Even white chocolate lovers are invited . . .

      As much fun as I would have had preaching both the metaphor and Canaanite woman from Matthew’s Gospel today, I had to remind myself that my job is to help us grow in faith, particularly during the green season after Pentecost.  That being said, if you are new to the parish and have never heard me preach on the metaphor, let me remind you that the metaphor is incredibly graphic.  The closest we have to this in English is “diarrhea of the mouth,” though I suspect few of us actually think it through.  Those listening to Jesus could not help but be reminded that the skubala coming out of their mouths was nasty.  Of course, the sins that Jesus names are nasty, too, so it is an apt metaphor, especially for a group that largely used to be fishermen!

     The Canaanite woman serves as an antidote to the idea that God is misogynistic.  Advent women know they are created by God in His image, so we do not struggle too much with that claim about God.  Understand that there are men and women who self-identify as Christians around us in Middle Tennessee, who are fed that nonsense that Eve is responsible for sin and men have the right to rule the woman.

     If you get really bored with my sermon today, I would encourage you to turn to page 337 in the BCP in front of you and read the Prayer of Humble Access.  8 o’clockers get a healthy dose of this prayer week in and week out.  We do not at 10:30am because the SCLM, in its wisdom, decided to remove the prayer from the new Eucharist in 1979.  The woman’s banter with Jesus, and her understanding about the purposes of God, is captured in that prayer.  We are never trusting in our righteousness when we go to receive the Sacrament; we are always trusting in God’s manifold and great mercies when we approach to receive the nourishment of God.  Better still, her banter recognizes that Jesus did come to the House of Israel in completion of the promise made to Abraham.  But the House of Israel was charged with the responsibility of carrying that understanding of God’s mercy and grace into the world around them, that all the nations might turn to and trust God.

     Part of my discernment about preaching on Isaiah today was the fact that about three months ago, I had Candida include the entirety of the passage.  Often, our lectionary editors have us skip verses, and Candida has me decide a couple months in advance whether to add the omitted verses.  Obviously, as you can see from the Orders of Worship, I had.  Part of the draw this week, I think, is the fact that we spend most of our time in Isaiah thinking messianically.  There’s nothing wrong in that, to be sure, and it makes sense given our focus on Isaiah during Advent and into the season of the Incarnation.  But there is more to Isaiah than Jesus, a lot more!

     For our purposes today, I am treating Isaiah as if it is divided into three major parts.  There are other ways to read the prophet, but I have a particular lesson in mind today.  The first 39 chapters deal with God’s correct accusations that Israel is faithless and hard-hearted.  In fact, the book begins with God pointing out to the heavens and earth that the ox knows its master and the donkey knows its crib, but Israel forgets that it is the Lord God who redeemed Israel, planted Israel, defended Israel, and blessed Israel.  Basically, anything we would not want to hear God saying about us, He says in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah.

     Chapters 40-55, however, has God reminding His people that He will not abandon them despite their failures and their hearts.  This section begins with that wonderful Advent reading we read and sometime sing “Comfort, comfort O My people.”  From that point on, God is promising His people that He will not abandon or divorce them, that He will restore them to Himself despite their sin.  We know the solution is Jesus, and so that is why we focus on those passages during Advent.

     Chapters 56 and on deal with the tension.  If God’s people are truly faithless and hard-hearted and God is serious about restoring them to Him, what does that mean for today?  How does God’s people live knowing sins and God’s right judgment of them and His promise of restoration?  Much as Carola taught you during the interim period before I came here, there is this incredible tension between the already and not yet.  Good I see some surprise and nods.  Carola will be happy you remember!

