2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 "Double Dose"

       I read a story once about a famous and popular preacher.  Thousands flocked to his mega-church each week to hear his stirring sermons.  However, behind those beautiful words and beneath that golden tongue, the pastor was a fraud.  Even though his sermons were inspirational, the truth was that he did not write a word of them himself. 

         Now, this story takes place before the advent of the internet when it is easy to lift an entire sermon online and preach it – unethical as that might be - as one’s own – unbeknownst to anyone sitting in the pews. Likewise, in our pre-technological story, nobody knew that the pastor’s staff assistant wrote all those marvelous sermons herself. 

         Perhaps not surprisingly, one day, the assistant’s patience ran out – and here is what happened.  The preacher was speaking to thousands of expectant listeners during Sunday worship, and, as he came to the bottom of page two of his manuscript, he banged his fist on the pulpit (as he was wont to do) and loudly read the words printed on the paper before him with his usual dramatic flair, “And this, my friends, takes us to the very heart of the book of Habakkuk, which is…” only to turn to page three and see but a single sentence. “You’re on your own now, dude.”

         And so it would be with Elisha, the great prophet Elijah’s pupil, prophet-in-training, and would be successor.  Perhaps you remember last week that we left old Elijah in the streets of Damascus where he discovered that he was not the only faithful Jew left in the world, but, as Yahweh/God had told him, there in the dirty, noisy city, he would find 7000 faithful and like-minded men and women.

         Perhaps that is where he met Elisha, the young fellow who followed him now like a faithful puppy dog, hanging on his every word, soaking up his gestures, nodding his head vigorously at his theology, and when he thought that Elijah could not hear him, imitating the nuances of his deep and resonant voice. 

         Recently, Elisha had been clinging to Elijah’s coattails even more closely than usual, surely sensing that each day might be the last with his mentor - that, before he knew it, he would be on his own. 

         After all, Elijah had been a prophet for years and was verging on ancient – his hair gone white, and his matted beard a silvery sort of gray.  Elisha feared that inevitable day of parting.  Who would continue to preach the passion and dreams of Yahweh/God to a stubborn people, for surely the Jews were an unruly bunch?

         In his heart of hearts, Elisha knew the answer.  “Here I am, Lord,” he whispered to himself when he pondered the inevitable. But though Elisha saw the handwriting on the wall, he was painfully aware of being woefully unprepared for such a task – and it really scared him.

         Perhaps that niggling fear of inadequacy was why he insisted upon following Elijah – sticking like glue to the old prophet – hoping that Elijah would drop a phrase that he might still tuck away to use in a future railing against an errant king or when putting down a pagan god. 

         But, on this day that we meet up with the two of them, Elijah wanted a bit of alone time and so did his best to discourage Elisha from tagging along.  However, it was pointless because our Elisha was a determined, if not downright stubborn, would be prophet. 

         And so when Elijah said to the young upstart, ““Stay here. God has sent me on an errand to Bethel.” Elisha replied, “Not on your life! I’m not letting you out of my sight!” So they both went to Bethel. And the scenario repeated itself – two more times – like one déjà vu after another. 

         “Stay here. God has sent me on an errand to Jericho.”  “Not on your life! I’m not letting you out of my sight!” So they both went to Jericho.

          “Stay here. God has sent me on an errand to the Jordan.”  “Not on your life! I’m not letting you out of my sight!”  And so they both went to the Jordan River.

         And in a marvelous little detail, the author of this Old Testament book tells us that all the while a guild of fifty prophets was tagging along at a distance, peeking out from behind the scrub brush, watching the interchanges between the celebrities in our story – kind of like the paparazzi of the ancient world.  Not content with just observing, however, they reminded Elisha at every turn of Elijah’s impending passing. 

         “Did you know that God is going to take your master away from you today?”  “Yes,” Elisha replied, “I know it. But keep it quiet.”

         And so we find the whole group – paparazzi and celebrities - at the Jordan River.  Elijah says nary a word but takes off his cloak – his mantle – rolls it up and strikes the water with it. 

         A few drops splash skyward but mostly the water ripples and sloshes against the bank.  Then the water begins to swirl.  Little white caps form before, seemingly of its own accord, the water heaves itself to the side, offering a pathway to the other shore – reminiscent of the parting of the Red Sea when the Hebrew slaves escaped from Egypt.  Elijah crossed to the other side, not surprisingly followed closely by a wide-eyed Elisha – their relationship surely by now recalling of that of Moses and Joshua. 

         Elisha does not know what to say about this miracle that he has found himself in the midst of.  However, Elijah does know, and so he asks the question whose answer has been burning in the heart of his star pupil for who knows how long.

