Proper 27
1 Kings 17:8-16; Psalm 146:4-9; Mark 12:38-44
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I.
The saints — God’s people — are exploited by the prince of this world.
The prince of this world is Satan.
(See: John 12:31; John 14:30; John 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2) and Matthew 4:1-11, the temptation of Jesus.)
Our story begins today in occupied Zarephath, where there is a saint, a widow, living with her son.
We know Zarephath is occupied because 1 Kings 17:8 tells us it “belongs to Sidon.”
Sidon is where Jezebel is from. According 1 Kings 16:31, she is “the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians.” She and her husband, Ahab, worshiped the false god Baal.
In the Bible, to worship Baal means to worship the prince of this world, and even down to our own day, the name Jezebel is associated with witchcraft, sorcery, evil, and state-sponsored religion that has become utterly corrupt.
The worship of Baal often involved human sacrifice, particularly the sacrifice of children.
1 Kings 16:34 tells us that the city of Jericho was rebuilt at the cost of the sacrifice of two children.
The first was sacrificed when the foundations of the city were laid, and the second when the gates were completed.
1 Kings 16:34 even tells us the names of these two children.
The names of these two young saints, who were exploited by the prince of this world, were Abiram and Segub.
Continuing our story, we meet Elijah the prophet of God.
In 1 Kings 17:9, God tells Elijah, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
Elijah has declared war on Jezebel and Ahab and their false religion.
The next chapter, 1 Kings 18, will tell us how Elijah personally slaughtered the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah.
So, this is the context for what unfolds in our two readings today.
Elijah, and later Jesus, are here to do battle with the false religions of man.
A false religion is one that worships the prince of this world, and a religion, as both readings illustrate today, that devours widows.
II.
Both of our readings today come to the same conclusion: apostasy, specifically national apostasy, hurts the poor (the widowed poor in both texts) the most.
Let me say that again: bad religion hurts the poor, it exploits them.
Now, why do I say national apostasy?
Because in the Bible there is no category called “personal” or “private” religion.
All religion is public.
Paul writes in Colossians 1:13, that God the Father “has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”
“Dominion” and “kingdom” are public categories.
Paul does not say the Father delivers us from a world of misery to a world of bliss. We are not dispatched at the moment of our deaths to either the Elysian fields or the shadows of the underworld.
We are delivered from one kingdom and transferred to another, while we are still alive.
Again from Paul, in Philippians 3:20, “our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Commonwealth” is another public category. You cannot have a private commonwealth.
Now, I am not saying that God does not deal with us as individuals. He most certainly does. Neither am I preaching a kind of Christian collectivism.
What I am saying is that a so-called private faith or belief system, or a personal creed — call it what you will — has very public consequences.
And not just in how you vote, or how you conduct your affairs in this life, but also in how God judges a people or a nation.
In a word, an apostate nation is under God’s judgment, as our texts today show.
The famine that threatens to take the life of the widow and her son is God’s judgment.
At the beginning of the chapter, in 1 Kings 17:1, Elijah confronts King Ahab and pronounces God’s judgment on his false religion:
Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”
That is why the widow and her son were starving. There was a drought in the land.
National apostasy hurts the poor saints, the poor widows, the most.
To illustrate the plight of the widow, let’s look at her exchange with Elijah.
Elijah asks her for some water and bread.
The widow protests that Elijah will devour her last morsel.
She says:
As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a cruse; and now, I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.
Elijah then tells her to “fear not,” do what he says, and they all will be provided for.
Fear not, is often used in the Bible as a preamble to God’s blessing on those who trust Him, which the widow does.
For the widow and her son, beggared by Ahab and Jezebel’s national apostasy (1 Kings 16:29-34, 1 Kings 17:1-7), God’s miraculous provision through His prophet, Elijah, will offset the effects of the drought, allowing her and her son to live.
1 Kings 17:15-16:
And she went and did as Elijah said; and she, and he, and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not spent, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by Elijah.
