A few moments ago we sang, "Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace."
Those are beautiful words; they are lofty sentiments. But how? How can such things happen? In an insane world, how can this be?
Till all our strivings cease? Doesn’t that undercut something basic about working hard? Strivings cease? How can that be?
Ordered lives? Who’s got an ordered life? Ask my wife what my study looks like when I’m preparing to preach. Was Hurricane Marilyn through here? Who can live an ordered life to confess the beauty of God’s peace?
Beautiful words, lofty sentiments. But how?
The times were hard. Harder than any they had ever seen. Everywhere you went, you heard the complaints. No work! No money! No food! No nothing! Hard, hard times.
It seemed as though everyone was sick. They coughed and wheezed, they complained of nausea. Everywhere there were signs of malnutrition.
The worst cases, of course, were the children. With those distended bellies. With yellowing teeth and bowed legs. With such weakness that they were susceptible to every disease that came along. Who could even stand to look at the children? It made you feel despair.
Hard, hard times. The hardest.
For many months now there had been no rain. And so the crops, such as they were, were poor, stunted things. No one would buy them. If you tried to eat them yourself, you found them worthless.
The livestock: Poor things, they moaned and groaned all night long, until you couldn’t sleep. But then you learned that when they stopped their terrible moans, it was not because they had found food and not because they had gone to sleep. No, they were quiet only when they had died. Hard, hard times. The very hardest.
Everyone met the situation by doing more with less. There really wasn’t any choice. You couldn’t get more, so you had to do more with less. You stretched everything you had, even though it already seemed stretched to the breaking point. If you had something, you made it last. No more of this business of having to have the newest and the latest of everything. If you still had last year’s clothes, no longer did you listen to the siren songs of fashion; you just put a new ribbon here and added a little something there, and thought of it as new. You had to do more with less. If your child could wear last year’s footwear, you turned a deaf ear to whatever endorsements came from the athlete of the moment or the musician that was current. You just patched and polished and put them back on. Doing more with less. It was absolutely necessary.
In times like these, two personalities emerge. Two ways of dealing with life come through. In tough times, it soon becomes apparent that there are two very different ways of dealing with the emotional strain and stress.
One of these ways is the way of the cup half empty. And the other the way of the cup half full.
One of these ways is the way of pessimism and despair. And the other the way of optimism and hope. One is the way of seeing things at their bleakest and knowing that the end is near. The other is the way of seeing things as difficult, yes, but as the prelude to something better, not far off.
In short, one of these ways is the way of fear. And the other is the way of faith. Two personalities.
I Kings 17: 1-24
The way of fear; the way of faith. The cup half empty; the cup half full.
The widow of Zarephath saw life as a cup half empty. She saw these times as undiluted disaster, and knew that it was only a matter of time until it was all over. Finished, dead and gone, nada, zilch, and zip. The widow of Zarephath lived the way of fear.
The prophet Elijah saw life as a cup half full. He found, in these times, a reason to sing; he found a source of hope. He saw the possibility of a better day. Elijah lived the way of faith.
I
Notice what they are like when we first meet them. Notice how they have responded to drought and deprivation, and where they are in their struggles.
The widow of Zarephath is picking up sticks out on the edge of town, preparing to build a fire and fix her last meal. She and her small son have eked out a bare existence for many months, but this is it. She has been deprived of so much that she cannot see her way out. And her words are telling and frightening. "I have nothing ... only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."
"That we may eat it, and die"! That’s despair! That’s the way of fear! The end of the trail; the tag end of the rope. Sheer hopelessness.
But the prophet Elijah has come to town after a number of months out in the wilderness, where there isn’t much. It’s not the place you go when you are already hungry and hurting. Nevertheless, Elijah had survived the wilderness. He had survived and even thrived in a most peculiar way. Bread and meat and water just came. They were just there. He didn’t scramble or scrimp, he didn’t whine or complain; he didn’t run up and down the grocery aisles at midnight. He just survived. They said that the ravens brought him enough. He just had what he needed. Elijah. Calm; collected; and living the way of faith.
Now I don’t know exactly how we can complain about the widow of Zarephath. She was working hard. She was out there picking up sticks to build herself a fire. She was doing what she could, all by herself. Self-reliance was her motto. The good old American way, had there been an America at that time. You know what we say: we say that you ought to take care of your own, you ought to get out there and work. We say that if people really want to work, there is work for them. We say that if they will just strive, they will survive. And she was doing that. Oh, she was doing that, all by herself. I don’t see any welfare check in her mailbox. I don’t know about any AFDC or WIC or food stamps. I guess not. Strive to survive? That’s what she did!
Then how come she was ready to go home and die? How is it she was ready to give it all up? I don’t know that we can criticize her. But we can try to understand her.
The way of pure self-reliance; the way of taking care of me and mine and never asking a living soul for help ... is it possible that that is the way of fear? The way that leads to despair? Is it possible that when you choose to go it alone and ask for no help, you are choosing the way of fear? Think about that.
