By Pastor Frank

1 Kings 17:8-24 and Luke 7:11-17

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“Desperate Hope”

Mark Twain once said,

“It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense.” 

That is just one of the many paradoxical statements included in a book entitled, Oxymoronica, by Dr. Mardy Grothe.  According to the author, oxymoronica is any variety of tantalizing, self-contradictory statements or observations that on the surface appear false or illogical, but at a deeper level are true, often profoundly true.

Oxymorons can be contained in just a few words such as:

A Fine Mess
A Just War
Or,
Brave Politician

They can also be found in oxymoronic statements like:

“To lead people, walk behind them.”  --Lao Tzu

“I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.”  --Anonymous

“I love mankind—it’s people I can’t stand.”  --Charles Schulz

“I hate intolerant people.”  --Gloria Steinem

Oxymorons are filled with paradoxes, things that cannot be easily understood.  The life of the widow in our Old Testament lesson today lived with uncertainty and things that didn’t add up.  An appropriate oxymoron describing her life might be, “Desperate Hope.”
To say that her life is “desperate,” is really a gross understatement, isn’t it?  The word desperate literally means, “having lost hope.”  That certainly seems to describe this widow that the prophet Elijah encounters at the gate to Zarephath.  She has nothing.  The only reason she can rub two sticks together is because that’s all she’s got.  We find out as she and Elijah talk that all she has at home is a handful of meal in a jar, and a small amount of  oil.  She is gathering sticks so that she can go home, make a fire, prepare a last meal for herself and her son before they die.  I don’t know if you can get any more desperate than that. 
All of us can probably remember times in our lives when things weren’t going well.  We might even remember a situation in our lives when things were scarce, maybe even a day when the cupboard was almost bare.  But most of us, thank God, have never had to face the possibility of dying from lack of food.  The widow is facing a desperate time, a situation in which it is hard to have hope.
As I read this story I wondered what Elijah must have been thinking as God has sent him to this town and to this widow for help.  We remember that Elijah prophesied a time of drought because Israel’s king, Ahab, had betrayed God.  The scripture reminds us that he was a king who, “did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him.”  Ahab married a foreign woman, Jezebel, from Sidon, who has brought along her people’s god, Baal.  She convinces Ahab to set up shrines where Baal, the god who supposedly brings rain, storm and fertility, might be worshipped.  The prophet Elijah declares a message that there is only One True God, not Baal, who can bring rain and end the drought.  As you can imagine this message doesn’t go over very well with Ahab or Jezebel and Elijah has to get out of town. 
So he goes into hiding and God looks after Elijah in the wilderness by sending him ravens who bring him food, and by leading him to a wadi that provides water for him to drink.  But soon these provisions are not enough.  The waters of the wadi dry up because of the drought, and so God sends Elijah to, of all places—of all places--to Zarephath in Sidon, where Jezebel came from! 
You’ve often heard it said, and maybe you’ve said it yourself, “God works in mysterious ways!”  The Bible is full of such instances in which God’s actions are mysterious, amazing and even bewildering.  Here is another instance in which God is at work in the most unexpected places with the most unlikely of people.  God sends Elijah to Sidon where Jezebel originated; God gives Elijah a seemingly ludicrous command to seek help from a nobody, who has nothing.  God says that this great prophet will have to rely on the generosity of a stranger, a poor widow, a foreigner, who presumably also worships Baal!  God does work in mysterious ways!
So it is that God brings together these two people who need each other, who are in desperate circumstances and who are hoping that God will provide a way.  Elijah submits himself and asks for help from somebody who doesn’t seem to have the means to help.  The widow responds with an extreme generosity that is hard for us to fathom.  The food and oil are replenished.  Later her son dies; the widow blames Elijah; Elijah blames God; and God restores the young boy. 
Throughout this story we have two people who should have given up.  Elijah was relying on ravens and a widow for his survival.  The widow had no hope for her life and that of her son, but she was still willing to be generous to a stranger.  In the midst of a situation of death, God uses Elijah to bring hope back into this family.  Each of the people in the story represents a “Desperate Hope,” a faith that is present even when all hope appears to be lost.
