Weekly Sermon: 08-09-2026 - Grounded in Connection: Differences

A reading from 1 Kings. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying,

Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there,

for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.

So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town,

a widow was there gathering sticks.

He called to her and said, Bring me a little water and a vessel so that I may drink.

As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.

But she said, As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked,

only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug.

I am now gathering a couple of sticks that I may go home and prepare it for

myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.

Elijah said to her, Do not be afraid. Go and do as you have said,

but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make

something for yourself and your son.

For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, The jar of meal will not be emptied,

and the jug of oil will not fail until that day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.

She went and did what Elijah said. so that she, as well as he and her household, ate for many days.

The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail,

according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah. The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

We're in a series right now called Grounded in Connection, Staying Connected in the Hard Stuff.

And today our theme is differences.

My senior year of college, I spent a semester living in Chicago doing an urban

studies program, and almost everything about it was different from the middle-class

white suburban neighborhoods where I had grown up.

There was a homeless woman named Love who we befriended and who sometimes slept

on our living room floor when the bitter Chicago winter was too cold for her to remain outside.

Mice poked their heads through the burners on our stove, and we sprinkled roach

powder along the baseboards and the cupboards to manage the bug problem.

This was nothing like how I grew up, and it was a kind of scarcity that I had never known.

One of our instructors was a community organizer named Jody Kretzman,

and he taught us something called asset mapping.

Instead of walking into a neighborhood and asking, what is wrong here? What is missing?

You begin by asking, what is good that is already here?

What assets, skills, relationships, people, and possibilities already exist.

Around Bethel Lutheran Church on Chicago's west side, I was assigned to literally

walk the neighborhood and mark backyard gardens on a map.

Things most people would never notice were assets and signs of possibility.

Jodi also told us a story that I have remembered for over 40 years.

In one neighborhood where Jody led this asset mapping process,

residents identified a young adult, George, who had a developmental disability.

George was pure joy. He walked down the street like a ray of sunshine,

smiling and greeting everybody,

making days brighter just by walking past you on the street.

So the neighborhood put George on the asset list on the map.

Then when they asked, where is one of our greatest needs in the community,

everybody agreed it was the county hospital.

Morale was low.

Departments did not communicate well, if at all, and it was a hard place to work.

Matching assets with needs, someone wondered,

what if George spent part of his day walking the halls of the hospital,

bringing his contagious smile and joy with him.

George did exactly this. Some people still scoffed.

What could George contribute to a place full of doctors, nurses,

and complicated medical problems?

Their differences seemed way too great.

The need too big. The gift way too small.

Well, we understand this feeling, don't we? Sometimes the problems before us

seem too large, and what we have seems grossly inadequate.

Sometimes a person seems so different from us, their culture,

their faith, their background, their income, orientation, personality, family story,

that our instinct,

is not to step closer,

but rather to step away.

It may not look like it at first, but Elijah and the widow of Zarephath find

themselves in this very same predicament.

God sends Elijah to Sidon. This is a foreign enemy territory,

the homeland of Queen Jezebel, who is actually trying to kill him.

Elijah is an Israelite prophet. The widow is a Gentile.

He worships the God of Israel.

She's a polytheist. She worships many gods, including Baal, like the queen who is trying to kill him.

Elijah is a respected holy man. She is an impoverished widow among the most

vulnerable people in the ancient world.

They could hardly be more different. In fact, they are polar opposites.

And there is scarcity everywhere to add to the mess.

Elijah has no food. The widow has almost none.

When Elijah asks her for bread, she tells him she only has a handful of flour

and a little oil, and she's gathering sticks to make her last meal for herself and her son.

And after that, they will die.

And notice what she says. As the Lord, your God lives.

Your God. Not mine.

Your God. emphasizing their difference.

Yet, God sends Elijah to her.

Before the widow believes in Elijah's God, God already sees her.

Before she belongs to Elijah's people, God already cares about her.

Before she can offer anything of

substance, God has already chosen her to sustain her and her son's life.

God's love is not limited by the boundaries that we draw, law,

by the wars that we fight,

the political parties with which we align, the differences that appear to matter so much.

Elijah says to her, do not be afraid.

