Loading...Elijah, the prophet, the man of God, was SO good at his job that he received a sentence of death from the queen!
Elijah had been called to be a prophet by God. He reminded the people of God’s covenant, he did miracles (healing, food, and others). During part of the time that he was a prophet, there was a terrible drought in the land for more than three years. When there’s a drought, the farmers (which would be most people) could not grow crops. So, there was no wheat, no barley, no rye. And, there was a famine. People and animals were starving: peasants, farmers, merchants, laborers. Pretty much everyone except the king and queen, and their courtiers.
During this time, the king and queen of the Israelites were Ahab and Jezebel. Jezebel was not Israelite in background and she and her husband king began worshiping another god: Ba’al, the Canaanite god. They didn’t worship YHWH God, but Ba’al. Their court was arranged to have a number of prophets surrounding them, but these prophets were “yes” men, they told King Ahab and Queen Jezebel whatever they wanted to hear, including all kinds of phrases about how great they were, and how great Ba’al was.
You see, even though, ostensibly, these prophets were prophets of God, they really just said whatever the King and Queen wanted to hear. And, they wanted to hear that they were doing a good thing by worshiping Ba’al. One of the reasons they liked this kind of worship is that there were all of these demi-gods, including one for the harvest, and the worship was full of rites and rituals that they could do to show off their worship style.
Then, Elijah showed up and started telling them that they were wrong. That they shouldn’t be worshiping Ba’al and that YHWH is the only true God. And, that THEY were responsible for the drought in the land because they turned away from God and were leading the people away from the God of Israel who lead the people out of slavery in Egypt and who provided land and food and water for them.
As you might imagine, a pretty big shouting match started up. Elijah proposed that there be a competition between the two gods: Ba’al v. YHWH. And, the prophets would be the competitors.
The competition went like this: the court prophets and Elijah would both build an altar to their god, and then pray that Ba’al or YHWH would bring fire down upon the altar. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel and their prophets readily agreed to this. The prophets built an altar, and performed all sorts of rituals, dances, and prayers around it asking Ba’al to rain down fire.
But, there was nothing. No fire. No Ba’al.
Elijah built an altar with a trench around it and then poured water all over it, and filled up the trenches with water. Then he prayed to God for fire to come down, and -shazam- there was fire all over the altar and the trenches!
Elijah was victorious. YHWH was victorious. Elijah killed all of the court prophets because of their apostasy, because of their turning away from God and leading people away from God. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were NOT happy. In fact, Jezebel swore that she would see Elijah killed within the next day.
So Elijah ran away.
Rather than remember the rightness of his cause
or God’s presence and call to him to do this work,
Elijah was FILLED with self-doubt.
He deflates with this death threat, he fears for his life, and he runs away.
Instead of remembering, trusting in, and having confidence in God, he crumbles.
Everything falls down around him – mostly his sense of self and purpose.
He runs for his life into the wilderness, beyond where the most meager of farming could take place,
he finds a solitary broom tree – a pitiful little tree – and plops down:
“It is enough; O Lord, now you can take away my life!”
In other words, “I wanna die!”
The irony here is that if he wanted to die, he could’ve just stayed within Jezebel’s reach. I don’t think he really wanted to die; he was crying out in pain and anguish!
Elijah falls asleep under the broom tree, and he doesn’t die.
Instead, in an ethereal, dream-like sequence, he is visited by an angel who comes with food and drink for him. He eats. He drinks. He falls asleep again.
The vision/dream continues when another angel visits with more food and drink and instructs him to eat and drink so that he may have strength for the journey.
The next morning, Elijah begins a 40 day/night journey, guided by God, to Horeb, the holy mountain of God.
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As you hear this story, what are some scriptural “echoes”? Other stories from the Bible that have similar details or themes?
• 40 days/nights – Jesus in the wilderness; Noah, the ark, and the flood
• Hagar and Ishmael who are in the desert and are given water and food by God.
• Jacob, who runs away from the anger of his twin brother Esau (after stealing both the birthright and the blessing), and ends up in the wilderness. When he falls asleep that night, the angels descend a ladder and give him food to eat.
