1 Kings 17:8-16 Turning Points - Pastor Paul Larssen

History often turns on very small hinges.  Most of us never know the effect that seemingly small incidents have on peoples' lives or even history.  A word of praise, spoken at a critical moment, can raise someone up to new heights. A word of ridicule can scar a person for life.  Our actions are like ripples on a pond caused by the toss of a pebble.

The moments that change someone’s life are not just mountaintop experiences. Sometimes they are seemingly insignificant happenings.  The Bible is full of such stories.  Indeed the Biblical writers are fascinated with lives of ordinary individuals whose actions changed the course of history.  When we are willing to trust God, the smallest, most ordinary action can produce the most life-changing and history-changing results. 

That was the case in the life of Elijah, who would one day challenge the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel and become a legendary figure in the history of ancient Israel.  So great was Elijah that people in Jesus' time wondered if John the Baptist was Elijah returned.

It was when Elijah was still young in the 9th century BC that Ahab became King of Israel.  1 Kings 16 summarizes his reign by saying:  Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.

Ahab was a wicked king and on top of everything else, he married the legendary Jezebel, an evil and idolatrous woman, whose father was the King of Sidon - a region north of Israel in what is now Lebanon.  Jezebel and her whole family worshipped Baal and Ahab soon embraced this idolatrous faith. 

The first time that we meet the prophet Elijah in the Bible, he is being sent to warn Ahab that what he is doing was destructive to the heart and soul of Israel.  This was a tough assignment for this backwoods, inexperienced prophet from Gilead.  There was nothing in Elijah's background which would induce Ahab to listen.  He wasn't from a powerful family, he wasn't wealthy, he wasn't even a priest.

During his very first encounter with Ahab, Elijah announced that because of Ahab's evil behavior it wouldn't rain again until Elijah said so.  Ahab, Jezebel, and the members of the court probably just laughed at him and his insolence.  Elijah ran back to Gilead and went into hiding.  

Ahab and his friends may not have even remembered the silly prophet from Gilead, except that the spring rains never came that year.  And as summer progressed it was evident that a drought was upon them.

Elijah was tucked away in his hideout beside a mountain stream where God sent ravens to bring him food each day. But as the drought deepened the anxiety level rose.  The crops didn't grow.  People became hungry.  And Ahab began to hunt for Elijah. 

Elijah, of course, was affected by the drought, too.  Eventually his stream dried up, and the ravens quit coming.  What would happen now?  Could Elijah trust that God would provide?  As we discover later, Elijah was prone to swings between courageous action and deep anxiety.  Now, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount said to his disciples, Don't worry about what you will eat and drink.  Your father knows that you need these things...but seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.  Trust is leaning into God's character and goodness.  It is believing that God does care, despite the appearance of our circumstances.  But trust comes slowly and must be reconfirmed often in our lives.

A friend’s father recently died at the age of 93.  For the last ten years he had been the sole caregiver of his wife who has Alzheimer's.  He prayed and prayed that he would outlive her, but as cancer began to claim his body, he had to face a new crisis of trust.  Could he trust God with his wife's safekeeping?  Most of us would like to be in control, but in the end control is just an illusion. Every day we must learn to trust.

Elijah was challenged to trust in God's care, but imagine his consternation when God sent him to a new location - 100 miles away - to the little village of Zarephath.  And here's the rub:  this town was just eight miles from Jezebel's hometown and in the heart of Gentile territory.  I can only imagine Elijah's fear as he journeyed to Zarephath.  But journey he did - because he was faithful to God's call.  This may not have been a great place to hide out, but it was a terrific place to learn to trust God.

When Elijah walked into Zarephath after his long journey through a drought stricken land, his lessons about trust were not over.  Where would he stay?  What would he eat? 

Once there, in Zarephath, Elijah encountered a poor widow - a single mom - with problems of her own.  Elijah asked her for a cup of water and a small cake of bread. It turned out the widow was collecting sticks to light a fire so she could bake a little cake out of the last bit of flour and oil that she had, fully expecting that after this she and her son would starve to death.  Nevertheless, at the word of Elijah she was willing to provide hospitality one more time. 

