Sermon 3/16/18
1 Kings 19:1-16
Elijah in the Wilderness
Today, in our last Sunday of Lent
before we begin our Holy Week journey, we turn our attention to the prophet
Elijah and his time in the wilderness. Elijah is kind of an enigmatic figure in
the Bible. We don’t know very much about him. He just sort of starts appearing
in the story in the midst of 1 Kings, ready to take on Ahab, King of Israel.
Ahab is leading Israel astray. In fact, in Chapter 16 of 1 Kings we read that
“Ahab … did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him,”
which is saying something, since the books of Kings recount a long line of
kings who didn’t follow God. Ahab marries Jezebel, a daughter of a neighboring
king and a priestess of Baal. And Ahab, too, begins to serve Baal, the idol-god
of area Canaanite religion. He worships Baal and builds an altar for Baal and
all of this, we read, kindles God’s anger at Ahab more than God had ever been
angry at all the kings before him.
And then, Elijah appears on the scene. Unlike some of the
other prophets of the Bible, there is no book of Elijah. We don’t have any of
his writings. But it is Elijah to whom Jesus and others refer, along with
Moses, to symbolize the law and the prophets. His place in Israel’s history is
hugely significant, even though he appears for just these few brief chapters in
1 Kings. Jezebel has been having prophets of God killed. She’s basically
seeking to execute any prophets of God who speak against her, Ahab, their god
Baal, and the prophets of Baal. So Elijah sets up a confrontation – Elijah
verses hundreds of prophets of Baal. Through a series of tests, Elijah shows
that Baal is false and his prophets are false while God is ever faithful. The
people fall to their knees, worshiping God, and Elijah seizes all the prophets
of Baal and has them killed. When Ahab tells Jezebel what happened, she seeks
to capture and kill Elijah.
That’s where our scene for today begins. Elijah is afraid,
and he’s on the run, fearing for his life. He journeys into the wilderness and
sits under a solitary tree. He asks God to let him die. Tired, hungry,
dehydrated, he falls asleep. But a messenger of God touches him and wakes him
saying, “Get up and eat.” Elijah sees food and water prepared for him. He eats,
and sleeps again. The scene is repeated, with the messenger telling Elijah,
“Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He eats and
drinks again, and he’s given strength for his forty -day journey to the mount
of God. He spends the night in a cave, and God’s voice comes to him, asking,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?” “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the
God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your
altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are
seeking my life, to take it away.” God replies, “Go out and stand on the
mountain, for God is about to pass by.” There’s a great wind. But God is not in
the wind. Then an earthquake. But God is not in the earthquake. Then a fire. But
God is not in the fire. And then the sound of sheer silence. Elijah steps out
from the cave, and God asks again, “What are you doing, Elijah?” Elijah repeats
his complaint. And God tells him to go and anoint a new king. God tells Elijah
that Elijah will anoint his successor, a new prophet, Elisha, to follow in his
place, and that there will still be seven thousand Israelites who have not
worshipped Baal, but instead remain faithful to God.
If our scripture today reminds you of some of the other texts
we’ve been studying this Lent, that’s good – it should! Like Hagar, Elijah is
fleeing from danger. Like Hagar, and like Jonah, who we talked about at our
midweek Lenten study this week, Elijah ends up sitting under a tree, forlorn,
feeling pretty sorry for himself. Like Moses, Elijah has been trying to lead
people and be faithful to God and ends up feeling overwhelmed. Like Moses,
Elijah heads to a mountain in the wilderness when he is seeking a word from God
in the midst of his turmoil. In fact, it is the very same mountain, although we
hear it called by different names. Elijah’s Mount Horeb and Moses’ Mount Sinai
are one and the same. And for both Moses and Elijah, the mountain in the
wilderness is a place where they encounter God, and find strength for the journey.
Just as for Moses, the strength Elijah receives comes in the presence of God
revealed. For Moses, he got to look on God’s back, to see where God had passed
by. For Elijah, God comes in the silence.
Last week, when we celebrated the
life of Lucy Brassard, her family asked that we include a period of silence
during the burial. I’d never had anyone ask me for that before, but Lucy’s son
Matt explained that having silent time with God was an important part of Lucy’s
spiritual life. So as we laid Lucy to rest, we spent some time in silence,
taking a break from words, quieting our spirits. I still remember with crisp
clarity the power of God-filled silence I experienced one year at Camp
Aldersgate. My youth group had gone to Aldersgate for a winter retreat weekend.
It was a sunny day, and the whole camp was blanketed in snow. Our youth group,
junior and senior high kids, we’d all gone for a walk in the woods behind one
of the sections of cabins. My friends were goofing around, but I walked just a
little farther, to a small boat launch on Brantingham Lake. The Lake was frozen
over, covered in snow like everything else, and the sun was shining on the
snow. And the silence was palpable. I felt God’s presence deeply, in the
silence. I don’t remember a particular message from God, but I remember being
filled with a sense of peace that I carried with me.
I sometimes long for that peaceful,
God-filled silence. Early in my adult life, I developed a kind of tinnitus
called pulsatile tinnitus. It’s when you hear a pulsing that seems to match
your heartbeat in your ear. It is most noticeable at night, when everything is
quiet, and suddenly the pulsing seems very, very loud. When it first started,
my doctor had me go through all sorts of tests to rule out possible causes, and
everything checked out. My hearing was fine, my blood was flowing fine, my
brain was fine! Sometimes that happens with tinnitus. No identifiable cause.
