...Drought and meagerness is a theme and reality of much of the biblical context and today is no different. After Elijah ushers in the end of a 3-year drought that he predicted, he finds himself in a situation of no food and water. There isn’t anything left for him, he’s at the end of his rope. On the run from the most powerful people in the land, in the middle of nowhere, nothing to eat or drink. His prayer is for death. He prays to God to die because his life is so miserable.
Is that a comment on the nurture and provision of God? Through God we will have what we need. Even if it’s only bread and water, we have enough to get by on.
If we stop and look, there is our sustenance. Or are we too busy feeling sorry for ourselves to notice? Or are we too scared to reach out and receive, worried that it would lead to something else? Or, are we too proud or spoiled to partake?
So, given our current church situation of declining resources amid escalating cost, where is our sustenance? Is there anything we’re overlooking, afraid of, or ignoring? We struggle and strain to strategize and overcome, but it feels like too many factors are piled up against us. Like Elijah.
Although he is lucky enough to speak directly with God, even to experience God’s presence – not in hurricane winds, earthquakes or firestorms, but in stillness and smallness. Is that not where we find our faith, when we are weak and discouraged? God who sides with the underdog cares not for grand gestures of power and prestige. We see that in Jesus’ teachings.
Sometimes we need to be shocked into silence. That’s when we ourselves are quiet enough to hear what God would say to us. The shaking and the rumbling of life’s great catastrophes, the earthquakes and firestorms, bring us out of ourselves, open us to a larger perspective, re-align our priorities. When everything is broken open, the still small voice becomes clear.
In the aftermath, in the what next, in the questions and wondering, we find our purpose and mission. Elijah will go on to anoint kings, appoint warriors and acclaim a new prophet. He will set up these others to influence and affect the kingdom of Israel for generations to come. So that God’s work could be done.
We, as churches, are actually in a position of power and strength in the sense that we have the ability to decide for ourselves what our next steps will be. In our discernment, prayer and vision, we want to further the work of God in this world. We want to follow Christ’s example to love and serve. We want to listen to the still small voice that calls us forward to venture into the world around us, to connect people to their vision and destiny.
In a reality of meagerness, of drought, Jesus continues to invite us to an open table. Granted, anyone who is starving and dehydrated will not find enough nourishment in a cube of bread or thimble drink of grape juice. But the connection to an eternal and endless God of creation and life, the experience of forgiveness, the promise of resurrection and fresh starts, the spirit of renewal and the taste of unconditional love, are all ways that the still small voice is able to break through the raging storms and turmoil of our days.
It’s ceremonial, it’s a ritual, but it is real and brings in communion with a real and present way to express our faith and live in God’s grace. Our sacrament is a modest reenactment of a meal that our Saviour provided, but it means so much and offers so much. At that table we find truth, hope, reconciliation, mercy, justice, absolution, nurture, encouragement, renewal, all that and more. Everything but the kitchen sink.
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