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It seems pretty difficult, in this culture, in this country, to imagine going to gather sticks in order to be able to make one last cake of bread with your last flour and last drop of oil, like the widow at Zarepheth is doing in today's Old Testament lesson as Elijah comes her way. She was resigned that this was her last meal. “As surely as God lives” she says to the prophet — is just as surely as this is the meal before I am to die to this life.
The people in this country who go hungry today either cannot work or will not work due to some mental or physical condition, or due to some sort of dependency on booze or drugs that eats up money that should go for daily bread. If you truly want and need to eat, food can easily be found in our society, cooked, hot, ready to be consumed — and short of sitting down at a gourmet restaurant, it will likely not cost all that much, and it can be found for free in many places.
Not so in Haiti. There, where anarchy reigns in the government, and poverty is the norm, there are no amenities. There are no soup kitchens, no food pantries, and little charity. There is little electricity service, running water a rarity. It is an island nation that is rapidly deforesting its land because daily bread comes by raising little private crops, scrimping and saving to buy what provisions can be found in black markets, and then cutting down trees and gathering wood with which to cook. Our brother Lutheran pastors in Haiti raise monies in this country to support their ministry because their people have almost nothing to drop in an offering plate, if it could even be passed on Sunday morning. They have trained over a dozen new men thoroughly to be pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Haiti, yet these men cannot complete a vicarage internship year because they cannot leave their families behind to subsist for themselves, and can't move their families. If they leave them, they will be worse off than the widow and her son were — gathering sticks to die, with no husband and father to protect them.
Yet, in talking with some of the pastors who are leaders in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Haiti, one of whom worked and studied with me at the Seminary in Fort Wayne while I was there, I have always heard them express the greatest faith and confidence. For those of you who do not know, my Seminary classmates and I have started a perpetual fund to help the Haitian Lutherans train their pastors, seminarians, and lay people in the faith. The Haitian pastors I have talked to are happy for each day the Lord has given them. They joyfully proclaim the Gospel and give the Sacraments despite the poorest conditions possible. When you live from day to day, not knowing always where the next meal is coming from, then I suppose that you learn to trust God's gracious giving of one's daily needs with more clarity. Our culture's phrase for living on the edge of poverty is to “live paycheck to paycheck”. Many other places in this sin–starved creation, it is to live “meal to meal”. Some others, it is to live “day to day” or “hour to hour”. Which seems worse to you?
It seems each election in this country is determined by how mad the electorate is or is not based on how much money is in the bank account, and how many cars we are able to buy, and how big of a home we are able to live in. If those shrink, then the anger at the politicians rises. If those things grow large and fat, then the politician becomes popular. Love of mammon in this country is so grossly prevalent, people are even willing to overlook gross moral misconduct on the part of those politicians — witness what Mr. Clinton was able to get by with during his term in office. I have a strong feeling that the Senator from Idaho who has gotten caught in homosexual misconduct would be safe and sound in his office right now if the economy was vibrant, the war didn't exist, and the Republicans held a large majority of seats in the Senate. If Mr. Clinton was presiding over the current situation instead of the one in which he was in, then his affair may have indeed seen him impeached out of office. Haiti, meanwhile, would rejoice to just have electricity, sewers, and running water.
What about us? Are we anxious about this life of ours, what we might eat or drink, or what we might wear? You and I have no reason to be, in this country especially. Yet we do. All the time. It is easy to get caught in the trap of worried and anxious fretting over the things of this life that our Heavenly Father has promised to provide us.
Do we believe our catechism or not? I believe that God has made me and all creatures, that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all that I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does purely out of Fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.
It seems that too often, we do not believe what we confess. We are caught up in the race to see who dies, as that evil bumper sticker says, with the most toys, and so somehow “wins”. Worse, we have too many so–called Christian preachers out there today preaching a gospel that is no gospel, but law. It goes like this: if you are obeying God, submitting to God, coming to Church regularly, giving a tithe to the Church, then God is going to bless you, give you the house, car, boat that you want, make your family and work–life happy and serene, life will be a big paradise here and now. But if you are having troubles, if things aren't going right, if you are sick, unhappy, have poor family and work relationships, you must be doing something wrong, you must not be faithful enough, you must not be trying hard enough, you must be sinning in some way.
