This weekend somewhere around 38 million Americans are leaving one place in America and going to some other place.  If your Memorial Day destination happens to be College Station, Texas – welcome.  Summer travel is a fascinating activity that is definitely not restricted to Americans.  Many of us around the world are already mapping out where we will go next.  I want to encourage you as you plan your next trip not to over plan.  Leave some time for those spontaneous stops that may provide some wonderful memories.  My love of travel was ignited by my Aunt Peg and Uncle Bill, natives of Ohio, who lived in California.  They would come to Ohio around Memorial Day for a visit and take a couple of nephews back on the road with them to spend the summer in California.  I went four times and I can tell you that it is a long way from Findlay, Ohio to Riverside, California.  It would take us between 3-5 days, depending on how many roadside attractions attracted my Uncle Bill.  I remember stopping in Abilene, Kansas to see the birthplace of Dwight Eisenhower.  We drove out of our way one day to see Box Canyon in Ouray, Colorado.  This curiosity about Roadside Attractions is now deeply ingrained in me.  I want to know what is hidden in those woods, visible from that overlook, and written on that plaque. 

I do the same thing when I read the Bible.  I like to stop every now and then and look around, soak it in, see what else can be seen.  That is the journey on which I invite you – a journey to some places in the Bible where you might never have visited or at least spent much time.

We start in northwest Israel where we have just met Elijah.  I am fascinated by Elijah.  I shared that with a youth group years ago telling them that Elijah was one of the superheroes of the Old Testament.  One young person said, “If he is so great, why have I never heard of him?”  I determined then that I would talk about this prophet everywhere I go in life.  He is just that great. 

We shall tell his story in four parts – three acts and an epilogue.  The first act is found in the entire chapter of 1 Kings 17.  Here we meet Elijah with very little introduction.  All we know so far is that he is a Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead and there is much debate about just where that is.  Elijah marches up to King Ahab, who has set up shop somewhere around Meggido as the reigning monarch of Israel.  He tells Ahab that it will not rain until he says so.  Now here we may need to take a brief excursion back into I Kings 16 where we learn that Ahab did more evil in the sight of the Lord than any king before him. Then verse 31 clinches the assessment of his wickedness, “And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.”

Elijah appears on the scene out of nowhere, like a superhero, and declares, “No rain or dew until I say so.”  Again, we may want to take just a little detour and read the plaque found in some commentaries that Baal was the god of vegetation for the Sidonians and, therefore, the god of rain.  Elijah was setting up a battle between the god in fashion at the time and the God of all ages.  Elijah is protected by God who sent him to the Wadi Cherith, in Houston it would have been called the Cherith Bayou, it provided drainage and emptied into the Jordan River.  Now we get into the heart of this part of the story – Act I: God Provides.  It is an act with three scenes.
 

Scene One: God Provides Help for the Helpless

Elijah made a powerful proclamation of no rain, but the result of that was, one, he needed a place to hide from the angry king and his desperate people, and two, he needed a place where he could survive the famine.  Look at what the Lord said to him in verse 4.  It is critical for the story.  He said, “I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”  God provided for Elijah.  The good news was he had meat twice a day which only the wealthy could afford.  The bad news was birds brought it to him, along with bread.

I can’t help but think that for many students college can seem a lot like the Wadi Cherith.  It is a foreign environment, so different from home with all its familiarities and routines.  My college experience was one where I truly did not know from where my next meal was coming.  There is required a trust that God will provide the relationships, the stability, the community for which we yearn.  I have seen that in the Coffee House that this church has provided and that Katy-Marie Lyles has overseen as our Director of College Ministries since March 27, 2007.  Every day that our Coffee House has been in operation students have come in seeking home, a place to hang out to discuss academic, spiritual, and relational matters.  Katy-Marie has helped to develop leaders in our college ministries and has kept her door open to discuss concerns that students have in an experience that can be as lonely as the Wadi Cherith.  Thank you, Katy-Marie, and all who have worked with you, for allowing God to use you to provide for God’s students.

There is one more thing I want you to notice in this scene before we move to the next, the provision occurred twice a day.  This took constant trust.  Unless you have been to the place where you are not sure from where your next meal would come, you may not truly appreciate this element in the story.  I am not merely speaking of physical sustenance.  To all who have ever wondered or who may be wondering right now, “How can I make it one step farther?”  To all who feel completely helpless in the midst of the current storm, look to the Wadi Cherith where we see that God provides help for the helpless.
 

