Living in the Presence of Love

1 Kings 17:8-24

The simple lesson from the story of Elijah and the widow is love one another; it can move the earth. 

Elijah was not the easiest person to be with. A life on the run from the powers that were left him embittered, crusty, opinionated, and edgy. A good deal of his story is a collection of whining complaints--God is not fair, life is not fair, and no one listens to him. He wound up with the widow because of all this unfairness. Still on the run, God protects him by hiding him in the wilderness, but famine leads to an alternative plan--Elijah will live with the widow. Oh, joy for her!

As if she needed the stress. She is a widow. In her ancient world, that was tantamount to dying because no one had to take responsibility for her. If she was out of male relatives who were charged with taking her in, she was on her own, and her options were about as limited as someone thirsty holding a rock. Now she has a grumpy coot to care for. 

Yet, something remarkable happens. As Elijah resides with her, entering her experience, her meager fare holds out--there is always something to eat. As Elijah resides with her, he is safe and far removed from the threatening people after him. 

What we find here is love in one its purest forms--simple mutuality. To survive, they have to become interconnected and interdependent. 

That is true even for us not in the throes of duress--we need other people, other people need us. As we recognize how we can care for one another, we make it. It comes through something as simple as lending a helping hand. It comes through something as profound as taking in someone helpless and lost. It comes as we find our needs met by someone else, and then reciprocate by meeting their needs as we are able. That is mutuality.

As Christ walked among us, mutuality was something he fostered. That is the real miracle of the Feeding of the 5000--I do not believe Christ made bread and fish magically flow out of thin air, I believe that as he sought to care for the crowd before him, he inspired others to take stock of what they had, and they realized they actually had more than enough. They just needed to see with the eyes of mutuality.

That miraculous multiplicity is available to us.

As my son moved into his new apartment after a summer abroad, suddenly bags of clothes appeared. “Give these to Goodwill,” he said. Now, if you really know my son, you know that clothes are not simply things to wear. Fashion is how he meets the world. There is an art to matching tops and bottoms, with shoes and hats to boot. When we moved him to college, it was ridiculous--we weren’t trucking heavy furniture or TVs, we were hauling tons of clothes. But this summer, he gained a different perspective. It suddenly struck him that a person can only wear so many clothes. So the thinning began. He saw others who had little to wear. He had an abundance. Let someone else enjoy the bounty. Mutuality bloomed inside him. 

Someone may well raise an eyebrow, “But that’s nothing.” Maybe. Someone will have fresher clothes, though, someone who may well have had very little to wear. Now there will be clothes. 

Simple acts of love lead to life changing power. They build on one another. They flesh one another out. Simple acts of kindness, done again and again, transform both the one doing them and the recipients. It is like an old aphorism somebody’s grandfather would be wont to share--”Pennies become dollars.” The more we do for love, the more love becomes simply a piece of who we are, mounting up. Starting small, we realize that bigger reaches are possible. What happens to the recipient is that the light of hope fires more readily within them and for them. Someone cares. Someone helped. Someone listened.  There is reason to believe that human beings can be good at heart. There can be trust, engagement, and reciprocity. 

For the widow, the bottom fell out--her son died. What little hope she had failed. What little joy there was vanished. But her loss occurred as she was interconnected to Elijah. Their established mutuality took a new turn. Knowing her, knowing her experience, Elijah knew what such a loss meant. He also knew God. Perhaps it was this moment that awakened within Elijah the realization of how present God and God’s love had been with him. Perhaps it was simply time to confirm what Elijah already knew of God and God’s redemptive power--Elijah still stood despite all the efforts of a mad monarch and his wife. So, Elijah deeply connects with God. Through God, the child lives. Love literally resurrects life from the dead. 

For us, that is the message of Easter--Christ rises from the dead, changing death from an end into a gate. No matter what we face, from the literal end of life to the more metaphorical ends of dreams, hope, or health we face daily, God wills life for us. We can meet the suffering of others with hope. We can meet the suffering of others with comfort, care, and compassion, despite all the odds against their being able to change anything. There is hope.

That is the ultimate power of love. There is no circumstance, context, or conundrum beyond the power of God to redeem. 

Our task then is to believe and do likewise.

See the connection between us. See that interconnected intertwining not as a burden or a trapping net, but as our possibility. As we walk with one another, work with one another, and wait for one another, we find our way. We find the way through what faces us. We find that living in the presence of love is a good place to be. 

Love can change the world. 

Try it.