This is a visible blessing on one of God’s poor saints, living in occupied, pagan territory, who, along with her son, almost starved to death because of corrupted religion.
This is one of many examples in the Bible of God providing for His people in a miraculous way, of delivering them from the dominion of darkness and transferring them to the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Human beings need to worship.
Evolutionary biologists, typically no friends of the biblical revelation, call religion “as much of a species-characteristic trait of human beings as the way we walk, talk, smile, and cry.”1
Here, even science is saying that religion is no mere private, personal, and optional trait. Rather, it is innate.
Paul says something similar in Romans 1:19 when he writes, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.”
In other words, God is always telling us the truth about who He is.
The widow is the victim of a religion that does not tell the truth, or, again, to quote Paul from Romans, the widow is the victim of those who “by their wickedness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18).
What the widow wants is true, covenant religion.
What she gets is exploitation. She is exploited by apostate religion.
I want to stress that word covenant.
Because God’s people are covenant people, He honored that covenant by sending them prophets like Elijah, men who, when it was God’s will, could perform miracles to save God’s people from the effects of national apostasy.
Even in our own day, exploited saints, beggared either materially or spiritually by an apostate regime, can expect to be blessed by God.
As we just sang in our Psalm, Psalm 146:9:
Well Jehovah loves the righteous
And the stranger He befriends
Helps the fatherless and widow
Judgment on the wicked sends.
God promises this help because as far back as the time of Abraham, in Genesis 17:7, He promises to help His people.
I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you… to be God to you and to your descendants after you.
We can expect this blessing too, if and when we keep His word.
III.
That said, we are reluctant to keep God’s word because we expect to be devoured by it.
Now, what do I mean by expecting to be devoured by God’s word?
I mean the response that comes from a sinful heart that is in rebellion against God.
You’ll notice I didn’t say the “natural” response.
There is nothing natural about rebellion against lawful authority, and God is nothing if He is not the lawful authority of the universe by virtue of having created it.
Two points about the interaction between Elijah and the widow will illustrate what I mean.
The first is in 1 Kings 17:9. God says to Elijah, “Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” The widow is under God’s law and subject to His commandment.
She must obey, but there is rebellion in her heart. This is the second point.
In 1 Kings 17:12, she says:
As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a cruse; and now, I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.
Notice she does not refer to God as her God but as Elijah’s God. “As the Lord your God lives….”
I said earlier that the widow expects Elijah has come to devour her last morsel.
Why would she expect that?
Because she is used to hearing from corrupt prophets and she would prefer not to be blessed by the votaries of the national apostasy.
Writing in the October 2023 issue of First Things, Louise Perry, author of the book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, describes what archeologists find when they excavate ancient Roman sites:
“First you find the erotic statuary… and then you dig a bit more and you find the male infant skeletons.” Male, of course, because the males were of no use to the keepers of Roman brothels, whereas the female infants born to prostituted women were raised into prostitution themselves.2
What is the link here?
Only to emphasize that religion in the ancient world was a public affair.
To frequent the brothel was a religious act.
To sacrifice a child for the greater good — so that the city could be built or its walls fortified — was a religious act.
Who knows if the widow of Zarephath had other sons, sons who had already been taken from her to be sacrificed on the altars of Baal?
Who knows if she had to resort to prostitution to earn her last morsel in the famine-stricken land?
Corrupt religion devours widows.
National apostasy hurts the poor saints of God.
But corrupt religion is not an excuse, even for widows who have been devoured, even for the poor saints of God, to disobey God’s word.
“Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” That commandment was already part of the covenant God made with His people.
The story does not mean that God called down to the woman from heaven saying, “Hey, you, starving widow, feed Elijah!”
That would do violence to the plain meaning of the text.
Rather, the woman, a daughter of the covenant, is already bound by the written commandments of God.
One of those, Proverbs 31:20, describes the expectation God has of covenant-keeping women to show hospitality.
The proverb says: “She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.”
The widow knew what she was supposed to do, but refused.