     God begins this section on the tension with two well known truths and an amazing promise.  The first truth is that eunuchs were forbidden from entering the Temple and worshipping God.  On that, everyone can agree.  Deuteronomy certainly spells it out, and I would not be shocked if it was written in Leviticus.  Where the fight is in that discussion is over the why.  Why were eunuchs excluded from worship in the OT?  Some experts like to argue that physical appearance was tied to spiritual purity.  One could not be physically altered and be spiritually poor.  For some, physical deformity was a sign of some sin.  Another reason offered by experts is that eunuchs often serve idolatrous purposes or served those who engaged in the worship of idols.  In some parts of the ANE, eunuchs served as temple prostitutes.  In other parts of the ANE, they served as functionaries, making the worship of the idol possible.  In the torah, God was giving Israel strict instructions to prevent Israel from slipping back into idolatry.  In other ANE cultures, though, eunuchs were used as administrative functionaries.  Think of the Ethiopian Eunuch.  The thought among rulers was that if the servants had no families, there would be no temptation to squirrel away choice appointments or embezzle money for the family.  As a eunuch had no possibility of family, they were thought to care less about securing a future for their families.  Everybody with me so far?  Good.  Does it mostly make sense?  Good.  As I said, these are serious discussions in academia, and these are just a couple highlights.

     The other person mentioned as forbidden in the Temple is the foreigner.  Foreigners were not allowed past the Court of the Gentiles under pain of death.  In fact, by the time Rome has conquered Israel in the days of Jesus, the warning was written repeatedly in Latin, in Greek, and in Hebrew.  Those who pay close attention to the Book of Acts will remember that Paul famously is accused of leading a foreigner into the inner courts of the Temple.  The false accusation nearly causes a riot.

     Now we know why Isaiah has God saying, “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from His people’ and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree’” in verse 3.  The Israelites were often fastidious in the observance of some of the torah even as they were lax in other areas, much like those of us who call ourselves “Christian.”  Who is allowed in the Temple was one of those areas that guarded, pun intended, with all seriousness.  You could be a Godfearer, but you still were not really an Israelite.  And lest anyone get all anti-semitic on me, we Christians do the same thing.  We are quick to draw our boundaries of who is in and who is out of the kingdom of God, who is truly “saved.”  And far more often than many would ever notice, we Christians love to do God’s judging for Him, since He’s so busy.

     Way back around 700 years before Christ walked the earth, God had Isaiah prophesy to the eunuch and foreigner, reminding Israel of their responsibility as an adopted people of God.  To the eunuchs who claim the Lord, the Lord promises a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; to the foreigners who claim the Lord, the Lord promises to bring them to the holy mountain, to make them joyful in His house f prayer, and to accept their burnt-offerings and sacrifices on His altar.  Those of us who pay close attention to Scripture should be reminded of God’s covenant with Abraham way back in Genesis 12.  God calls Abraham into an intimate relationship with Him and declares that through the seed of Abraham, the world will be drawn into an intimate relationship with God.  The Israelites were given the torah as a description of holy living and as a way of drawing the foreigner into right relationship with God.

     Perhaps unsurprising to some of us, when Israel did a good job of keeping their end of the covenant, others flocked to them.  Sometimes their best witness was in their suffering or cutoffness of exile.  People would wonder how they could trust that their God had not been defeated in the cosmic battles of the heavens, and the Israelites would tell of God’s redemptive activity and provision.  Sometimes, say under the reign of Solomon, Israel was seen as materially blessed.  Again, people wanted what they had.  Wise Israelites could point out the promises of God to those who feared and obeyed the Lord.

     Of course, there is a big difference in inviting a foreigner into one’s community in the cities of the Assyrian or Babylonian or even Roman empire and inviting a foreigner into one’s community in Jerusalem.  We understand that.  But that is not what God commands of His people.  He reminds them over and over that nations who do not know them, and nations they do not know, will one day come to the great city to dwell with the Lord.  All who wish to dwell with Him will come, and He will accept them.  Even those considered outcasts by His people.

     The best example of this understanding, and the consequences of God’s people telling others they are excluded, happened a couple weeks ago.  If you have heard the story of the ice cream, now is a good time to turn to the Prayer of Humble Access on page 337 of your BCP.  The conversations drive me nuts and feed me.  I had a woman who called about the pantry one afternoon since I returned from vacation.  She needed food, was ashamed to admit her need, but she was desperate for her kids.  She wanted to know if the pantry was real, as she had heard about it from other people.  Then she wanted to know what she needed to get food.  Again, that’s a common expectation.  Churches are called to declare to people that there will be food purchased in God’s kingdom with no price and no money, but many of us love to create hurdles for those oppressed by hunger.  Oh, we rationalize by telling ourselves we are teaching them to be wise with their funds, but wisdom goes only so far when one is oppressed by poverty.

