Elijah was in a funk. At least, that is how we find him this morning, moping in the middle of a wilderness desert, bemoaning his life and doubting his calling, shaking his fist at Yahweh/God in anger, frustration and abject fear: “It is too much. I have had it. I am out of here. Take my life. I am ready to join my ancestors in the grave. I might as well be dead.”
What gives? After all, this is the Elijah who, just a day earlier, was riding high. He was #1, the greatest prophet the Israelites had ever known, practically able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
In one of the greatest pyrotechnic displays ever, he had given the Israelites solid reason to believe that their God/ Yahweh was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now, however, a mere 24 hours later, Elijah is hiding out under a scrubby solitary broom tree out in the middle of nowhere, scared stiff.
What happened? According to the writer of the Biblical Book of 1 Kings, just yesterday, Elijah was confidently taunting all 300 prophets of the local god, Baal, after crushing them in a contest of theological power and might. Baptist pastor Linda Pepe describes the afternoon like this:
"My God’s bigger than your God," Elijah says, "and to prove it, I challenge you Baal followers to a contest. Here are the rules:
I'll build an altar over here - you build an altar over there...I'll get a bull- you get a bull. I'll cut my bull in half and lay him on my altar- you cut your bull in half and lay him on your altar.
Then we'll each pray to our God, and whichever God can send a flame first, wins!”
And the Baal followers agree, and the contest begins...
Baal’s prophets start calling on their god... and calling on their god.... and calling on their god... and after a few hours of cheerleading and chanting and singing and praying... there is still no fire.
Elijah, sitting on the ground with his back leaned up against his altar, watching this spectacle like he is at a Saturday afternoon matinee, starts heckling... "Hey, Baal guys.... is your God asleep? Is Baal on vacation?"
Eventually the Baal guys get frustrated… of course… cause there’s no fire, and in an attempt to show their sincerity and devotion to Baal, they start cutting themselves with knives and rocks..so now there’s blood everywhere and people are crying and carrying on and finally Elijah says.. "Enough!"
“Come close… Watch this…”
Now, Elijah knew God would come through. And it would have been easy enough to just pray a simple prayer and God would have set the Elijah's altar ablaze! But in a stunning act of showmanship…Elijah has his attendants soak his altar with water... and then he has them soak it with more water.... and then even more water!
And then he stands back and says in a loud stage whisper... “Ok God, do your stuff!” And of course the altar goes up in flames, (and, in that moment of unbridled triumph, Elijah orders all the Baal prophets slaughtered.)”
After that fiery spectacle, it is no wonder that Elijah claimed to be #1 as far as any ancient prophets go. King Ahab, for his part, is taken aback by it all. However, his wife, Queen Jezebel, being a Baal worshipper herself, is livid – white hot with rage. She sends a threatening word to Elijah, “The gods will get you for this and I’ll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you’ll be as dead as any one of those prophets.”
Well, you do not have to be much of a prophet to know that when someone like Queen Jezebel gets her hackles up, you better take her seriously. Not surprisingly then, Elijah’s courage and bravado melt.
He flees hastily to Beersheba in Judah and there leaves his servant and all his belongings behind and hikes alone into the wilderness – a sure sign that he has had it. That is where we find him today, pleading with God/Yahweh to do to him what Jezebel had threatened to do in the first place.
However, even though God had readily answered Elijah’s prayers the day before in the bull-burning contest, God did not answer Elijah’s prayer to take his life. Apparently, even though Elijah had had enough of God, God had not had enough of Elijah.
You see, when the old prophet awoke, stiff and sore from lying on the ground, he found a large thermos of cool, clean water and some freshly baked bread wrapped in a towel and an angel from the Holy One on the sidelines with a message, “Get up and eat. You have got a long journey ahead of you.”
And it was a long journey too – 40 days, we are told – before Elijah ended up at Mount Sinai, the holy mountain, where Moses had received the Law and where every Israelite believed deep in his or her heart that God/Yahweh resided. There Elijah found a cave, crawled inside, and went to sleep.
However, not long after, the voice of God awakened him. “Elijah, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? What are you doing here?
In spite of the fact that God had provisioned him with food for the journey (because who else would be so kind at midnight in the middle of nowhere?), Elijah was still in a funk. “I am pretty upset right now. I have been working my fingers to the bone for you, God/Yahweh,” he complained in a whining sort of voice. “However, the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I am the only one left (boo, hoo), and now they are trying to kill me.”
Now, God might have been sympathetic. "Oh, I am so sorry because I know you have worked hard, and you are a wonderful prophet. Take some time to moan and groan and regroup." But no: Instead God says to the bone-tired, stiff and cranky, funked out, scared old prophet, “Get out of this cave. And while you are at it, go stand on the mountain before the Lord, for you are about to witness the glory of God."
And that is when the divine extravaganza began. One Bible translation puts it this way: “A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.”