Now, this does not mean that there's nothing frightening in front of them.

Her cupboard is nearly empty. Her child is hungry. Her future looks like death.

Do not be afraid simply means that scarcity is not going to get the last word.

The widow shares what little she has.

And somehow, the jar of flour never runs out, and the jug of oil does not fail.

This is what the God of abundance keeps doing over and over and over again.

A little bit of flour and a little bit of oil become enough for a household

going on, even with a guest.

Five loaves and two fish become enough for thousands.

A cross and a tomb become resurrection and eternal life.

Bread and wine become the living presence of Christ for us.

God keeps taking what looks like

too small and making it more than enough over and over and over again.

And God keeps bringing together people who look too different and he makes them kin.

You know, the word kindness is related to the word kin and kindred.

Kindness begins when we recognize the other person as kin, as kindred, as belonging to us.

Jesus takes the tradition of Elijah and keeps stretching the circle of who counts

as kin, as who belongs to us.

The stranger, the foreigner, the poor, the enemy, the person of another face,

the person whose life we do not understand.

For God so loved the world, the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

not just the part of the world that thinks like us and looks like us and worships like us.

And that brings me back to George.

Jodi's story of George actually continued.

The hospital eventually gave George another job.

While he walked the hallways, they gave him the cart of mail and said,

Well, we'll have George also deliver the mail.

Well, the problem was George was not very good at reading the labels on the mail.

So guess what? He delivered the wrong mail to all of the wrong departments.

He was terrible at delivering mail.

Now, you would think that this made everything much worse and they would have

kicked him out of the hospital.

But we serve a God of abundance where the container of flour never empties and

the jar of oil never fails. So what happened?

Instead, the department started delivering the correct mail to each other.

And in the process, they started communicating.

Cardiology cleared things up with radiology.

Orthopedics was now talking to pediatrics and so on.

George kept spreading his special brand of sunshiny joy and his mistakes created

connection and communication.

The very difference that some people thought made George inadequate became the very gift,

that helped solve one of the hospital's biggest problems.

That is not only what asset mapping teaching teaches us.

It is what the body of Christ and spiritual gifts calls us to do.

Instead of asking only what is lacking, we also ask what assets has God already placed here?

And that is our invitation this week.

When you notice yourself stepping back because someone is too different or it's

not what you expected or wanted or preferred,

ask God to help you step forward instead and become curious.

There's nothing more profound than the spiritual gift of curiosity.

Ask for their story. Ask what they care about. Ask what they hope for.

Look for the gift before you look at the difference.

Today, we blessed backpacks and children and teachers and preschool directors and families,

back into schools where they will meet people very different from themselves in countless ways.

And one of the biggest blessings that we can continue to give them as the family

of church and faith where they belong, is do not be afraid of difference.

Be curious. Be kind.

Treat people like kindred. Look for the gifts and the good things God has placed in other people.

The same is true for all of us. We come to this table where Jesus gives himself,

his very self, to people like us.

People who do not all think alike, live alike, believe with the same certainty.

And yet here we are to receive bread that does not run out and grace that does not ever run dry.

And then God sends us out, like Elijah, toward people we might not have ever chosen on our own.

There, God will bless us so unexpectedly and wonderfully with abundance and joy.

Today, we will close with a blessing. So I invite you to take a deep breath,

open both of your hands on your lap,

close your eyes if you would like, and receive this blessing.

May you be sustained in seasons of scarcity, not only by what you hold,

but by who stands beside you.

As the jar of flour did not run out and the jug of oil did not fail,

may your life be filled with God's quiet and steady provision through shared

meals, open doors, unexpected people and willing hands.

May you have the courage of the widow to offer what you have and the humility

of Elijah to receive from someone different than yourself.

When fear whispers, there is not enough. May the breath of God remind you,

you do not endure the hard stuff alone.

God has given us one another. And sometimes the person who seems most different

may be carrying exactly the gift we need.

Please say with me, thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. And amen. Amen.

We are created for connection. Look for Christ in every person.

Choose kindness over fear, hope over despair, grace over judgment.

Let your life help others know they belong too.

As you go in peace to love, serve, and welcome all.

Thanks be to God and we will. If you're inspired by this week's.