         “What can I do for you before I’m taken from you?” Elijah the ancient prophet gently asks. “Ask anything.”

        And Elisha’s answer spurts up from the very depth of his soul.  "Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit."

         “That’s a hard one,” replies Elijah wisely.  “You are like a son to me, but it is not I who apportions the Holy Spirit.”

         The two of them pondered that realization for a bit – that the courage we need for the work we do and the strength that is required for the ministry we participate in is a gift from God because we certainly can not do it just by ourselves.  And that gift is like a divine spark, a bit of the Holy Spirit, burning within us.

         I like to think that when Elisha understood that phenomenon – that notion that God is still connected to the world through this Holy Spirit business – and that through the spirit God is still speaking - and speaking to us and through us, we who are mouthpieces of the Almighty even when we feel woefully unprepared to be prophets.  

         I like to think that at that instant – that aha moment - the fiery chariot appeared and in the whirlwind that followed took Elijah up, up, and away until all that was left of the ancient prophet was his cloak- his mantle that came fluttering down to earth and lay shapeless and unmoving at Elisha’s feet. 

         The young prophet wannabe picked up the dusty old bit of fabric – all that was left of Elijah.  He buried his head into its ragged folds, breathed deeply of Elijah’s scent, and wept. 

         “My father, my father!  Mighty defender of Israel!  You are gone.”

         Elisha wept until all his tears were spent.  And then in the silence, with the prophetic paparazzi looking on, the young prophet-in-training made a choice.  He took up the mantle – the cloak - and walked to the edge of the Jordan River. 

         As the water gently sloshed upon his sandals, he looked heavenward and whispered, “Where are you, God?  Where are you when I need you?”

        Then he stepped out alone into the waters, and, with a fierceness whose origins he did not know, he struck the murky Jordan River with the mantle.  A few drops of water splashed skyward but mostly it rippled and sloshed against the bank. 

         Then the water began to swirl.  Little white caps formed before, seemingly of its own accord, the water heaved itself to the side, offering a beckoning pathway to the other shore – reminiscent of the parting of the Red Sea when the Hebrew slaves escaped from Egypt, reminiscent of Elijah crossing over just moments before. 

         I like to think that Elisha smiled when he reached the far bank, still clutching the mantle.  I like to think he even unrolled the cloak, shook it out, and with some degree of newfound confidence, put it round his own shoulders before he moved on.  After all, surely he had “taken up the mantle” as our modern day saying goes.

         I like to think that Elisha had another aha moment as he started down the road.  I like to think that he realized that what he had really been asking was not a double portion of Elijah’s fiery speech.  Nor was it a double portion of the gestures that he had practiced so assiduously.  It was not even a double portion of the power the Elijah seemed to possess. 

         Rather, what he had asked for was a double portion of Elijah’s faith – the faith which showed itself as courage and strength to continue the work of the ancient prophet proclaiming God’s dream of justice for the world. 

         Elisha was not asking for anything, as Uniting Church of Australia pastor, Brendan Byrne wrote, that “will make his own life more comfortable, will solve his problems and discontents, will give him a safe haven from the difficulties and complexities of being.  On the contrary, he is, if anything, asking to have life made more challenging, because he is asking for a life lived consciously and intentionally in relationship with God” – not an easy request and certainly not one to be made lightly.

         Elisha got what he asked for too.  He got the faith he needed to cross back over the Jordan, back to where his ministry, his mission lay.

        A double portion of faith:  perhaps that is what we too ought to be asking for if we feel called to be prophets in this crazy world we live in.  Rev. Elizabeth Oettinger preached a sermon on this same text at the United Church of Christ national meeting called General Synod a number of years ago. 

         In it she said: “We have been afflicted with a sense of powerlessness, with the doubt that whispers, “There’s not much we can do.”  And yet, Oettinger reminds us that “with God all things are possible. That affirmation is our history and our birthright, it is our responsibility, and God willing, it is our future. We…need to be infected with hope, with purpose, and with a sense of God’s real presence in us and in the church. And we must pray that our infection be contagious, that we might start a veritable epidemic of change to bring justice and peace to God’s earth. If we don’t believe it can be done, then for sure it will never be done.”

         I think that, in his heart of hearts, Elisha sensed that he could part the waters just as well as Elijah could, that he too would prevail.  At least it was worth a try. Surely he would not have attempted such a trick with the paparazzi looking on if he thought that he would fail. Surely he trusted that God had indeed given him that double portion of Elijah’s spirit, a double portion of the old prophet’s faith.

         I like to think also that this Old Testament story has the power to encourage us to believe that the same spirit of faith can still a strong and vibrant force today, that it is swirling about us just as the waters of the Jordan River had swirled about first Elijah’s and then Elisha’s feet. 

