Monday, June 17, 2013

Kings of Summer: Hedging out Bets


June 16th, 2013         “Hedging Our Bets”           Rev. Heather Jepsen
Sermon Series: “Kings of Summer"
1 Kings 18:17-40
          Today we are continuing with our sermon series: “Kings of Summer.”  As your pastor and resident preacher, I have challenged myself to preach solely from the Old Testament this summer.  My hope is that through this process we will come to better understand the God of the Old Testament who many of us simply don’t like.
          Last Sunday we met the prophet Elijah.  In the time of kings, God called Elijah to speak against Ahab who ruled the northern kingdom of Israel from 874-852 BCE.  According to the writer of Kings, Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than all the other kings before him.
          Ahab and his wife Jezebel have introduced the worship of Baal, the storm god, to the people of Israel.  Elijah was sent to declare that YHWH, the true God of Israel, would cause a drought to come upon the land, demonstrating that the power of YHWH was greater than the power of Baal.  In our reading from last week, we saw that Elijah was a true prophet through the miracles surrounding him.  From his feeding by wild birds at the Wadi Cherith, to the miracle of unending meal and oil, to the restoration of life for the widow of Zarephath’s son; we have seen that Elijah is a true prophet of the Lord.  We have also seen that the God of the Old Testament is a God who meets with and cares for people living on the edge of life.
          Our reading for today happens three years later.  It has been three years since Elijah declared a drought and in that time no water has fallen on the land of Israel.  The time has come for the drought to end, so God sends Elijah to tell Ahab that the rains are finally coming, this all due to the power of the true God of Israel, YHWH.  When Ahab and Elijah meet, Ahab accuses Elijah of bringing trouble upon the nation of Israel.  To prove who the real troublemaker is, Elijah purposes a challenge between the two gods, YHWH and Baal, and Ahab accepts.
          Representatives of both faiths gather on Mount Carmel before all the people of Israel.  The contest is to present like offerings to the gods, the god who replies first is the true god of Israel.  Elijah’s hope is to win back the hearts of the people.  As he challenges them, “how long will you go limping with two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
          The prophets of Baal, 450 of them, go first.  They prepare an altar, slaughter a bull, and then call on Baal to consume the offering.  From morning to noon they cry out but Baal is silent.  The dance around the altar; or go limping as the author of Kings portrays them, but still there is no answer.  Amused by their display, Elijah taunts the prophets into a frenzy.  “Perhaps your god is just busy,” he says, “maybe he is out of town or maybe he is taking a nap.”  The prophets of Baal become even more desperate and they cut themselves to make offerings to their god.  As midday passed they raved on, but still there was no voice, no answer, and no response.
          Elijah alone is up next and calmly he asks the crowd to gather closer.  He prepares an altar of 12 stones, reminding the people of the unity of tribes that once was the nation of Israel.  Elijah digs a trench around the altar, prepares the bull, and then drenches the whole affair with a symbolic 12 buckets of water; just to be sure that nothing catches on fire by accident.  When the time comes to call upon the Lord, Elijah is cool and collected.  “Now is the time,” he says to God, “Let it be known that you are God and that I am your prophet.  Answer my call, so the people will know you are God, and will know that you have turned their hearts back.” 
Immediately fire descends from the sky, and the Lord consumes the entire offering.  From the bull itself to the last drops of water in the trench, God has licked the plate clean.  Understandably the people are amazed and afraid.  They fall on their faces and worship the true God, YHWH.  And, at the direction of Elijah, they seize the 450 prophets of Baal, take them down to the creek, and kill them all.  (Of course, the lectionary prefers that I leave that last bit out).
As the story moves on from here Elijah tells Ahab to go and eat for rain is about to come upon the land.  As Ahab feasts, Elijah returns to Mount Carmel and bows himself in prayer.  Finally a storm cloud is sighted and Elijah tells Ahab to hitch up his chariot and flee to his summer home in Jezreel.  Elijah himself, girds up his loins, and runs with the power of God, beating the storm and even Ahab himself into town.  The drought in the land of Israel is finally over, and the power of the true God of Israel has finally been made clear to the people.  YHWH has answered their prayers for rain.
As modern believers, where is our place in this story?  Well, I don’t think we are Ahab, purposely leading people away from the worship of God.  And we certainly aren’t Elijah, calling down fire from heaven.  No, today I see us in the crowds on Mount Carmel, being asked by the prophet, “how long will you go limping with two different opinions?”
