June 6, 2010 Sermon

"Risking, Remembering, Refining"     (I Kings 17:8-16; Luke 7: 11-17)

Rev. Sally Harris
    
Silence every voice in us except your own, O God of mystery and of love; Into that silence, O God of lonely prophet and despairing widow speak your word that we too may experience your grace among us. Amen

Only a little more than fifty years had elapsed since Israel had stood at the pinnacle of power under the leadership of King David and Solomon. Less than one short century had seen the monarchy of God's people move from just rulership to evil tyranny. King Ahab, along with queen Jezebel had rejected the God of Israel and had turned to worship the pagan god of Baal. It was a desperate hour of darkness for the people of Israel. But, as is so often the case, the people of Israel were oblivious to their danger.

They couldn't see that they were being threatened with destruction – for it came not from without but from within.

In this dark hour God finds a person, a solitary soul, a fierce desert hawk, to send to this people in their peril. The prophet named Elijah. The prophet named Elijah called Israel to repentance - to turn back to God.

God was not dead! God had not disappeared! Elijah sounded the alarm that all was not well with Israel. The proof of this would be a dreadful drought. With that pronouncement Elijah challenged the power of Baal - the power of this "storm god. And with such boldness Elijah immediately became public enemy number one.

Elijah's life was in danger. And so God directed Elijah to go underground. No doubt Elijah would have preferred to remain in the public eye. Most likely he thought the more public he was the greater the impact. But God does not always resort to the spectacular. In fact often God accomplishes God's work with the least amount of fanfare and with the least likely characters.

And so Elijah was sent to the backwoods where a filthy little flow of polluted water cuts its way through the dry, barren treeless hills. The brook Cherith was no babbling mountain stream. Its very name meant "the cutting place" where a small seep of water had worn away the rock and stone to form a deep valley in the desert. Going to Cherith was equivalent to going into oblivion. It was going into obscurity. From the limelight of the King's courts Elijah was sent into the cutting canyons of Cherith.

Most of us dread the dark times when the light is blocked and obscure. We don't want to be in the valleys, and we shun the shadows. We aren't at all interested in the "cutting experiences". But the brook Cherith became more than a "cutting place" for Elijah, it became a "communion place". It became a place where God communed with Elijah in the very depths of his soul. Here he found strength and healing for the journey ahead.

It is in our silent times - our times of darkness and aloneness that often we find time for God. In the silence of the wilderness God does commune with us - if we are open to God's movement within us. It was here in the wilderness that Elijah felt the presence of God. It was here that Elijah waited for that still small voice. Here Elijah learned the patient rhythms of God's ways.

And sure enough; soon this little trickle of water that Elijah shared with the ravens and desert animals began to dry up. The next directive from God was even more drastic than being sent to Cherith. Now Elijah was to travel north and west across the full breadth of this sun-bleached land. His next stopping place would be Zarephath, a small village on the outskirts of Zidon, a seaside town on the Mediterranean coast. A place full of foreigners!

In fact, for Elijah to go to Zarephath was to go into enemy territory! The people of Zidon worshiped Baal. God was asking Elijah to suddenly step out of the safe obscurity of a desert canyon straight onto the doorstep of his enemy: Baal. Someone once said: You know its God directing you when you shake your head in disbelieve. It is the cool rational voice that one needs to be cautious about.

No doubt Elijah was shaking his head at taking such a risk. He had to be absolutely sure that where he was going was where God was leading. And so Elijah searched his heart and found that he was in harmony with God. This was not the first time Elijah trusted God. Elijah had a history with his God. Elijah was receptive and attuned to God. Elijah had a relationship with God so that he could literally entrust his very life to this God of Israel. And so Elijah went to "the place of refining" (for that is what Zarephath means: "the place of refining"). And it was there that Elijah found his unlikely savior: a desperate, destitute widow searching for a few twigs of brush and wood for her fire.          (resource: Keller's: Elijah: Prophet of Power)

This is a survival story. It is a story of an unlikely hero and heroine. It is a story of risk and promise; of trust and faith, of companions along the way. Where do we find ourselves in this story? Where do we find the United Church of Canada? As a church I believe we understand ‘the cutting place’. Our church has taken risks and weekly we are drawn back to remember our story. Risking and remembering so as to develop a faith like Elijah's; like the nameless widow?

Someone once wrote: Our memory is the warehouse for our visions of the past. It stores, reminds, reclaims, and reinterprets events that have moved us. The hindsight from past events of God's grace provides us with foresight for the present and the future.

To develop such faith we need to be a reflective people. We need to search actively for God in the events of our lives. We need to trace God's presence in our stories. Elijah, fleeing for his life, and the widow, waiting to die, sparked each other's memories of past God-inclusive visions. They trusted and obeyed their enlightened memories of God' s grace. They knew the faithfulness of God because they had developed a relationship with God. The people we trust are those with whom we have spent time developing a relationship. Those we have risked with and found trustworthy. We discover God's trustworthiness in the same way.
(Italics come from Disciplines, 1991, pg. 321)

In these uncertainty times, more than ever, we need to re-discover God’s trustworthiness. The United Church of Canada is saying that in the next few years 50% of ‘church’ as we know it will not survive. 20% are alive and well and 30% are in a refining place.

The church needs visionaries and those willing to risk, remember and refine the call to bear God’s presence in the world. The church needs faith communities that are willing to lead beyond the horizon. As Henry Ford is noted to say:

If I had done what everyone wanted I would have made a faster horse.

In this place of refining look beyond the miraculous feeding of Elijah
and see two people receptive to the power of God.
Often it is in the place of refining we become open to God's grace.
Often it is in the place of refining that we become trusted partners and friends of God.
And it is in that refining place that often we discover trustworthy companions.
May it be so among us here at our communion place. Amen!

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