• Jonah, who first runs away from the call that God’s given him, and then, after he’s done with God’s work but is unhappy with God, goes and sits under a tree to pout and complain and ask to die.
• the Israelites who are on a long, long journey, and who complain, but who are given food and water each day.
You may have also heard echoes of this story of Elijah in your own life:
• things are going pretty well, then there’s a significant bump in the road – in work life, in your family/relationships, with your health, or world events that effect you – and you just want to collapse or run away. More than once, I’ve felt overwhelmed by events and lay down on the cool floor to stare off into space.
• or, you’ve been on a long journey of praying and waiting, praying and waiting, praying and waiting. Gayle was diagnosed with the worst kind of breast cancer that you can have and had to deal with treatments and praying and waiting, treatments and praying and waiting, treatments and praying and waiting.
• or, you know what it is to have food and strength for the journey – enough for today, enough for the next step – what my friends Ali and Dave, who are in an AA group, would call One Day At A Time.
Your echoes with Elijah’s story may include
feeling overwhelmed and full of despair, even when things had been going spectacularly well,
A long journey, each day anew, but long, and
the gift, the surprising gift, of sustenance – the real thing of food and/or
the very real presence of God.
The gift of this little chapter of Elijah’s story is that –
for one of the most revered and honored prophets in Israel’s history
(remember, some thought that Jesus was Elijah who had returned),
and for one who was clearly a man of God in his words and actions –
he also stumbled, doubted, and collapsed.
And God was there.
God was there in the presence of the angels.
God walked with Elijah in those 40 days/nights of wilderness.
God accompanied Elijah from being a runaway fugitive to being a pilgrim going to the holy mountain of God (and then, as the story continues, recognizing God not in the fire, earthquake, or wind, but in sheer silence).
God was there in the profound transformation Elijah went through in those 40 days.
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You are not beyond the care of God.
You are never beyond God’s reach of love and mercy.
God is with you on your journey: Jesus walks among us, Jesus reaches out to you wherever you are. Jesus feeds you with the bread of life.
God strengthens, empowers, and transforms you: the Spirit of God is alive for you and accompanying you on your journey of change.
We never fully know what God is up to, nor how God can provoke change within and round us until it happens, and we pay attention to the work of God.
What God pulls and pushes you into may not be what you expect,
and may not be comfortable,
but trust God is leading you into new life.
The changes that the Holy Spirit provokes in you may start you off
in a new and unexpected direction
but focus on what God is up to and what God is doing through you.
Our world is full of confusion
(just which guy in the debate is telling the truth and/or is trustworthy?)
Our world is full of violence
(10s of thousands were killed 70 years ago today in Nagasaki, Japan (including the center of Christianity in Japan), over 700 Americans killed by police in the last year since this day last year when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, thousands of families are torn apart because of violence/threats in their homes)
Our world is full of chaos
(super-typhoon in Taiwan, deep drought in California and Australia, fires threatening homes and communities)
It is enough, really, to chase one out into the wilderness to sit under a solitary broom tree and give up.
But, God did not give up on Elijah.
Jesus does not give up on you.
God does not give up on God’s beloved world.
The manna comes from heaven –
enough for the journey to feed us each day.
The bread of life for the whole world for renewal and strength –
one beloved person at a time.
Not just today, but every day,
even the days when you stumble and crumble and run away.
Elijah went for 40 days on the strength of what God’s messengers fed him.
And from there, he went on to other work, service, and ministry.
This broom tree episode turned out to be a “blip” on the screen of his life –
and God’s grace was the turning point to new life.
Jesus calls you to this life:
• to a life of trusting God to give the world the bread that it hungers for,
• to an openness to the gift of stumbling and falling and failing,
• to the nourishment that renews you each day
• to transformation, and a new way of seeing and connecting with your brothers and sisters – God’s beloved people here and around the world
• to seeing and experiencing God in new and unexpected ways – including, like the Jews who thought they knew all about God because they’d studied and knew the Word, the surprise of “we’ve never done it that way before”
• to the satisfaction, the fullness, of life following Jesus with all of the day to day changes of priority and ethics that invites us to.
Jesus calls you to the bread of life given freely to the world.
Come and eat.
Come and be made new.
Come and never be hungry again.
Amen