The phrase Elijah uses here is directly translated, “hobbling along two branches” like a bird jumping from branch to branch in a tree.  It has been translated as “sitting on the fence”, “straddling the issue”, “hopping between two opinions”, but I like to think of it as “hedging out bets.”  The people of Israel were being told two different stories.  They were being told that YHWH was the true God of Israel, but they we also being told that Baal was also a powerful god, and that worship of Baal would give them reward.  But the reality of their situation was drought, and no god was presently bringing rain.  Why not worship both gods, to ensure that you and your house would be blessed?  It is an understandable position and one I think we can relate to.
Like the people of Israel, we are in a similar situation.  We are getting mixed messages.  Some are telling us to worship God only, but we are also hearing good things about the other idols around us, from money to sex to politics.  There are a lot of “gods” vying for our attention these days.  And like the people of Israel, we are hedging our bets, covering our bases, and limping between two if not more opinions.  We trust and pray to YHWH, the ancient God of Israel, but we also cavort and pay homage to the modern gods of money, technology, politics, etc.  Even Jesus the Christ warns us that we cannot serve both God and money.  And yet we try.  God will take care of me if I take care of myself is as common a position for us as it was for the people of Israel.
Unfortunately for us, things are a lot less clear than they were for them.  I am not Elijah, and I will not set up a contest between my God and the idols of this day.  I am too familiar with the lure of money, politics, beauty, etc. to pit my understanding of God against these other things that demand attention.  And I am not as confident as Elijah, for I fear that if I fall on my knees and pray, I will ask for the wrong thing, and the God of Israel will fail to show up at the contest.  I for one know that no matter how great my faith, I am not confident enough to call down fire from heaven.
In many ways, like the people of Israel, we are in a time of drought.  Of course, I am not talking about rain here, we have had plenty of that this year.  Rather, I am talking about evidence of God.  I know that there are people among us, who wonder if God really is active and present in our world.  It is a relevant question in our day and age of endless war, school shootings, rampant cancer, grave injustice, and general terror and death.  Some of us see nothing but a drought when it comes to the actions of God in our world.  As a friend of mine wondered this week “perhaps God has washed his hands of us”.
I am sure the people of Israel wondered the same thing.  If the God of Israel was so mighty, then why didn’t he bring the rain?  Three years of drought and starvation is an awfully long time just to prove a point.  Neither YHWH nor Baal seemed to be making a difference in their lives, so why not hedge their bets and worship both?
I am afraid I am wandering very near a bramble patch here, for if our God too is silent then shouldn’t we also hedge our bets and place our faith in the idols of our world?  Especially since I cannot call down fire from heaven to convince us otherwise?
As a person of faith, all I can say is that I have been there.  I have wondered, and I have doubted, and I have explored other options.  But when push comes to shove and I am backed in a corner, I always choose God.  I might limp along wasting time with the idol of technology, and fretting too much about money, but I would give it all up for YHWH the one true God.  Not because I have seen fire from heaven.  But because I have felt fire in my heart and I have seen it in the lives of others.  I have witnessed things that have given me faith, and I have found that faith is what I really need to make it in this world.  Though I am familiar with idols, there is only one God for me, and YHWH is his name.
Who is the God of the Old Testament?  He is a God who will not tolerate the worship of idols, and a God who will go to great lengths to demonstrate his power and love for us . . . just as soon as he decides this drought is over. 
As modern believers, when faced with this strange story of burnt offerings and fire from heaven, of bizarre competition between gods that ends in violence, we can’t help but enter a bramble patch of discussion.  As far as I am concerned, we are a lot like the Israelites, hedging our bets, and there are no easy answers here.  Yes, we shouldn’t be.  But I can’t call down fire from heaven to convince you of that.  I can only ask you to listen for the still small voice in your heart (a clue to the next sermon in this series) and to trust that the God of Israel is with you, living on the edge, and that we don’t need to hedge our bets.  Rather, God has come among us, and shown us like the people of Israel, that we can and will eventually all turn our hearts back to God.  Amen.  

Monday, June 10, 2013

Kings of Summer: Living on the Edge


June 9th, 2013     “Living on the Edge”        Rev. Heather Jepsen
Sermon Series: “Kings of Summer”
1 Kings 17 with Psalm 146
          As a preacher, I like to challenge myself during the summer months.  This is a time to experiment a bit, try something new and different, and attempt to hold your interest here in worship week after week when the weather outside beckons us so strongly away.  This summer I am giving myself a daunting task; preaching strictly from the Old Testament.  This summer sermon series is called “Kings of Summer”; first of all because that sounds cool, and second because all of our readings will come from 1st and 2nd Kings.
