June 9, 2020 (today’s lectionary)
Let your face shine
Like Elijah, Walt Whitman listened within himself to God. Like Isaiah, Whitman wrote his poetry echoing the voice he heard.
Elijah might have heard God say:
Listen, I will be honest with you
I do not offer the old smooth prizes
But now I offer rough new prizes.
These are the days that must happen to you.
Whitman surely could have been thinking of Elijah and the widow when he wrote:
I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,
We convince by our presence.
Because Elijah didn’t mince words with the widow, and she didn’t mince words with him. “Give me a drink, and make me some bread.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t even have enough for my son and I. After I use the last I have we will die. Don’t you know there is a drought!?”
“You have enough. You have oil and flour you know not of. Make me some bread.”
And she did.
Nobody convinced anybody of anything. They just both of them listened to God and did what they heard to do.
That’s what I love about this story.
My aunt’s family was from Lebanon. Perhaps they lived near the Mediterranean in modern Sarafand, ancient Zarephath, near the the widow’s home, near Elijah. Both then and now these men and women stand on tiptoe to watch the final bits of sun dip into the sea, bringing on the night, bluest of blue then dark then black, gone but not forever, in the morning rising up to sky bright blue again.
Days passed, weeks and months, a year, and Elijah stayed with the widow and her son, and all of them had more than enough to eat.
Lord, do let your face shine
In the sunrise and the moonrise
Beyond the sunset and the stars
Let your face shine
You who relieve me when I am in distress
Have pity on me now, O Lord, have pity
Yes I will be afraid and angry but still sin not
YES I CAN lie on my bed and be still
Search my heart and be silent, know my own part in all of this
At last recalling the gladness in my heart
That I felt, once,
More than when grain and new wine abound
Lord, I know that my redeemer lives
Your gladness is there for me again
It is always there for all of us
Lord let your face shine
Now as then and evermore
It is the light of your face that shines through me
This little light of mine
The gleam of sunrise in my eyes
I will be well, and do good work and stay in touch
With you, O God
Here and now, I glorify my heavenly Father.
The salt pours over the meat, that coarse Kosher salt, salt of the earth and sea. The pure white salt lifts the moistures of the meat up and up to make silent love with the spices and the smoke for hours, resting on the fire.
It’s best to start this work at midnight, at 12:01, the first moment of the new day. Twenty-four hours is surely long for any meat to cook soft and sweet. More than enough time.
Can you imagine Elijah and the widow smoking a bit of meat to go with their bread? It might have happened, it might have.
Let your light shine, Elijah.
Just after midnight, in the darkness, through the tiny holes in the black smoky grill the fire shines bright.
Under a bushel basket, NO! I’m gonna let it shine.
Jesus speaks what is true: a city on a hill cannot be hid. Be strong and take heart, for you are the light of the world.
Let your light shine and do what you hear to do, the good deeds of your good God,
Glorify, glorify, glorify!
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