     When we got to the hours of the pantry, the woman had that forlorn tone in her voice.  She sounded in my ears as if I had painted this wonderful picture of protein, kids’ snacks, fresh produce, and whatever else I had said we had.  I had told her the only requirement was that she take what she and her kids would eat and leave the other stuff for other moms and kids who loved those things.  And then our schedule did not align.  I asked her when she could get here, expecting to tell her she could come Monday evenings or other times when groups use our buildings, but she answered between 4 and 4:30, depending on traffic.  I told her I had work to do and would meet her when she got here.

     She came that afternoon.  She shared her story.  In some ways it was like everyone else’s story.  Rent, gasoline, groceries, and back to school supplies were killing her.  She did not make enough to cover everything.  And some lady had told her about these nice church people who feed you with no questions asked.  So she had called.  I assured her we do.  She did not have to convert to receive food.  The things that we limit, I told her, we do so that we can reach more families.  She wanted to take a lot of chicken and beef because those are so expensive and can be kept in the freezer, and I reminded her that we try to feed as many people as we can.  I understood her need, but I told her God would have more for us to give her next time she came.

     As she shopped, she shared her story and her gratitude.  Then she spoke of her wonder.  Why do we do this?  I answered her questions.  She did not know the Bible well, so there was no understanding that we will one day buy food without price or money or that God calls us to the Wedding Feast.  She knew she was not invited because of her condition.  Christians had explained to her time and time again that struggles were the sign that God was not saving them.  I apologized for those lies and reminded her that the book of Job, besides lots of other stories in the Bible, were instructions against that understanding.  She wished it were true, but she knew better.

     She finished shopping and I asked her if she wanted ice cream for the kids.  She made that face of “you have got to be kidding me” or “my ears are not working right.”  Volunteers can tell you all kinds of stories like this.  When we get to something that is unique to the individual and offer it to them, they are blown away.  I remind them, and I remind our volunteers to remind them, that God knew they would come and wanted to make sure you knew His love for you.  At various times during her shopping, she had teared up.  But giving ice cream to the kids clearly meant a lot to them and to her.

     She thanked me repeatedly for that amazing gift and apologized for keeping me late.  I told her I had offered, so she did not make me do anything.  But we were not done.  She asked what I meant and I took her into the little kitchen freezer and asked what kind of ice cream momma needed.  Hilary and Nancy had filled that little freezer with Hagen-Daz and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.  She looked at me like I was nuts.  She asked if I had any idea how expensive those ice creams were.  I pointed to my belly and asked her if I looked like a guy who did not know the price and value of ice cream.  She laughed and covered her mouth.  Then she expressed that she couldn’t, those little ice creams cost $6, $7, and $8 each; besides, I had given her a half gallon for the kids.

     I told her I knew the cost and the value.  I was not offering that ice cream to children who did not understand it.  I was offering it to parents who did, who needed that special treat from their Father in heaven, to remind them of His love of them.  She was shocked at the choice.  We had two shelves full of those pints.  I asked her what her favorite was.  She said she just loved chocolate.  The more chocolate the better!  I laughed and went digging for her.  I did find a white chocolate one quickly and commented it was hard not to toss it.  She asked why.  I told her white chocolate was not chocolate and that I was not sure if was going to be at the dessert buffet at the Marriage Feast.  She started giggling, but she offered to eat it if I wanted to stop looking.  

      Eventually I found some Ben & Jerry’s chocolate brownie batter with chocolate syrup in chocolate ice cream pint.  That had enough chocolate for her.  I handed it to her and reminded her that God had this in the freezer for her.  He had given her ice cream to make the kids happy, but the pint was for her.  She uttered one of those phrases that drives me nuts, that she wished more Christians were like us.  I shared my agreement and frustration.