Like modern believers, modern preachers tend to avoid the Old Testament.  The stories are foreign, strange, and just old.  We don’t get any of the easy to relate to Jesus stuff and we often find confusing statements about God.  I can’t tell you how many people have told me they don’t like or don’t believe in the God of the Old Testament.  Too mean, too judgmental, too harsh, too cruel; “that’s not my God” they say, “I prefer the loving God of the New Testament.” 
Of course, we both know that these stories, of the Old and New Testaments, are about the same God.  They are just written by different people in different times.  It is my hope that by making a concentrated effort to go where we don’t want to go, to study the Old Testament together, we will have the opportunity to learn a bit more about this Old Testament God and his people.  And perhaps we may also learn a little bit more about ourselves.
We begin today with the story of Elijah.  Elijah is a Tishbite from Gilead and the Lord has called him to be a prophet.  This is the time of Kings.  The people of Israel wanted to be like the other nations around them so they asked God to give them a king.  First there was Saul, next David and Solomon, and then the kingdom began to fall apart.  The nation of Israel is split, and there were now two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  A series of Kings move through both thrones, most of them worse than the fellow who came before. 
In the time of Elijah, Ahab sits on the throne in the northern kingdom of Israel.  We read in 1 Kings 16 that Ahab takes Jezebel, the daughter of the Sidonian king to be his wife.  A worshipper of Baal, she converts Ahab and the two begin to erect altars for Baal in Israel.  The writer of 1 Kings tells us that “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.”  Not a good guy.
Here our reading begins and Elijah enters the scene.  God sends him to Ahab to proclaim that there will be a drought in the land.  This is to show the power of the God of Israel.  Baal was considered the storm god and was responsible for bringing water to the land.  If the God of Israel can cause a drought, then the God of Israel is stronger than Baal.
Elijah is then sent out into the wilderness, probably hiding from Ahab who would likely kill him.  Elijah is hanging out by a stream and is fed by wild birds.  Ravens, to be exact, which are unclean animals in the ancient Jewish world view.  But of course, the drought comes, and Elijah is as susceptible to it as Ahab.  Without water he is forced to leave the wilderness and seek aide.
God leads Elijah to Zarephath in the land of Sidon.  This is outside the boundaries of Israel and in the heart of the land of worship of Baal.  This is Jezebel’s home turf.  Elijah shows up and spots a widow outside town.  He asks her to bring him water and food, and she says no, she has no food to give.  Only a small bit left for her and her son.  Elijah tells her to do it anyway, God will take care of the rest, and so she does.  A small meal for Elijah and magically there are provisions left for her and her son as well.  In fact, as long as Elijah stays in her house, the oil and meal jar never empty. 
But of course, this is not the only hardship the family faces.  The widow’s son becomes ill and dies and she wonders “what have I done to deserve this?”  She accuses Elijah of bringing a curse upon her but he takes the child upstairs and hopes to perform a miracle.  Elijah questions God, “why would you do this?” he asks.  Then he pleads for the boy’s life and stretches himself out over the child’s body.  The Lord hears and answers Elijah’s prayer and life is returned to the child.  Now the woman is convinced, Elijah is a prophet of God and “the word of the Lord in (his) mouth is true.”
Now you are probably thinking that this is an interesting story, but wondering what exactly it has to do with your life.  Well, the purpose of this story for the writer of 1st Kings is to show that Elijah is a true prophet.  The feeding by wild animals, the miracle of the meal and oil, and the restoration of the child’s life are all signs of a prophet.  These events confirm for the nation of Israel, and for Elijah himself, that God has called and sent him on a mission.
These marks of the prophet are also a way for us to see who God is.  Who is the God of the Old Testament?  God is one who will not tolerate worship of others.  Ahab is leading the people of Israel astray and God will not have that.  But rather than send a huge wave of punishment or a vast army, God sends a messenger, a simple man, Elijah.  And right now, Elijah is easy to ignore.
Who is the God of the Old Testament?  God is one who sends folks out into the wilderness.  Elijah is sent to a creek to wait and hide.  He is cared for, but meagerly.  Bread and meat from ravens, and whatever water runs in the stream. 
