Sermon

JUNE 10, 2007

“Acting” Christian:  Making Decisions

I Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)

June 10, 2007

One of the faithful attendees of our Pastor’s Wednesday Morning Bible Study has said on more than one occasion, “That’s the reason I don’t have a fish or some kind of Christian symbol on the bumper of my car or on my windshield.  I am so afraid that if I make the wrong decision or respond without thinking as a Christian, and someone sees that symbol, they will think to themselves, ‘Hypocrite!’” 

What does it mean to “act” Christian?  Do Christians respond differently from non-Christians, not just to significant events, but also to every day events?  Should we respond differently?  Are we called to respond a certain way to everything that happens in our lives because we call ourselves Christian?  The answer to the last two questions is unequivocally “Yes!  Christians should respond differently.  ‘Follow me’ was not a lesson in geography!  Christians should respond to those things that happen in our lives as an opportunity to show our faith in God, to bolster our brothers and sisters in faith, and to show others why we call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ!”  Do we respond differently?  The correct answer to that question is, unfortunately, not so forthcoming.  How do we respond, how are we called to respond when it comes to making decisions, to receiving criticism, to discerning our purpose in this life?

A few years ago, Jay Leno was interviewing Hugh Grant.  Grant had recently been arrested for picking up a prostitute who turned out to be a man dressed as a woman.  Jay Leno asked Grant, “What were you thinking?”  Grant replied, “I wasn’t!”

“Acting” Christian.  In today’s scripture, we meet a widow who obviously had to do some difficult thinking.  She was already leading a hard, desperate life, as most widows did in the Bible.  Widows were completely disenfranchised when they lost their husbands, and many were reduced to homelessness and begging.  This widow had an important decision to make.  Either she could use her last bit of meal and oil to make cakes for her young son and herself, or she could use her last bit of meal and oil to make cakes for the prophet Elijah. 

Earlier in I Kings, we discover that Ahab was the son of Omri.  Omri was a king who sinned more than any king who came before him.  When Ahab became king of Israel, he reigned in Samaria for 22 years and did even more evil than his father.  He married Jezebel, and together they served and worshipped Baal.  The prophet Elijah went to Ahab and said, “There will be no rain, not even dew, from here on out until I say so.”  Then the Lord told Elijah to leave and hide just east of the Jordan in a ravine, to drink from the brook, and be fed by the ravens.  Elijah did what the Lord told him.  He went to the ravine and stayed there.  Every morning the ravens brought him food.  Every evening, he drank from the brook.  Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain.  Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah and directed him to Zarephath, where a widow would supply him with food.  When Elijah went there, he saw the widow gathering sticks for firewood.  He asked her to bring him water.  As she was going to get the water, Elijah requested a piece of bread also.  She responded that she had no bread.  She had, in fact, been gathering sticks so that she could go home and prepare a last meal for her son and herself - and then die.

Elijah told her not to be afraid to go home and do as planned but to bring the small cake to him instead, and then make something for her son and herself, because God says:  “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until it begins to rain again!”  What would you do?  What decision would you make?  How would you make the decision? How did the widow make her decision?  Unlike Hugh Grant, she was thinking!  She was thinking like a godly woman!

The widow went away and did as Elijah had requested.  Sure enough, every day thereafter, there was just enough food for her and her son.  The jar of flour was never used up, and the jug of oil did not run dry.  She had made the right decision.  Then one day, things began to change.  Perhaps she had not made the right decision after all.  She had trusted God.  She had trusted God’s prophet, yet her son had stopped breathing. 

The Bible is full of strange things – oil that never runs dry, flour that is never used up, young bodies that are restored to life.  Are we supposed to believe that these things happen today?  Must we no longer make our decisions, believing in a God that really has the power to do awe-inspiring things?  Believing in a God of hope?

Suspend your disbelief for a moment to ask what such acts might mean.  Last week when the Trinity River was flooding, a couple who had immigrated to the United States from South Korea over 10 years ago made the wrong decision.  They took a wrong turn.  In a part of town with which they were not familiar, the couple got lost as severe rainstorms pounded the area last Monday night.  Apparently, they made a wrong turn and then tried to make a U-turn under the bridge where Loop 12 crosses the Trinity.  They did not realize that the access road led directly into the river and did not loop around under the bridge.  They tried calling 911, but the operator could not understand them or where they were.  It was a devastating end for the Kims who came here looking for a better life for themselves and their three children.  They had dedicated themselves to mission work – Afghanistan, an Oklahoma Indian reservation.  Their children took comfort in their parents’ strong faith and love for mission work.  “They were really good Christians.  My father had a vision.”    

“Acting” Christian.  All of us have been or will be at that table we saw in the DVD today, either seated at the table or serving at the table.  We will all be there in one way or another.  We will have come from a house of worship, or from our Christian homes, only to be confronted with every day decisions – where to shop; what to buy; who to vote for; what movie to watch.  Will we “act” Christian as we make those decisions:  What is the environmental impact of what we are buying?  How do we make a difference in the world with our vote?  Where will the profit from that movie go?  How will we teach our children?  What will we teach our children about priorities?  What kind of friend will we be?  How can we express our disagreement with one another and “act” Christian?  How can we show our disappointment? Consciously or unconsciously, we will make a decision.  We will all have the opportunity to consider taking the time and making the effort to provide nets that will protect the children in sub-Saharan Africa from malaria.  We will all have the opportunity to help educate the impoverished.  (Last Friday we fed 63 children here in The Colony at lunch with Kids Eat Free!)  We will all have the opportunity to do the right thing or the wrong thing when no one else is watching.  We will all have the opportunity to make the smallest of decisions as though they were the most important of decisions.  Will those who are watching us – and there will be those who are watching – say behind our backs, “Hypocrites!” or will they be able to say, I can count on her/him.  S/he is a Christian!  At our Annual Conference this past week, there had these T-shirts for United Methodists.  They say, “Leaving the world a better place.”  Are we leaving the world a better place with the decisions we make?  

Today we heard the story of a widow.  Not only is she a widow, she is a foreigner.  She decided to be generous with the little she had, to trust that the prophet’s word was the word of God.  That is amazing!  I understand being concerned about not having a bumper sticker or symbol that would give people the wrong signal.  It occurs to me, though:  If we are Christian, if we act Christian, if we are leaving the world a better place, we shouldn’t have to put a bumper sticker on our car in order for people to know that we are Christians.  Are we thinking, church?   Amen.