     She thanked me for everything as we carried her groceries out to her car.  She quadruple-checked to make sure she could really come back when she ran out of food.  But then she asked if I thought it true that everyone could go to that Wedding Feast.  I told her absolutely, and to be clear, if anyone can make white chocolate taste good, it was God.  She laughed and asked if even white chocolate lovers would be let in.  I told her that yes, even those with bad taste would be let in.

     You and I are reminded intentionally this day, the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, in the middle of the growing season, of God’s mercy and desire to draw everyone to Himself.  We spent two weeks reminding ourselves that the judgement of eternal salvation is for Jesus and the angels.  Jesus does not need our help with that.  Jesus does ask us, however, those who claim Him as Lord of their lives, to be heralds of mercy and inviters.  To us has been given invitations to the great Wedding Feast.  Our only instruction is to invite others in His Name.  We are reminded intentionally that everyone is created in His image, are bearers of His breathed characteristics, and that they can learn from us the love and value with which He sees them.  Those things that we use to distinguish ourselves from others do not matter to God.  He created everyone, descendants of Abraham and citizens of Nineveh.  And He desires nothing less than all might turn to His saving embrace.  We should know this better than the world around us and those denominations who are so quick to judge the salvific state of others even as they are blinded to their own by the log in their.  We remind ourselves as Adventers that His love for each human being was such that Jesus made intimacy with God possible again, that He loved each one of us as He hung dying on that Cross, and that He promised to accept all who come to Him in Christ’s Name.  Our job, having been reminded of that in our readings and nourished through His Body and Blood, is to go back out into that world and share that message of hope, of mercy, and of promise to all whom we encounter in our daily lives.  That has been the call of God on His people since the Garden, the Flood, on Abraham & Sarah, and all who proclaim Him as Lord.  May we all be reminded of that call this day, and every day, until His return or He calls us home!

In His mercy and promise,

Brian+

On God's perspective and mercy and turtles!

      This was a great week.  I knew my sermon on Monday, and God had plenty of time to get me an illustration.  As the week wore on, I kept internally tapping my foot wondering when He was going to give it to me.  Again, God was faithful, I hope, and got it to me at about 7:08-09 this morning.  More on that in a few minutes.

     Today our reading takes place after the battle of Baal vs. Yahweh on Mt. Carmel.  It is one of those stories many Christians do not know are even in the Bible.  Why there have been no movies about it, I’ll never know.  I even introduced my brokerage buddy who produces Hallmark movies, but he has not seen fit to use it.

     The story begins with a 3-year drought.  As y’all know, that is a theological rather than meteorological commentary.  Way back in Exodus, the people and God swore a covenant.  Among the signs for which Israel needed to pay attention was a lack of rainfall.  Whenever drought hit Israel, it was a sign from God that they were not doing what they were supposed to be doing, in accordance with the Covenant.  There were other signs to be noticed before a drought, but in an arid climate like Israel one might expect a drought would be easy to notice, to figure out what they were doing wrong, and to repent and return to the Lord.  Good, I see nods.

     In this case, Israel has fully committed to idolatry.  Specifically, Jezebel and Ahab have encouraged the worship of the Baals and set up high places to worship them, and they created a state-supported priestly caste to lead Israel in worship of the Baals.  Those of us who paid attention to the Exodus might remember that God is not a fan of His people worshiping other gods.  We might say it’s one of His 10 big no-no’s.  Lol

     This drought has lasted 3 years and Israel still has not repented.  Elijah has been preaching to Israel and to the king and queen the need to repent.  This is the same Elijah who appears at the Transfiguration and the same Elijah who has been staying with the widow whose flour and oil never run out.  This is the same Elijah who prays to God to restore the life of the widow’s son.  I remind you of that because I want you to remember that Elijah has had some mountaintop experiences as a prophet of God.  In fact, I will remind us that, among those who thought Messiah would be a prophet, many thought the Messiah would be Elijah.  It makes sense.  Elijah will be taken up into heaven by the chariots of fire in a couple chapters.  Since he did not die, some believed that Elijah would return in the same way to begin the reign of Messiah.

