I like to
bake bread. When we came to New Zealand
we left behind a lot of cookbooks but I scanned in my favourite pages from my
favourite bread cookbook so that I have those recipes and directions on my
computer. I have used them many times, most recently this evening. So when I was listening to my
Daily Audio Bible podcast the other day and I heard the story about the “Widow
at Zarephath” in 1 Kings 17, it struck a cord with me. Perhaps what really hit home was the
commentary after the reading in which the reader, Brian Hardin, summed up the
passage with the directive to “Bake the loaf.”
What does this mean?
Some of you
may recall the story. There is a drought
and famine in the land and God sends the prophet Elijah to live by a brook where he is able
to drink water and eat bread and meat brought to him by ravens. Then, the brook dries up and Elijah is told
to go to Zarephath, where there is a widow whom “God has directed” to give food
to Elijah. Now, first of all, it is not
at all clear from the story just HOW God directs the woman to give Elijah
food. It almost seems as though the
first the woman hears of it is from Elijah himself. Perhaps.
God works outside of our constraints of time and space. In any case, he goes and finds this woman
gathering sticks to make a fire to bake her last little bit of flour and olive
oil together to make a meal for herself and her son. She believes this will be their last
meal. There is no food anywhere in the
land and so she is prepared to eat this last little bit of bread with her son
and then wait to die. It’s a
heartbreaking story, really. The woman
is hopeless and yet so full of love for her son that she is going to make the effort
to make the most of their last tiny meal together. So, as she is in this frame of mind, along
comes this prophet of God who asks her to get him a drink of water and a piece
of bread. She tells him her story.
Remarkably, the first thing Elijah says to her is, “Don’t be afraid.” These are the same words that Jesus uses over
and over. These are words that I have
come to understand as “a miracle is coming, wait for it.” Or, to put it another
way, “Trust me, and watch how things turn out.
You’ll be amazed.” Elijah proceeds to tell her that IF she trusts him
and does as he asks, her flour and oil will not run out until rain comes to the
land, signaling the end of the famine.
Now, I don’t
know about you, but if that were me, I’d be pretty skeptical. I realised
as I listened to this story and to the commentary afterward, that this is
something that is played out in my life in so many ways. On a very literal level, what is my response
when a homeless person or a panhandler asks for money? What if they “promise” something in
return? I’ve found that more often than
not I am tempted and, indeed, often succumb to the temptation to turn away or
to offer excuses as to why that person isn’t “worthy” of “my” charity. And then there are the more metaphorical
examples where I may hear a call to do something or to go somewhere and I make
excuses for why I can’t do it or why the call may not be a genuine call. But beyond that, what’s really going on is
that I don’t TRUST the outcome. I don’t
believe that whatever it is will turn out the way I want it to. I can’t imagine how it could ever turn out in
my favour or how it could ever “be right.”
And this lack of faith can paralyse me into doing nothing, staying with
the status quo.
This theme
plays out in other places in the Bible.
There’s Abraham and Isaac, when Abraham actually takes his son to
sacrifice him to God, all the while TRUSTING God’s promise that through Isaac
he will have a nation full of descendants. (Genesis 22) The story seems so barbaric and gruesome to us, sometimes to the extent
that we miss the point entirely. Abraham
LOVES his son and he KNOWS that God knows how much he loves his son AND he
TRUSTS that somehow God will see him through this. And God does. [Why God would put someone through a test like that is beyond the scope
of this post and, frankly, beyond the scope of my theological imagination to
answer at present.]
The other story that
comes to mind is the parable of the talents. (Matthew 25 14-30)
In this one, a man gives “talents” (or money) to each of 3 servants. He goes away and comes back and finds that
while he was gone two of them have invested their money and doubled it while
the third hid his under the mattress (so to speak). He is very angry at the third son for his laziness and obvious lack of shrewdness in investing. This parable could be (and probably is) used
as justification for the “rich getting richer” approach to politics and
economics. However, I see it a bit
differently. I think the
reason this parable came to mind when I was hearing the story of the widow is
because PERHAPS there is a parallel.
Quite possibly, this parable is about the third servant’s lack of
FAITH. He hangs on tightly to the status
quo, to what he’s got, instead of investing it (sharing it, sowing it into a
world of great need), and by playing it safe, he helps no one, including
himself.
And so,
Brian’s commentary admonishes me to “Bake the loaf,” to give it all to God, to
take risks in order to share the God’s grace and mercy and unfailing love with
those who need it. I need to do this
EVEN (or especially) when I feel like I might be down to my last cup of flour,
my last measure of oil, my last penny, my last nerve, my last bit of
compassion.
These
thoughts have been swirling around in my head, mixing it up with the images and
reports I’ve received from various friends on Facebook of the events of the
Montana Gay Pride event this past weekend.
Montana Pride has a history of being very unlike other Pride
celebrations. The first time I went to
one I was fascinated that they held WORKSHOPS.
Most of the Pride events I'd been to in other places involved a big, flamboyant
parade and parties. Maybe there were
outdoor bands and concerts, a dance, a drag show or two, but never
workshops. Last year, I went to a
workshop on faith and sexuality and met some amazing people there, including a
woman named Michele whose son is bisexual and who shared her journey of coming
to accept that. I’ve gotten to know her
a bit more over the past year and she has shared some of her experiences on her blog, Rainbow Icecream. This
year, my friend and “little brother” Tom was director of the whole thing and
apparently did an amazing job (not surprisingly) and a woman whom I know from
GCN (Kathy at CanyonWalker Connections) came to speak and to meet people and to do her amazing work of
reconciliation between the Church and the gay community, especially those (most
of us) who have been so wounded by the Church.
I believe it took someone like Tom, a passionate Christian gay man, to
bring this most unique aspect to a Pride event.
I would imagine this must have been, in a sense, Tom’s “Bake the loaf”
moment. As I described in a previous
post, it’s often not popular for gay people to be associated with Christians or Christianity because of how we have been wounded and rejected by many Christians. Tom and Kathy and Michelle and many
others have responded to that call to reach out in faith, knowing that it might (and does) bring abuse and ridicule and rejection from both sides. It’s humbling, really, to see that kind of
courage. And yet, just like the widow,
just like many of the people whose lives Jesus transformed, just like Abraham,
many of us have found ourselves at rock bottom with nowhere else to turn and
out of that brokenness has come the gift of truly knowing, believing that it
really all comes down to GOD.
I am
challenged by the story of the woman who gave her last little bit of food to a
man of God, TRUSTING that God would come through for her and her beloved
son. I am challenged by the story of the
Apostle Paul who suffered all kinds of abuse for the sake of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ and truly believed God when he said, “My GRACE is sufficient for
you for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
I am challenged by people who suffer unimaginable hardships to bring
that grace and compassion to others. It
all comes down to trust in God to work things according to a plan that I don’t
need to, or really even want to know.
Just “Bake the loaf.”
