Gathering Sticks

Scripture Lessons: Galatians 1: 11-24 and 1 Kings 17: 8-24, OT page 324 Sermon Title: Gathering Sticks Preached on 6/5/2016 When I was growing up I spent a lot of time at a place just like this one in Georgia. I learned a lot at the camp that was founded and supported by the presbytery the church I grew up in was a part of. That camp was right off Interstate 75 and on Lake Alatoona. The camp, called Camp Cherokee, kept a rustic character, a lot like this one. There was no air conditioning in the cabins, the meals were all served in a dining hall a lot like the one we’ll eat lunch in, and every night after dinner we’d gather on an open-air pavilion that was nearly a carbon copy of this one, for a brief worship service. One of the pastors from within the presbytery would always preach to us and some were better than others, and it’s funny that you don’t always remember the best ones so much as the worst ones. The one that I remember the best came when I was a counselor at the camp for the summer. This pastor was a little more fire and brimstone than most and he had a sermon on the suffering Jesus endured leading up to and during the crucifixion. He was going on and on to this group of young campers about how the whip they lashed him with was made of leather straps, and stuck in the straps were bits of metal and glass that ripped his flesh, and how they whipped him and whipped him within an inch of his life, “but that wasn’t what killed him children,” the preacher said, “because after the whip came the crown of thorns” and they pushed that crown of thorns down on his head and the thorns pierced his scalp and blood ran down his face, “but that wasn’t what killed him children,” said the preacher, “because after the crown of thorns came the nails”. The pastor went into detail in how the Roman soldiers took those rusty, rusty nails, and with a hammer they took those rusty old nails and they nailed his hands to the cross, “but it wasn’t the rusty nails that killed him children,” the preacher said, and then he asked: “Do you know what it was that finally killed him?” A young boy raised his hand and the preacher addressed him: “yes child. It wasn’t the rusty nails was it. Do you know what it was that finally killed him?” The young boy asked the preacher: “With those rusty old nails, was it tetanus that killed him?” On a pavilion like this one at a camp very much like this one, in that moment I learned that God speaks through interruptions. Of course, preachers don’t always like interruptions, because the interruptions sometimes make a different point from the one that the preacher wants to make. Busy people don’t like interruptions much either because busy people have folks to meet and things to do, and even if the interruption is an injured man on the side of the road, sometimes busy people are just too busy to stop. And then, sometimes it’s hard to be interrupted when you’ve hit the bottom, and I don’t know why it is that you don’t want to be interrupted from your sadness and despair, but I know that you don’t because when I’m down or worried or preoccupied the last thing I want to do is hear a joke even if it’s funny or listen to someone else’s problems because it feels like I already have too many all on my own, so you brush off the friend’s comforting hand because you don’t think you can be comforted. I imagine it must have been something like that for this woman in our 2nd Scripture Lesson – this woman who is interrupted by a prophet while she’s out gathering sticks. Our 2nd Scripture Lesson tells the story of this un-named woman who was interrupted while focused on the task at hand by this prophet who called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink,” and while you’re at it, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” Of course, he didn’t know what she was going through in that moment. Maybe if he had known he wouldn’t have asked, but he didn’t so he did and when he asked her to serve him some food and water 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, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Can you imagine? “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, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” I read it twice because the gravity of her words and the depravity of her situation take a second to wrap my privileged little brain around. Can you imagine what that must feel like? To be gathering sticks to prepare your last meal and some guy you’ve never seen before interrupts you and places his order of a “little water in a vessel and a morsel of bread from your hand.” But now that I’m on a pavilion, so very much like the one at the camp I went to as a child, I am reminded of the reality that God speaks through interruptions, but sometimes we are too defeated to hear. Do you know what I mean? So much of life we are being tested. And some camps do a really good job of making you strong to prepare you for those tests. Knowing that I needed a little help grasping the finer points of baseball my parents sent me off to baseball camp at Young Harris College and when I came back I was stronger, more determined, and was self-confident enough to really play. Then there was another summer at a Boy Scout Camp on the Boundary Waters between Northern Minnesota and Canada, and with a troop we carried everything we needed on our backs, even picked up canoes and carried them on our shoulders from one lake to the next and after 10 days we had traveled over 100 miles and knew that we had the strength to do more than we ever thought we could. And it’s good to know how strong you are. Self-reliance is a virtue. But what about when you hit the bottom. What about when you’ve done absolutely everything that you know to do, and you’ve gone as far as you can go, and you don’t know anything else to do but to gather sticks and die? If that’s the state of things, then baseball camp can’t help you. Boy Scout Camp can’t help you either – because it’s not about gritting your teeth and getting through or finding some strength within yourself that you didn’t know was there – when you’re out gathering sticks to cook that last little bit of meal for you and your son you don’t have anything left and now you’re in need of the kind of strength that comes from the one who was in the world but the world knew him not. Christianity makes the difference between the church camp and all the other camps that parents send their children to, because it’s Christianity that teaches that just when you’re sure that there’s nothing left to do because you can’t think of anything else to do – that God has a tendency to interrupt. Elijah said to this woman who was gathering the sticks to cook her last meal, “Do not be afraid… 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.” This woman must have wondering how, because that’s what people do. We find ourselves gathering sticks, and it’s hard to trust the word of the one who interrupts us to promise that there’s more to this world than what we can see. We search for the words to say and are convinced that they’ll never come, because trusting the word of Jesus in Matthew 10 is so hard. You know this verse: “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time.” I’d sooner tear my hair out than stand behind a pulpit without the words that I’m going to say. I’d much rather practice and type and revise, because like so many human beings I spend my time developing skills that I think I can depend on because they’re mine, but what about when I’ve reached the end. What about when I’m out gathering sticks because all the strength that I had is gone. All the thoughts that I can muster fall flat. In that moment Preaching Camp can’t help me. Only Church Camp can help me. Because it’s at a place like this one that I learned how to pray. After the worship service we’d sometimes still be up on the pavilion and the counselors would tell ghost stories. Or we’d hike to this abandoned graveyard and I’d be so scared walking back from the graveyard in the dark that I’d walk so close to the camper walking next to me that our shoulders touched, and when it was time to go to sleep I couldn’t sleep because I was too afraid to close my eyes, afraid that this ghost they called Green Eyes who liked to kidnap campers who wandered into the woods would come and snatch me. I’d just pray and pray and pray, completely dependent on a power greater than myself. When we find ourselves gathering sticks that’s our only hope, because all the power that we have gives out. And if that’s all the power that we believe in than the act of gathering sticks is an act out of complete despair. It’s like standing at the grave, because at the grave, if human power is all that there is than what is there to do but put out some flowers, shed some tears, say goodbye, gather some sticks? But even then there’s an interruption. Even then there is the word of one who says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” What I’m talking about here is what Paul was talking about: the gospel not of human origin, not received from a human source, not taught but only received, that transcends human wisdom or human strength or human determination – because all of that human stuff only got Paul so far. He advanced in Judaism. He was zealous for the traditions of his ancestors. But where did all that hard work get him? Not gathering sticks, but gathering Christians, violently persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it. It was then that God revealed his son to him and called him through his grace, and once again it is in that great interruption that the Good News can be heard. Now maybe we are far from interruptions way out here. Our cell phones don’t work. Fox News can’t knock on our door to find out if we know David French. But if you listen today you will hear it. It’s not about us, what we’ve done or haven’t done. What we can do or what we can’t. Christianity is about what God has done and will do, even in those times when hope seems to be lost. Amen.