The Widow of Zarephath - The Sacrifice of Hospitality

Like many of us here, I’d consider my family to be quite hospitable.

We’re quite happy to host meals, cell groups, and the occasional visitor to Singapore

But what happens when hospitality becomes too much to bear?

(flash picture of friends)

Michael and I were good friends from Hanoi.

We also both married Vietnamese wives.

And so it was natural that we still kept in touch after I moved back to Singapore,

and he, to Germany.

So the first time when he asked to stopover Singapore en-route to Hanoi to visit his in-laws,

I was naturally thrilled.

“Of course we will host you!” I said

We brought them to all the places we like,

and they like them too.

The only problem were the children.

Our families had different values in rearing children.

My wife and I prefer setting clear boundaries for our children.

Michael and his wife are more liberal in the way they let their children push them around.

The first time they’ve visited, it was just a little uncomfortable.

My daughter just had to share her toys

and put up with the tantrums of their son,

while my wife fussed over meals and bath times.

The second time they came, it became quite unbearable.

We shared some of our children’s clothes,

because they packed light to save cost on the airline.

And we’ve even had to help look after some of the children on the return stopover,

because Michael fell ill after overexerting himself, cycling in the hot Hanoian summer.

These visits really brought home the painful reality that sacrifice is needed in hospitality.

It’s easy to extend hospitality when you don’t have to sacrifice much time, money, and your personal space.

But what happens when you’re called to extend hospitality sacrificially,

to the point that it makes you really uncomfortable,

and almost wanting to kick your guests out?

(flash point)

I want to suggest that we can start by re-framing our perspectives and:

Expect Disruptions as God’s Preparation

(flash 1 Kg 17:1-4)

After finally standing up to the worst king Israel had ever seen,

you’d think that God would have sent Elijah to do great things,

Instead, Elijah was commanded to go eastwards to a brook named Cherith or “Cut”.

To be cut off from those looking to kill him,

but also to be cut off from civilisation.

Not only that, Elijah faced the possibility of being cut off from his own people.

Because instead of being allowed to look for ritually-clean food,

God commanded Elijah to be fed by bread and meat brought by ravens.

These are bird which feed on carrion and dead animals,

and which the Israelites were commanded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy to detest!

(flash troubles)

Without understanding that God is always in control,

disruptions become the proverbial storm in a teacup -

unnecessary anger and worry about unimportant things.

True, some of us may have lost a loved one suddenly, like the Widow of Zarephath.

True, some of us may have offended someone in authority, like Elijah,

And, true, some of us may even face the uncertainty of having food and shelter,

like the famine that Elijah and the widow had to deal with.

But without understanding that God has been in control,

we forget that disruptions are but minor dips,

as compared to the major peaks in the graph of life.

Without understanding that God is still in control,

we allow disruptions to deny us of God’s gift of the present.

And without understanding that God will always be in control,

we lose sight of the hope we have,

and allow despair to rob us of the joy we can have in God.

(flash frustration)

I, for one, dislike interruptions and disruptions.

I get really annoyed when I’m working on my computer or phone at home,

and I have to drop everything at once just to attend to my children.

Because my train of thought has to be interrupted.

But as I reflect on my lousy attitude, I realise that God is at work in my life, to prepare me to be more hospitable.

They do not deserve my outburst cos they too, have had long days.

What’s more, they want to spend time with me.

If I, myself, claim that family is the most important priority, after God,

then I need to walk the talk, and not let my work be more important than spending time with them,

even if I have an urgent deadline, a sermon to prepare, and I’ve got to drop everything.

And if I believe that God has called me to extend heartwarming hospitality to others,

I shouldn’t view disruptions,

like visiting someone in the hospital,

or ministering to a brother over coffee,

as annoying interruptions that sap away time,

but as God’s way of giving life through me,

and as God’s preparation for His greater work that is to come.

(flash Is 55.9)

Isaiah 55:9 says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Because God's ways were higher,

we could see that Elijah’s flight into the wilderness wasn’t foolishness nor cowardice,

but simply God’s preparation for Elijah to trust in His hospitality every day of his life.

Because God’s thoughts were higher,

we could see that Elijah’s being fed by unclean ravens wasn’t unkindness,

but God’s preparation for Elijah to depend on the hospitality of the unclean Widow of Zarephath,

who was an unclean Gentile that a proper Jew should shun.

And because God is always in control,

we can expect that through whatever disruptions we face in our lives,

God is preparing us to rely on his life-giving hospitality.

