It's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

This message was preached at Kingwood UMC and Frenchtown UMC during a communion Sunday.

Third Sunday After Pentecost
It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
June 5, 2016
I Kings 17:8-24

When I was little I watched a lot of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and there’s a possibility that many of you in this place today watched this show too. There were very few shows my parents deemed educationally appropriate and lucky for my sister and I this made the short list. I can trace my earliest understandings of welcome and community to this show. I still remember the song that started every show,
“It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Could you be mine?
Would you be mine?”
The song continued on for a bit as he settled in but what a wonderful way to begin! What if thats how we invited people to this place- It’s a beautiful day! Come join me.

Every few months on social media a photo circulates from a 1969 episode of Mister Rogers sitting in a pool with police office Clemmons. For those of you who haven't seen this picture Fred Rogers is a white man, and Francois Clemmons is a black man. At the time this episode aired race relations in our country were strained to say the least, but Fred Rogers did something amazing in the moment captured in picture and in that episode-he showed hospitality and love to someone he was supposed to hate, he shared an intimate and “normal” moment with someone who was clearly different from him. Through this small moment Fred Rogers said more to an impressionable generation about race relations than any politician ever could, in this moment healing began, mentalities began to shift, a new vision for welcome began for many.

“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
In verse 9 of today's scripture reading we clearly see the instructions God gave to Elijah. God did not mince words, God did not leave room for interpretation, God spoke-Elijah listened. Now I must tell you for such a seemingly request there’s a lot behind it. In verse 1 of this chapter Elijah just suddenly appears to King Ahab to proclaim a drought was coming to the lands. There is no backstory, no examples of training or ancestry. In the interactions that follow we can determine that Elijah was a prophet, faithful to God...his name itself means “My God is Yahweh.” So regardless of backstory, or history, this man believed and trusted in God with every fiber of his being. We know that he was a Tishbite, from an area near Galilee. We know that he was residing in Gilead. We know that God called him to go the east of the Jordan where he was fed by ravens, and now to Zarephath to be cared for by a widow.

And here is when knowing the geography is helpful… Elijah was a stranger in a strange land who was told to go to a place filled with his geographical enemies. So all of a sudden the request of “Go now to Zarephath and live there, and I’ve commanded a widow to feed you” becomes “Go live among enemies as the guest of a vulnerable person in society.” The widow was an outcast position, she would not be able to protect the prophet, she had no connections, rather we see that she is so poor that all she has isn’t enough for her and her son.

Beloved here’s where it gets me.... God KNEW the vulnerability of this woman, yet did not command Elijah to help her, to find solution, to prophesy amazing things...God just wanted Elijah to be with her. See there is something amazing and intimate about journeying with someone. In our churches we sometimes forget this and when we do we end  up creating a place that feels more like a secret club rather than a welcome table to those who come in our doors or check us out on social media. Elijah’s ministry pushed him to live among the people, it pushed him to learn about the other, it pushed him to care deeply about the child of the enemy.
Friends are the things we do in this place and beyond it, the ministry that we claim, is it to others, for others or with others? There’s a distinction between these three. Ministry “to” others are the things that are pretty, the programs and resources  that we are passionate about, that we do well, but never leave our walls. Like creating a program geared towards young people, without connection with local schools or groups aimed at families, and then wondering why more people don't know about it and attend. Ministry “for” others are the things we do, that extend beyond our walls, that actually don't take into account the needs of those we are trying to serve. Like hosting a food drive to donate to a local food bank where they are inundated with cans and actually need money or have specific needs, rather than more random cans.

Ministry “with” others are the programs and events that take into account the needs of the people, that have input from those we’re serving. Like not serving apples at the community lunch program because the majority of the clients have dentures or no teeth and apples are hard to eat. Like serving two full meals at Vacation Bible School because many in your community rely on free school lunch during the year to guarantee their children get fed. Finding sustainable solutions that ebb and flow with the ever changing needs of the people.

The beauty of being “with” those we consider other means we can imagine, dream together, create a vision to move forward, to enact great change, to tackle basic needs and systemic problems, to actually have intimate relationship, to be a neighbor.

In verses 13-16 we see that God provides, God made a way for this widow to provide for Elijah and for her family. Yet I can imagine that in this interaction Elijah was changed. He saw that there was only one pallet for them to sleep on, and it clearly wasnt comfortable, he saw that the few plates in the cupboard were chipped and mismatched, he saw clothes, newspapers, and goodness knows what else plugging holes in the wall. He saw this woman not as a single mother, not as a widow, an outcast, a nobody...he saw her heart. Elijah saw a beloved child of God who was doing the best she knew how to provide for her family, he saw a woman who was struggling and had almost given up hope, he saw her. And in verses 20-23 we see not just a prophet but a man invested in the lives of the enemy, the other, those he lived among. In his actions he planted seeds of healing and peace. In his actions he planted possibility.

Its a beautiful day beloved- there is untapped potential and possibility in this world. We have the amazing task to go from this place week after week, extending the welcome we experience at God’s table to those we know and those we don’t. I pray that we aim to experience and express the beauty that God has made in this world. I pray that we find the courage to trust God, and to listen closely to the words being spoken to us. I pray that we aim to go to the uncomfortable places so that the kingdom, the family, the neighborhood of God is continually extended.

In the words of Mister Rogers’:
“Let's make the most of this beautiful day
Since we're together, might as well say
Would you be my, could you be my,
Won't you be my neighbor?”