June 23, 2019 – I Kings 19:1-15a
I Kings 19:1-15a
Not Alone
Lectionary 12C – June 23, 2019
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Well this is a very dramatic story from I Kings today!
Poor Elijah!
How the might have fallen!
He is fresh from many victories and successes!
He has just called down God’s fire, was victorious in a head to head contest with
850 of the foreign god Baal’s prophets, slain them all (not sure what to say about that. . .)
and ended a three year drought!
Whoa!
And yet . . . he has now incited the fury of Queen Jezebel who has put a contract out on his life.
A little background.
At the time, King Ahab was king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel –
about 850 years before Jesus.
The trouble began when Ahab married a foreign princess, Jezebel, and
allowed the worship of her god Baal in the Northern Kingdom.
God sent a drought – it last three years!
Ahab and Jezebel blamed Elijah the trouble-maker for the drought!
Elijah said it the worship of Baal that was responsible.
So: there was a big contest! This would have made great reality television!
Up on a high mountain Elijah battled the prophets of Baal!
He called down fire on their altar to Baal and God sent a thunderbolt that totally destroyed it!
Then he had the people who witnessed this spectacle seize the prophets of Baal –
and he killed them all.
Now Jezebel did not take kindly to Elijah showing up her prophets and, uh, killing them all.
So, Tony Soprano style, she puts out a contract on him –
and the brave, successful Elijah flees for his life.
He ends up at Horeb, another name for Mt. Sinai, where hundreds of years before
Moses had similarly encountered God and received the 10 commandments.
And it is there that God says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
But I think it’s probably better translated, “Why are you here?”
In response, Elijah pours out his tale of woe: poor me, he says, I’m a failure! The Israelites have abandoned you, killed your prophets, and I alone am left! And now they are seeking to kill me! I may as well just die!
But God is not buying what Elijah is selling – apparently God is not a fan of self-pity.
I mean, come on – Elijah is not being totally truthful in his response to God:
he is just feeling sorry for himself.
I mean he has just defeated 850 prophets!
And . . . he is not alone!
The people who witnessed his victory confessed their faith in God! (18:38) Win!
Also: the palace steward told him that a hundred of God’s prophets had been hidden from
Jezebel! (18:3-16) He is not in fact alone! Win!
And during his flight, angels came and fed him – not just once but twice!
And we know in the Bible angels often look just like human beings –
So Elijah has in fact been fed and cared for all along! Another win!
There are faithful people, there are prophets, there are angels ministering to him and feeding him.
And then, and then . . . there is the God who is there with him all along.
In the silence, in the spaces in between, in what former translations called “the still small voice.”
Elijah is far from alone.
I am quite sure we all relate to how Elijah has felt.
I am also quite sure he meant it when he said it: “I am all alone. I alone am left.”
But it simply wasn’t true.
How often do you feel alone –
but when you stop to think about it you realize that is far from true?
There are those who care for us – there are those who worry about us.
There are those who bring us food, or buy us lunch, or take us for coffee.
Do we hear the still small voice of God in all that?
Yes: we look for God in the flash and the thunder – and maybe God is present in that sometimes.
But God is also in the quietly sustaining words of friendship and encouragement –
maybe more so.
And certainly God is present in what comes next in the story.
The still small voice gives Elijah an opportunity to respond a second time to the question,
Why are you here, Elijah?
And again Elijah gets it wrong.
He tells exactly the same story that he told God before: I alone am left! Hahahah!
God sighs.
I think maybe God has brought Elijah to Mt. Sinai so Elijah can realize how not alone he is.
This is where Elijah’s community was born.
This is where Moses encountered the living God – just like Elijah.
This is a storied part of Israel’s history – the history of whole community of people
dedicated to God’s mission to love, bless, heal and set free
this whole world and every person in it.
This location should recall for Elijah just how big an enterprise he is part of.
But he doesn’t get it.
So God – very graciously – does the heavy lifting.
This is another instance where the makers of the lectionary have got out their scissors and
lopped off the end of the story – but what did I say a few weeks ago?
You have to read to the end of the story!
Grrrr!!!!!!
Yes: the still small voice sends him back to the wilderness of Damascus –
but the voice sends him with a purpose:
Elijah is to gather and appoint others to lead with him!
God is like: you’re a friggin’ prophet! Anoint some new leaders! That’s what prophets do!
God tells him to anoint a couple of new kings and a prophet to succeed him – Elisha,
who will be one of the great prophets of the Old Testament.
Plus God says, rolling the divine eyes I am sure:
why don’t you also go find those thousands who are still faithful to me!
There are 7000 thousand of them! You’re not alone, idiot!
There are people who will support you!
Get going! (I Kings 19:15b-18)
You’d think the makers of the lectionary could have included these 2 and half more verses –
especially when it is the still small voice of God talking.
Especially when it is the still small voice of God encouraging the self-pitying prophet.
Especially when it is the still small voice of God letting the prophet know that he is not alone,
and that he still has gifts he can use to serve God’s mission.
Especially when it is the still small voice that affirms there is something he can do.
And that something is to build a community of like-minded people willing to
participate in and further God’s mission of love and justice.
Yes: we do feel alone and isolated some times.
It is true that despair and fear often lead us to feel isolated.
And those feelings are real.
But: they often do not reflect the whole reality of our situation.
There are usually people who love us and care deeply about us –
even if we have a hard time believing it.
And there is a God who is always there, always whispering to us that we are beloved children –
even if we have a hard time experiencing that presence and hearing that still small voice.
We often do not feel we have the resources to do the things God is calling us to do.
But we do.
We have been given the gift of one another, the gift of community.
We are never alone – we have the gift of First Lutheran Church.
It is not a perfect community – but it is always here, and it is our job to make sure that
it is always here.
We have a community of people, and we have leaders, who are dedicated to the same thing as
Elijah and Elijah’s people: God’s mission to get this whole world loved and fed and free.
We are never alone.
We have one another.
And in a short time God’s angels will minister to us by feeding us and telling us to get up and
eat and get on our way.
God’s story is not over yet – and there are others we are being called to work with.
So with Elijah and Elisha and all those 7000 still faithful to God,
let us listen for the still small voice, let us eat, and let us be up and on our way.
And together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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