A few weeks ago, I was getting close to running out of storage memory on my home Google account. This is due primarily to how many photos and videos I have taken on my phone the last few years. So I spent a whole evening going backwards through my photos and videos and deleting many of them – particularly the many that have already been uploaded to our church shared folders for use in worship and newsletters. It was a neat journey backwards in time, remembering all sorts of events and people. I ended up working my way backwards through the main pandemic years all the way to March 2020 and even life before Covid. There were lots and lots of outdoor nature and camping photos, and socially distanced outdoor meals, and communion at home photos, music videos and Brady Bunch Zoom screen shots. But this is the kind of photo that jolted my memory of those very early Covid 19 days. For those who do not recognize what this is, this is a photo of the game of Settlers of Catan, all set up to play. I had dozens and dozens of these photos. You see, fairly early on, when you could not get together at all with family or friends in person, we tried to get creative with how to still connect socially with others. I had this idea that we could somehow still play my favourite game of Settlers with others – over Zoom, this newly discovered platform. So I would set up a random game board, which is different each and every game, take a photo of it, and email it to the other players who would then set up their own identical boards in their house. We would then play by using Zoom to see each other’s faces and give information back and forth for what dice we rolled and what moves we made. It took some good communication and we sometimes messed up royally, but the system worked. We would all look away or cover our eyes when someone picked a random card from one player after the robber was moved. You can see in these early photos from April and May 2020 that I have the coloured game pieces around the board with name tags about who is virtually sitting in what order. With routine and pattern, we soon dropped the name tags. We played with a couple different sets of friends and with some Neufeld cousins across Canada, and then soon fell into an almost every Friday night Settlers playing routine with one group. I would often set up and send photos of 3 different game boards to last late into the evening. About 6 months in, I realized that rather than take photos I could just announce the board outloud as I made it and we could save that time, so we dropped the photos.
Seeing these photos transported me back to some of those early emotions of the pandemic – the fears, the worries and almost panic, the void left by lack of routine and predictability, that overwhelming sense of the unknown, the realization that our whole world was in crisis. Rachel and I needed to find some way of retreating into something familiar and friendly, okay – mostly friendly – with friends and the people we loved. Friday night Zoom Settlers became a God-send, a way of anchoring life when so much was unpredictable, and it continued almost weekly for more than 2 years. Yes, it was playing a silly and overly competitive and frustrating game, but it became more than that. It became a weekly check in with people we loved – in between moves and games we very naturally would share what was going on in life, how we were feeling, what had been overwhelming, where we felt inadequate for the challenges facing us, what was going on with our families. Sometimes there were tears. Often there was laughter. It became a true place of honest and vulnerable sharing and deepening our friendships. (Take down photo) And tonight we have an in person Settlers Tournament with these friends.
Looking back, I wonder if one of the underlying questions and anxieties for so many of us in the pandemic had to do with this sense of not being prepared, not having adequate personal resources, falling short, being full of questions, living with constant uncertainty – another way of saying this is the fear of not being enough. Normally, we can hide that question of ‘am I enough’, but during the pandemic it arose more to the surface, as it does in times of crisis, in times when we feel more vulnerable and unguarded, maybe more honest. Friday nights became a place of trust to bring our questions of enough.
As a pastor, and as I listened to other pastors on the many MCEC Zoom calls we had, there was this worry that the church would not be enough, and that we as pastors would not be enough for what was needed in this crisis. Would a pre-recorded worship from the library or the sanctuary be enough to sustain a community’s faith when no one was in person? Was what we could do and not do for funerals be enough? Were phone calls and front porch pastoral care visits enough to support the many needs in the congregation? Were the outdoor events and care packages and connections and activities outside of worship with our children and youth be enough to keep them connected to a church community and a faith at an age when not being in worship for a few years is an eternity? Was a new pastoral newsletter enough to keep us Together While Apart? Did we have enough tech and video resources and knowhow to lead as needed? Did we have enough prayer and spiritual disciplines and personal resources to sustain ministry through a crisis? Would the church as we know it be enough to bring us into a new world? You may each have your own version of what this question of enough meant and means in your life or profession or calling or situation, or how you have reflected on the church. It is in these moments that we need some sort of daily, weekly, regular form of hope and ongoing sustenance… even if it comes in the form of a stupid game played with friends.
