December 17, 2017         Rejoice Always!                                        

         One of my favorite Bible Stories is the Old Testament story about Elijah and the Widow of Zarapheth. A number of years ago, I heard a preacher re-imagine this story to give us an insight into the power of God in human life.

         This version of the story had Elijah meeting the woman at the well, where he asks her to bring him some water and something to eat. Now the woman recognizes that Elijah is a prophet, and that she should provide some thing for him, but she shakes her head sadly, and tells him she cannot make him anything, for she herself has been starving for days. All she has is a little flour and oil, and she is going home just now to bake a little cake, so that she and her son, may eat it and die.  A heartbreaking story, if there ever was one.

         But Elijah won’t let it go at that, he tells the woman he will come home with her, and so he does. So far, this is pretty close to the biblical text, but now the imagination begins. Elijah enters the house and sits at the kitchen table, and as the woman brings out the jar of oil and the flour to make the cake, he interviews her. Where did you get the flour? I gleaned it in the field she says. You can glean flour in the field?  - Yes she answers. And the oil, where did you get that? My son got it for working at the neighbors vineyard. You have good neighbors? – Yes, she answers. And your son, is he a hard worker? – yes, he gets hired every day, brings back enough for the next.

Elijah looks around the place and sees plenty of empty jars sitting about, and asks, where did you get all these jars, and the woman replies, my husband used to glean the flour and work for the oil, and then go down to the market place and sell it. And so Elijah said to the woman! You have a Son, you can glean the fields, you have good neighbors, you have all these jars, how come you can’t continue the business!  At this point the preacher stopped his story and said, “we do not know if the woman agreed with Elijah, all we do know is that as long as Elijah stayed with the widow, the oil and the flour never ran out.”

The third Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of Joy. And on this Sunday, we have the reading for Romans in which Paul tells us to rejoice always! Pray without ceasing! Give thanks in all circumstances! And that I believe is exactly what Elijah was doing with the widow of Zarapheth. He was rejoicing in all the blessings God had given her, and encouraging her to find reasons to rejoice as well, so that in doing so, she would find life again! And I think, in this season of Advent, many of us, need this encouragement to rejoice in our blessings, so that we may not get lost in this season of darkness.

At my last church, there was a Catholic Psychiatrist who attended our weekly men’s lectionary group. Every week, for 8 years, when we went around the table to share our joys and concerns, he would share his, and then, he would conclude with the statement, “But life is wonderful!” One time I mentioned to him how encouraging this was, and he said that in his practice he found that he spent most of his time, convincing people who thought life was miserable, that it was indeed wonderful, and so that had become his message, and he had been quite successful with that approach. Think about that....., all it took, to turn around these lives, was a switch from miserable to wonderful, from despair to rejoicing!

In the last few weeks, our scriptures have been calling us to repent and turn towards the coming Christ Child. Now I know, that some of us when we hear the word repent, imagine some fundamentalist preacher trying to manipulate us! But let’s think about what our scriptures are calling us to do – week 1 repent of hopelessness and seek hope, week 2 repent of anxiousness and fear, and find peace, and week 3 repent of despair and find ways to rejoice! In our scriptures, repentence isn’t a means to manipulate us, but to turn us to Christ and to new life!

 One final note, as I thought of my friend the psychiatrist, I am reminded that many people in the midst of advent are afflicted by what are called the holiday blues – I believe seasonal effective disorder is the psychiatric term.  These include, the loss of loved ones, the inability to provide for the Christmas wishes of families, the questioning of life choices, career, marriage, and families often struggle with at this time. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if all it took to heal people of this, was to remember the words of the Apostle Paul, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances!" Perhaps, it's just that easy! And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ!