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Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

November 07, 2024
By Rev. Joshua Reinke

Text: 1 Kings 17:8–16 
Theme: Rich with little


Outline
1.    Widow, at Elijah’s request, meets His need with little to offer, Lord richly and daily blesses her
2.    We often want to hold onto what we have, as small as it may be.
3.    God forgives us of our selfishness and empowers us to give fully for His work.

 

Sermon
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament lesson of First Kings chapter seventeen verses eight through sixteen.

 

Intro: Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Do you have a lot of things? I am sure that your parents provide you with a lot. They give you toys, food, drink, and many other things. You may not have a lot but a lot is provided for you. This is what we see in our reading for today. The window at Zarephath does not have a lot, only flour and oil. Yet, God richly provides for her , her son, and Elijah that through the time of the drought, they never run out. How does God richly provide for us today? Ponder that question as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.


1.    Widow, at Elijah’s request, meets His need with little to offer, Lord richly and daily blesses her


In our text for today, we see the prophet Elijah in the midst of a severe drought. He is sent, not to any of the widows of Israel, but to a lone widow at Zarephath to care for him. This drought has covered more than just the land of Israel. It is outside Israel’s boundaries in Gentile territory. The importance here is that it shows that Yahweh had also produced a drought in Baal’s own home territory.  Baal cannot even take care of his own territory. It is fully under Yahweh’s control, as is everything. 


At Elijah’s request for a some water and a cake. We see the dire straits of this poor widow. She is in the city gate, gleaning for a few sticks that she might make a small meal for her and her son, and then await death by starvation. Grain and oil were two of the major exports of the city of Zarephath. The fact that they were in short supply is an indication of how severe the drought was. They are also two of the most basic commodities for survival . The widow has enough for only a single solitary meal for her and her son before they face death. She’s probably thinking, “Great I cannot feed my own son but now I have another mouth to feed in this man of God
Yet, the widow grants Elijah’s request. She goes, gets her flour and oil, makes him a cake and returns. She takes Elijah into her house. Every single day, a new miracle. The flour is still there. The oil has not run dry. It is never plentiful, but it is what they need to survive. The Lord rewards faith and richly supplies all that the widow, her son and Elijah need for daily bread. The meager amount never runs out, new each day is the Lord’s mercy.

 

2.    We often want to hold onto what we have, as small as it may be.


Truly the Lord’s mercy is new every day. Even for us. He gives us our souls and bodies as well as everything that we need to take care of them for this body, life, and life everlasting. Sometimes the Lord gives us a lot. Other times, like the widows in our Old Testament and Gospel readings it’s a small meager amount. 


What do we do with the amounts that we have been given? Often times, we often want to hold onto what we have, as small as it may be. When faced with a situation like the widow at Zarephath, our response would be one of selfishness. “No, I only have a small amount.” “I am going to keep it for myself and my son.” My wants, my desires, my needs take first and foremost priority. We turn inward out of concern for our own survival. If your last supper is on the way, don’t give it away. If you’re down to your last penny, don’t give it away. That’s how we think. We will even justify it in our minds saying, “Certainly God understands the nature of scarcity.” Yes, he does. The problem isn’t with him; it’s with us. We’re happy to feed the poor when cupboards are full, happy to give . . . donate . . . tithe when the account is overflowing. When it gets down to it, we tend to trust in our abundance. When things get scarce, we turn inward on ourselves, depending upon ourselves rather than God. 


Many times we do this to the hurt and harm of our neighbor. We are so focused on our own wants and needs that we do not stop to consider the needs of those around us. Even worse, we look down upon and demean those who are poorest among us, those who might need the most help. We dismiss them and hurt them, often to our own harm.


3.    God forgives us of our selfishness and empowers us to give fully for His work.


In the midst of scarcity what should be our response to the needs of those around us? The accounts of both widows teach the same lesson: God uses scarcity as a doorway to trust. Trust in the Lord and his provision is the only way either of these stories makes sense. A widow obeys, and they all eat for days. The Bible doesn’t say what happens to our other widow, but the point is clear: When We Trust in the Lord, There Is Always Enough. That’s easier said than done, of course, but it really should be no surprise, because God has been using scarcity to lead his people to trust for a long time. When the Israelites were wandering forty years in the desert, God provided manna in the desert and brought water from a rock.


We even see it in the New Testament. With just five loaves and two fish, how many thousands of men, women, and children did Jesus feed (Lk 9:10–17)? 5,000 men besides women and children. There was so much abundance they even had leftovers, because with Jesus there is always enough.


Yes! Jesus is always enough! A lesson we struggle to learn, but one that time and again points us to the cross. Jesus came to be enough—more than enough to pay the full price of our sin. His mission was not about multiplying food to fill our earthly stomachs but about ransom and restoration to free our souls and fill us to overflowing with grace and forgiveness. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that Christ came to be enough: “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (9:26).


Having forgiven us all of our sins of selfishness, pride, and scorn by taking them upon Himself, Jesus gives us His Holy Spirit in the waters of Holy Baptism that you may indeed trust in Him to provide for all of your needs, both your physical needs as well as your eternal needs.

 

Conclusion: It is into the full sufficiency of Christ that you have been baptized. You have been joined with him in his life, death, and resurrection. You are credited with his righteousness, empowered with his grace, crowned with his glory, and loved with a never-ending love. So perhaps the next time you find yourself facing scarcity, wondering if you have enough, remember that with Christ there is always enough. When you are down to the last dollar in your wallet and you happen across that person in need of a helping hand and you’re wondering if you can afford to give; remember with Christ there is always enough. As God’s redeemed children, we need not fear scarcity because our Father is a God of rich abundance. When we put our trust in the Lord, when we put our trust in Jesus, we can be sure, no matter the circumstances, there is always enough. 


The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
 

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

August 08, 2024
By Rev. Joshua Reinke

Text: 1 Kings 9:1-8


Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.


My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament lesson of First Kings chapter nine verses one through eight.


Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever been really sad?  I am sure that you have. Sad when things do not go your way, sad when something you were really looking forward to was taken away as a punishment. Today Elijah is sad. He is so sad that he is ready to die because he thinks that life is no longer worth living. God tells him have a rest, have a snack. He shows that He is still with Elijah even when he is so sad. How does God show His grace and mercy to Elijah? How does He help us when we are sad like Elijah? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
 

Elijah has had it! Yahweh had just given him what any faithful prophet would call his greatest triumph. At Elijah’s request, the Lord had just sent fire from heaven to show Israel who was God! Not the Baal and Asherah of those weakling prophets who couldn’t raise their gods if they’d had a megaphone or a telephone, no matter how hard they danced or cut themselves, but Yahweh. “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God,” the people had all shouted (1 Ki 18:39). Then they’d rounded up and killed those 850 pagan prophets. At least for a day, Elijah was king of the prophets!
“Not so fast, Elijah!” said wicked Queen Jezebel. “By tomorrow I’m going to see that you’re as dead as my beloved prophets.” And so Elijah runs—out of the country, out of the neighboring country, out into the desert. And when he stops and catches his breath, he prays, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life” (v 4). I am ready to die. From the heights of a mountaintop experience, Elijah now has the lowest of low feelings.
 

“I’ve had enough!”
    Look at it from the prophet’s point of view. He has endured years of deprivation: isolation, hiding, worry, hunger, getting by on meager rations, knowing he is hunted. To everyone else he seems strong, wise, successful, but to himself he seems a failure. And so he says, “Enough!” This is how he begins his prayer to God! “Enough!”


You are no Elijah, but I wonder if you know how he felt. To all those sitting around you, I’m sure you, too, appear confident, put together, responsible, much like Elijah. But how do you see yourself—after years stuck in the same job? after all this time striving to make ends meet? with the long list of troubles that you could name, but you don’t want to sound like a complainer? Much of the music we hear on the radio expresses this theme, “I’ve had enough.” Lost love, loneliness, the death of your dog, and the rust on your pickup truck all show up in the list of our miseries.     Garth Brooks sings about having friends in low places. Indeed Elijah, as well as us, has the greatest of friends, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ not only in our heights but as well as the lowest of our lows.


    Country music didn’t invent this kind of song. Listen to the complaints of a songwriter in the seventeenth century: “It is enough! Therefore, Lord, take my spirit from here to the spirits of Zion. . . . There is enough of the misery that crushes me! . . . There is enough of the cross that almost breaks my back; how heavy, O God, how hard is this burden! . . . It is enough” (“Es ist genug,” Bach Cantatas Website). In its original German, this hymn was called “Es ist genug”—literally, “It is enough,” taken from the very words Elijah cried out to God.


Transition: But when Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata on the last verse of this hymn, he turned this cry of despair into a hymn of hope and longing for the Savior. Today this hymn doesn’t appear in our hymnal, but the tune for it does. You know it by this title: “I Am Content! My Jesus Ever Lives” (LSB 468). To this melody of despair, we sing about the victory of our Savior over death.


“I am content! My Jesus ever lives.”


