December 15th, 2024 - "The Elves and the Shoemaker/Elijah and the Widow" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon Podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries of First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at FUMCbentonville.org, or check us out at Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: We are in this series called

Story, where we're looking at.

well known or classic children's Christmas stories alongside biblical stories.

And today, we are going to hear the passage from 1 Kings 17, 8

through 16, and we will look at it alongside the Elves and the Shoemaker.

So hear now the word of the Lord.

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 is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes.

That we might see and know the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name, we pray.

So the elves and the shoemaker.

I don't know how many of you know this story.

It is a classic folklore actually, and the story goes like this.

There is a shoemaker and he has.

gotten very poor and he has just enough money to buy leather for one

more pair of shoes and that's it.

And he and his wife will go into destitute poverty.

So he buys the leather, he cuts out the leather for the pattern for the shoes and

he's just so tired that he decides he'll go to bed, he'll wake up the next morning,

he'll make the pair of shoes then.

So he says his prayers, goes to bed, Wakes up the next morning, beautiful

new pair of shoes, already made.

He is still standing there in wonder when someone comes into his shop, sees

the shoes, loves them, tries them on.

They fit better than any pair of shoes the man has ever tried on.

He pays more for the shoes than a normal pair of shoes would have

cost because he is so excited about how beautiful these shoes are.

Now the shoemaker has enough to buy leather for two pairs of shoes.

So he buys leather.

Letter for two pairs of shoes, cuts out the pattern in the leather,

leaves them out, goes to bed, wakes up the next morning, two

beautifully made pairs of shoes.

Two people come into the shop, love the shoes, they fit better than that shoes

ever have, they pay more than they would have, now he has enough to buy four pairs

of shoes, and so on, and so on, and so on.

It just exponentially keeps growing, he has more and more

money for more and more shoes.

It's approaching Christmas and he says to his wife, we are fine now.

We have plenty of money.

We have a steady flow of leather for the shoes.

But who is making me shoes?

Let's tonight hide and see who's making the shoes.

So they hide behind some coats and they wait.

And in the middle of the night, here come two little elves and they are

so excited and they make all the pairs of shoes for all the leather.

After the elves leave, they marvel at this miracle that has happened in their lives.

But the wife says, Did you notice that the elves had no clothes?

And, it is Christmas, and so tonight, rather than laying out leather for

the shoes, let me make some clothes, and you make them a pair of shoes.

Each.

So, they lay out the clothes and the shoes.

The elves come that night and are overjoyed that they

have such fancy clothing now.

And they realize that the shoemaker will be fine and they can go on now.

better than when they came.

This story is a grim fairy tale.

I'm feeling very lucky that all we have to deal with are elves with no

clothes because in the average grim fairy tale someone usually dies or is

boiled or it's it's not it's not pretty but the point of folklore the point

of fairy tales And in many ways, also the point of the Bible, both types

of literature are meant to shape us into a people, to teach us values, to

give us lessons on how to be better to one another and better as a person.

So let's look as we bring this Elves and the Shoemaker story alongside the

Bible and see what lessons we learn.

And who we are shaped into by these stories.

The very first lesson that we learn is in both stories God was invited in.

The shoemaker prayed, and the widow was open.

And you know, the widow, the widow and her son and Elijah, Elijah is

pretty pushy, wouldn't you say?

Oh, you're gonna make me some bread before you have some bread.

You're gonna bring me water.

You have enough food for just you and your son, but I'm gonna eat first.

Not the best, right?

But in and around this is this insistence that the Lord is present in this space.

And when the Lord is invited in, the widow herself is at least open to

the fact that something might happen.

To change her fate.

So that's the first thing that we learn to invite God in whether it's through

our prayers or through the prophets.

Another thing that we learn from these stories is that those who

have the least often give the most.

The widow and her son are dying and they are invited to feed another mouth

and they take the chance and do so.

The shoemaker and his wife are destitute, but at least they have clothes.

The elves have nothing except their skill.

So often we learn and we hear and we experience this reality that those

who seem to have absolutely nothing to give find ways to be more generous

than we could possibly imagine.

When I was in seminary there was a woman Her name is Lorenza Andrade Smith.

She served in one of the Texas conferences, and I'm sorry, I

don't remember which one exactly.

She had an instance where a homeless person kind of sort of showed up on

the steps of the parsonage, and she ended up letting him in and feeding him

and letting him rest for about a week.

Um, and then the next day, The church council found out about it and they

threw a fit because she was a single woman and he was a single man and

they couldn't live in the same house together and so they insisted that she

had to put him back on the streets.

And that caused her to think long and hard about who she was called to

be and so she went to the bishop and said, I would like to be appointed

to the streets for three years.

I do not want a salary and I do not want medical insurance because

that's who lives on the streets.

And she did.

She lived on the streets.

I had the great privilege of coming into contact with her when

I was serving in West Memphis.

