June
20, 2010
From Down & Out to Up & At’Em
I Kings
19:1-17 Psalm 55
Luke 3:7-9,18-20;7:18-23
“I said, ‘Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest - I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.’" Have you ever made such a prayer? Had such thoughts? Voiced such longings? These come from the depths of the Psalmist’s being. They’re not some plaintive wish voiced from the January snowdrift, yearning for a little respite in the balmy south.
No it is clear from the context in the Psalm, these words come of out tremendous trial. They explode from severe affliction. Life feels like it is being crushed into oblivion and this plea for escape bursts from the Psalmist’s heart. I know there have been times in my life when such a sense of distress made the idea of packing it in for the solitude of the wilderness or shifting to some low stress, low demand, low accountability occupation was very tempting. I suspect I’m not alone in that experience among those of us who are gathered in the sanctuary today, maybe not even in the minority. I think at least one-third of my first year class at Knox have left pastoral ministry, many feeling like that Psalmist.
We find two such leaders in today’s scripture lessons - Elijah and John the Baptist. It appears both are identifying strongly with this sense of frustration and weariness voiced in those lines from Psalm 55. Psychoanalysis in the best of circumstances is an activity fraught with pitfalls; so attempting to do it from the distance of millennia of time and with a scarcity of details and with limited training is rarely a rational act. But that’s never stopped me before!
Both of these men appear to be in some kind of crisis of faith and are likely deeply depressed as well. John, the fiery-eyed Baptizer, locked away in one of Herod’s no star hotels, with miseries multiplying daily begins to doubt. He wonders, ‘Did I get it right? Was I truly the one who was to come before? The new Elijah, trail blazing a path for the Anointed One?’ ‘If so, why I am still in here in this dark, dank dungeon? Why haven’t those evil oppressors like Herod been overthrown? Why has life changed so little?’
The John we meet through his emissaries in chapter 7 is a far cry from the John we met in chapter 3. That early John had no space for doubt, no fear of his opponents, no hesitation about who he was and what he was about in service to God. That John was larger than life, full of spiritual power and passion augmented by physical discipline. This later John seems but a shell of that former prophetic whirlwind.
So too with Elijah. Only 2 weeks ago we heard him command the skies to dry up. We watched him promise a poor widow a constant supply of food if only she would give away entirely the little she had. Since then Elijah has demanded a showdown with the King and the priests of the false god Baal. He stood alone, one man against almost a 1,000. He taunted them as they tried in vain to bring down fire from heaven. He then inundated his altar with 12 buckets of water and called down fire. And it came. Then he prayed for rain and it came - in torrents. Then he outran a chariot.
This last feat was very important because when we pick up the story again in chapter 19, Elijah is running once more. This time he is running away. He’s not just longing for the wilderness, he’s heading there as fast as his legs will carry him. And we see him, like John, an empty and despairing shell. No passion, no power, no purpose, no prospects. Hear again his plaintive dejection, “It’s too much LORD, take away my life; I might as well be dead.” That’s not just longing for respite in a calm shelter, a time apart for healing and restoration; that’s tossing in the towel. The opportunities to make a significant and enduring impact are quite restricted when you’re dead.
The same thing happens as I noted to pastors. They arrive at seminary eager to immerse themselves in the things of faith, confident that God can and will use them to bring forward the fullness of the kingdom. Then denominational and congregational life engulfs them. Too often the sheep appear more intent on wandering in search of wolves than sipping deep draughts of the cool still nectar of the Spirit; or worse turn out to be wolves disguised as sheep and seek to feed on the shepherd’s heart and flesh. And bleeding and bruised, either they resort to the dreary task of maintaining the walls of the sheepfold or they leave behind the pasture fields for less daunting endeavours.
It also can befall parishioners. Faithfully year in and year out you make yourself and your gifts freely available to kingdom ministry. You pour yourself into a project or individuals’ lives. You teach, set up, take down, usher, donate, pray, study, attend seminars - whatever opportunities arise you are there. Then a partner proves unreliable or your passion for service and mission gets trumped by preservation and status quo at an annual meeting or those with whom you have gone the extra mile, go off in pursuit of unholy living or calamity befalls you and you either pack in the whole faith ‘thing’ or limp off and take up residence on the far fringe of another congregation, vowing never again to put yourself or your well being at risk.
One can hear similar impulses arising from family life. Parents and grandparents watch almost helpless as their offspring pursue one destructive path of life or get tangled up in one unhelpful relationship after another. The values and priorities and the faith they had tried to pass on, lay discarded in the ditch. And the longing to somehow escape the anguish wells up nightly in their soul. Just recently Maclean’s magazine produced an article exploring the plight of many teenagers and observed that far, far too often these troubled teens have parents with whom they have no connectedness, no communication and from whom they have received no substantive, foundational basis for life. Some long to flee physically, others just leave psychologically.