Who can subdue a rebellious heart, a heart opposed to God’s word?
The answer is God’s word.
Elijah speaks God’s word, “Fear not,” and the woman’s heart is changed.
IV.
Centuries later, another devoured widow, shows that keeping God’s word can — and has — changed her heart, despite the fact that she’s been exploited by national apostasy too.
In Mark 12:43, Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.”
In commenting on the widow’s sacrifice, Jesus foreshadows His own.
The widow should have been the beneficiary of the poor offering, but she gives nonetheless because she is a daughter of the covenant.
That covenant commands in Deuteronomy 14:28, “At the end of every three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce in the same year, and lay it up within your towns.”
Obviously, she did not have much produce if she only had two pennies to give.
And her tithe should have stayed at home, in her own hometown, but the national apostasy of Jesus’ day saw the centralization of tithing at the temple, in Jerusalem, which had become a tax farm, where the money changers exploited the poor saints of God, and continued to devour the widows.
In Mark 12:38-40, Jesus says, “Beware of the scribes… who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers.”
Christ — standing at the head of all the “poor saints” — is stripped naked by this same apostate regime.
By His death, He “puts in more” to God’s treasury of grace than all the riches of the earth.
And from the divine treasury of the new covenant, He provides grace for us His people in this life, and in the next.
V.
How do we keep the new covenant?
How do we access this grace that Christ has merited for us in the midst of being exploited? In the midst of our poverty as poor saints of God?
We keep this new covenant by keeping His word, just as the widow did, as best she could.
Let us return to the psalm for today, Psalm 146, quoting from the metrical version we just sang.
Food Jehovah gives the hungry,
Sight Jehovah gives the blind.
Freedom gives He to the pris’ner,
Cheer to those bowed down in mind.
Who are the hungry?
Yes, they are the starving, but they are also all “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6) — a righteousness that is defined by God’s word.
Who are the blind?
Yes, they are those who cannot see, but they are also those who are spiritually blind, who cannot see what God would show them in His word.
Who are the prisoners?
Yes, they are those in jail, but not the criminals who deserve to be there, but those who are persecuted because they are faithful to God and to His word.
Who are those bowed down in mind?
Yes, they are those who are sad because of earthly things, but they are also those who do not know to look to heaven for their lasting comfort.
Both widows in today’s lessons kept the commandments of God, and, because they did, they were seen by and kept by God.
They did not allow their exploited status to define them.
They allowed God to subdue the rebellion in their hearts, and, in spite of whatever resentment they may have felt at being — once again — the go-to victims of the national apostasy, they ultimately became obedient to God’s word.
They kept the covenant and so God kept them.
Likewise, for all those exploited by the prince of this world: God sees you and will keep you.
Let us pray:
O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Preached on November 10, 2024 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
Who is the prince of this world?
Jezebel and Ahab led the national ____________.
They worshiped the false god named ____________.
Elijah and Jesus came to do ____________with the false religions of man.
According to the Bible, all religion is ____________.
This means a so-called private faith or belief system, or a personal creed — call it what you will — has very public ____________.
____________ is often used in the Bible as a preamble to God’s blessing.
Human beings have an innate need to ____________.
The widow wants is true, ____________ religion.
What is the sinful heart’s response to God’s commandments?
National apostasy ____________ the poor saints of God.
We keep the new covenant by keeping God’s____________ , just as the widow did.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) What is your first response to being told to do something inconvenient or that you don’t want to do? 2) Who has authority over you in your life? Why do they have that authority?
(1) Satan; (2) apostasy; (3) Baal; (4) battle; (5) public; (6) consequences; (7) “Fear not”; (8) worship; (9) covenant; (10) to say no, to rebel; (11) hurts; (12) word
Jay R. Feierman*, “Biology of Religion,” SpringerLink, January 1, 1970, accessed November 8, 2024, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_135.
Louise Perry, “We Are Repaganizing: Louise Perry,” First Things, accessed November 8, 2024, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/we-are-repaganizing.
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