October 13, 2019, 1 Kings 17:7-16 – Post 2

VI.
Allow me briefly to add another thought for your reflection.

Notice in our Scripture that the city Elijah travels to is “… Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon …”

Sidon – Not a city of the Hebrews but a city of probably the Phonecians. Outside the border of the territory of the Hebrew people.

Keep that in mind.

VII.

Skip forward now to Rabbi Jesus’ occasion to speak at the synagogue in his hometown (Luke 4:16-30). After he reads the words of the prophet the people at the synagogue are said to have “.. spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

But then the tone in the synagogue changes from amazement to anger.

“… all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.”

What had happened? What had Rabbi Jesus said that changed the mood?

“ … the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

VIII.
What happens for us when the blessings of God, the grace of God, is given to people we think are outside the circle of God’s chosen? Or, maybe just outside the circle of “our kind of folks”?

I guess Rabbi Jesus has a way of putting the difficult questions to us.

We’ll talk later.

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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