All this time, of course, Elijah, patently ignoring God’s demand, was still curled up in the back of the cave with his blanket over his head. It was not until after the earthquake, wind, and fire had ceased, after he had heard the still small voice that seemed to enfold him gently and lovingly – it was only then that he ventured to the mouth of the cave, still huddled under his blanket.
“A quiet voice – God’s voice - asked, ‘So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?’’
Elijah repeated himself once again, though not in that whining sort of voice, but more with a tired honesty, “I have been working my fingers to the bone for you, God/Yahweh. However, the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I am the only one left and now they are trying to kill me – and I am exhausted.”
Same lament, but this time, something had changed. As UCC pastor, Abigail Henderson notes, “Apparently hot cakes and water and angels didn’t completely cut it. What was needed, really needed, was God. And not the fiery, all-powerful version of God that we would expect having read other parts of the Hebrew Bible, where wind, earthquake, and fire are exactly the kind of places where you find God. This time, in this story, the sound of silence is more powerful than angels, or God-given sustenance, or the earth literally shaking with God’s might.”
Maybe it was because Elijah had really stopped and listened that God answered him differently – or that he heard God for the first time: “Go back, Elijah. Go back to being a prophet. Go back to anointing kings.”
It was not in the raging wind or the rock-shattering earthquake or the heat of the flames that Elijah heard what God had to say. It was only after the gentle whisper had gotten his attention and propelled him to the mouth of the cave that he heard God: “Go back, and know that I am always with you on your journey, wherever it may lead. Go back, and know that I am God. Stick with me, and all things are possible.”
Surely those words – filled with their quiet strength – are ones that, at one time or another, we all need to hear. As Linda Pepe wrote, “Our journey with God sometimes calls us to do things and be things that we may not want to do, or didn’t ever see ourselves doing. There might be times when things get scary. But what we can learn, through Elijah, that when things happen, and when the road gets hard… that it's ok to be afraid, or worried, or frustrated; it’s even ok to feel like giving up…We can have one version of what our future (or our call) is supposed to look like, but sometimes God has another. And that's scary!”
(God sends Elijah back to do the ministry to which he was called. Likewise, the Holy One is always sending us back as well. Sometimes though, it seems that only God knows that) all of us, no matter what our age, or health, or ability level, or energy level have something unique to add to the kingdom.
Does that mean that we’ll never be afraid or worried or tired or want to just crawl under the covers and say, ‘I’m done, God!’? No.... it just means that ministry isn’t always what we plan.“
One blogger I read this week put it this way, “Sometimes when we're afraid and think God does not have our back, we go and hide….(However, it is important) to stay in the game and trust God to see us through.”
With that gentle whisper, God sends Elijah back to work as a prophet, not unlike the Risen Christ will send his disciples back into the world to do the work they were called to do. In both instances, they will be restored when restoration seemed impossible. In both instances, they will find their courage when they thought they had no courage.
In short, God refuses to let Elijah quit – and that is important. In our 21stcentury world where God does not seem to be doing much in the way of divine extravaganzas, we might do well to take a page from Elijah’s story and listen instead for the gentle whisper of God – because I believe that is how we will be assured that God is still speaking – and that the message is still the same. God refuses to let us quit.
We will hear God sending us back, back out of this sanctuary, back into the world. Heaven knows, there is enough for all of us to do in our churches, homes, communities, and workplaces - asylum seekers in need of support, our nation’s relationship with Iran in need of prayers, lonely seniors in need of a visit, so many in need of health insurance or an end to their violent world.
I do not know where God is calling you or calling this church. However, I believe we miss the point of Elijah’s story if we wait around for earthquakes, wind, and fire to guide us. We will find out where we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to be doing by listening for the whisper of God, for that gentle nudge, that flash of intuition that guides us here instead of there, in this direction instead of that.
Those who know me, however, also know that I do not think we will hear that voice very much inside these four walls. They are too cave-like, and the gentle whisper can be too easily be drowned out by the trappings of worship.
The still small voice of God will be in the voices of the marginalized and the down-and-out. The still small voice will be “out there”. “Out there” is where we will find our purpose and our courage - which is to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a world of hurt and need.
Like Elijah, we may be in a funk – as individuals perhaps but certainly as just about every mainstream church congregation is today. Does this sound familiar? “We have worked so hard and done so much and nothing has happened. We are still a small church. Our attendance is still dropping. We feel bone-tired, stiff and cranky, funked out, scared.” It is Elijah in the cave all over again – thousands of years later.
The parallels in the stories are strikingly similar, but the question still remains: Will the endings be the same? Elijah emerged from his funk when he chose to listen to the still small voice of God at the mouth of the cave. Will we also listen? I hope so because, if we do, the words, we will find, will be the same: “Get out of this cave and go back, and know that I am always with you on your journey, wherever it may lead. Go back, and know that I am God. Stick with me, and all things are possible.”
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