Pentecost +2 Sunday – C1

Pentecost +2 Sunday – C1

Years C
1 Kings 17:8-24

It is very easy to move this passage into a prosperity theology - Give me your last dollar and you'll be mightily rewarded with a never-failing supply of dollars - your resource base (read, "son") will be restored to you and see you through the rest of your life.

Isn't it intriguing that with a goose that lays golden eggs, we are still fearful and ready to blame G*D for not being only a positive force in our life. Here the widow still had her unending supply (good) but loses her son (bad) and that the latter is seen as G*D's judgment, not the former.

It is as if the wonders of G*D are very Rodney Dangerfield-like - they get no respect and will be set aside on a moments notice. These wonders have a very short shelf-life before we look around for more coming our way and are easily distracted if we don't keep getting something that is better today than it was yesterday. G*D is like an addiction, we keep needing ever bigger signs/rewards and diminishing difficulties. If it doesn't work this way then we search around for a G*D that is more manageable.

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Zarephath synonymous with impossible situation
an immigrant asking a starving national for food

time after time
the impossible presents
an imposing face
will god be god
in a foreign land

god as hospitality
shows up regularly
in every out-of-the-way place
in what appears
as extraordinary valor

hospitality is built-in
to creation's action
most evident
where death appears
to limit

those most well-practiced
at ease with real death
work through dilemmas
delineating me from you
resolved in hospitality anyway

Zarephath a hidden away place
a closed room
revealing a wondering spirit
binding our common lives
with hospitality language