She was there for a little while and she shared her stories.

And she shared a story, she shared with us her experience.

She was about midway through that three year appointment and she shared one of

her experiences, a regular experience that she would have, that often people

who were housed were the ones that she had to worry about hitting her

and threatening her and, um, at her.

People who were not housed were the ones she went to for cover and care.

And she also said that often it was the case that someone who was

housed would give her a ratty old blanket and tell her, Oh, I brought

you this so you could be warm.

And yet, those who were unhoused would find her on the street shivering and come

over with a sealed up brand new blanket.

that they had gotten at some shelter and open it up and give it to her

and say, you need this more than I.

I don't know what it is about having nothing that makes people so generous.

There's a wonderful line in a song from the Prince of Egypt that says,

when all you've got is nothing, there's a lot to go around, but maybe

it's because they themselves know the value of true generosity and the

difference that it makes in a life.

If it is freely, And to that comes a challenge for us to first of

all recognize that there is no one who truly has nothing to give.

No one who has nothing to give.

If you take breath, you can still make a difference.

Even if that breath is just used to lift up prayer, we can see that prayer

made a difference in these stories.

We can see that opening and inviting God in made a difference in these stories.

So there, every one of us has something to give.

The widow had the makings of bread, and the ability to

make bread, and the elves had.

So, that brings us to this last lesson, which is that we

can all be part of a miracle.

We can all be part of a miracle.

Elijah asked, well really demanded of the widow, and she took a chance.

And out of the result was the miracle of enough.

The shoemaker cut the leather and prayed.

The elves gave their skills, and as a result, everyone

was lifted up in that story.

People got better shoes, the shoemaker and his wife had a way to make their

living, and the elves were clothed.

In every case, someone took a chance, or many took a chance, and then they

invited in each other and God, and they got to be part of a miracle.

Now, I will admit, miracles are a theological struggle.

I will get asked, why did one get a miracle and another not?

Why did this work out for one and not for another?

I have to turn back to my understanding of the fullness of the reign of God.

Our God is a loving God.

Our God is a God that would love for all of us to live in that fullness

of the rain where there are no more tears and there's no more mourning,

there's no more death, there's no more pain, there's no more sickness.

That is what God is constantly working toward.

And I truly believe that every second of every single day, everything

is available for the fullness of the reign of God to break out.

But what it takes is for everyone to choose love.

And everyone to choose generosity at the same time.

And so, when I ask myself, why does one die of cancer and one doesn't?

Well, maybe the cancer that needed to be cured here relied on a child in

Africa getting the opportunity to go to college and to learn biology, and then

to study, and then to come to the cure.

But no one took a chance on that child.

And so this person over here doesn't get their miracle.

We are all part of this great tapestry of God.

But if the thread unravels over here, the blanket is not fully worn.

However, there are moments, there are what I call fireworks of

miracles, where everything finally lines up and something happens.

Because enough people came forward and invited God in, and put their

peace in, and everything came to be.

But it's so complicated.

We don't have the foresight to know what all it takes.

In most cases.

But the question we just have to ask ourselves is, Did I do my part?

Did I do what I could do?

Have I done my piece?

I think that one of the main purposes of church is to stitch together miracles.

That's why I ask the four questions of people.

I want to know what's on your heart.

I want to know where your passion lies.

I want to know what God has laid inside of you that says you

need to make a difference here.

That's why I ask those questions.

Because then, as I find out about your passions and needs in our

community, we can bring those together.

We can stitch miracles together.

And so we also have to pay attention to what's happening in our community.

I want to share with you I feel like we're in the process of

miracle stitching right now.

Our church has learned about a woman who is living in her truck in a parking lot.

I'm not going to say where, because this is broadcast online, and I want

to make sure that she has her privacy, but we know that there's a woman in

Bentonville living in a parking lot because her truck is broken down.

We have learned about this, and we are in the process of trying

to stitch together a miracle.

We have a donation of parts, we're missing a mechanic, and

we may be missing some funding.

There.

There's your invitation.

If you are part of that miracle that's supposed to be

stitched together, let me know.

Because that is at our heart who we are called to be.

The people of God are the ones that are called to break the reign of God in

as many ways and as many possibilities as we can with what we have to give.

What we already have to give.

Anything that God intends us to do, we already have the gifts that are needed.

We already have them.

It's a question of, are we bringing them forward?

Have we hit the right time?

Do we know the moment?

Has the call been made?

And have we invited God in?

And have we learned these lessons?

Have we learned that when we invite God in, change happens?

Have we learned that those who have the least often give the most?

And have we learned that we can be part of a miracle?

If we take those lessons, we can stitch together miracles one by

one, take our patchwork lives and make it into this quilt until the

reign of God covers us all over.

In the warmth of love and joy.

And peace.

Thanks be to God.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for

listening to the sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

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