Someone suggested that the word that best fits the situation of the widow is “desolation,” because it means “emptiness,” and when there is nothing left, when you’re totally empty, there is room for all sorts of grace to enter into your life. 
Our scripture reminds me of an old tale about a young soldier who approached the Teacher.  “I have mastered all of the martial arts,” he said calmly.  “I have risen to the highest rank possible for a man of my training.  I now wish to learn about God.  Can you help me?”
The Teacher smiled and invited the young man to sit at the tale.  “Let’s have a cup of tea,” he said, “before we talk further.”
After the soldier sat, the Teacher began to pour the tea into the man’s cup.  He filled the cup and kept on pouring until the tea was running over the table onto the floor.  The soldier watched dumbfounded until he could no longer be silent.  “Stop!  It is full!  The cup will not hold more tea!”
Placing the teapot on the table, the Teacher addressed the soldier, “You are so full of yourself that there is no room for God.  It is not possible for you to learn until you empty yourself.”
Is it possible that Elijah and the widow became vessels for God only when they were empty, when they stopped being full of themselves and allowed room for God.
I wonder if some of the desolate times we face, as individuals and as a human family, are the result of being too full of ourselves, of not emptying ourselves so that there is no room for God to enter in?  Perhaps that is part of the problem with the oil spill that continues to damage our environment in the gulf region and beyond.  Is it possible that sometimes we just think we know it all, we believe that we can overcome any obstacle, that sometimes we just don’t fully think through the consequences of our actions such as drilling for oil in the midst of water.  Does it sometimes take a moment of desolation, a moment of extreme pollution, the possible extinction of certain wildlife, like the brown Pelican, for us to wake up and see that some things just might be wrong, or perhaps not worth the risk?
And it is so easy to blame BP and others and to say that they are solely to be held accountable for this devastation to God’s planet.  They certainly have to account for many mistakes, they need to pay for the cleanup and for the economic devastation that many families are already dealing with, but if we’re truthful to ourselves, we also must take some of the blame.  We are all part of a culture that quickly uses up resources, that pollute our environment, that may pressure us even to go to war if we feel that our way of life might be impacted if we have to consume less oil. 
Perhaps the message God might be leading us toward may require more regulation of offshore oil drilling, but God may also be telling us not to rely on such resources, to find safer, cleaner, renewable resources and to support candidates, organizations, and policies that promote those changes.  The story of Elijah and the widow may remind us that even in the midst of desolation that God might be trying to speak to us, move us toward change, and bring us closer to an appreciation and reverence for what God has created for us.  Maybe desperateness can produce hope and even change. 
Could this story of Elijah and the widow also be helpful in our own personal moments of desolation, during those situations when hope is in short supply?  We all face those times, perhaps not as desperate as Elijah or the widow, but times when we wonder, “Where is God?” or “What do I do now?” or “Why did this happen to me?” 
And sometimes we get stuck in certain patterns of thinking and acting that lead or add to our despair and cynicism about our lives or the world in which we live.  The story of Elijah and the widow remind us that God can bring newness to old ways of thinking.  I’m sure that Elijah looked at foreigners differently after the help he received from the widow.  And I’m positive that the widow looked at her situation differently after God through Elijah brought her abundant life in the midst of lack and emptiness. 
Is it possible that through the desolate moments in our lives that God is calling us to toward an emptying of ourselves?  Is God maybe calling us toward a faith that is based upon trust?  Is God inviting us to look at different ways of seeing ourselves and the situations we face?  Are there dreams that we’re turning our backs on because we’re not willing to look beyond our closed definitions of ourselves and others?   Maybe the desperateness in our personal lives can actually be the catalyst for hope and even change.
The great philosopher Jean Paul Sarte said, “Life begins on the other side of despair.”  I think Elijah and the widow of Zarephath might have agreed with that statement, perhaps we do too.  May we learn from these two people that even at our worst possible moments, even when things get desperate that  the God of hope still can persist within our hearts.  Amen.