Hosting the Wild Word of God - Centenary 2016

St Barnabas, Ealing. Centenary Jazz Mass, Sunday 5 June, 2016. Readings.

"Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you." (1 Kings 17:9)

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Writing to the parish on the Golden Jubilee in June 1966, the third vicar of St Barnabas Church, Fr Nevill Hetherington, points out: "It has often been said that it takes 100 years to build a ‘Parish’.“

Well, I wonder what the "Rev Nev", as he was affectionately known, would make of us today. We have, of course, officially already turned 100. The church was consecrated on 3 June 1916. Looking around, I don't think we look too bad for centenarians. But, can we now at last claim to be a proper "parish"? 

It does seem appropriate to reflect on our calling as the parish church in Pitshanger Lane on this most important birthday. What does it mean to the church, the people of God, in this place and time? And what then of the next 100 years? I'm sure we will all agree with Father Hetherington's later observation in that same letter when he says "…building is still going on and progress will, I pray, never cease". 

It just so happens that the story of the prophet Elijah and the widow of Zarephath offers us plenty of rich material with which to reflect on the call and work of God's people. So, turn with me to that reading from 1 Kings in your service books and let's unpack something of what it offers.

I’d like to make just two preliminary remarks before we look more closely at the text:

1. We find the prophet Elijah in the wilderness in this story. In Scripture, the wilderness signifies a time of testing and unexpected gift. Moses, Abraham, Elijah, John the Baptist and, indeed, Jesus enter the wilderness to be tested, to be stretched, to meet God.
2. In 2 Kings 1:8 we are told that Elijah emerges from the wilderness as a wild man. In the storytelling of ancient cultures, the wild man is the embodiment of a threat to civilized culture and the status quo. He is dangerous. Some of the theological implications of the wild prophet Elijah is that the prophetic word of God cannot be tamed, it presents a risk to those who will play host to it. We return to this point a little later.

Turning then to the text. The word of the Lord comes to Elijah telling him to go to Zarephath – "I commanded a widow there to feed you." From this we expect that he will be openly welcomed and graciously hosted by the widow God has commanded. What transpires is quite different to that. At the gate of Zarephath the prophet encounters destitution and dejection. The widow of Zarephath is not primed to be the instrument of the Lord as we would have thought. She says in verse 12:

"As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, 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."

This moment of tension is actually just as miraculous as the events in the rest of the narrative. The widow in her destitution, against all common sense and reason, takes the risk to show hospitality to a wild man of the desert. In so doing, she inadvertently becomes the host of the untamed prophetic word of God. And it is in this way, through risk and vulnerability, that she ultimately responds to the command of God to fulfill her calling. The consequence is the miracle of abundant provision for all of them. The presence of the untamed prophetic word brings transformation and life. In verse 16 we read: "the jar of meal was not empty, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah." 

But does this mean that there is to be no more suffering, no further crisis to endure? No, disease and death come among them. Now the widow regrets her willingness to host the wild man of God. Has the untamed word of the Lord come to bring judgment and punishment for her sins? After all, is this not what we all sometimes expect of God’s presence?

But the prophet refuses to leave or to let God off the hook. In a moment of beautiful poignancy, Elijah asks her to hand him her son "from her bosom" and he lays him on his bed. And then he has words with God. Verse 20: "He cried out to the Lord, ‘Oh Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I'm staying, by killing her son?’" And then he holds God to account. Verse 21 “O Lord my God let this child's life come into him again."

Once more the prophetic word of the Lord brings the miracle of life. However, we should not be too distracted by the wonder of the risen dead or indeed the bottomless jars of meal and oil. The most profound work of the powerful word of God is that in both cases communion is restored; relationships are forged or healed. In both cases the prophet holds the covenant word, the God who is relationship, to account. In the first miracle this holding to account is implicit: "I have commanded a widow than to feed you," – the prophet expects this promise to be fulfilled. And then the holding to account is explicit in the second miracle, when Elijah practically insists that God restore the life the widow’s son in order that relationships may be healed.

The story of the prophet, the widow and the resurrected son, reminds us that the work of God's people is the risky and frequently demanding business of learning to build communion with seemingly scarce resources.  The presence of the untamed prophetic word asks us to open the gates of our hearts, like the widow, to become the host of the wild man from the desert. The theologian Carolyn J Sharp says:

"When we dare to a host the prophetic word, we are transformed. For we encounter a God who delivers the powerless, a God whose word yields inexhaustible abundance, a God whose compassion is stronger than death."

But of course for us, the wild man from the desert is much more than a prophet. He is the saviour himself, the untamed Word made flesh. Just like every generation of Christians, the first question we must ask ourselves is this: are we prepared to take the risk to host the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ? By instinct and through study of the scriptures we know that responding to this question with our very lives is neither pain, nor risk free. In fact, quite the opposite, a lot of the time it can be difficult, cumbersome and even heartbreaking. And yet, our deepest longing is to cry out “Yes! Yes, come and make your home with us. You, the wild man from the desert who is God, who eats with sinners and heals on the Sabbath, we will be your hosts even though we are terrified! Come restore us to our true selves.” 

You see, when we welcome the prophetic word of love into the most vulnerable places and spaces of our lives, we realize just like the widow of Zarephath, that God's power has come among us not for judgment but for life. And we make that gift most visceral, when standing with the neighbour and, most importantly, with the stranger in the midst of their suffering, just like the prophet Elijah and Christ himself. That’s the work of learning to be in communion. When we allow God to speak through our own desperation and suffering, when we find in the devastation, the untamed presence of love. That’s the work of being in communion, building relationships. And that is how we become much more than people who just memorialize the meal of Christ, the Eucharist, every week. We become people who live the Eucharist, who are swept up in the current of Christ’s unexpected hospitality every day. Broken bread, wine outpoured, for each other and the world – a living sacrifice. That’s the good news.    

There's a wonderful scene in the movie The Way. A bereaved father played by Martin Sheen arrives at a bed and breakfast on his pilgrimage along the Camino Way. A group of people are enjoying lunch on the verandah. As he is walking past a man stands up and says brightly "We have been expecting you!" The father is taken by surprise. He says "But you didn't know I was coming." The man responds "You are a pilgrim no? We are always expecting you. We are all pilgrims here."

As we look to the next 100 years, can we keep saying yes to the untamable word made flesh again and again?  I think we can, we are and we will. And because this movement of God is ongoing and uncontainable; because it is risky, cumbersome and even painful at times, the work of being "parish church" – a place of communion that exists for others as much is itself – will, to quote Father Hetherington again, "never cease". We say “yes” to the unpredictable, untamed Word made flesh so that we our lives may say to the neighbour and the stranger "Yes, we have been expecting you. We are all pilgrims here."

Some final words from the theologian Carolyn J Sharp: 

"Elijah's prophetic word points to the One who is the way, the truth and the life. Host that word, know the truth and live." 

"Go now to Zarepath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have come commanded a widow there to feed you." (1 Kings 17:9)

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen