Sermon
Series: “Kings of Summer”
1
Kings 19
As many of you know, this summer I
have challenged myself to preach strictly from the Old Testament. This sermon series, “Kings of Summer” is
helping us to examine texts that we are less familiar with, as well as study
more closely the God of the Old Testament who makes many of us uncomfortable.
Over the past few weeks we have come
to know the prophet Elijah. A Tishbite
of Tishbe in Gilead, Elijah has been called by the Lord to speak against Ahab,
king of Israel. Ahab and his wife Jezebel
have been encouraging the worship of Baal, a great offense to the jealous God
YHWH. After three years of drought in
which Elijah hid outside the bounds of the country, he returned to announce to
Ahab that YHWH would finally bring the rains.
Following his announcement, Elijah engineers a contest between YWHW and
Baal. YWHW wins and Elijah has all 450
of the prophets of Baal killed.
Our reading picks up here, after rain
has finally come upon the land. Jezebel
hears of Elijah’s slaughter of her prophets and so she sends a messenger his
way with a threat, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make
your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Hers is an understandable position and why
Elijah seems surprised to be threatened after engineering a mass murder I will
never know.
Elijah seems to come to his senses
after his brash show of confidence and “zeal” for the Lord and realizes his
life is in real danger. He is afraid,
and runs to hide in the far corners of the land. He heads to Beer-sheba, the very edge of the
southern kingdom of Judah and about as far away from Jezebel as he can
get. Elijah leaves his servant behind in
town, wanders out into the desert, and falls asleep under a bush. He has decided to die. “It is enough,” he declares, but I prefer the
translation “too much.” “Too much, God! I’ve had enough, kill me now.”
Elijah
appears to have had a sudden change of heart.
No longer the confident messenger, taunting the rival prophets of Baal
and calling down fire from heaven, now Elijah is nothing more than weak and suicidal. Perhaps he is feeling guilty for slaughtering
the prophets of Baal, it’s not like God told him specifically to do that, it
appears more like he got carried away in the moment. Or perhaps he is doubting his ability to do
any more for God; any servant of the Lord knows the true threat that burnout
can be. Whatever it is, Elijah declares
that he is done, and he is ready to die.
Lucky for him, that is not the will of
the Lord. Elijah falls asleep and is
awakened by the touch of an angel. Food
and drink are made available to him but he soon lies down again. A second time the angel awakens him and feeds
him, encouraging him to work up his strength as he still has a long journey
ahead of him.
Elijah gets up and for forty days and
nights he travels through the wilderness to Mount Horeb, once known as Mount
Sinai. Upon arriving there he takes
shelter in a cave. It is not long before
the word of the Lord comes to him. “What
are you doing here Elijah?” God asks.
Elijah then breaks out his list of complaints, “I’ve been zealous for
the Lord,” he says, “but no one listens to me and I am tired of doing it by
myself.” A careful reader of 1 Kings can’t
help but wonder what Elijah is talking about.
The people have been listening - did they not fall on their faces at
Mount Carmel? And he is not the only
one, for Obadiah has hidden 150 prophets of the Lord in a cave. Elijah seems to have a case of the “woe is
me”s.
God decides to lift Elijah’s spirits
by passing by. In one of the more
memorable portions of the Old Testament, Elijah listens and waits for the
presence of the Lord. There is a violent
wind, a great earthquake, and a rush of fire but God is not in any of these
events. Elijah waits on and finally he
senses the presence of God in the “sound of sheer silence” or the “still small
voice” depending on how you want to translate the Hebrew. Sensing the presence of all that is holy,
Elijah covers his face.
After the show, God asks the same
question, “What are doing here, Elijah?”
And surprisingly Elijah gives the same “woe is me” response. “Fine”, God seems to say, “I will anoint a
prophet in your place” and Elijah moves on from there to mark Elisha as the one
who would follow him.