And the list of areas of peril, pain, problems, privations and the like that engender wishes for refuge and incite decisions to withdraw or cease making any effort or no longer to put oneself at risk of further disappointment or rejection, that list could include virtually every area of life that has potential and significance. So let’s revisit Elijah and observe the process of his rehabilitation from capitulation to re-engagement.
Let’s
pick it up at his lowest point. Out
of breath, out of hope, out of faith - empty of everything but anger and
frustration and fear, Elijah stops on the southern-most edge of
The
repetition is the classic sign that God is around.
And in case one didn’t catch the connection between Elijah and Moses
that I noted two weeks ago, review what follows. “he traveled forty days
and forty nights until he reached Sinai, the
There is much to observe here, too much really, but let’s note some highlights. Elijah is as Tiger, Williams not Woods, would say, ‘Done like dinner.’ He couldn’t be emptier. He needs to be renewed not retired, recycled not laid to rest. Anytime despondency or futility or self-pity or disappointment threaten to overwhelm, the first step is to ascertain one’s physical well-being. Elijah has for 3 years been driving himself, hiding out, on the run, on a limited diet. He’s physically spent. He needed rest. He needed food. He needed a safe place. The border was such a place.
But he needed more, much more. The physical depletion was only a symptom. Elijah’s soul and spirit were depleted. The journey to Sinai was in effect a spiritual retreat. At the start all he wanted to do was die. At the end, he was like Job, demanding God vindicate him, tell him he’s been unjustly and harshly treated. "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." He’s lost sight of who God is and his mission. He’s measuring his faithfulness and God’s reliability by results. God and God’s people must measure up to his expectations.
Sometimes the first part of spiritual renewal is discovering what really is in one’s heart. Elijah was confident his zeal, his dedication would be enough to achieve God’s purposes. Even as he spoke these words to God, bemoaning his lot, protesting his ineffectiveness I think a break-through was beginning to seep into his spirit. Elijah it’s not about you, your zeal, your faith, your expectations. It’s about who I am, my timelines, my people. It was dawning but not fully embraced.
So now we observe the stereotypical evidence of God’s might and majesty. The place rocks. But this off-handed comment is repeated, “but the LORD was not in the wind …, but the LORD was not in the earthquake, … but the LORD was not in the fire”. The subtle message -‘Elijah I’m not following your agenda, acting as you expect’. Then in silence, ‘the sound of nothing’, is a fair translation, the LORD becomes present. And round two of question and answer takes place. Remember repetition is intentional. Nothing seems to change in Elijah’s answer, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.". I wonder if the tone this time has moved from complaint to contrition. God I tried to do it all myself. I gave it everything I had. But I lost focus. I forgot you. I forgot your faithful people.
I wonder - because the next thing we see is Elijah recommissioned for ministry. He has been reminded of who God is. He has been challenged but not crushed by God’s probing. He is given hope - both a protégé, Elisha to carry on after he is dead and a royal heir apparent, Jehu to replace the unfaithful Ahab. His understanding of God has been expanded. He is informed he is far from alone, he is not a remnant of one. He is revived by physical rest, by reflection, by refocusing, by wrestling with the mysterious person and purposes of God, by humble repentance, by replenishing of hope. He returns both full of vigour and wiser in the ways of God. And he dies before the revival of the worship of the LORD overthrows the worship of Baal. That was for the ministry of Elisha to experience.
Amen
June
6, 2010
A Widow’s Might
I Kings
16:29-17:16 Matthew
17:1-13
The stories of Elijah and the drought, or Elijah and the ravens, or Elijah and the widow raise lots of modern eyebrows. If you grow up in the church and hear these stories along with the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales and Munsch’s Mud Puddle you may never really ever stop and question the details. But if you don’t meet this story until you’ve been socialized and educated into reality rooted in rationality, you wrinkle your forehead and hesitate. I mean the raven-like crackles that invade my backyard are takers not givers. And I’ve been about as successful in managing the weather as the local forecasters on T.V..
Now however for better or worse, we are shifting into a social milieu in which logic and the five senses no longer hold supreme sway, so these kind of over the top accounts of miracles and prophetic power that so casually permeate the pages of scripture cause less concern with the emerging generation. Post-moderns are more apt to have trouble with the inability of Elijah to tolerate anything but total and exclusive allegiance to the worship of the God named Yahweh than his ability to control the weather!
But intolerant he is! And in
a firebrand kind of way. As former
Prime Minister Chretien was noting a
few days ago, Elijah’s the kind of guy our modern media like, because he is
weak on political correctness and strong on controversy.
