June 9, 2013 | 4:00 p.m.

Look at All I’ve Done!

The Second in a Series of Sermons on Elijah

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

1 Kings 17:1–16

Last week, for those of you who were not here, I talked about a story in the book of 1 Samuel, a complicated story about a woman named Hannah who tries for years to get pregnant, eventually has a son, but then she must give up that son she loved so much. I talked about how this is the story that is intended to set up the long set of stories in the Old Testament about prophets, prophets being people who, we will learn, live rather difficult lives and make incredible sacrifices for the advancement of God’s larger purposes in the world: the care of the poor, the uplifting of the oppressed, justice for all people. These things have always been in short supply in the world, but prophets play an important role in keeping our hopes alive that things will get better, even in the midst of a world full of struggle.

This week, and for the next two weeks after that, we turn to the story of a particular prophet, a man named Elijah. Elijah is going to face some difficult times of his own—we’ll talk about that next week. But first, tonight’s story tells us how Elijah prepares himself to manage tough times. In tonight’s scripture lesson, Elijah is learning to depend on God.

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A few months ago, I set up a retirement account with the help of a friend who is a finance professor and knows more about that kind of thing than I do. We looked at a few options and settled on an account that diversifies the way my savings are invested and changes every few years as I get older until a projected retirement date when I’ll start drawing on the account. My friend said something to me which, at the time, I took to be financial advice, but since then I’ve come to understand it as psychological and even spiritual advice as well. “Don’t look at the account all the time,” he said. “It will drive you crazy. You’ll worry about your investment selections, and you’ll change them out of your anxiety about the future. You have to let the account do what it’s supposed to do over time. We’ll look at it every few years just to be sure we’re on track. Other than that, forget about it.”

There’s a story in the New Testament about this kind of thinking. You might have heard it. Jesus says to people worried about what they will eat or drink or wear, “Do not worry about these things.” “Consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and how God takes care of their needs,” he says. At the end of it, Jesus concludes by saying, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

I read an amazing commentary on that passage this week by nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, showing that Jesus’ words, powerful 2,000 years ago, were just as relevant 150 years ago, and they still stand true today. They also illuminate what was going on way back in the time of Elijah, long before Jesus. Some things never change.

Kierkegaard begins to talk about this story with a somewhat obvious request. Do what the passage says: Consider the birds of the air. Put yourself in their place. Imagine a bird, floating through the air, doing what she must to find food and create shelter but enjoying the freedom she has because if she pays attention and embraces the day at hand, she will find places to land where there is food to eat and protection from the weather. And she appreciates what a miracle it is to fly, to feel the sunshine, and to be upheld in the air by the wind. Now imagine that she lands on a fencepost in the yard of a farm. Nearby are other birds, beautiful prize doves. Owned by the farmer, they live in a birdhouse in the yard. A conversation ensues.

The doves ask their visitor, “Where do you live?” “Well, I live in the woods in a nest. I fly around each day and find the food I need and keep my nest together.”

“We stay here with the farmer,” answer the doves. “Each day he goes out and plows the grain. We watch him go up and down the rows until we’ve lost count of all the grain he’s collected. That’s when we know there will be more than enough to eat in our birdhouse, not just today, but tomorrow, the next day, and next week, and next year.”

The little bird flies away. And never having considered such a life, she starts to wonder, “What will I do tomorrow? Maybe I should be storing up food as well.”

The next morning, the bird awakens earlier than usual and leaves the nest to begin gathering. She moves from place to place, nibbling a little to keep up her strength, but mostly seeking out good hiding places for the food she collects for tomorrow, finding food and taking it there. Each successive day, she finds that some of the food she tried so hard to hide has disappeared; perhaps other birds who are not worried about saving have found it. This makes her job even harder. In the midst of finding extra food and storing it away, there is less time for other things. No time to enjoy the other birds she used to see or to appreciate the gift of flying. Flying is now just a means to secure food. And in addition, she’s hungry, because only so much food can be gathered in a day, and she’s storing away more than she’s eating.

“Perhaps I’m asking too much of myself,” she thinks. “I’m only a bird.”

And so giving up the battle to save all on her own, she wisely flies back to the farm, lands on the fence, and, at the end of the day, flies into the birdhouse to eat with the farmer’s doves. Finally, she thinks, she has found security for herself, and all she had to give up was her freedom. She belongs to the farmer.

And the farmer comes to the birdhouse in the morning, immediately sees that she is not one of his doves, and removes the little bird from the birdhouse and kills her. Certainly now, she will have nothing more to worry about. (Adapted from Søren Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits)

The intention of this story is not to discourage people from saving responsibly, and it is certainly not intended to glorify poverty. What it is, though, is an opportunity to consider what it means to remember that “today’s trouble is enough for today.” If we spend too much time today worrying about tomorrow, we enslave ourselves to tomorrow and deprive ourselves of the spiritual health that comes from enjoying what God has given us today. We also become less available to others, because we are overly consumed with worrying about ourselves.

The story of Elijah, I read tonight, probably sounded like it started in the middle of things. There was no introduction, no birth story, no explanation of how Elijah became a prophet. Why didn’t I read those things? I didn’t read them because they aren’t there. The passage I read is Elijah’s first appearance in the Bible. Apparently whoever wrote this story believed that this is the only background we need in order to understand Elijah. I think the point is that Elijah learns to be a prophet—a servant of others—by first learning to depend upon God.

You heard the story: A drought is coming. Does Elijah store up food and water? No. He trusts God’s instruction and goes to a stream where he drinks the water and ravens—birds of the air?—bring him food. Soon the stream dries up and the ravens stop coming. So Elijah follows God’s guidance again and goes to a widow who has a little flour and a little bit of oil and asks her for food, and she says to him, “We have to save this. Don’t you know there’s a drought?” Elijah teaches her: Make me some bread. Use the oil so that it tastes good. Then make some for yourself. It will rain by the time we run out.” Elijah tells the woman to trust God. Elijah himself is learning what it means to trust God to provide.

Now, obvious question—elephant in the room: do I think it literally happened this way? Was there a drought? Did God lead Elijah to the river and send the birds? Did God place that widow in Elijah’s path? Was she an angel? I don’t know. But I don’t really need to know, because I have my own story about the worries of today. I don’t need to know whether Elijah’s story happened literally or not, because I take the point: if I start staring at my investment selections every morning, the gift of today that God has given me will be lost. I’ll be unhappy and anxious, and I’ll try to fix things about the market that are completely beyond my control. And I’ll be so consumed with my own problems that I will be completely unavailable to anyone else.

Kierkegaard said, “Dependence on God is the only independence.” The only way to feel free is to trust God.

The more time we spend thinking about how we can create our own security; the more time we think about what we can store up in barns or in retirement accounts or anywhere else, the more we are devoting ourselves to a particular kind of slavery and the worry that goes along with it. We are making ourselves slaves to the impossible idea that we can create our own security, and we are denying ourselves the opportunity to rely upon God. In more concrete terms, we are denying ourselves the chance to appreciate today, because we are devoting today to worrying about tomorrow. But as Jesus so wisely said, tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

How much of life am I missing out on today if I’m constantly worrying about how rich I may or may not be tomorrow? And how much less available am I to the people God has called me to love, if I’m totally consumed by trying to save myself. Consider the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Consider Elijah, who considered the ravens and learned how to trust God and care for others. If you want to be able to weather the storms of life that may come along tomorrow, spend time today trying to trust God.

Amen.