And we will buy into it, in ways big and small. The person sick or stuck in the nursing home will think to themselves, “What did I do to deserve this?” The person struggling with personal problems, with families and children and spouses gone awry, will think to themselves, “What am I doing wrong?” It's easy to think God is slapping your hand every time a high bill or two come your way, or your car breaks down, or other small problems happen. It's all very appealing because it makes us think that we can have a way or method to solve our own problems. If I would just act a little better, be a bit more faithful, things can get better. God becomes important to us only when we feel we need Him. He is there on the shelf waiting for when we get in trouble. And so, when this happens, we have more than one god.
Repent and believe the Gospel. You are not able to serve God and mammon. You are not able to serve two lords, only one Lord. As a matter of fact, you are so unable to do anything to help yourself, our Lord tells us that none of us, by being anxious for the things that this world wants us to idolize, can add one ounce of time to our lifetime, just as surely as you or I cannot add one millimeter of height to our stature. Our anxious thoughts and distressed feelings for the things of this world, the money, the goods, fame, child, spouse, all of the things that we strive to gain for ourselves — are utter idolatry, are attempts to serve two or more lords when there is only a place for one Lord. Repent and believe the Gospel.
The good news is that there are birds of the air and lilies of the field! The Heavenly Father feeds the birds, which have none of the abilities and talents and possessions that we have. The Heavenly Father clothes the grass or straw of the field, which is meant for burning in ovens used in Jesus' time to make clay pottery, with lilies that grow and adorn the field with more beauty then even Solomon could have imagined having, who had more wealth than any person before or since.
O you of little faith, you, and I, who so quickly forget our catechism and our prayers that our Lord has taught us. If God feeds the birds, and adorns the fields with the beautiful lilies, then why oh why are we anxious for that which is promised to us, which is always there for us? The Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things — the blessings described in the First Article of the Creed. He tells us He will give to us all we need, and invites us to pray to Him for all that we need in this body and life in the Our Father, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Our Lord has given you so much more than just what we shall eat, drink, or wear in this lifetime. He has given us Himself, His whole divine being, His love, His mercy, His grace. Jesus Christ gave Himself over unto death, that we might have life, and have it abundantly now, and more importantly, in the world to come. He provides all that we need to support this body and life, which includes not only today and tomorrow, but also for the eternity to come. Therefore, free of the need to be anxious for our daily needs, free of the need to strive after things that are freely given us as gifts, we are free to earnestly seek first God's Kingdom, His Church, and His righteousness that is to be found there. All the other things will be given you as God sees fit and according to His will. You serve God alone by remaining safe and secure in His Church, by being gathered around His Word of absolution and peace proclaimed, by being gathered around His altar where He feeds you with the eternal Bread of Life that never runs our, by being gathered around His font where He has washed you with the eternal Water of life that cannot run dry.
Then, fed and nourished by our Heavenly Father in His Son, we are sent to serve our neighbor with works that God gives us to do, reflecting His love to those around us. We joyfully support the common work of the Gospel here in this congregation and abroad, not to give back to God, for He Himself has no need of our gifts. But we are able in our gifts of service and treasures to use what He has first given us to help our neighbors on God's behalf, reflecting His love. To make it possible for our pastors to preach the Gospel here and abroad. To make it possible for our teachers to teach our children the Christian faith. To bring the love of Christ to our neighbors for their comfort, strengthening, and so that by the Holy Spirit they would be gathered into the true faith by the power of God's Word.
Our Lord makes true service to Himself possible, because He gives us all things. Since He has died our death that we deserved, and since He has risen to the new life that on account of our sinfulness is so undeserved, we have been given all things that it is possible for God to give us. Therefore know, that whether “sorrow, need or death” be yours, you “shall not be forsaken.“ You need “fear no harm, for with His arm, He shall embrace and shield” thee. By God's grace, through faith, for Christ's sake, may we always confess: “What God ordains is always good: so to my God I yield my life, and all that I have and am, for now and eternity.”
God grant it for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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