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Jun 10, 2007
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The Unexpected Guest
Hear now a story from long ago…a story of prophets and gods, kings, queens, and a poor widow.
The widow and her son are hungry. They have not eaten. There has been no food. The drought has been lingering for years and there is simply nothing left in the cupboard. Some of their neighbors say it is because God no longer dwells with them. Others say that it is a curse since Ahab, son of the great king Omri, has abandoned the worship of the One God. He has defaced the Temple. He has abandoned the people. And for this they all suffer. One man’s folly…
Some say the One God is at war with another god.
Some say nothing. They are dying of thirst.
All await a prophet, someone to bring good news…and rain.
If only it would rain.
The prophet, too, is thirsty. The stream he lives by, the wadi provided to him by the One God, has dried up now. The ravens no longer feed him in the morning or in the evening. He is now as lost as the next person…a beggar until God speaks. He has been waiting for God to speak. Once a prophet. Now a beggar.
And when God speaks, he moves. It’s what the prophet knows. There’s little else he can do. He has been listening to the voice of God for so long now, following and reciting and proclaiming. He does as he is bidden…
…He will go to the town to live.
As God promised, the prophet meets the widow by the gates of the town. She does as God said she would do, but the prophet, nonetheless, is an unexpected guest. He is a puzzle to her, begging from the poor in a time of famine. There is not enough for her or for her son. Still, she offers what she has. She gives hospitality.
And rich is the reward! The beggar becomes a prophet. "The jar will not empty, the jug will not fail!…not until there is rain." And for a moment, there is relief. The house is home again.
This is the tale of the unexpected guest. And it has no end.
People stream across our borders. They flee political and economic droughts. And here they encounter a drought of another sort. They encounter a drought of compassion. Politicians wrangle with one another. They contemplate walls, laws, and appropriate enforcement.
People are poor. Dare we have compassion upon them and allow them in?
Poor nations around the world are shouldering debts they will never be able to pay. Nation keeps nation under the yoke of poverty. And to what end? To whose benefit? None benefit.
Can we have compassion upon the poor and destitute within our own borders? Can we be instruments of compassion in their lives, stopping on our way to heal and to give life? Can we find jobs for them? Can we help craft a community, a society that recognizes it’s poor as worthy of compassion and grace? Will we recognize our own prophet beggars? Or will we allow other systems, ungodly systems, to define their place in our society?
It is as if we are all beggars in a time of famine.
But we are not prophets. We are not hospitable widows. We are simply waiting for rain. We are trying to stay alive somehow, by hook or by crook. We keep the stranger at bay. The unexpected guest is dangerous, we say.
They want to be fed.
They want a place to stay.
They want jobs.
They place demands upon us.
God’s grace is like this. It always sounds like a demand to those who are called to bring it. God’s grace is unexpected. The widow is not looking for the prophet. And yet he comes as a beggar, a guest in need of hospitality.
"When the Lord saw her he had compassion upon her and said, ‘Do not weep.’"
Godly power is compassion. It shows no partiality. Are we prepared to offer up this kind of compassion?
When God encounters suffering, it is the nature of God to take compassion. God does not ponder the questions of asset management, convenience, loyalty, and purity.
In the end, the One God will send down rain, compassion upon all the countryside, those in Judea and those outside.
We are recipients of such compassion.
And we are the instruments of such compassion.
If God’s grace is pouring out like rain, if we are recipients, if we are called to compassion, then we must act. We must stand where there is pain and injustice. We must have the courage to meet the pain that is all around us, on all sides of the issues facing this nation and the world. We must be the unexpected guest and welcome the same guest when she appears at the gates of our towns.
God is compassion. And yet we cry out…like the widow in our story.
Joy is fleeting. Strife has deep roots. This is the tale of the unexpected guest. And it has no end.
The widow is seated at the foot of the bed. The sun is streaming through the windows. It’s light is no longer welcoming. The day is too hot for that. Sweat beads upon the forehead of her son. His breath is ragged. He is dying.
What happened to the good news of jugs and jars? What happened to the hope and the promise of the miraculous? Her son’s breath stops. She rages against the only person there. She rages at the prophet beggar.
"What did I ever do to you but welcome you in? What have I ever done to God? I am no saint!" She rails. "But this is unbearable! Go away!"
Prophets don’t know how to go away.
The prophet turns his face to God…to the God who has always spoken to him. It is finally the prophet’s turn to speak.
"Why? What? Is there not yet enough death and destruction for you? You send me to live with this widow and this is the result?"
He breathes on the boy. He cries to God. He touches the boy, wiping sweat off his brow…willing him to breathe. He gives his own breath to the boy.
No one really knows how these things happen. We don’t know why it seems that some days God moves and some days God does not. We don’t know if it is breath or touch or faith. We rage. We weep. We pray.
Nonetheless, the widow in this story speaks the words many of us wish we could say with such certainty…for her son lives.
"Now I know that you are a man of God and the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth."
Longing for grace, she recognizes God.
The sunlight streams through the windows of her house. The heat has not abated. The world has not changed. But her son lives. There is hope. And it is enough today.
Compassion lives in the breath of the prophet, the unexpected guest, and comes as a beggar in a time of famine.
Amen. |
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