But Elijah? Well, when the thing with the ravens ran out, Elijah came to town and asked for help. No hesitation, no false pride, no foolish self-reliance. Elijah, who had already been sustained by the miracle of the ravens; Elijah, who had already had enough ... maybe not plenty, but enough. Elijah called to the widow and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink." And when he got that, with holy boldness, he asked for more. "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand."
Oh, I’ll resist the temptation to preach a whole sermon about holy boldness. About how when we need something, we ought just to ask for it. I’ll not say anything right now about how God may have gifts He wants to give us, and the only reason we don’t have them is that we haven’t asked for them. I’ll stay away from preaching about how we cheat ourselves of the blessings of life because we are so private and so proud. I won’t say anything about that. Not today!
But, you see, the way of faith, Elijah’s way, is to ask for what we need. To ask, knowing that it is there, somewhere. To believe that the goodness of God will override all the shortages of the moment.
Hers was the way of fear. She had done everything she knew to do, and she had done it all by her lonesome. But now she was ready to go home and die. The way of fear. The cup half empty.
But his was the way of faith. He had let his strivings cease, and he had trusted God first, and then trusted others to help. He knew that he couldn’t order his life alone, but he believed that, under God, it could be ordered. And so he was ready to go on living. The way of faith. The cup half full.
So now, maybe we’re getting somewhere. Maybe this is beginning to make some sense. What was that hymn verse again? "Drop Thy still dews of quietness Till all our strivings cease. Take from our souls the strain and stress And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace." Maybe we’re getting somewhere.
II
Except, what happens when the crisis deepens? Except, what happens when you think everything is at its lowest ebb, but it gets worse? And when you think you have made do with next to nothing, you find out you could lose even that.
The widow of Zarephath had reluctantly done what Elijah asked her to do. She took that little handful of meal, and that little drop of oil, and with her heart in her throat, baked it into a cake and fed the prophet. I can almost hear her saying, through gritted teeth, "I guess my boy and I don’t even get our last meal."
And yet, just as the prophet had said, "The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail." Day after day, in the providence of God, life was sustained. Doing more, much more, with less. She was beginning to think there might be something to living in faith. She was beginning to feel that you really could do more with less if faith were one of your ingredients. ’”The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail."
But, watch out. Watch out, because there are habits of mind that come back to haunt us when things get tough again. There are ways of thinking that come back when crisis times return.
The worst of disasters. Her little son became sick, violently sick. It was obvious that he was going to die. No reasonable person could have looked at him and expected anything else.
So the way of fear came back. The way of pessimism, the way of the cup half empty came back. Listen to the anger and fear and despair in her voice. "What have you against me, 0 man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" The words of an angry, fearful mother.
Oh, again, let’s not be too hard on this woman. Let’s understand what it means to live so long with so much loss. We have to grasp what it will do to you to suffer loss after loss after loss. She was a widow, first of all. She had lost that primary relationship. And she had worked so hard, doing more with less, for so long. That wears you down. It just does. Poverty grinds at you, poverty wears you down. And now this: the prospect of losing her child. Oh, let’s understand that loss after loss after loss warps the personality and makes it easy to fall back into the pattern of fear. It makes it easy to feel anger and shame and despair, even though you may think you know better; it comes back very easily. Oh, let’s understand what the way of fear does to you after you’ve been in it a long, long time.
But let’s also understand what the way of faith does in a moment like that. Let’s understand what a hope-filled, faith-filled person does, when a loss is on its way. Let’s take comfort from what a mature believer does in times like these.
Elijah. Elijah doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t argue with the widow. He doesn’t do what I would try to do, correct her theology. He just accepts her burden as his own. "Give me your son." He accepts her burden as his own, and then he takes it to the Lord in prayer! He receives her problem as his problem and lifts it to the Lord, in faith. Her despair he fights with his faith. Her anger he puts over against his hope.
"0 Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again." Three times Elijah stretched himself out on this child and prayed. Three times. Once might have been what duty calls for. Almost any of us would offer up a quick and cautious prayer for a needy sister. And twice might have been what good church folks do. Might make her feel better if we pray for her needs a second time. But come on, the handwriting is on the wall, sister. Face it, this child isn’t going to make it.
Ah, but Elijah. The way of faith. Pray again. Do it again. Don’t give up. Never, never give up. Do more with less. Three times he stretched out upon the child and prayed. Three times, this man of faith, "0 Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again."
And the child’s life came back. "See, your son is alive." See, the way of faith; not the way of fear.
For in the end, it is faith and not fear that will get you through. In the end, it is hope and not despair that God wants to give. In the end, it is life and not death, success and not failure, joy and not sorrow, that God wants us to have. It is health and not pain, it is wholeness and not brokenness, it is victory and not defeat that is God’s will for us. In the very end, it is salvation and not condemnation that He wants. Learn.
Learn from the jar of meal that was not emptied and the jug of oil that did not fail. Faith and not fear. Learn.
Learn from the son who was dead and is alive again. Faith and not fear. Learn.
At this table, learn from the bread that is never diminished and the cup of wine which is the promise of life.
And learn from the Son, the Son who was dead and is alive again, forever!
"Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace."