The prophet Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and her son met each other in a time of crisis, with so many questions of enough. Both of them needed each other and the physical and spiritual nourishment given through the grace and provision of God. The first verse we heard already names the crisis – ‘after a while the wadi dried up because there was no rain in the land.’ This was a time of extreme drought in the land – an environmental catastrophe. Sound familiar? In the previous verses Elijah is surviving from this wadi, this slowly drying out stream, and from ravens that bring him bread and meat every morning and evening. The wadi dries up. Elijah is hungry and thirsty. Desperate, he goes to Zarephath, and he meets this widow, this mother, just as desperate. She is down to her last handful of flour and jug of oil. She cannot see beyond that day – ‘I have nothing… I am gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son that we may eat it, and die.’ There is no hope. And yet, she still has hospitality and generosity, she shares the little she has with Elijah and this sharing becomes the lifeblood of new hope and a daily provision that does not run out or fail. So on one level, this story is about whether there is enough food, enough flour and oil, enough bread and water to provide for each of their physical needs.
But underneath this story are deeper question of enough. Imagine what was going through the woman’s mind and soul, as a mother with her young son. We don’t know the tragic story, but there has already been the loss of a husband, a partner, a provider, maybe a loss of status and agency within her community and world, and the possibility to provide for her child. You hit the crisis of a drought and your personal resources simply are not enough. A mother is supposed to be able to provide for her child. How agonizing to feel like you are not even enough for your child, and there is nothing you can do. For those of us who are parents, this can be where we most feel inadequate – when we feel that we are not enough for our kids – even if they are provided with all their physical needs. In the verses that follow in chapter 17 this son becomes ill and has no breath left in him. The woman can only understand this as punishment by God for her sins, for her inadequacies, for not being enough. Elijah prays to God and the boy is revived, the life returned to his body, and the woman finally claims that promise from God that she is indeed enough, as she says it, that the word of the Lord in Elijah’s mouth is true.
Elijah too comes feeling like he is not enough – a deep theme for him throughout his life and ministry. He is a prophet of God and you would think that speaking with and being called so directly by God would be enough. But he struggles again and again with his purpose and place and with a deep unsettledness. With Ahab and Jezebel he is public enemy number 1. He is the ‘troubler,’ and is often fleeing for his life. In the following chapters he has this huge showdown with the priest of Baal and wins, bringing with him rain, the end of the drought, but still that is not enough, and soon he is a sought man, fleeing once again. Back in the wilderness, he is again depressed and at his end. He feels like a failed prophet. He asks that he might die and cries out ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ He lies under a broom tree, falling asleep to die. It is an angel that wakes him up to eat and drink, providing a little baked cake/bread and a jar of water – his physical needs provided. But it takes more than that. He still feels so inadequate as a prophet. It takes meeting God directly, not in the wind or earthquake or fire but in the sound of sheer silence, in that promise from God that deep down we are truly enough.
In this story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, it is not in grandeur but rather in the small that hope and renewal and assurance and promise and new life are found. It is in the still small voice, the little shared meal, the acts of hospitality, the quiet words of God, the shared care of a prophet and a widow. It is in bread given and shared and eaten together. In this story, bread becomes not only physical nourishment that does not run out, but a symbol of enough. Bread keeps showing up – for the woman and her son, for Elijah, over and over again. Bread is the reminder that with God they truly are enough – enough for their child, enough for their calling, enough for the crisis of the day, enough for the world around them. Bread is this thing baked enough for each day, and in the same way, God provides spiritual provision and renewal enough for each day. It is no wonder that in the prayer that Jesus taught he said, Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, our sins, our falling short, our not being enough, as we forgive those who trespass against us, who also think they are not enough. Elijah and the woman needed each other, needed to eat bread together. Maybe it is in that coming together, that mutual hospitality, that honest sharing with each other, that grace shown and given, that sharing of the bread of heaven, that we recognize our common promise, our common purpose, our shared worth in the eyes of God. As we will sing ‘You are all we have. You give us what we need. Our lives are in your hand, O God.’ (VT 701) What are those small reminders for you, those repeated acts that renew your life, even when in crisis, and remind you that you are enough in God’s eyes? Maybe it is prayer, a quiet place in nature you go to sit and reflect, a physical activity or form of exercise, a regular shared meal, weekly worship, singing – with a voice that has returned, playing games with friends, even in person now, or maybe it is taking time to eat and savour homemade bread. Whatever it might be for you, this is the flour and oil and bread that will not be emptied, that will not fail. God’s message to us is that in God’s eyes, we are enough. We are loved and we are called, and we will receive what we need. Please join me in that prayer of Jesus:
Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.