     Immediately before our passage today, Elijah has challenged the priests of the baals to a contest.  They will build an altar to the baals, and he will build an altar to Yahweh.  Both sides will try to call down a consuming fire to prove who is really God.  The priests of the baals go first.  They do all kinds of incantations and dances and eventually drop from exhaustion.  While they are doing all their histrionics, Elijah is relaxing and making fun of them and the baals.  The Hebrew is rather earthy, but imagine the prophet teasing the priests that their gods cannot answer because they are in the bathroom and other such helpful commentaries.  When the priests finally give up, Elijah rises and orders the wooden altar to be soaked with water.  Remember, this is a 3-year drought, so everything is dry.  Once the wood is soaked, Elijah asks God to show His power.  A fireball comes down from heaven consuming both altars.  Yahweh wins!

     In the confusion and clamor, Elijah instructs the Israelite priests and prophets to kill the false priests, which they do.  Ahab and Jezebel, who should be ashamed and repenting like crazy for leading Israel from Yahweh, and maybe fearing a fireball aimed at them, are furious that Elijah has killed so many false priests.  Jezebel, in particular, sends a threatening letter to Elijah promising to do that and worse to him.  That sends Elijah fleeing to the south and gives us a great meme.  Elijah is understandably upset that much of Israel, and the king and queen, did not repent and return to the Lord as a result of the Cosmic battle between God and the baals.  He compliance bitterly to God that he is the only one zealous for God  and that they are going to kill him.  God tells Elijah to take a nap.

     When Elijah awakes from his nap, the Angel of the Lord appears to him and feeds and waters him.  That Angel of the Lord bit is the subject of some academic arguing.  Who is the Angel of the Lord?  Are not all angels of the Lord.  Do not many angels have names?  One interesting proposition is that the Angel of the Lord is a proleptic, meaning prior to the Incarnation, appearing of the the second person of the Trinity.  In other words, they like to argue that Jesus appears to some of the saints of the OT and interacts with them.  Think of the angel who wrestled with Jacob, the Burning Bush and Moses, the appearance to and charge of Gideon, and the announcement to Manoah and his wife concerning Samson.  The Angel of the Lord, whoever the angel is, has an interesting history in Scripture.  After this sustenance of food and water, Elijah takes another nap.

     Sometimes we find ourselves terribly disillusioned with our own ministries, don’t we?  We serve at Body & Soul initially expecting people to choose to follow Jesus because of our articulate words and heart for service.  We study the Bible hoping to discover some code or nugget of truth that has evaded others over the centuries.  We clergy are not immune.  Many of us Episcopal clergy hope to birth the next Trinity Tariffville, the quintessential Episcopal parish of the 70s and 80s.  Both clergy and laity often hope to work or at least see miracles.  Some hope to be given mystical experiences that confirm our faith.  When our expectations are not met, how do we respond?  Not too much unlike Elijah, I am sad to say.

     Yet in the midst of this funk, how does God treat Elijah?  Is God the Disappointed Father who is in heaven, or is He more like the Loving Father of the Prodigal Son story?  God knows Elijah’s frailty.  His instruction in the initial complaint is rather soft.  Take a nap.  When Elijah awakens, God provides nourishment in a supernatural way, perhaps through a proleptic appearance Himself.  Then, in the face of Elijah’s despondance, He has Elijah take another nap.  It is almost like He knows Elijah and Elijah’s frailty.

     When he wakes, Elijah is instructed by God to head south.  Though the journey should have taken only a week or so, Elijah is sustained by the food and water for 40 days wandering the desert.  Sound familiar?  That brings us to our lesson today.