         What do you think?  Is this same spirit – and likely a double portion of it too - offered to us?  Is it there for whoever among us chooses to intentionally pick up the mantle and cross over the threshold of this sanctuary and out into the world beyond?  Does not the fact that we intentionally choose to come here week after week mean that at some level at least we realize that, as Episcopal priest Martin Smith wrote in Sojourners magazine, “we are the prophets now, vested with the mandate and endowed with the gifts for enacting the good news?” 

         We are the prophets now.  Imagine that!  We are called to walk in the footsteps of Elijah and Elisha.  And so this time the mantle lies shapeless and unmoving at our feet.  But surely the ancient prophets speak to us. Can you hear them? “Pick it up,” they seem to say.  “Pick it up and trust that you too will find a double portion of the spirit.”

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, ME

        

1 Kings 19:1-15 "What Are You Doing Here"

         Elijah was fleeing for his life.  He was on the run – first sprinting over hill and dale, then struggling through wilderness and desert before he simply lay down under a gnarly old bush – starving for food, thirsting for water, exhausted, depleted, his whole body aching, wishing he would die – right then and there.

         Elijah had simply had enough of this prophet business.  After all these years, he had decided that it was now time to throw in the sponge.  After all, the rewards had been few, and the dangers were far too great.

         As he lay there – hot, sweaty, blisters on his feet, he thought about what had brought him to this precipice, to this point of discouragement, to this edge of despair.  It had all started as somewhat of a lark, but the whole event had backfired, and so here he was lying under a broom tree in the middle of nowhere.

         It had appeared to be such a marvelous opportunity to get the best of the evil Queen Jezebel even as he tweaked the noses of her 450 plus pagan pseudo-prophets. And the end result, Elijah intuitively knew, would be a glorious affirmation of the power of Yahweh/God even as Jezebel’s god Baal would be unceremoniously put back in its Canaanite box once and for all.

         It was a big public showdown, a “my God is better than your god” sort of thing.  You see, it had been the third year of a terrible drought.  Crops were failing, cattle were starving, and people were dying.  And King Ahab the ruler of the Northern Kingdom of Israel had called Elijah and all the 450+ prophets of Baal and directed them to do something, anything, to cause the skies to open and the rains to fall.

         Elijah took advantage of this dire situation and proposed that the prophets of the two gods have a sort of competition – dueling sacrifices, so to speak.  They would bring bulls, place them upon altars, prepare a fire, and – ah ha! – do whatever needed to be done to entice their particular god to light the fire for the burnt offering. 

         The prophets of Baal drew the short straw and went first.  The bulls were brought, the altars constructed, the fires laid – and all the people gathered round, watching and waiting. 

The prophets of Baal prayed – and prayed some more.  In fact, they prayed for hours on end - throwing in a couple of rain dances for good measure - but nothing happened. 

         That was when Elijah got cocky and so “indulged in a bit of showboating. He mocked the prophets of Baal for their noisy prayers, which had not produced the result they sought. “Is your god deaf”, he had taunted, “maybe you need to shout a bit louder”.

         Then he directed four participants chosen randomly from the audience to pour water on his sacrifice just to make his challenge a bit more difficult.” Each one poured a jar of it onto Elijah’s altar until the water ran down the edges and into the surrounding trenches.

         The prophets of Baal never did get their fire lit.  However, when it was Elijah’s turn, Yahweh/God immediately sent a flurry of flames.  They burned up not only the sacrifice, but also the wood and stones of the altar.  They even scorched the surrounding earth and dried up all that water in the trench.  And even better, looming thunderheads suddenly hid the brilliant afternoon sun, and the rains began to fall.

         Elijah was clearly the winner of that go round.   So elated was he and feeling so triumphant that he ordered all 450+ prophets of Baal to be seized, led to Kishon Brook, stabbed, and drowned.  Kind of like doing a dance in the end zone, I suppose, except a lot more grisly. 

         Maybe it was Elijah’s teasing and provoking that riled up Queen Jezebel, or maybe it was the shocking death of all her beloved prophets, but she threatened Elijah – and that is where our story begins today.  “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.”

         Now Elijah knew enough not to take such a threat lightly.  He was well aware of Jezebel’s fiery temper and the ease with which she knocked off people she did not like.  The Bible tells us that Elijah was afraid, and that is probably one of the biggest understatements in all of Holy Scripture.

         And so Elijah fled, and thus we find him in this morning’s reading exhausted and sleeping under a broom tree in the middle of nowhere.  It was then that an angel tapped him on the shoulder and left him a loaf of bread and a jug of water. 

He had a few bites and sips of these small gifts from God, left the remainder beside him, and promptly fell asleep again. 

