This week's author is the Rev. Eric S. Anderson, Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference, UCC.
Then the word of the Lord came to [Elijah], saying, "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you." So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." But she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" But he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again." The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, "See, your son is alive." So the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth."
I'm feeling rather like the widow this morning. On the micro-scale, I'm writing this reflection from a colleague's desk, as I work at wiping and restoring her computer's operating system. This tedious, time-consuming and irritating task was required because, despite all our technical precautions, the computer was infected by a particularly insidious malware program, and this turned out to be the most effective way to remove it.
On the macro-scale, my imagination peers into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, where the world's addiction to oil has spawned a surge of crude into the sea. Suddenly we learn that the engineering challenges of recovering oil from wells a mile below the sea pale beside the challenges of sealing one that has blown out. Our fears magnify the potential damage, but the daily gush of petroleum has already poisoned living things of the deeps before ever reaching the marshes with its toxic, sticky tar. We will not be able to read the tragic harm to our environment for months or years.
I'm not ready for the widow's sticks yet, but if a prophet of God turns up looking for a meal, I'm feeling mighty short on resources.
I choose to honor this widow today: to honor her hospitality and kindness. She had no way of knowing that the foreign prophet spoke the truth. She had no assurance that after this last meal cake for the stranger there would be anything more for her or her son. She may very well have anticipated another visit to the town's gates, where the sticks would still be waiting. I note, indeed, that it is not until her son's resurrection that she declares, "Now I know that you are a man of God."
And so I honor as well today the engineers and workers who labor on the next attempt to quell the flow of oil. I honor the Gulf Coast residents and volunteers, who, amidst their tears, try to shield the beaches and marshes from the floating tar. I honor the programmers who work to keep our systems clean, though they are always working behind those whose malice would corrupt them.
I honor them, and I pray that they may find, against all expectation, that the jar of meal is not empty, and the jug of oil does not fail: that the simple supports of life are there to sustain them in the drought until the rain falls again on the earth.
In our droughts, O God, the ones of human malice, and the ones of human failing; in the droughts of loss or loneliness; in the droughts of illness or despair: may we find the capacity to still reach out our hands in hospitality and generosity, even though we do so with tears. And may we find that somehow, against all rational prediction, we renew ourselves in the welcoming and the giving. In the name of Jesus, who told us that all hands we reach out to will be his, Amen.
Please remember:
with joy the birth on May 13 of Chloe Ann Whipple to the Rev. Jennifer DeBisschop Whipple, associate pastor of the Congregational Church of Brookfield UCC, and her husband Ryan; Chloe joins older brother Brayden;
the family and friends of Kathlena Wilson, sister of the Rev. Bernard Wilson, pastor of the Norfield Congregational Church UCC in Weston; she died on May 22;
the family and friends of Phil Meiman, father of Anne Hughes, co-Director of Silver Lake Conference Center; he died on May 16;
the family and friends of Phillip Fidler, father of the Rev. Bridget Fidler, pastor of First Church of Christ, Congregational UCC in Suffield; he died on May 8;
the family and friends of Vera Foot Barker Phillippi, widow of the late Rev. Karl Phillippi, who died on May 8;
the family and friends of the Rev. Hank Tuttle, who served the Congregational Church of Marlborough in the early 1950s, who died recently;
the family and friends of the Rev. Elinor Carolyn Reynolds Bradley, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Millinocket, Maine, and a graduate of Yale Divinity School, who died on May 10;
the family and friends of Grace Gingles Morgan, former Director of Caring Ministries of the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield and spouse of the Rev. Donald W. Morgan, pastor emeritus of that church, who died on April 28;
the family and friends of the Rev. J. Merlyn Bilhorn, pastor of the Road Church in Stonington from 1976 to 1994, who died in December;
residents of the Gulf Coast affected by the disastrous oil rig failure, the families of the workers who died, and all those seeking to contain the well and protect the coastlines;
the Connecticut Conference and the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree, on her retirement: looking to the future with gratitude for her faithful ministry and trust in God's care for her and all the churches of the Conference;
residents of Tennessee affected by severe flooding along the Cumberland River;
the Rev. Noel Velez, former Minister of Hispanic Ministries in the Connecticut Conference, hospitalized in Florida;
Elizabeth Naylor, daughter-in-law of the Rev. Robert Naylor, pastor of the Second Congregational Church UCC in Greenwich, who is being treated for lymphoma;
the Rev. M. J. Hinchliff, pastor of First church of Christ, Congregational, UCC, of East Haddam, who is being treated for cancer;
the Rev. Marcia C. Eveland, pastor of the First Congregational Church UCC of Ansonia, who has suffered a seriously broken wrist;
the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree and her spouse, David, and their daughter Elizabeth, who suffered a stroke on December 12 and is undergoing rehabilitation;
the Rev. Nancy Allen, associate minister of Immanuel Congregational Church UCC in Hartford, as she undergoes cancer treatment;
the people of Haiti amidst the devastation of the earthquake, the people who seek to aid them, and those who grieve for their losses;
this nation, that it may continue its difficult work to end the practices of racism;
the Conference's partners working for peace in Colombia amidst violence;
the leaders of this nation, that they may meet the challenges of the day with insight, wisdom, and compassion;
those suffering due to the ongoing financial woes of the nation, be they struggling to meet an unaffordable mortgage, confronting the loss of a job, or working to find just resolutions to the crisis; and
those serving or living in war or conflict zones around the world, or where terrorists have struck, particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, and the Sudan.
To be added to the prayer list, please send an email to Rev. Eric Anderson at: webmaster@ctucc.org.
Waterbury
Bunker Hill Cong'l Ch.
P The Rev. Jon T. Zappulla
CE The Rev. Waldo R. Landquist
Waterbury
First Cong'l Ch of Waterbury, Inc.
P The Rev. Kenneth A. Frazier Jr.
Waterbury
Mill Plain Union Church
P The Rev. Mark D. Pilletere
PE The Rev. Harry P. Shirley
Waterbury
South Cong'l Church
PT The Rev. Robert J. McGrath
Watertown
First Cong'l Church
P The Rev. Samuel A. Dexter
PE The Rev. William J. Zito
CE Ms. Nancy Harrell
MM Ms. Susan Theodos
To read previous editions of the Spirit Calendar, visit:
http://www.ctucc.org/fido/spiritcalendar/
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http://www.ctucc.org/fido/
The Spirit Calendar: June 01, 2010 by Rev. Eric S. Anderson, Minister of Communications and Technology
