08/02/2026 - "Goodness, Generosity" (1 Kings 17:8-16)

It’s been a minute since we last talked about the Fruits of the Spirit and how they show up in the stories in the Old Testament.

So today we’re going to revisit the same fruit we talked about two weeks ago - goodness - but this time we’re going to go with the other concepts that it’s often translated into, and that’s generosity or hospitality, which are closely intertwined if not often the same thing in Scripture.

Unlike some of our other fruits I was spoiled for choice when it came to stories. But in terms of a story where generosity and hospitality show up in the most unlikely of places, I think this one wins.

Because it takes place in the middle of a widespread famine in the household of a widow and her son who are starving to death.

Scripture: 1 Kings 17:8-16

The Lord’s word came to Elijah: “Get up and go to Zarephath near Sidon and stay there. I have ordered a widow there to take care of you.” Elijah left and went to Zarephath. As he came to the town gate, he saw a widow collecting sticks.

He called out to her, “Please get a little water for me in this cup so I can drink.”

She went to get some water.

He then said to her, “Please get me a piece of bread.”

“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any food; only a handful of flour in a jar and a bit of oil in a bottle. Look at me. I’m collecting two sticks so that I can make some food for myself and my son. We’ll eat the last of the food and then die.”

Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go and do what you said. Only make a little loaf of bread for me first. Then bring it to me. You can make something for yourself and your son after that. This is what Israel’s God, the Lord, says: The jar of flour won’t decrease and the bottle of oil won’t run out until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.”

The widow went and did what Elijah said.

So the widow, Elijah, and the widow’s household ate for many days. The jar of flour didn’t decrease nor did the bottle of oil run out, just as the Lord spoke through Elijah.

~

This story occurs right in the middle of a theopolitical war. For the previous few chapters, Elijah has been in conflict with the king of Israel, Ahab, who is following the god Baal. Scripture says that because of this, God has sent a famine over the land to show that praying to Baal for rain won’t work.

Either Ahab will have to break his stubbornness and pray to God for the rain, or Elijah is going to have to relent and intercede on behalf of the people of the region. So far neither of them has backed down. And the widow and her son is just one example of the hundreds of thousands of people caught in the metaphorical crossfire.

Elijah has been on the run from King Ahab, and he ends up alongside one of the last flowing brooks where he manages to eke out a living with God’s help until the brook dries up.

Then God sends him to Zarepath, and we meet the young widow collecting sticks so she can give her son one last meal.

Most of the time when we read this story we focus on Elijah and the miracle he performs by the flour and oil not running out for as long as the famine lasted. But I want to focus more instead on the widow in this story. Because her act of generosity is profound, and we can lose that sometimes because we know the ending of her story.

Because imagine that you’re out running errands one day in the middle of the apocalypse. Natural disaster, zombie, take your pick. Whatever you’re envisioning, you’ve been managing to survive for the past year or so scavenging ever-dwindling supplies. You’ve been resourceful, you’ve been determined, and you’ve had quite a bit of luck up until this point. But now the supplies and your luck are running out, and even though you’ve fought so hard to live, you have to acknowledge that everything is gone and there’s no coming back from this disaster. But you don’t want to just give up. So you do the work to prepare one last meal with your family, one last taste of normalcy before you succumb to the inevitable.

Now imagine that as you’re running those last errands to get the last pieces for your last supper, a man with a long, shaggy beard and shaggy hair sticking straight up appears in front of you. He coughs, holding out a dirty wooden cup and asking if you have any water for him.

That’s where the widow is when she encounters Elijah. She has been doing her best to keep herself and her son alive during an apocalypse with dwindling supplies and dwindling hope. The fact that she has a young son hints that she was widowed young. And without anyone to provide for her in a patriarchal society, she’s probably more adept than most to being able to create something from nothing. But even her skills and luck have run out. She isn’t giving up as much as she’s accepting reality, and she’s probably exhausted, sick, and hungry already.

Because most likely she and her son have already been starving to a certain extent, but now she knows she can’t stave off any breath of hunger in either of them anymore.

But when this wild man shows up asking for water, she pushes aside her own exhaustion, hunger, and pain, and gives it to him without complaint. It’s when he asks for food that she snaps at him. Because he has to be aware of the famine, they all are, even though he’s looking more well-fed than anyone else she’s seen lately. Her pain, stress, and sorrow come tumbling out as she tells him that she has nothing left, just enough for her to feed herself and her son one last time before they starve to death.

And in the face of that, Elijah repeats what God told Hagar when she was stranded in the middle of the desert, and what angels will tell Mary and Joseph when they’re told that they will be parents to the Messiah.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Which is honestly a not very helpful thing to say after somebody’s just told you they’re preparing their last meal! Even though it’s a beautiful phrase to us given the other verses we now, here it comes off as arrogant and self-important. And that’s pretty in line with Elijah’s character from what we’ve seen. Even though he fully trusts in God to do what God has said and provide for him and the widow and her family, the widow probably doesn’t believe the same. Because if she is from near Sidon, which is in modern-day Lebanon, she is not an Israelite. But she’s suffering under the same famine sent upon them. Caught in the crossfire indeed.

As you may know, I have been to this part of the world multiple times. And it’s true that Lebanese and Syrian people are some of the most hospitable and kind people you will meet. Everywhere from mansions to convents to tents made out of the vinyl from billboards, people made sure that we had food and something to drink - including my favorite, which is Syrian- style black tea that is somehow even sweeter than Texas sweet tea.

And this hospitality, this generosity, is a cultural value that has been passed down through generations, from the time of the widow and before until now. So even though the widow and Elijah don’t share the same beliefs, they both still value hospitality and generosity. And it almost seems as if Elijah is banking on the widow clinging to her values, even during an apocalypse, even during a famine, to keep him alive. And she does exactly that, knowing that helping this stranger may mean she’s not able to fill her son’s belly one last time.

It’s one of the riskiest things she could do in this situation; continue to be generous even when it may mean ending her own life earlier. But it’s also clinging to her values, to her humanity, at a time when the situation is pressing her to give it all up. And it pays off; her generosity keeps her, her son, and Elijah alive through the rest of the famine.

As I’m sure you all know by looking at the gas prices and the price stickers in the grocery stores, we are facing times of real economic hardship for most people. It’s in times like these that we can be tempted to batten down the hatches and look out only for ourselves, because we’re not sure what tomorrow’s going to bring.

But that’s not what we value. We are a church that values generosity and hospitality.

And based on the amount of toilet paper that has shown up at the front door for the veteran’s closet, and the care and support you all showed each other after the storm on Monday, it’s a value we refuse to let go of, no matter how hard things get.

We can’t afford to lose it, because that is not only what is going to get our neighbors through these difficult times, it’s going to be what gets us through.

The widow didn’t have any assurance that Elijah and God would follow through on their promise to keep her and her son alive if she helped Elijah. But once that promise was fulfilled, plus Elijah bringing her son back to life which is a story for another day, she knew that she could continue to help Elijah and keep him alive.

Instead of just being a transaction where the widow was generous and gave Elijah food, they formed a mutual relationship of trust and support. It helps form a stronger community, and it’s that kind of community that is stronger than any of us can be on our own.

So even though bringing an extra pack of toilet paper to the church for the veteran’s closet, or picking up an extra container of peanut butter at the store can feel as small and insignificant as a container of flour and a jar of oil, it can go so much father than we could’ve ever imagined to build the kind of world we want.

And at the same time, even as our expenses go up along with our worry about what the future may bring, we can be reminded of the widow, who even as she saw only a future of death and despair, still chose to be generous with what she had that day.

May we go and do the same.