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+
