June 9, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
In a typical local radio station in California, you might hear that if you are the 35th caller to call in you would get the grand prize of a year’s supply of taco shells from the local Mexican cantina. Or if you were in Vermont or Boston, it may be 52 pints of Ben & Jerry Chunky Monkey ice cream!
While the initial response from both the winner and onlookers may be one of celebration, one is quickly confronted with the obvious question, “What do you do with all those taco shells? Is there anything savory in the freezer to eat besides Chunky Monkey?”
How much is a year’s supply anyway? It turns out that a year’s supply depends on the amount the company supplying the prize determines just what constitutes a “year’s supply.” It depends on the subjective definition of what’s “enough” on the part of one supplying and what’s “needed” on the part of the one receiving.
A few years ago, I remember there was somewhat of a “run on the market” of white rice. Someone predicted that there is going to be a rice shortage and the buying spree and hoarding began! Driving to work that morning, I saw old Chinese women with their wheeled shopping carts hauling 50 lb. bags of rice home. Since rice is nice, they needed a year’s supply!
A few weeks ago, a sensational newsbreak of 3 women who have been kidnapped and imprisoned by a man in Cleveland for over 10 years were freed. There was a side story of Charles Ramsey, a dishwasher at a Cleveland restaurant who put down his Big Mac and helped free the women. When he told his story, Ramsey became a local folk hero and MacDonald’s in his hometown of 15 restaurants has pledged that Ramsey can have a hamburger a day for the rest of his life. That’s a life’s supply.
Today, we read there was the widow of Zarephath who gets all she needs, including all the dough and oil necessary to bake taco shells and Big Mac buns for months to keep her son and herself, plus a strange prophet, alive against all odds.
Elijah
In 1 Kings, we encounter the prophet Elijah wandering around the world, meeting people who are reeling from the aftereffects of broken promises. The context is a land and a people that are devoted to the worship of Ba-al. Ba-al is a false god whose leaders attract followers by selling the god as a kind of insanely generous game show host. And people played his games because of the great prizes he guaranteed. Typically, the prizes were an endless supply of fertile ground for growing crops and fertile wombs for growing families. For struggling ancient peoples, this is what they wanted to hear and needed to have. They wanted more than a year’s supply!
But even the best false gods run out of favor eventually. If you are a god who doesn’t actually exist, it’s very difficult to keep your promises. Elijah is wandering in a world where, despite the promises of Ba-al, a drought is happening. Since Elijah predicted the drought himself, he sees it as judgment against those who fell for such promises in the first place and a proof that Ba-al worship is a bust.
Commanded by God, Elijah heads deep into Ba-al country to seek food from a widow who he’s told will be easy to find. It was time to begin proving just whose promises could be trusted and whose ability to supply that which is needed is truly unlimited. “’Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, a widow was there gathering sticks” (1 Kings 17:9-10).
He finds her, but this widow and her child are starving—about to eat a final meal of boiled twigs.
For them the endless supply promised by Ba-al has come up tragically short. While Elijah’s request for food from this starving, single mom sounds at first as though God simply wants to rub this woman’s nose in her idolatry, that’s not the case. God, through Elijah, is granting this woman the gift of discovering where real abundance can be found; the gift of knowing just who it is that has the ability to readily deliver what’s really needed rather than just recklessly promise whatever is wanted.
Elijah asked the widow to make him dinner. Elijah assures her that he knows the one true God, and that if she does this, God will ensure her that her supplies will last and she stays alive. Living in the aftermath of Ba-al’s broken promises, the widow must have found it hard to swallow Elijah’s guarantee.
Imagine this widow may have become jaded and closed off to the idea of a caring God when she and her son were about to have their last supper. Maybe she had turned skeptical and started rolling her eyes and refusing to trust in anything that sounded too good to be true. Who could blame her? But still, Elijah asked her to make him a little cake.
False Gods and Promises
Today we still live in a world full of “Ba-al”—a world full of false gods promising us an endless supply. Ba-al comes in different forms these days.
Ba-al comes in the form of a career promising a lasting sense of success, bigger stock options and total security, as long as you sacrifice your family and personal health for the sake of the company.
Ba-al comes in the form of the newest iPhone or tablet or fashion and the latest trends each promising, in their own ways, the gift of personal relevance and perpetual youth.