Scene Two: God Provides Hope for the Hopeless

Eventually, the Wadi Cherith dried up and Elijah had to move on.  Just as the Lord did in verse 2, so the Lord does in verse 8, he instructs Elijah to go on a journey, from the southeast of Israel to the northwest of Israel and beyond, to the town of Zarephath in the same vicinity where Jezebel grew up (the battle lines continue to be drawn).  Look at what the Lord said to him in verse 9.  It is critical for the story.  He said, “I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”  God provided for Elijah.  This morning’s reading stopped there, but the story continues. You can follow along in your Bible as it is a curious telling of a little story.  God had commanded the widow there to feed Elijah, but she didn’t know it.  Elijah went to Zarephath, saw a woman gathering some sticks for a fire and asked her for a little drink of water.  As she was going to fetch the water, he asked her for a morsel of bread.  That is when the tension mounts between the demands of ancient hospitality and the harsh reality of famine.  She feels obliged to extend the customary hospitality to a stranger, but she explains, “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, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”  Notice all the minimalist language here – Elijah asked for a little water and a morsel of bread; she explained that she had only a handful of flour, a little oil and a couple of sticks.  To which Elijah responded with a request for a little cake, first.

She heeded his request and just as he had promised, they never ran out of meal or oil.  The impression that one gets from reading this story is that the jar of meal never heaped up to the top and the flask of oil never overflowed.  It was always a handful of meal and a little oil, but it was always enough.  I wonder if Jesus had this in mind when he taught his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  He certainly knew about this Roadside Attraction as he referred to this story in Luke 4, reminding his hearers that while there were many widows in Israel, God chose to send Elijah to Zarephath.  The good news was the widow, her son, and Elijah ate every day during the famine.  The bad news was it always looked like they were just about to run out.

I am pretty sure that this is how my son felt almost six years ago when he heard we were moving to College Station.  He had just started the eighth grade when we moved here. He had friends with whom he had grown quite close, he was a member of the football team, and he had a youth group to which he had transitioned from Children’s Ministry.  He was pretty sure that he was going to eat one last meal in Pasadena and that was it – end of the story.  Then he met some of the youth and the youth counselors at A&M UMC. In the fall semester of his sophomore year he met a new counselor, who became our Director of Youth Ministries on January 5, 2007.  When Zac was asked to submit a college entrance essay about an influential person in his life, he chose to write about Clay Horton.  He had been to Summer Camps with Clay, on Mexico Mission Trips, Break-thru, UM ARMY, Mid winters, retreats, and even on a backpacking trip in Colorado.  He also spent most of his Sunday nights and Wednesday evenings with the youth of this church.  Thank you, Clay, and all who work with you.  Zac had no more idea of what awaited him in College Station than Elijah did on his way to Zarephath.  It seemed hopeless to him almost six years ago.  However, he learned the same lesson that the prophet and the widow learned – God provides hope for the hopeless.

You may be in one of those transitions in life that is creating a great deal of anxiety for you.  Everything may seem so small – a little water, a morsel of bread, a handful of meal, a little oil, a couple of sticks – God provides.  You said it already this morning, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  I encourage you to trust God to do just that.  God provides.
 

Scene Three: God Provides Life for the Lifeless

The story of our superhero seemed to be going well, until the widow’s son took sick and died.  The woman was understandably upset.  She felt that the prophet’s presence in her home had gotten God’s attention.  Job lamented in the book that bears his name that no one can stand before the scrutiny of God.  The woman was sure that God had seen her sins and taken the life of her child and she was furious.  In this scene it was not God who commanded birds or a widow to sustain the prophet, but rather the prophet who commanded that the Lord let the boy’s life return to him.  Michael Williams wrote, “Prayer is such a mystery! There is a fine line between piously accepting the will of God and responding to a situation with a resolute ‘No!’ that will not be turned aside.”  Three times Elijah prayed to God and verse 22 informs us, “The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.”  Donald Wiseman pointed out in his commentary that this is the first example in the Bible of a revival from death.  Richard Nelson concluded, “The power of God is ultimately on the side of life,” from which we “gain the courage to face the Ahabs and the Baals of our world.”

I have seen this kind of courage in Lindsay Childers Kirkpatrick, who came to us a year ago as a student seeking experience in a multi-staff church, but soon became an integral part of the ministry of A&M UMC.  She confronted the Ahabs who foster a global crisis of human trafficking with her involvement in our hosting the “Call and Response” video.  She confronted the Ahabs of a system that would lock up prisoners and throw away the key through her commitment to leading a small group in prison ministry.  She challenged the Baals of our world that would idolize an experience or an impression of God, rather than seeking the God who is beyond comprehension and yet, within reach.  I will not go so far as to say that she brought anyone back to life, but she certainly added life to our staff and our ministry.  Thank you, Lindsay.

The question that I would ask you this morning is, “Are you fully alive?”  Have you lost sight of a God who provides for you daily?  Is your faith journey in a somewhat lifeless state right now?  I have good news for you – God provides life for the lifeless!

It is appropriate that on the day that we say “Thank You” and sort of “Farewell” to three young leaders that we do so in the context of a superhero prophet.  Each of these three has been a prophet at one time or another.  They leave here for the Wadi Cherith or the village of Zarephath also known as Dallas and Montgomery. I am confident that the Lord has already commanded someone to provide for them there even as the Lord is sending someone here to provide for you.  God provides.  Amen.