But honestly, disruptions are uncomfortable.

The work doesn’t stop or magically disappear when you drop it for your family.

Nor will the deadlines magically extend or disappear.

How can I hold the tension between hope and the current reality?

How can I manage the disconnect between the discomfort I feel

and the command from God to extend heartwarming hospitality?

This leads us to the second point.

(flash point)

Engage Doubts through God’s Provision

I’m sure there were probably more questions in the widow’s head than Elijah.

What is this man doing so far out in a time of famine?

What business does he have with a person like me?

A person who has lost almost everything.

My husband, my livelihood,

and very soon, the lives of my only son and me?

(flash 1 Kg 17:10-11)

She put on a brave front by first fulfilling this stranger’s request for water.

Even in a time of famine, she could still afford a little water”.

But when he asked for that last morsel of bread in her hand,

that was the limit of her hospitality.

(flash v12)

1 Kings 17:12 “And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.””

It’s interesting that she, a Sidonian woman,

living in a place where Baal and Asherah worship thrived,

was able to identify that this man worshipped the LORD YHWH, the God of Israel.

Perhaps God had already prepared her heart to see the difference between her and this man.

So she could see the difference between the Hebrew way of life as compared to hers.

But she was also honest about her situation.

Look, as much as I want to help you, my resources are limited.

As much as I want to help you, I can’t even feed myself.

My hands are tied.

Can you please go somewhere else and leave me to die in peace?

(flash picture of widow)

But God provides for us through our lack and little.

Just as Elijah had learnt to daily trust God for food, meat, and water,

so he encouraged the widow by engaging her doubts not head on,

but simply with a comforting “Do not fear”,

followed by a declaring of God’s promise of provision.

And as she acted in faith to provide for Elijah,

God blessed that act of faith by providing for her daily,

until the rain returned 3.5 years later.

(flash pictures of COA renovation)

Some of us may remember the time where the L2 sanctuary was a little smaller,

and the stained glass window just a plain white wall.

You may remember the call to pledge money and the struggles to make it happen.

Some collected newspaper and cardboard and gave of the two copper coins they could spare.

Some struggled to fulfil their monthly pledges and felt bad when they were behind on their pledges.

But I believe all gave of their coins, and jugs, and two loaves and five fish.

And the sanctuary that you’re sitting in now is testimony to how God graciously provided,

and of how God saw us through,

as we engaged our doubts with God’s promise,

and we sacrificed for the sake of extending God’s hospitality.

(flash picture of BSF)

One of the groups that have, and still is benefiting from our hospitality through the new sanctuary,

is the Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) group that meets in COA on Tue and Wed.

In 2006, 1 year after we moved back to our newly-renovated COA, we were approached by BSF to host their new group.

They started with around 100 ladies onsite.

Today, around 400 meet weekly.

This includes children, and those joining in online,

This is as comparable, if not more, than all our Sunday services combined!

And some of us here are part of that number!

Praise God!

Imagine if we had not believed that God could have provided for us in our lack and little!

(flash picture of David and Aranuah)

But sacrificial hospitality calls us more than to expect disruptions and engage doubts.

We cannot expect to extend hospitality sacrificially for free.

Just as King David said in 2 Samuel 24:24

“ I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.””

So we too, must expect, and I dare say embrace discomfort for the sake of the life-giving gospel.

Which leads us to our last point.

Embrace Discomfort to Proclaim God’s Word

(flash sermon series)

For the past few weeks, we’ve seen how God prepared different people through disruptions in their lives,

Abraham was interrupted by 3 visitors in the heat of the day.

As he engaged his doubts to prepare food and drinks for the visitors,

God provided encouragement and assurance of new life, son,

that is new life in Abraham’s family,

that led Abraham to intercede for the lives of others in Sodom.

Rahab was interrupted by the 2 spies on an evening like any other.

As she engaged her doubts to hide the spies in her home,

and keep the scarlet cord hanging on her window,

God provided protection not just for her,

but even salvation to her whole household.

And so as we see how he already was preparing Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath through his divine disruptions.

Even if the famine and idolatry seemed hopeless,

God's plan for them to have life far out-shadowed the doubts and little that they had.

All they needed was to trust that God is generous enough to provide,

not only for ourselves, for even for the others around us.

even to people whom we consider the least likely or worthy.

