Wrapping Up Elijah

 

For the last several weeks in worship, we have let the Elijah narrative read our story (the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others).  As the sermon series on Mr. Swing Low Sweet Chariot fame winds down and wraps up, I invite us to look back at the threads and themes we’ve discovered in the fabric of this Biblical narrative. 

 

One of the throughlines of Elijah’s story is food.  Elijah is fed by a raven who arrived with a French Baguette in its mouth every morning.  Elijah is fed by the fiercely faithful widow who rolls up her sleeves and with God made endless breadsticks for her son, herself, and Elijah.  And Elijah is fed by an angel who arrives with hot cakes and water when he is out in the wilderness under a broom bush.  Elijah gets more food brought to him than room service at the Ritz Carlton.  Maybe pastors should look to Elijah for the reason why congregants years ago would pay us in casseroles and chickens and Jell-O salads.

The question I have for you is, what is feeding you?

The awkwardness of that question is intentional.  It is a take on the question my mom would ask me when I was in a grumpy, grouchy, no good, rotten, mood some mornings.  She would say, “What’s eating you?”  The heart of that question is trying to get at what is gnawing at you, needling you, pushing the nuclear codes of your emotions in that moment that is causing you to erupt like a volcano covering everyone around you with hot lava. 

What’s feeding you is a wide doorway to walk through.  You can answer this literally, what are you eating?  How does it sit in your stomach?  You can answer this metaphorically, how are you consuming the news of the day, or the words people say (sometimes don’t say), or the actions that you are absolutely certain the person meant as a slight when perhaps the person was so wrapped up in something someone had just said to him, he didn’t even really see you.  We can ask this question looking at what is feeding our souls ~ in both hopeful and hurtful and blink and you miss it kind of ways.  We can ask this question individually and collectively ~ where the “you” becomes a group of people.  What is feeding our church right now?  What is feeding our small groups or Teams or Moderators.  What is feeding Sarasota?  What is feeding the United States?  What is feeding our world?  I encourage you to move beyond binary, either/or, have to have a definitive and absolute opinion one way or another.  Hold the creative tension that we encounter and experience brokenness and beauty every day.  We live with the truth of being God’s beloved and that like our first ancestors we hide from God, others, and ourselves (see Genesis 1 and 2), every day.  What is feeding you?  May God’s love fill your soul, stomach, from the top of your head to pinkie toe this day and this week.  Amen.