The Widow at Zarephath: 1 Kings 17 v 7-24: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up’
I have never found myself in a situation in which I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from. When I go shopping the supermarket shelves are full and there is an abundance of everything. Yet all it needs is the suggestion that food might run short and panic buying quickly ensues; just as it did at the beginning of the pandemic. It demonstrates just how much we take things like food for granted. The World Bank estimates that there are 135 million people in the world who are facing acute food insecurity with the consequences of COVID-19 potentially almost doubling that total.
In our reading today the people of Israel are suffering from a lethal combination of famine and bad leadership. Ahab, the Israelite king, aided and abetted by his wife Jezebel, is one of the Old Testament’s premier bad guys who seems to have pursued a policy of keeping his religious options open by promoting the worship of the Canaanite fertility god Baal (1 Kings 16 v 32). Whilst the climactic confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal is still some way off, the narrative is already building towards it by demonstrating that it is God rather than Baal who can both cause and bring relief from famine (v 1).
Poor leadership at a time of crisis can be very costly and Ahab’s deficiencies as a king are exacerbating the suffering of his subjects. Elijah himself is miraculously kept alive (rather ironically by ravens, who are more often thought of as scavengers) and is then sent very specifically by God to Zarephath (beyond Israel’s borders; today it is the Lebanese city of Sarepta) on the understanding that a local widow would supply him with food. But is it the provider and who ends up being the one provided for. With her breadwinner dead the widow is down to her last few grains of flour and her last vestige of hope.
The miraculous provision of food whereby stocks of flour and oil remain at the same level however much is used is meant to remind us that whilst the effects of famine fall disproportionately on the poorest and most vulnerable, they are disproportionately closer to the kingdom of God; a community that great wealth makes it difficult to be part of (Mat 19 v 24). Ahab and Jezebel, back in their palace in Samaria, would not have been going short but they were getting it very wrong and the storyteller has some very harsh words for them (1 Kings 16 v 30-33). The principle that in times of economic crisis the most vulnerable bear the brunt whilst the wealthy grow wealthier holds as true today as it ever did. There is an uncompromising challenge for those of us living in an ostentatiously prosperous society which includes an exponentially rising group of people who are having, often for the first time in their lives, to worry about where their next meal is coming from.
The second half of the story, the healing of the widow’s son, continues the theme of vulnerability. We are not told how old her son was but he was clearly not of an age where he could support her financially. Both the woman herself (v 18) and Elijah (v 20) articulate the widespread belief that a death of this nature represented a judgement of God. But it is made clear in the fact that life returns to her son following Elijah’s impassioned and physically manifested prayer that this is emphatically not the case. Her son represented, perhaps, her last best hope of being able to have enough money to put food on the table in future and his death turns out to be no more and no less than the kind of random tragedy which we in our own day find so difficult to understand. I have found myself in numerous pastoral situations where people have expressed the belief that something very bad that was happening to them constitutes a divine punishment for some misdemeanour. It can very much feel like that, as it did for the widow at Zarephath, but Jesus came to show us that God’s way of doing things does not involve dishing out random acts of retribution to those who displease him. When Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus a window is opened onto the heart of a God who feels for, weeps with and cares passionately for those who suffer.
The widow had reached the point where she felt her life was over and that she wanted to die (v 12) – she had just had enough. Later on in Elijah’s story he himself, following his victory on Mount Carmel and his subsequent flight from the murderous rage of Jezebel, reached his own nadir in the silence of the desert as he implores God to, ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ (1 Kings 19 v 4). For the widow it was grinding poverty that made her life seem worthless, for Elijah it was the sensibility that it was ‘me against the world’ (1 Kings 19 v 10). There are many other reasons why a human being might feel that life is not worth the bother; the loss of a loved one, a struggle with mental health issues, living with a disability, addiction to drink or drugs or the isolation forced on many vulnerable people as a result of COVID-19 (to name just a few). Responding to this acute despair isn’t easy and pious platitudes do more harm than good. Much more helpful for Elijah was that his urgent need for sleep and food was met (1 Kings 19 v 5).
Whilst many reach a tipping point, sometimes driven by circumstances and sometimes by their own failures, at which they feel that they are worthless and their lives are meaningless, that is not how God sees it. This woman was not just poor; she was an outsider as far as the Jews were concerned, living in a part of the world where Baal was the main focus of worship. Indeed when Jesus makes reference to this story in the synagogue in Nazareth implicitly suggesting his ministry, rejected at home, will embrace Gentiles, he barely escapes with his life (Luke 4 v 25-26, 28-30). Jesus’s reference to her affirms that God cared about her, which is why Elijah arrived at her door. Whilst there is much about life in the twenty first century that eats away at our self-esteem and makes us feel devalued, our Christian faith insists that God cares for us too. If any one of us was the only person in the world who needed a saviour, Jesus would have died on the cross for us. He didn’t just give his life for us as an anonymous member of the human race; he knows our name, he knows about our struggles, he knows the things that trouble us and offers us all a sacrificial love that is personal, cleansing, renewing and never ending. This helps us to see our lives, whatever our circumstances may be, from a new place and assures us that we are and always will be beloved children of God.
Questions: Have you or somebody close to you ever felt that life just wasn’t worth living? Is there something practical we can do for a friend or family member today to express God’s love for them?
Prayer: Lord, though we find it hard to love ourselves sometimes, thank you that you love us more than we could dare to hope. Amen.