The God of the Old Testament is one who sees no boundaries.  Elijah is sent outside the bounds of Israel to wait and to be cared for.  He is sent outside of Israel to perform him miracles.  Even Jesus of Nazareth remarks that when there were plenty of widows suffering through the drought in Israel, Elijah is sent to Sidon and Zarephath.
Who is the God of the Old Testament?  God is one who cares for the weak.  The widow has nothing and is prepared to die.  I think that’s why she was willing to give her last meal to Elijah.  She was already scraping bottom and had nothing to lose.  She was prepared to die anyway, and so it was worth the gamble that Elijah was who he said he was.
The God of the Old Testament is also one who hears and answers prayers.  God hears the prayers of Elijah and brings life back to the child.  God shows mercy, though the woman had to experience the death of her child in the process.
What I find in this story today; is that the God of the Old Testament is a God who meets us when we are living on the edge.  In following the call to be a prophet, Elijah is living on the edge.  His life is in danger for speaking against Ahab.  Elijah is literally pushed to the edge of existence as he is sent into the wilderness with little comfort and meager food.  No special treatment, the water runs dry for him just like everybody else.
The widow of Zarephath is also living on the edge.  She has lost her spouse, the father of her child, and she has lost her source of income.  She has nothing and is preparing herself to die.  When she meets Elijah and gives him her last cake, she is gifted with the miracle of the unending meal and oil.  But we need to remind ourselves, it’s not a lot.  It’s just enough to keep the household alive.  God is with them, but they aren’t eating steak and potatoes.  No, they are still just eating little meal cakes, like most folks around them.  God gives them just enough to keep them living on the edge.
The child dies, and is brought back.  The mother is on the edge of sanity with her grief.  And Elijah is pushed to the edge of his faith, “Why would you let this happen God?”   No easy answers in that part of the story.
The God of the Old Testament is a God who meets people who are living on the edge.  And God doesn’t necessarily pluck them off the edge.  Instead, God seems to grant the faithful just enough to keep them going, just enough to keep them alive. 
In our reading from the Psalms, we find that God is the one who looks out for those whom the world would rather forget.  God looks out for those living on the edge.  The kings of this earth do not care for people, but the God of Israel does.  This God gives justice for the oppressed, food for the hungry, sets prisoners free, opens eyes of the blind, lifts up those bowed down, watches over strangers, and upholds orphans and widows.  This God gives those living on the edge just enough hope to keep going.
I think in our American culture, we have a hard time with just enough.  We want God to give us more than enough.  That’s why preachers like Joel Osteen are so popular.  We want to hear that God will bless us with wealth beyond our imaginations.  We want to live in opulent comfort.  We want to get as far away from the edge as possible.  Unfortunately we don’t find that God in these stories.  We find a God who keeps and cares for us, but not in really extravagant ways.  We find a God who meets us and lives with us on the edge.
            Today we gather at the communion table.  This is a place for people who are on the edge to gather.  This is a place to meet God on the edge and to receive just enough. 
Some of us in this worshipping community are on the edge financially, we are struggling to pay the bills this month, and worried that the money won’t stretch far enough.  We are afraid that if our kids get ill, there will not be enough money for the doctor bills and the medication, and there will not be an Elijah to save the day. 
Some of us here are living on the edge in other ways.  We are unhappy in our marriage, but we just keep moving forward.  We are struggling with great guilt, but we keep burying the past.  We are harboring grief, and cannot raise our heads to meet the sun.  We are barely making it, in jobs that are driving us insane.  I would imagine that most of us here, if not all of us, are living on the edge in some way, shape, or form.
The God of the Old Testament, our God, is a God who lives on the edge with us.  God meets us at the Wadi Cherith and gives us just enough water for another day, God meets us in our hunger and gives us just enough oil and meal for tomorrow, God meets us in extreme crises and brings new life.  God came all the way to the edge when God came to Golgotha, the edge of Jerusalem, and Jesus died alone on a cross. 
We gather at this table to meet God.  We gather at this table to be fed.  Like the meal and oil, the bread and juice here do not run dry.  There is just enough to feed all of us this morning.  There is just enough to sustain us for another day.  The challenge for us in our modern American culture is to realize that just enough is the right amount for us.  We don’t need to stockpile this, rather, there is enough here for each of us today. 
And what is here, this juice and bread, this body and blood, this table on the edge, what is here will feed you in body and soul.  What is here is just enough for you to know that God is with you; living on the edge.  Amen.