    Elijah was sustained by the “angel of the Lord” in the desert (vv 5–8). He was given enough to go on, although his problems were not immediately taken away. Elijah was revived. He walks forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, better known as Mount Saini where he encounters God in a still small whisper. Elijah did not see the final fulfillment of his hopes. The fulfillment of God’s promise that Elijah longed to see was reserved for you. You may experience the same sense of despair. You may have the same long list of troubles. When we are overwhelmed by our jobs, all the work laid upon us, or lack thereof and the harshness of finding one. The despair when we fall into sin and injure those around us. When we fail to live up to our own expectations, the expectations of those around us, or the expectations that God has for us as His people. When people fail us as our hopes and dreams lay dashed upon the ground. Many times, we feel like Elijah, “Enough.” 


    But you have received help from that same angel of the Lord—when he became a man in the person of  Jesus. Jesus never said, “It is enough,” until he indeed had done enough to pay for all our sins, taking them to the cross. And that was enough! The work of saving us is finished! Like Elijah, as we saw last week, Jesus has fed you with bread that sustains you. Not just ordinary bread and water but his own body and blood, which are the food of healing and life. And so our complaint of despair is transformed into a song of resurrection victory that we may indeed sing: “I am content! At length I shall be free, Awakened from the dead, Arising glorious evermore to be With You, my living head. The chains that hold my body, sever; Then shall my soul rejoice forever. I am content! I am content!” (LSB 468:4).


We May Tell God, “I’ve Had Enough,”
but Jesus Comes to Give Us More Than Enough.


Conclusion: Elijah, the great prophet, cried out in despair, “Enough!” Now you also may cry out to God, “It is enough! I am content!"


The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

 

The Transfiguration of our Lord

February 10, 2024
By Rev. Joshua Reinke

Sermon Outline
    3.    Exit Elijah but not finally.
    2.    Enter Elijah to herald Christ.
    1.    Enter Christ into our world and lives.


JESUS’ ENTRANCE BRINGS ONSTAGE ALL THAT THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS ANTICIPATED.
 

Sermon
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 


My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament Lesson of Second Kings, chapter two, verses one through fourteen.
 

Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever been annoyed by constantly being asked a question? I know I have. You ask a lot of questions, many times without waiting for an answer. In our text for today, we see Elisha being annoyed with the constant reminder by the Sons of the Prophets that Elijah was about to being taking from him. He says to remain quiet about it. He does not want to be reminded about that fact. Yet, Elijah is taken from him in a whirlwind. How does Elijah’s departure help us today? How does that point us to Jesus? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

 

3. Exit Elijah but not finally.
 

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts. (II VII)
 

So says Shakespeare in As You Like It. But one player on this world stage made his exit and then waited for his entrance while many acts were completed. Elijah’s “exit stage left” was well cued. Poor Elisha was harangued with it. The sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.” The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.” Elisha knew too well that his master and mentor, the prophet Elijah, must be taken from him, but he was in no mood to hear it. “Yes, I know it; keep quiet” (vv 3, 5).


Even more remarkable than the way his departure was heralded was the nature of his leaving. For perhaps only one man had previously left the world’s stage in a similar way before him, and only one since. Back in history, before history as we know it, there was a man named Enoch. Now while Genesis tells us of all his ancestors and descendants that so and so’s days were so many years and then he died, it does not say this of Enoch; rather, it says, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Gen 5:24). But all others died. That was the nature of their exit from the world’s stage. That will be our exit too, if the play still runs at the end of our days. But Elijah took his bow in a different way. “And as [he and Elisha] still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, ‘My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ And he saw him no more” (vv 11–12a).
 

Elijah did not die, and his part on this stage was not yet finished. So while he was poised in the wings and dozens of generations came on to perform their own parts—while the monarchy of Israel rose and fell; while the kingdom divided and the people were scattered; while the Assyrians and Babylonians came and went; while Greece encroached and Rome overcame; while one prophet after another (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and a full supporting cast) took center stage to deliver the lines prepared for them—Elijah was not forgotten. Although his leaving is recorded early in 2 Kings, still, even in Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament canon, in the last chapter, in the second to last verse, we are left with this reminder: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes” (Mal 4:5).
 

2. Enter Elijah to herald Christ.
 

History continues to unfold upon the stage. There chaos, wars, still waiting for Elijah to come. We cannot see the plot advancing. We cannot hear the author’s words. The director’s hand is obscure. Until, way backstage, a player enters, a figurative Elijah. A player we know as John the Baptist. He enters in the ordinary way, being born of a woman. This woman was uncommonly old when she bore him, it is true, and even before his birth, he made his first contribution. For while he was still growing in his mother’s womb, he suddenly perceived that the coming of the great Day of the Lord was very near, as near as his mother was to her cousin, Mary. And he leaped for joy as they conversed. 