Like that volcano in
However it appears his passion may have backfired. The story unfolds like the warning about pointing your finger. While Ahab is getting the ‘wag’, Elijah is getting blasted by the bounce back. It’s like he has three fingers wagging at him. First he has to go into hiding. Kings, especially kings married to queens like Jezebel, don’t take kindly to someone making their lives difficult. Elijah throws down the gauntlet - ‘There’ll be no rain, until I say so’. Quite a bold statement. But one that it appears he can back up. He heads off into the boonies to hide. No need to hide if there wasn’t a drought. But I wonder, did he consider life in the wilderness before he confronted the King?
But there’s water and food flown in fresh twice a day. Maybe the ambience lacks a little pizzazz but it’s quiet and safe. Except. Except the brook’s babbling slowly stutters to silence. I wonder if that consequence had crossed Elijah’s mind when he shut up the heavens? Now instead of the familiar territory of his youth, he is forced to flee to the homeland of his enemy -Queen Jezebel. Is that ironic or what?
And once more it appears Elijah gets caught in the jaws of his own device. The widow he seeks out has no visible means of support! I wonder if he ever thought ‘Was I too hasty in stopping the rain?’. However once again all turns out well and for the rest of the drought Elijah finds sustenance with the foreign widow. This sequence of events forms our introduction to Elijah.
The story is noteworthy for more than
the miracles that we have observed. Elijah
is the first major prophet to come from the northern part of the now divided
And this story provides many angles.
There is the affirmation of God’s providential care - the ravens, the
brook, the hospitable widow. There
is strong stress on God’s sovereignty over the normal laws of nature.
Birds feed their young not fugitives.
Except in the
Let me ponder that a bit. Did you notice her? Don’t be surprised if you didn’t. Small people rarely get noticed. And she is small. A widow. In those days that’s two strikes. Wrong gender - no status. Dead husband - no defender. And poor. She’s out gathering sticks. That’s how the poor live - from hand to mouth. Strike three. She’s out. She’s about to die. She has enough food for a last meal. Dead is very, very small. You’re not even on the fringe anymore. For a second, try to imagine yourself that small. What thoughts and feelings are filling you as you scrape up a bundle of sticks and prepare to die? Regret? Anger? Resigned dullness? Grief? What ifs? Would you be feeling friendly? Gracious? Welcoming?
So there you are trudging on the outskirts of the town, picking up twigs and branches and a foreigner asks you to go into town -that’s where the well is and get him a drink of water. What would be your response? ‘Wouldn’t you rather I get you a Bud light?’ Would you hold out one of the sticks and make some suggestions about its possible uses? Would you spit on the ground and say ‘Jew!’? Would you just ignore him and shuffle off for more sticks? Or would you nod assent and head off to the house to find him a drink?
I know in some circles it is fashionable to downplay the circumventing of Nature in the drought and ravens and emphasize that the ‘real’ miracle is the widow’s response. It is remarkable and as powerful as the other provisions of God, not a substitute to those gifts from God. God cared for Elijah by moving in the woman’s heart and by maintaining the food in her pantry. Both proclaim the power of God. Our preference or bias is of no consequence.
But examine again the miracle of the widow’s response. First she acts with magnanimous hospitality. She had so many reasons to not heed Elijah’s request, but her generous heart dominated. What a lesson! If you and I invite God to build up a welcoming, generous, hospitable spirit in our hearts, even when life is extremely difficult, we will find ourselves acting with warmth and compassion. Her ability to focus on others is astounding. And she isn’t even a God worshipper. She follows Baal - the whole focus of Elijah’s conflict with Ahab and Jezebel. What irony! But she knows of Yahweh. And has heard rumours of his awesome power. So when Elijah presses her for food as well as water she refers to Yahweh, not Baal in her protest. And when Elijah invites her to trust her life and the life of her son to Yahweh, she agrees. An incredible verbal exchange. One that foreshadows Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s gospel. Note she risked, that is acted in faith, before she experienced God’s provision. Something in Elijah’s invitation, something she may have heard in the marketplace about Yahweh, some stirring of the Spirit in her heart enabled her to trust and the rest of the story is worth reading.
It’s our story too, isn’t it? When we stand and affirm our faith in becoming members or in reciting the creed or in coming to the table, we like this woman are putting all we have - though perhaps small still considerably more than a bit of food - our time, talents, treasures. We put all we have forward as an offering for God’s service. And we find remarkably that the little that is visible on the table - a bit of bread, a splash of juice gives us the sustenance for body, soul and spirit we need to live each day in the exclusive service of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we even find that our all, which by some standards is small, becomes more than we can imagine in sustaining the lives and faith of many others.
Amen