     Elijah is still in a funk.  Despite all those mountaintop experiences we have recalled this morning, Elijah finds himself still despondent.  God asks him why is there.  Elijah responds again that he alone is zealous for the Lord and that everyone is trying to kill him.  God instructs Elijah to leave the cave in which he is sheltering.  A wind that breaks rocks blows, but God was not in the wind.  Then the earthquake happens, and God is not in the earthquake.  Lastly comes the fire, and God is not in the fire.  Make no mistake, for us there is a bit of a polemic in these descriptions.  Those who worshiped the baals were just like the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Babylonians, and every other culture that believed or believes there is a god for every single thing.  When Elijah looks at these phenomena and does not see God in them, it is a reminder to us that God created these things and is not subject to them.  They are subject to His Will.

     Once again, Elijah is asked by God why he is there.  Elijah gives the same answer that he alone is zealous for God and everyone is trying to kill him.  God commissions Elijah again, telling him to anoint Nimshi as king over Israel, Hazael as king over Aram, and Elisha as a prophet in his place.  Just as significantly, God tells Elijah that there is more judgment to come.  Hazael and Jehu will be killing lots of people, and those who escape will be killed by Elisha.  God tells Elijah that 7000 will remain at the end of this bloody mess, those who have not bowed a knee to or kissed the baals.  Were only 7000 people faithful God?  As I have told you, we get our love of math from our Arab cousins.  7000 may simply be a way for the author of 1st Kings to say the judgment is complete, like the 7 days of creation, and there are thousands.  But, there has been a drought for THREE years.  That seems like an inordinate amount of time for Israel collective not to have realized the significance.  In the end, it does not really matter.  Many will die, but a faithful remnant will be preserved.

     Again, God shows His compassion and His mercy to Elijah.  Many of us would expect God to be angry with Elijah or even to give up on him.  Perhaps that is how we were parented or how we parented.  God, though, is a loving Father, full of compassion.  He gives Elijah new orders and He reminds Elijah that Elijah is not the only faithful person in Israel.  There are at least 7000 who have remained faithful, and Elisha will literally pick up his mantle.

     You and I are reminded that it is God who gives meaning to our work and ministries.  If we do anything to which He calls us, He is the One who determines success or failure.  He is the only One who knows everything that is happening and is able to see beyond our limited eyesight.  That is why our work is often described in agrarian metaphors.  Some of us plant, some of us water, some of us manure, some of us weed, and some of us harvest.  None of that happens without the labor of others; and our own importance derives from the fact that God gives us these tasks or vocations to do in His Name.  Some of our jobs may seem pointless in our eyes; some may seem like utter failures.  But in the end, as He did with our Lord Christ, God gives the meaning and the glory.

     There is yet another lesson to be learned, if we know the story.  Does Elijah anoint Hazael and Jehu as he is instructed by God?  I see too many nods of yes.  No!  Elijah anoints only Elisha.  Elisha is the one who anoints Hazael and Jehu.  In this simple task, Elijah fails again.  Despite all of God’s ministrations to him, despite all of God’s manifestations to him, Elijah fails in this simple command.  Yet in his failure you and I are allowed to understand better our own failures, our own worth, and God’s grace and mercy.  For all of this funk in which we see Elijah during these passages, he is still Elijah the prophet in God’s eyes.  This prophet who feels like an abject failure and feels like he is alone is, nevertheless, honored by God.  Elijah becomes only the second human being not to die.  Elijah becomes the man who represents the role of the prophet to Israel.  And Elijah becomes one of those messiahs who might well be the real Messiah as salvation history continues to unfold.  For all his failures, he stands on the mountaintop before the Three Apostles, conversing with Jesus and Moses about the upcoming Cross.

     I was reminded this morning that I needed to instruct us on perspective, which brings me back to that illustration I mentioned in the beginning.  As a reminder, your focus should really be on God, not me.  It will be a story of how God used me unknowingly, but makes sense in light of life.  As I was getting ready for church this morning, I turned on the Weather Channel.  After 7am they ran a story on the return of sea turtles to the Florida coast.  The lady speaking with the morning hosts talked about how Floridians had embraced the idea that sea turtles were important to the ecology of Florida marine life.  What really excited her was that leatherback turtles had returned in recent years, and that those majestic giants had returned to the beaches after having mostly disappeared for a few decades.

