treasure how ever miniscule.

 

The widow in the Gospel deposited two copper coins into the temple treasury and to this seemingly pitiful pledge Jesus says: “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

What the widow was doing that day was what the 12 step recovery programs call taking “Third Step” which reads: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.”[1]

 

The other widow that we heard about from the Old Testament reading lived in a territory that is what we know today to be Lebanon. We are not given her name simply that she is a widow from Zarephath. The scenario is this. There was a drought that had caused a famine in the region and many were starving to death. Most of the inhabitants worshiped the god known as Baal (pronounced Bail). They believed that Baal was in charge of everything including the weather. They were trusting in Baal to end the drought. Then there was the minority of believers in Yahweh the God of the Israelites. The widow was one of them and she and her son were about to have their last meal when the prophet Elijah showed up. He too had need of food and sustenance and was led by God to this very unlikely source of supply.

 

Elijah approaches the widow at the gate of the city and asks her for a drink of water and for a small cake of bread. The widow informs him that she was just about to use the last of her ‘Martha White self rising meal’ to make a last supper for her and her son. But Elijah, keen to prove that the God of Israel and not the god of Baal was the true God made a strange request followed by a peculiar promise that if it proved to be false would result in all of their deaths: “Do not be afraid: go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.” Really? How could the man of God require that she give him something first, before her own son? But by giving to the man of God first she was giving to God first – the ‘first fruits’ of all that she had and trusting that somehow there would be enough left over for her and her son to live on. 

 

But just like that widow in the Gospel desperate times call for desperate measures. She was being called to lay it all on the line and the prophet added this promise: “For thus says the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”  First it was impossible, then she trusted, then by faith in God she obeyed the prophet and lo and behold, the Martha White self-rising corn meal and the olive oil would miraculously replenish itself after each meal. Besides not going hungry, everyone’s faith was strengthened in the God of Israel who eventually did bring rain putting an end to the horrible drought. 

 

How many times do we believe that we have nothing to offer, just like the widow with only a few ounces of meal and a few tablespoons of olive oil – but it was enough? But God has a very special math, by his method of multiplication the little that is offered is taken, blessed, broken, and given, and given, and given and it sustained all three of them until the famine ended. 

 

Today these two widows continue to speak through the annals of time and throughout all eternity – “Our God is God the true God, worship him, and serve him with all that you have.” Those who give to God first are trusting in God to be their source of supply, not someone else, not the government, not even themselves.  From these two stories and from these two women it becomes clearer that God is after much more than our donation of time, talent, and treasure – God want us!

 

 

The God of abundance is constantly issuing us an invitation through all of our struggles and through all of our lack for us not to ‘chicken out’ but to place all of our eggs into one basket - God’s basket and then jump into the basket ourselves and commit our whole lives to Christ and Christ’s kingdom.

Let it be, Lord!

 



[1] The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous: Step 3