Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait
The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool
Neanderthals developed tools
We built a wall (we built the pyramids)
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries
That all started with the big bang (bang)

– Big Bang Theory theme (The History of Everything), Barenaked Ladies

Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.

Every Sunday morning we pray.

Most of us pray on other days as well.

We lift up to God our requests, with some level of expectation – or at least hope –that God will fix things.

This raises several questions:

If God is omniscient, or all-knowing, why do we have to tell God what we need?

Is God distracted by other things, and we need to draw God’s attention to us Does God not understand what we need?

If we’re going to believe in a creator of the universe, do we want a creator who doesn’t know what’s going on or the needs of creation.

If God loves us, shouldn’t God seek to give us what we need?

Is God indifferent to our needs unless we make a nuisance of ourselves?
One verse of the Bible is so well-known
that just the chapter and verse shows up on signs at sporting events:
John 3:16

If God loves the world that much, God should want to provide.

If God is going to provide for us, do we need to do anything?

Can’t we just sit and pray for a house to be built around us and food placed in our mouths?
If you think about it, that’s what an infant is like.
A baby’s cry is just a prayer for things to be fixed.
And it’s up to us to figure out what that prayer is for and supply that need,
whether it is food, diaper change, modification of temperature, comfort…

Are we still infants?

I began this morning with a verse of the theme song for “The Big Bang Theory.”
There are actually more verses to this song, by the Barenaked Ladies than you will hear on the TV show.
(it’s the name of the band. I can’t help that. They’re not ladies, and they’re not barenaked.)

There’s one part of this verse to which I would like to call your attention:
the autotrophs began to drool

An autotroph is a living thing that creates its own food, sort of. It doesn’t have eat another living thing.

It makes sense that the first living things were autotrophs because they couldn’t eat the other living things that didn’t exist yet.

A simple autotroph is algae.
It takes water, carbon dioxide, and some trace minerals and makes food of them by using sunlight.

A larger, more complex autotroph is a coast redwood.
It takes water, carbon dioxide, and some trace minerals and makes food of them by using sunlight.

Does God provide for algae and coast redwoods?
There is water, carbon dioxide, some trace minerals, and sunlight. That’s all they need to grow right where they are.

So when the Barenaked Ladies sang

the autotrophs began to drool

they were singing about the point in evolution where living things moved from merely living off what was provided – water, carbon dioxide, some trace minerals, and sunlight – to eating things that were living off what was provided.

That’s the drooling part. Sometimes they had to capture other living things. Sometimes they had to move to where other living things were.

Does God provide for deer?

You could say yes: there are all sorts of plants for deer to eat. But can deer just lie in one place and eat whatever foliage is around them? Only for a little while. Then they have to find more food.

And so it is with us. We have to take some initiative.

Our first reading from the Hebrew scriptures in the first book of Kings shows us how even a miracle had to start with something: a little flour, a little oil, and the work of a widow.

This is because Elijah, the widow, and her son are not autotrophs.

Reading a story like this might lead one to believe that a prophet or priest is justified in demanding the last that a widow has.

That’s not the point of this story.

The story teaches faith and making an effort even if things seem hopeless.

But if one were to have the mistaken impression that faith required everything from those who are struggling, that idea could be underscored by a misunderstanding of the second part of the Gospel reading from Mark.

Especially at this time of year, some will preach on this part of the passage:

43Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more
than all those who are contributing to the treasury.
44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance,
but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

– Mark 12:43-44, NRSV

and hold up the widow as an example for others.

This.
Is.
Wrong.

While one may liken this widow to the widow in the first reading, the difference is that the widow of Zarephath shared what little she had with Elijah, who had nothing, while the widow in the reading from Mark gave everything she had to the temple and the scribes, who already had much.

Should we have any doubt, in the beginning of the reading Jesus points out the inequity, saying that the scribes “devour widows’ houses”

This passage in Mark doesn’t condemn the widow; it condemns a system that rewards those who give small fractions of what they have and ignores the giving of those who have little and still give all they have.

So what do we learn here?

• God does provide, but we have to do some work too.
• We can have faith, but we have to start with something.
• And we can’t lean on those with the least resources as if it’s just expected to exhaust their resources.

These lessons apply to our stewardship of food, like the widow of Zarapheth, stewardship of money, like the rich people and the widow with two copper coins, and stewardship of time and energy, as we talked about last Sunday with the history of this church.

Will God provide?

God already has.

What matters is what we do with what God has provided.

We are not called to give our last morsel of food, our last dollar, or our last bit of energy to Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, or Elon Musk.

Our efforts instead ought to go to those who are most hungry, most desperate, and least powerful.

So my challenge this week is for us to ask ourselves
“what has God provided to me”
and then ask
“who has a need I can help with what I have?”

We’re not autotrophs.
We don’t make our own food from water, carbon dioxide, trace minerals, and sunlight.

We have to move.

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating how we’re here, they’re catching deer (we’re catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy (Descartes or Deuteronomy)
It all started with the big bang

– Big Bang Theory theme (The History of Everything), Barenaked Ladies

Amen.

• Big Bang Theory theme (The History of Everything) by Barenaked Ladies, portions included under fair use for teaching purposes for a non-profit organization (church).
• Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
• Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.