     Those of you who come into my office sometimes ask about all the turtles my mother gave me.  The impetus for those gifts was that when I was sixteen, I applied for and was accepted into a research program that was looking into reports that leatherback turtles had been reported on Puerto Rican beaches.  At that time in the early 80’s, leatherback turtles were critically endangered.  In case you do not know, these are the turtles that are about 9-10 feet in length and weigh somewhere around 1000 pounds when fully grown.  They are a touch bigger than box turtles we found in the woods as kids.

     The result of the program was that the two beaches where we worked were discovered to be the second and third largest nesting sites in the Atlantic basin.  The oceanographers and herpetologist could not contain their wonder at the number of turtles we were tagging!  They were excited to learn that many mothers lay multiple clutches of eggs.  Our jobs were to tag the turtles, notice any particular distinguishing features to include with the tagsheet, carefully count the eggs (both good and decoy) after the female had finished laying them, and make sure the turtles headed back out to sea when finished.  We learned later that it was the lights from houses and buildings that disoriented these creatures and caused them to head inland away from the water, which is why coastal communities embrace “turtle lighting” along some of our southeastern coast.  Our last job, if the nest was deemed to be in the tidal zone or very close to it, was to dig a new nest further ashore and to move the nest, carefully replacing the eggs.

     Over time, other researchers and grunts took part in the effort.  Eventually, as scientists worked through the lifecycle of the turtle, an effort was made to take some those “at risk” nests in the tidal zone and to safely harvest the eggs and transport them elsewhere in the Atlantic basin.  The hope was that if more eggs were hatched around the basin, the number of these enormous turtles would increase.  The lady’s enthusiasm this morning was proof that some of our work was incredibly important back then.  Some of the Florida beaches south of Cape Canaveral had received leatherback turtle eggs years ago.  Now those former hatchlings were returning to beaches for the first time in decades and laying their own clutches.  And in the bigger picture, leatherbacks are no longer threatened with extinction.

     She also shared with the Weather Channel hosts that there were fringe benefits.  One was tourism.  People loved being at the beach and seeing turtles, including hawksbill, green, and loggerheads, nest.  But the leatherbacks were a site!  People also loved seeing nests hatch and watching the newly hatched turtles dash for the sea!  They even have fewer and fewer incidents of people harassing all turtles and disturbing their nests.  She described it as a kind of ecological tourism.  People scheduled vacations hoping to see a part of this life cycle of sea turtles

     Another benefit, she touted, was the decline in jellyfish populations and stings at the beaches.  Guess what the favorite snack food for a leatherback seems to be.  That’s right, jellyfish.  As these monthers swim offshore preparing to nest, or recovering from the last effort and preparing for the next, they enjoy eating a variety of jellyfish.  Everybody wins!  The momma turtles get food, and human beings avoid stings!

     There are other benefits, but I won’t bore you too much this morning with those.  But I want to point out one of those important lessons with which Elijah struggled, namely the idea of perspective.  Elijah had accomplished miraculous things in service of God.  That “battle” between the baals and Yahweh was certainly at the forefront of those experiences.  But despite those events, Elijah was frail and all too human.  When things did not go quite the way he hoped or expected, he became despondent.  I, I alone, am zealous for the Lord.  He knew it was not true, but it sure felt like it in those dark moments.  The widow and her son certainly appreciated Elijah’s presence and God’s favor on him.  Elijah had a cadre of priests and prophets who looked to him as their leader, God’s chosen prophet and little “m” messiah.  Even God instructed him personally that there were at least 7000 individuals who had been faithful, who had listened to God and His prophets.  In his funk, Elijah could not see past his disappointment and failures.  And this is Elijah!  This is the prophet!  Some thought he might one day return to become the Messiah!