The solution was pretty simple: Nighttime is usually the only time that the
pulsing bothers me, and so now, for years, I always sleep with a fan on. But I
really miss being able to enjoy deep silence. It makes my heart a little sad to
need some kind of noise. And it feels
like a great big metaphor for our world, our lives, our society. It isn’t
always easy to do: just be silent. Silence is powerful, and it can make us
uncomfortable.
It’s like we can’t function without
noise. Like we have to have a constant stream of chatter coming at us otherwise
we’ll be left alone with our own thoughts, and we just can’t handle that. I
wonder if we can hear God in the midst of the noise. People sometimes lament
that God is silent, but Elijah’s experience tells us that God is sometimes
speaking in the silence. But if we
cover up the silence with our own noise, how will we hear? Part of the reason
why we need wilderness time, why we
have to intentionally take our spirits to risky, vulnerable places is so that
we can find a space for God-laden silence.
Elijah makes his complaint to God
twice. He says both before and after God’s revealing in the sheer silence: “I
have been very zealous for you God, very passionate in my service to you. The
Israelites have all turned away from you, and killed your prophets. And I’m the
only prophet left, and they want to kill me too.” And from the silence, God
answers Elijah. We hear the first part of God’s response in our reading today,
but the sum of it is basically this: God says, “You don’t have it quite right,
Elijah. There are in fact still thousands of faithful Israelites, who have never
worshiped other Gods. And also, you aren’t the only prophet. There is a prophet
named Elisha that you will name as the prophet in your place. And also, I still have work for you to
do. Go, and appoint a new king in the place of Ahab.” I really love God’s
response, and all the things God manages to say in a few short sentences. God
lets Elijah know that in his fear, he’s not seeing things quite clearly. The
situation seems completely bleak to Elijah, but God knows that it is not. God
also doesn’t let Elijah off the hook. Even though Elijah says he’s done, God
says, “Yes, but I’m not done with you.” And God reminds Elijah that he is not alone. I think this is both an
encouragement to Elijah and a gentle chastisement. Sometimes when we’re trying
so hard to follow God, and we feel discouraged and face setbacks, we become
convinced that we are the only ones who
are trying to do what is right in God’s eyes. God reminds Elijah, and reminds
us, that there are others – both Israelites, and prophets like Elisha, who
serve God too. Elijah isn’t alone, and if he can remember that, he won’t feel
like he has nowhere left to turn, no hope. Elijah isn’t the only one in the
wilderness. Neither are we.
I’ve mentioned before that I took a sabbatical year from
pastoral ministry. Pastors are able to take time away from an appointment to a
local church periodically for study, renewal, training, and reflection. I was
finishing up a particularly challenging appointment to a local church, and I
decided to apply for a sabbatical year. The thought of immediately heading to a
new congregation to be the pastor, connecting to a new congregation, mustering
the energy it would take to start fresh – it was overwhelming. I couldn’t do
it. So I applied for a sabbatical year, intending to do some research, and
explore the themes of charity and justice that are so important to me. But I
will confess: I didn’t think I’d go back to a local church, to being a church
pastor, after my year off. I felt like I had been worn down to nothing. I felt
like I had nothing left to give as a pastor. I felt for the first time like
maybe I was no longer called to ministry, or like the season of my call had
ended. I’d had tough times before, but I’d never felt like that: like I was
done being a pastor. But that’s how I was feeling when I applied for
sabbatical. I don’t want to be overdramatic: everywhere I’ve served I’ve been
blessed by wonderful parishioners. But something about this appointment just
seemed to drain me emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and I felt done.
And I tried, really hard, with a lot of energy and dedication in the year that
followed, to figure out a different way to serve God with my life other than
being a pastor.
But the answer I got from God? Nope:
You can serve me by being a pastor, just like I said. While I was on
sabbatical, I kept serving as a pastor, which seems a little crazy. But I
served there quarter time – just enough time to preach and do some pastoral
care, really. But enough time to never really stop being a pastor. And in that
time, that time when I insisted I didn’t have it in me to be a pastor anymore,
God reminded me that I’d never stopped being one, and that my call was still my
call, and that God wasn’t done with me yet. God set me in a congregation that I
couldn’t help but grow to love, and I found myself as part of a meaningful
covenant group of pastors who strengthened and encouraged me. God built up my
spirit again during that time when I had a different rhythm of life and
ministry, and helped me emerge from the wilderness refreshed and restored. God
wasn’t done, I wasn’t done, and God
had not left me alone.
Elijah says he’s done with being a
prophet. Done, in fact, with living in the world altogether if it is a world
where he’s going to be hunted down by angry rulers. But God comes to Elijah in
the wilderness, not without compassion, but nonetheless, what God basically
tells Elijah is: “Nope, you’re not done. But I will give you some bread for the
journey, some life, some hope, so that you can make it through. And so Elijah
finds himself with a full stomach, with a plan of action, with another prophet
in Elisha who will become like a son to him, and with hope for the future.
When have you felt “done”? Maybe you
feel like that right now! Like you can’t possibly continue on from here. Like
everything hard that has come your way is just too much. I do believe that
sometimes God is leading us in new directions, leading us to new things. But I
promise this: God is not done with you, and God is not done with the work, the
call, the mission, the journey that God has for you. So, get up and eat!
Nourish your spirit, or the journey will be too much. Make sure you are letting
God feed your soul. Make sure you aren’t ignoring what God sets before you to
strengthen you. From the silence, God is speaking to you. Amen.
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