Now, I am not sure what you think of
this story but I can tell you that I am really beginning to like this sermon
series, this challenge to myself, and this story about Elijah. What I find so striking in these readings is how very human Elijah is. First he begins his journey in hiding. He performs miracles for the widow of Zarephath
but he seems just as surprised by his power as she is, “Look! Your son is
alive”.
He is sent to bring a message of the
end of the drought, but then seems really bothered by Ahab’s statement that
Elijah is the one causing trouble for Israel.
It seems that the showdown between gods was all Elijah’s idea and he becomes
really puffed up with pride from the display.
Between mocking the prophets of Baal, to calling down fire from heaven,
to orchestrating a mass murder, Elijah not only seems full of himself, he seems
out of control. The power of the prophet
has gone to his head.
It’s no wonder that we find him
crashing back to the ground here in 1 Kings 19.
It is such a human response. We
are all capable of getting drunk with power and then pushing things one step
too far. Most of us have been in over
our heads at least once in our lives.
Elijah is in too deep, he has gone too far, and now the bleep hits the
fan. Jezebel is ready to kill him and
God may or may not come to his aide.
From extreme highs to extreme lows
Elijah bottoms out in depression. He
runs away and hides, ready to give up and throw in the towel. It’s over, he’s done. And if not for God, this is where the story
would end; Elijah limps off into the sunset to drink away the rest of his life,
a poor depressed mess.
But this isn’t a story about Elijah. It is a story about God, the God of the Old
Testament. After Elijah’s great show and
after his great sin, God meets Elijah here, in his depression, in his
loneliness, in his shame, and in his grief.
Elijah has bottomed out and here at bottom, he meets God.
And God says, “What the heck is your
problem man. What are you doing
here?” And kicks him in the rear to send
him back out into the world. But first,
God makes a point of showing Elijah that it’s not all about flash-bang
faith. It’s not all about fire from
heaven and bringing people back to life and great shows of power. No, it’s about quiet things, like breath, and
listening, and being still. God is not
in the wind or earth or fire. God is in
your mind and heart and the sound of silence as the breath moves in and out of
your lungs. God is with you when no one
else is. God is with you when you have
bottomed out.
As modern believers I think we can all
relate to the ups and downs of Elijah’s story.
No, we haven’t raised people from the dead or called down fire, but we
have been high and we have been low. We
have felt the sheer power and presence of God moving through our veins, and we
have also felt totally alone and ready to die.
Who among us has not wanted to give up at some point in their
lives? Like Elijah we have all cried
out, “It’s too much Lord, I quit!”
God meets us in those low points, when
we are feeling sorry for ourselves, and God sends us back out into the
world. I am reminded here of my role as
a parent. Parents of young ones know,
and others here will remember that little kids are full of emotional
extremes. One minute they are laughing
and having fun, and the next they are crying like it is the end of the
world. They fall off their bike and they
are ready to quit. And what does a good
parent do? A good parent listens to and
acknowledges their complaint, dries their tears, dusts them off, pats their
rump, and sends them back out into the world.
This is exactly what God does for Elijah. And this is exactly what God does for us.
Who is the God of the Old Testament? The God of the Old Testament is one who dusts
us off, pats our rumps, and sends us on our way. Sure, life is tough, we will have high times
and we will have low, and God will be with us every step of the way. But when we are at our lowest, when things
are their worst, and we sit in silence alone, then we are in the true presence
of God. When we are ready to give up,
God meets us, lifts us up, and sends us back out. Life will never be perfect, and it is as much
our own fault as it is the world around us, but God will always be with
us. God will always meet us in the sheer
silence, in the still small voice, and encourage us to go back out into the
world, encourage us to face another day.
The God of the Old Testament is a God
who meets us when we are living on the edge and gives us just enough to keep
going. We don’t need to hedge our bets
in this crazy world, because when everything quiets down, it is in the silence
that we will meet the true power, the true God.
And when we are at our worst, when we are bottoming out, the God of the
Old Testament, listens to our complaints, dries our tears, dusts us off, and
then kicks our rumps to get back out there.
From the days of ancient Israel to the days of modern America, life is
tough, but God is with us. Thanks be to
God. Amen.
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