This ordinary, humble woman couldn't have imagined what her quiet act of hospitality would ultimately accomplish, nor that we would be reading her story nearly 3000 years later.  History turns on very small hinges.

Every day as Elijah and the widow and her son ate their little cakes of bread, they were reminded that God could be trusted.  And every day their faith grew.

Then the big test came. The boy grew sick and died. The widow was furious and blamed Elijah thinking that his presence in her life caused God to be reminded of her sins. Elijah was also angry and accused God of killing the widow’s son. We tend to do that when someone dies. We blame God instead of the drunk driver or the disease or the other things that cause death. But Elijah also knew that God is the God of life and he prayed for the boy and raised him to new life. Our prayers probably won’t raise our loved ones to new life, but God has promised to. God has promised that even though we die, we shall live. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus we have the promise of a new and eternal life in God’s kingdom. We can trust in that promise and that promise can fill us with hope and give us the strength we need to face whatever comes our way.

When the child was restored to life both Elijah and the widow learned again that they could trust in God. It was another in a series of lessons in faith for Elijah. And there would come a day when Elijah would need all of these lessons because his life wasn't going to get any easier. 

The lessons of trust may look small but so much rides on learning these lessons.  The ripples move out from the tiny pebble of faith cast into the water of history.

A young, Ugandan teacher by the name of Christine Nakalema tells of growing up in a rural village.  When she was five years old and her sister Harriet was seven and her little brother was four, their parents died of AIDS.  For almost two years she and her brother and sister lived on their own.  No parents, only the food they could scavenge from the fertile Ugandan countryside, no one to care for them, and often huddling in the corner of their mud hut because the roof would no longer hold out the rain.

There wasn't anyone to care for them because most of the other adults in their village had died of AIDS too.  Eventually, they were found by a local priest who was helping World Vision, an international relief organization, to make a census of the orphaned and vulnerable children in that district. 

Far away in Australia, a young, newly graduated and very ordinary teacher, named Julie Ann DeBattista, saw a World Vision ad on TV. She decided that she would use a little of her new salary to sponsor a child.  It was a small step of faith for her. She was matched with Christine in far away Uganda.

World Vision built the children a new home, ensured that there was enough food and clothes, and paid for their school fees.  When Christine's brother got very sick, he got medical attention.  They became part of a local church where some older children and an aging priest also helped them.  They began to take conscious steps toward faith.  Julie Ann, in far off Australia, continued to pray for and to sponsor Christine and when Christine went off to teacher’s college, Julie Ann supported her there too.

Upon graduation Christine taught school in the village where she grew up.  She was now educating a whole new generation of children.  And she says, If it were not for God's love, and our church and World Vision, I would be dead.  If I had survived childhood, I would have probably been forced into prostitution as a teenager, only to die of AIDS before I was 20. Instead, she is now changing history in her village - one step of faith at a time.  Julie Ann in Australia could never have imagined what her very small steps of faith and her contributions would one day accomplish for hundreds and hundreds of children.

Their story is riddled with those tiny steps of trust and faith.  It reminds us that God is faithful too. 

Trust grows with the small steps of faith each of us take as we step toward Jesus rather than away from him. We are blessed by the small steps of faithful obedience we take when we are attentive to God’s call to help others around us.  There is no act of faithfulness which is too small to be usable in the hand of God.

The widow of Zarephath, Elijah, my friend’s dying father, Christine, and Julie Ann all trusted in God. They can be teachers and tutors in our own journey as we seek to learn to trust and to be attentive to what God may be calling us to do on a daily basis. 

You never know what a difference your working on a Habitat house or contributing to Habitat for Humanity might make in the life of a homeless family.

You don’t know what your gift to support a student going to an ELCA college might mean to their future.

You may not be able to imagine what a gift to ASP or our companion congregation in Tanzania or our local mission partners here in the Twin Cities might mean to someone’s journey of faith.

Your word of encouragement or sharing of your talents and abilities to serve someone else, may just change someone’s life.

We are simply called to take our small steps of faith and entrust the results to God.  Who knows how God might use our daily steps of faith to do far beyond all we could think, ask or imagine? History, you see, turns on very small hinges when it is in the hands of God. 

Amen.

GUIDED BY THE GOSPEL: GATHERING • GROWING • GIVING