Oh, and One More Thing

(I Kings 17:1-16)

Sometimes I feel like I cannot pick up one more thing to do. If one of my children asks me to take them one more place, arrange one more playtime, or if my husband asks me to get childcare for one more meeting, one more person asks one more thing, I really feel that I will erupt. The newspaper the next day will show black and white pictures of debris strewn all over Columbus, Ohio with the headline banner sprawled across the Dispatch: Mt. St. Ellen Blows Her Top. I was having a day like that begging the Lord to please spare me the one more thing. Of course, you know that as soon as you pray something like that, God may just show up with the one more thing. He did it to the widow of Zarephath.

This is an amazing story which made me laugh when I was in the middle of the “please Lord, not one more thing.” Here is the NIV version:

7Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9“Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” 10So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
12“As surely as the LORD your God lives,” she replied, “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.”
13Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14For 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.’”
15She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.

Understand the picture: this was not just a dry summer in California with water rationing. This was a drought that had been going on for a while and would probably continue for a few more years. The Lord had said “neither dew nor rain in the next few years.” It was dry enough that the brook that had been Elijah’s supply of water dried up. Even the prophet of the Lord was affected by the drought. In his case, it rained on neither the just nor the unjust. At the Lord’s instruction, Elijah went to Zarephath to meet a widow who had been commanded by God to supply Elijah with food. There at the town gate, Elijah met the widow gathering sticks…a pathetic picture indeed. He calls to her, “Would you please bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” It is a drought; who knows how long the drought has been going on. The brook was dried up. A stranger asks her for a drink. Not only that, but the stranger then proceeds to ask her for a piece of bread.

Stop. Stop right there for just one minute. Can you imagine what this widow gathering sticks was thinking? If it had been me, I would have taken really good aim and thrown the very next stick at Elijah! The nerve. Not only does this man who doesn’t know me from Eve ask me for water in the midst of a drought, he wants me to bring him some bread. I would have thought, “oh please, God, not one more thing.”

In fact, without saying that directly, I bet she was thinking it. Think through what she says next and tell me if you don’t think there might have been a bit of an edge in her voice when she answered Elijah. “As surely as the Lord Your God lives,” she replied, “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.” Do you think this woman feels slightly overwhelmed and hopeless? She is at the end of her proverbial rope.
She has no name and she has no description in Scripture other than “the widow at Zarepheth.” But I empathize with this woman. Drought. Hunger. No one to provide and care for her. The burden for herself and her son is all on her. She bears it alone. She’s pretty desperate. So desperate that she has determined that getting some sticks together for a fire for a paltry meal will be her final act before she and her son both die.

Along comes the prophet of God with an outrageous, outlandish, almost scandalous request: get me something to eat. Not only that, when she somewhat self pityingly declares that she is about to prepare her “last supper” it evokes neither pity, compassion, nor guilt in Elijah. Instead, Elijah says “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.” Does that strike you as funny? It did me. In the abridged version: “sure go ahead and die, but please make sure you have brought me my food first.”

I don’t know if that was the message God intended for everyone, but I laughed because that’s what it feels like sometimes in the church. “I know, I know you’ve been doing children’s ministry for 38 years and you feel like one more month of children’s ministry may kill you…but let’s just try it and see if maybe it won’t.” Surely you’ve been there. One more place to go. One more meeting to attend. One more errand that has to be run. One more phone call to make. You feel pretty dried up…sort of like that brook at Kerith Ravine. Someone has already come along and drunk the last drop. There ain’t no more. Then comes the request. It is outrageous. It seems almost selfish. How could God bring one more thing into her life right now?

Who knows why the widow at Zarephath acceded to Elijah’s request. (Obviously God did. It says so in Luke 4:25) But, for purposes of this discussion, let’s speculate a little. Maybe it was the custom. Maybe it was a rule of hospitality. Maybe it was tradition. But she did. And who knows whether she was afraid or not (as Elijah had told her). But she believed his word that the jar of oil would not run dry and the flour would not be used up. The widow at Zarephath went home and used up the last of her flour and the last of her oil, made some bread for Elijah. Through doing that “one more thing” the miraculous occurred: “So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.”

You see, sometimes it is doing exactly the “one more thing” that in the flesh we feel will kill us, that brings us life. It is sometimes committing to the outrageously, scandalously huge opportunities of God that brings us life when we would have chosen death.

What’s your “one more thing?” Dare to believe as the widow of Zarephath did that in giving and doing the “one more thing” your jar of oil will not run dry and your flour will not run out.