Later, John was driven to speak the divine lines which spoke of repentance and the kingdom of God. And it happened again: that same presence that had made him leap in the womb passed near him, and he called out, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). He dressed for his part, in camel’s hair and leather girdle, unmistakably the costume of Elijah. So people asked him, “Are you Elijah?” He said no and continued to speak as only a prophet can, to take his exit as prophets tend to do, prematurely and by violent hand.


What John felt from his mother’s womb, what he shouted about as the Lamb of God, what everything he ever said and did was getting ready for, was this: the author himself was taking the stage. From the beginning, the production had been ruined by the scandalous improvisations of every actor, their senseless and arrogant departures from the directions in the script. What was so beautifully conceived and written was unfolding as a shambles at the hands of its incompetent performers. “Get this sorted!” was the forerunner’s message. “Straighten it out, because the one who is ‘the Author of life’ is visiting.”


1. Enter Christ into our world and lives.


Enter the Author of life, even though He is the Author, he did not simply take the role of a fellow player; he emptied himself to become one, and did so in every way—except he did not share their aberrant disregard of the directions scripted for them. Now he knows the plot better than any, he who responded at length to the one who came before him—the one who leaped for joy to feel his presence, who declared him to be the Lamb of God, and who prepared his way and died at the hand of a weak and incontinent wretch taking the part of a king. 


That one, the one who came before, whom they knew as John the Baptist, “That one,” said the Author of life, “if you are prepared to accept it, that one is Elijah who is to come.” Not, I think, Elijah called in from the wings; no, that must wait just a few more months. But John’s role was clear: he came on to begin the final act, to announce the arrival of the King and Lord and Savior in the costume of humanity and humility.
And finally, the wait was over. On a mountain. Peter, James, and John with Jesus. Enter Moses—the Lawgiver of old, the character who led his people from slavery, their guide and mediator with God. Enter Elijah. At last the prophet of old, the one who will be sent, before the final act. And Jesus for a moment de-masked, seen without the costume of his humility, outshining the sun, and overshadowed by the cloud of divine presence and the voice of his Father, “This is my beloved son, listen to him.”


And then, the most important thing of all: “And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only” (Mk 9:8). If the entrance of Moses and Elijah was important, their exit was more so. For their departure means that Law is over and prophecy is past, and truly God is doing a new thing. These were only temporary. “As for prophecies,” said St. Paul, “they will pass away” (1 Cor 13:8), and with Elijah we see their passing. As for the Law, “the law,” he says, “was our guardian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal 3:24). The Law was never going to be the decisive thing on this great stage. So the guardian went, and with Moses we see its passing. Neither the prophetic words of the script, nor the directions of the Law instructing our performance, are the decisive twist. But the new thing is announced on the mountain of the transfiguration. As Law and prophet depart, One remains “This is my beloved Son.”


And from there, the beloved Son, the Author of life, continues His divine action at a place called the Place of a Skull, where he took his exit in grotesque suffering and abject humiliation, made all the more bitter because he carried no deficiency in his own performance, but shouldered the deficiency of every other twisted soul, right down to mine.


But the transfiguration hints at something more. There we saw Jesus in his glory; at least Peter, James, and John did, just for a moment. But it was a glimpse of what was to come. I mentioned earlier that we know only of the enigmatic character of Enoch leaving the world apparently without death before Elijah, but that there was one after him. Elijah waited for centuries before he was called back onstage; Jesus, only days. And before long, Peter, James, and John, as well as the rest of the disciples, saw Jesus again, having been killed in agony and shame, rising in triumph and in glory. And so he remains, never to die again, and although he had to leave this stage again, as did Elijah, ascending to his Father, Jesus, as He has promised, will return for us.


And if it is so that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” as we have made our entrance on the same stage after all these things, what is our part? We have a role and a purpose, and it is this: In the words of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11). There is a script. We are the players in it. Our role? To live for the praise of his glory. “[He has made] known to us the mystery of his will,” it says, “according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:9–10).


JESUS’ ENTRANCE BRINGS ONSTAGE
ALL THAT THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS ANTICIPATED.


And when our exit shall come, there will be a place for us in his purpose and his will. It will not be, like Elijah, to walk again on this world and in this life, but to live for the praise of his glory, where he is forever. 
 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

 

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