David’s son Solomon became king and went on a building spree, conscripting farmers for his construction crews. When Rehoboam followed his father on the throne, the people asked him to lighten their load. The new king refused, and under Jeroboam, ten tribes separated from Judah. Israel and Judah continued as separate nations, with some kings better than others. Ahab of Israel was an “other,” so God sent a drought on the land.
The drought also affected the neighboring countries, including the community of Zarephath in the region of Sidon, where a family of three lived.
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Several Painted Lady butterflies came in the spring to enjoy the colorful flowers the mother tended near the house. The toddler loved to chase after the orange and black creatures. The father watched him carefully, but his stumbling footsteps were no match for the dainty wings. In the fall, when the flowers died and the leaves turned brown, the butterflies left.
With no rain, during the first year of the drought, the harvest was smaller than usual. They kept aside a smaller amount of grain to plant in the spring and less for them to eat until the next fall. Everyone around them suffered the same problem.
“Maybe the rain will come this spring,” the father said.
It did not. Only a few pretty flowers bloomed for the few butterflies that returned.
Before the time of harvest, the father died, leaving his widow to support their young son.
The widow harvested what wheat had grown and set aside some for planting in the spring. “We won’t need as much for flour because there are only two of us now,” she told her son.
The next spring, she had to make a choice. “Either I grind all the remaining wheat for flour, or I plant it. There is not enough for both.”
She ground all the wheat to make bread. There would be no harvest if the drought continued, which it did.
Only one of her flowers appeared, which she watered faithfully for the one returning butterfly.
She made smaller and smaller breads as she watched her son grow thinner and thinner. He no longer ran and played and chased the butterfly. It spent its time on the flower. She felt weaker every day. They were both hungry all the time.
One morning she realized there was only enough flour left to make a small bread for herself and her son. Only a tiny amount of oil remained in her jug. She sighed. “This is it. There is no more.”
With the little energy she had left, she stooped down to pick up a few sticks for the fire to cook the last little bread. She heard an unfamiliar voice. From his accent, she could tell he was a Jew. But he spoke to her, a Gentile woman, a woman who did not worship his Lord God.
“Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?”*
From his appearance, he would be thirsty. Dust covered his clothes and his feet, as though he had walked a long way. He dropped himself down on the stump of a tree that had died in the drought. Others had cut it down. She had been picking up its dead branches, the small ones others left behind.
She nodded to him and turned to go to her house. Water she had, not in abundance, but she had a full jar. The town well was deep and continued to yield water when asked, as long as the women were careful about how much water they drew.
“And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”*
She laughed, then blushed, embarrassed by her behavior. Elijah1 looked surprised until she explained. “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”*
While that sounded melodramatic, it was the truth. After that little bread, nothing remained to eat. That was the last of the grain, ground by hand. Unless a miracle happened, not that she expected one, that would be their last meal,
But this dusty, ragged, weary old man shrugged, almost as though he did not understand what she meant. Instead, he smiled at the butterfly clinging to the last flower.
“Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’ ”*
Her shoulders raised, then dropped. She had nothing to lose. What good was one little bread going to do the two of them? Whether they starved sooner or later, did it matter?
The butterfly flew up from the flower and rested on her windowsill. She had often thought that it was communicating with her, and somehow, that gave her comfort. This time, it did not move what passed for its mouth, but words entered her mind. “Do as he says. You will be fine.”
She poured the last of the oil into the last of the flour, mixed it up, shaped it, and put it in the baking oven. A butterfly does not have a mouth, but she felt it smile.
The empty jar and jug were in her hand to throw away.
“What’s this? I know I emptied both of these, but there’s a little left in each.” Her eyes wide, she combined the last of the flour with the last of the oil and created another bread. As it baked, she turned to the butterfly. “Thank you.”
And every day, the butterfly would sit in the window as she poured the last of the oil into the last of the flour, bake it, and feed the old man. Then she would pour the last of the oil into the last of the flour and feed herself and her son. And somehow, those small breads were enough that she felt stronger, healthier. Her son ran and played again. Another flower poked its head out of the ground, and the butterfly seemed stronger.
That happened enough times that she thought she would quit being surprised about it, but she never did. And each time she gave thanks to the butterfly, which by now she felt represented the old man’s God.
Thanks until the day her son took sick. Maybe it had something to do with having nothing but bread to eat, or maybe the same sickness had taken his father. Her son coughed a few times, like his father had, and quit breathing. She put her face to his mouth, but no breath came out.
She gathered him up in her arms and went straight to the old man. “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”*
Her face was red, and her voice was harsh. For the last several months, she had shared what little flour and oil she had and given him a room on the roof. Was this how he and his God repaid her? Why had his God kept the oil and flour flowing and then taken her son away? Was it not enough that God had taken her husband? And now also her son?
As she passed the two flowers, she noticed the butterfly hanging upside down. She had not seen that before. “Are you sad, too?” she asked, but she did not wait for an answer.
The old man had seen the boy was sick. He had watched her sitting by his side, wiping his brow, encouraging him to get well.
Looking at her holding the body, he reached out his arms.
“Give me your son.”* He took the boy, carried him up the stairs to his room, and laid him on his bed. She stood at the bottom, sobbing with grief.
The old man cried out, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?”*
She could hear the emotion in his voice. He had spent many hours with the boy, carving him toys, showing him how to do things like his father would have done. Elijah was no longer a stranger, a foreigner; he was a friend, a good friend.
He often told them the story about the ravens who brought him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening.
“As long as water ran in the creek bed, God sent the birds to bring me what I needed to eat. I was hiding because I defied the king and queen of Israel, and they were looking to kill me.”
But when the creek dried up, he left Israel and came to live here.
She called up the stairs. “So if God sent the ravens, sent you to us, kept the oil in the jar and the flour in the jug, why did God let my son die?”
He did not respond to her, but it seemed the old man wanted to know the same thing.
He stretched himself out on the bed on top of the child three times, each time crying out, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”*
After the third time, she heard a moan, a small moan, a child’s moan, her son’s moan. He sat up, and the old man took him and brought him down the stairs.
“Look, your son is alive!”*
And he was.
She hugged the boy, still crying, but now from relief. The butterfly flew to her and landed on her shoulder.
“Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”*
When the rains came, the green in her field was not weeds. The grain she would have planted was sprouting. The oil and the flour lasted until she came home with her first gathering of seed heads. Her flowers grew in abundance, and the butterflies returned. She rejoiced because now she could fill the jar with oil and the jug with flour.
Elijah returned to his own country to face his king and queen.
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Endnote:
1 Elijah was an important prophet from the Old Testament. He appears in both 1 and 2 Kings and in both 1 and 2 Chronicles. The gospels mention him. At the Transfiguration, Jesus talked with both Moses and Elijah.