Ba-al comes in the form of PowerBall lotteries, giving away hundreds of millions and reality television offering fame to the masses. But to enjoy this, you have to avert your eyes from the fact that few who play ever win and even those who win kind of lose. Not just in San Francisco Chinatown, but in all Chinatowns in this country, busses line up to pick up people to the casinos so that they can worship Ba-al and almost everyone ends up being losers.
Ba-al comes in the form of our pursuit for happiness when we lavishly and irresponsibly live a lifestyle that is beyond our means, falsely believing that when we rub elbows with the rich and famous, we are rich and famous too.
Ba-al is alive—still fake—but alive. We tend to bow down, be duped by the promise of endless supply, failing to realize that what Ba-al offers is never enough and what Ba-al gives is not what we need, and that there are billions of others tasting the drought. Billions who, like the widow with Elijah, are feeling the effects of empty promises, suffering through unsatisfactory supply, and are skeptical that any more “god-sent guarantees” are worth trusting in.
I have painted a rather dismal picture today. And you thought you came to church today to hear about some good news. But what are you going to do with a year’s supply of taco shells? Does this description fit anyone you know?
True God
The good news is that just because some false god fails does not mean there is no God at all. Just because some promises fall short, it does not mean that all promises are hot air. There is One who can offer a lifetime supply of things you really need. Again, that’s what Elijah was there to prove to the widow and to demonstrate for the world to know.
The true, “giving” God is making himself known—through prophets like Elijah—and in fullness through his Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, note the similarities between Elijah’s encounters with the widow and Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well. Elijah tells the widow to take him at his word—to trust in the God who sent him—and that she’ll have food for days. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman likewise to bring him waters, and shares that, “whoever drinks of the water I give will never be thirsty again” (John 4:13).
The promise is simple. Don’t stop believing in abundance! But shift your focus from Ba-al-promises of this world that have time and time again proven empty, to the God of Elijah, to Yahweh himself, to Jesus Christ who has done nothing but demonstrate his faithfulness. And if you do, God will provide and deeply satisfy!
Trust God
Sensing this may be true and having reached a place of utter hopelessness—no longer holding on to empty and broken promises—the widow takes Elijah at his word. She uses the last of her supply of meal to demonstrate her trust in the providence of Elijah’s God. And it pays off. There is bread for weeks. Elijah’s God is vindicated. Ba-al is proven to be a fake. The widow and her son have full stomachs, but more importantly they now have faith-filled hearts in the true God. They now know where to look and just whom to trust for real abundance and an endless supply.
You may be jaded and skeptical about what I have said. You may very well be walking around burned and scarred by the game-show-style promises of false gods. If that’s you, don’t give up, but begin prepping for your last meal.
Turn to God who has made himself known and demonstrated his ability to supply.
Confess your sins and see if God doesn’t forgive.
Cry out for help and see if God’s Spirit doesn’t give you strength.
Give your tithe and see if God let’s you go broke.
Ask if God loves you and see if God doesn’t show you the cross.
Ponder God’s power and see if God doesn’t remind you of the empty tomb.
Beg God for wisdom and see what comes from his word.
Bake the last of what you have and see if God doesn’t come through.
Being the 35th caller, what are you going to do with a year’s supply of taco shells? Getting a pint of Chunky Monkey for 52 weeks will get you nowhere on eating healthier. Someday when you are having your daily Big Mac for life, you might want a gardenburger.
The world writes checks that can’t be cashed. Ba-al makes promises he can’t keep. He offers stuff that doesn’t truly satisfy.
But not our God. Not Jesus. His ability is proven in history. His supply is unlimited—not just for one year.
No, Jesus doesn’t promise us everything we want. But neither will he run out of what we truly need. He tells us this in John 14: “I do not give to you as the world gives” (14:27) but what Christ gives is his peace that promises us everlasting life.
The world gives taco shells. Jesus gives life.
May we run from Ba-al, bake our cakes, and believe.
Let us pray.
We are grateful, dear God for creation where you granted us a choice to give and receive, love and be loved, serve and be served, include and be included. The world sees limits—to love, to food, and even to life, and so we hoard what is meant to be shared. Forgive us when we are afraid to share with others. Help us to see abundance in the restoration of life—to the son and widow of Zarephath through Elijah and through the power of Jesus Christ. In our life’s supply of joy in the Lord, we thank you that we can live our lives of abundance with each other, now and hereafter. Amen.