(flash Lk 4:22-24) (KJV)

In Lk 4, we see even before Jesus read Isaiah 61 in his hometown synagogue,

the people there already had an unspoken expectation on him to start his messianic mission in Nazareth.

After all, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

“We know him and his family!”

“So it’s only right that we should be the first to have VIP access to God’s life-giving hospitality!”

(flash Lk 4.18-19)

Imagine Jesus’s disappointment at their narrow-mindedness!

How could Jesus proclaim good news to the poor,

if he just ministered only to the people in Nazareth?

How could Jesus proclaim liberty to the captives,

if he just stayed only amongst the somewhat free people in Nazareth?

And how many blind people could recover their sight,

if he just worked only with the small population of Nazareth?

(flash Lk 4.25-27)

That’s why Jesus quoted the stories of the Widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian General.

These were outsiders to the Jewish faith - Gentiles.

And they came from places that a proper Jew would never step foot in:

An unnamed widow from the Sidonian town of Zarephath,

where the idols Baal and Asherah were worshipped.

An army general from the enemy country of Syria,

who was ritually unclean with leprosy.

But are you and I any better?

Can we embrace discomfort at the people coming in our services that look and behave differently from us?

Whether they speak good Mandarin,

whether they dress well for service,

or even whether they have the same social class as us?

Or will I show my disgust, displeasure, and disapproval at someone,

who might not follow and understand the Anglican liturgy the same way I do,

who might not have as high an education level as I do,

or who might even behave in ways that make us uncomfortable?

That was the situation that Revd Kingsley Ponniah and COA faced in 1997.

A group of Myanmar Bible students approached us,

and asked if we could give them a space to worship weekly.

70-100 of them had been meeting once a month outside one of the hostels of a bible college.

We had all the excuses to turn them away:

COA wasn’t renovated yet,

so squeezing with them on Sunday was uncomfortable.

They were not Anglicans,

and some of them were even going to a bible college that weren’t friendly to other denominations!

The normal members who weren’t Bible students spoke neither English nor Burmese,

because they spoke Falam Chin, one of the minority languages in Myanmar.

So we had to rely on the translations given by their leaders and a lot of goodwill,

to decide that they weren’t going to do anything funny in COA.

And so they started their first service here in Nov 1997.

(flash Falam picture)

When they left COA in 2023, there were already 250-300 members meeting weekly on Sun afternoons.

Clare tells me that there were around 400 in this picture for their New Year’s Day Service in 2023.

Their regular attendance is between 400-500.

Thank God we were kingdom-minded enough to say,

“We don’t have much - but we’ll gladly share with you.”

(flash CNY)

This is the season of the Lunar New Year.

It is a time not only to meet the people we like,

but also some family members who might be less lovely.

Will you be willing to sacrificially extend hospitality,

and proclaim God’s life-giving word to them?

Will you be willing to overlook their offensive words and actions,

just as God showed you grace, and forgave you your sins,

and proclaim Jesus, God’s life-saving Word to them?

Can you and I also extend some sacrificial hospitality to other non-Chinese?

Instead of being harsh and demanding, can we show and proclaim God’s love

to our domestic helpers who works tirelessly to look after us and our parents?

Instead of being unfriendly and judgmental, can we show and proclaim God’s love,

to the foreign cleaners who help to keep our neighbourhood clean?

And instead of being impatient and rude, can we show and proclaim God’s love,

to the restaurant staff who have to serve so many tables and orders at this peak period?

(flash Michael)

We thank God that the last time Michael visited, they had a chance to visit COA.

We’re reaching out to Michael’s wife and children,

who though attending church in Germany, haven’t believed in Christ yet.

I believe they’ve been touched by our love and hospitality,

That’s why they’re planning to stopover our place again this year.

So even though we felt really burned out after the last visit.

I’m praying that God gives us the grace this time to extend hospitality sacrificially,

for life-giving conversations,

and for God’s Holy Spirit to touch the hearts and minds of his wife and children,

through our witness and proclamation of God’s Word.

(flash summary)

Even though they will come over a weekend and I have to apply for leave,

I know that it will be a divine disruption,

for God is preparing them and me, to hear and receive life-giving hospitality.

And even though we still have our doubts,

we try to engage them head-on with our sacrificial offering up of our 5 loaves and 2 fish for God to multiply.

Because it’s about sharing in God’s life-giving hospitality with them,

with the prayer and hope that God’s Holy Spirit will lead them to his life-saving hospitality,

If I don’t try, I won’t know, right?