Sermon for Williamstown
The third Sunday after Pentecost; June 9, 2013
1 Kings 17:8-16

When I first read today’s story from the Hebrew Scriptures, the tale of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, a phrase sprang to my mind: ‘Charity begins at home’. This proverb lurked in the background of my head, challenging me, because it’s the absolute opposite of the message given by today’s reading. And yet it sounds biblical; it sounds like the sort of wise saying that could quite easily be part of the Book of Proverbs. In the end the contradiction was too much for me, and I went looking for where this particular proverb comes from. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, which I’m going to trust on this matter, that phrase was first coined in the fourteenth century, in England. One example of it I’ve found comes from the early seventeenth century, in a play by John Fletcher called Wit without Money, in which there’s the line: ‘Charity and beating begins at home’. (You don’t need to know that, although I think it’s interesting.) The point it, the saying isn’t biblical; this isn’t a case of one part of the Bible: a story, contradicting another part: a saying, although that does occasionally happen. Instead, the contradiction that was happening in my head as I read was a case of worldly wisdom, of the human impulse to care for one’s own, conflicting with the message of the universality of God’s love. And that conflict is very common. Continue reading →