     I love the story because it reminds us of our need to change our perspectives.  Some of us serve others in God’s Name hoping for an incredible harvest.  There’s nothing wrong in longing to harvest for the glory of God, but we need to remind ourselves that God is constantly wooing those in the world around us, constantly reaching out His hands in love to remind them who they are in His eyes.  We are just the conduit.  We can do everything perfectly.  We can say all the right words, express the welcoming attitude beautifully, meet their desperate need without a hint of condescension, and never experience a harvest for the glory of God.  Our problem is that we do not know everything that is gone on in the life of that person we serve in His Name.  But He does!  We have to learn to trust that we are simply part of the process where God is drawing someone else into His saving embrace.  We do our job as a good steward, as an adopted child seeking to honor our Father, and trust that He uses our efforts and passions to His glory.  The world’s measures, like the number of people who convert because of us, are not His measures.

     Understanding that process and perspective also helps us be on guard against pride and hubris.  If we are the ones lucky enough to harvest, we know that we owe a debt of gratitude to those who planted the seeds before us, who engaged the individual before us, who served Christ in them before we did.  We give thanks to God for the role we play in His work, but we recognize salvation is truly His work, working through others like us.

     The experience of Elijah also serves as an antidote against the idea that we need to be superheroes of the faith.  All of you here today knew some of the story of Elijah, but there were several who had never heard this one.  None of those men and women about whom we read in the Scriptures were any different than you or me.  They had moments when they felt they could conquer the world in God’s Name and moments when they failed terribly.  Their stories are recorded so that you and I might understand that it is God’s gracious will to use ordinary people like ourselves for His purposes of Salvation History.  God takes ordinary guys, ordinary gals, ordinary kids, and He makes them extraordinary in the eyes of those around them.  He makes them heralds of the Gospel.  He is able to accomplish His Will despite their and our failures; sometimes He is glorified by their and our repentance, our acknowledgement that we were not doing what He asked.  All He asks is that we trust Him, that we let Him use us as He will, that the world might be drawn to Him.

     What about our weaknesses?  What about our failures?  How does God respond to Elijah in this pericope?  If anyone should have understood God’s power and will, it was Elijah.  Does God punish Elijah for his failure?  Does God berate him for forgetting who he was, God’s chosen prophet?  No.  God meets His son in rest, in nourishment, in instruction, and in command.  The God who created Elijah understood better than Elijah what Elijah needed.  And rather than rage at Elijah, God ministers to his prophet, reminding him and us what we often forget.  Our God is a God of mercy.  Our God realizes our needs long before we often do.  Better still, God meets our needs in nourishment, sabbath rest, instruction, and new work, reminding us who were are in His Son and in His eyes.

     The last perspective we need to talk about this morning is time.  We forget far too often that time is a creation of God.  God literally made time just as He made the cosmos.  That realization helps instruct us that we are only responsible for a short time in His service.  You and I cannot possibly fathom a plan that has, thus far, taken about 4000 years to play out, and it is not yet fully completed.  Yes, Jesus conquered the fear of death in His Resurrection, but death still stalks each one of us.  All that is sad is not yet unmade.  We are right to have urgency in our work because we do not know when our Lord will return, and we do not want to be surprised by the thief in the night.  But how can we truly understand His plan of salvation in the short decades span of our lives?  16yo me had no idea how God was using me then.  I hoped our work was not in vain.  I hoped the leatherback population would bounce back.  But there was a lot of work to be done before I could watch that report on the Weather Channel, not the Turtle Channel, this morning.  

     I do not know that 16yo me would have been able to articulate a theology of Creation care, that it is all our jobs to act as stewards of God’s earth until His return.  And as God so often has to remind me, He does far more than I can ever ask or imagine.  He gave me the perfect illustration, a little too close to the deadline for my liking, to give some of you a different perspective, His perspective.  I do know that 58yo me has a better understanding, but nowhere near a perfect understanding.  Like you, I know that some days I might be frustrated, some days I might be despondent, some days I may want to throw in the towel on the work He has called me to do.  When you express those fears and frustration, I get it.  That’s part of what makes me a pastor in your life.  But let us not forget the most important aspect this morning.  God gets it better than we all do.  And yet, for reasons known only to Him, He chooses to use frail human beings like Elijah, like Peter, like you, and like me to share His Gospel, that those out there who are so much like us, may find Him and learn that He has been seeking them their whole life.

In His Perspective and Grace,

Brian+