         The angel was persistent, however, woke him again, and told him in no uncertain terms to eat up because he had a long journey ahead.  He did too because he hiked 40 days and 40 nights all the way to Mount Sinai, to the holy mountain where Moses had picked up the Ten Commandments, to the sacred peak where Yahweh/God was said to reside. 

         And Elijah found a cave on the mountain and crawled inside for the night.  His feet hurt, and he was feeling very sorry for himself.  Believing he was quite alone in the quiet coolness of the cave and the evening, Elijah was surprised when he heard the voice of God. 

         The conversation went like this, according to Episcopal priest Stuart Higginbotham”

God: "What are you doing here, Elijah?  Why are you holed up in this cave?"

Elijah: "Well, I'm pretty upset right now." 

God:  "Well, whatever for?"

Elijah:  "Well, I've been working so hard as a prophet, you see?  And, as for the other Israelites, they aren't trying at all.  They have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and now they are seeking my life to take it away too!"

         (Aside:  Poor Elijah!  Woe is me!)

         And what does God tell the prophet?  "Oh, I am so sorry; yes, I know that you have been such a wonderful prophet?"  No.  God says to him, "Go out and stand on the mountain, for the Lord is about to pass by."

         Elijah does not get some sympathetic pity from God; instead, God tells him to get his you-know-what in gear and get out of the cave, or else he will miss the theophany--a seldom seen manifestation of Divine Glory.  Such a temptation got Elijah to his feet and to the entrance of the cave.

         Of course, that is when the elemental forces of nature come into the story.  First, Elijah felt a surging wind on this face that initially tousled his hair and caused his robes to flap furiously about him. However, as that wind grew stronger, it split mountains and shattered rocks.  Then there was an earthquake, and Elijah felt Mt. Sinai tremble beneath his feet as the Holy Mountain was shaken to its very core.  And finally there was a fire so hot that Elijah was certain it would consume everything, for surely nothing could survive such a scalding. Then, it was over.

         And, for Elijah, who was anticipating a spectacle that would top the one he had orchestrated for God with the Baal prophets and the flaming altar, it was all very anti-climactic.  The wind was just a wind, the fire just a fire, and the earthquake just a momentary shake, rattle, and roll.  Elijah was mightily disappointed because he had expected to see the God of his people, the one true God passing before his very eyes. 

         Elijah was just turning to go back to continue his “poor Elijah, woe is me” lament when he heard the silence, if you can even hear silence. 

         It was the kind of silence that follows after the last crack of thunder in a storm.  It was the kind of silence between when a baby is born and when he takes his first breath.  It was the kind of silence at the other end of life when an elderly grandmother exhales for the very last time. In Hebrew, it was the “sound of fine silence.”  (PLAY CD)

         "Hello, darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again. Because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping, and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence."  (Simon and Garfunkel, “Sound of Silence”)

         It was a silence that was full and rich, a silence that was filled with possibility.  As the poet Mary Oliver wrote, "little by little, the stars begin to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there is a new voice which you slowly recognize."

         It was in that silence that Elijah found God.  And the old jaded prophet – not sure what to do with the silence other than revere it - covered his face with his cloak and tiptoed back into the cave. 

         And it is there – with Elijah stunned by the sound of silence, having found his way back into the farthest, quietest recesses of the cave – that we usually end this story. 

         And when we do, we cannot help but focus on finding God in the silence of sanctuary, in the stillness of prayer, in the rising and setting of the sun, in all the quiet places we can carve out in the midst of our chaotic and noise-filled world.  These verses we just read lie at the foundation of many a clergy sabbatical, many a silent retreat, and many a lonely pilgrimage.

         However, the passage does not end here.  Because, in the silence that was God, the Holy One repeated his question to Elijah.  “Whatever are you doing here, holed up in a cave?”

         And Elijah, perhaps predictably, answered with his lamentable, Eeyore-like moan – “Woe is me.  I am the only faithful one left.  Everyone else has fallen short.  This prophet business is too hard, too much work.  If you do not mind, I am just going to hang here in this cave.”

         But God did mind.  God always minds when we pull back and stay in our sanctuaries, in our churches.  God minds when we let others financially support those who are representing us at Maine Seacoast Mission.  God minds when we ignore those who hunger, those with no health insurance, those who are bullied and marginalized, those who destroy our planet because they will not change their consumerist ways.  God even minds when we let others put up posters to advertise the concert that will allow us to continue our ministries locally and globally. 

         God did mind, and so God told Elijah to get out of the cave.  As United Church of Christ pastor Lauren Lorincz remarked, “In other words: Get back to work!

The world is calling you, Elijah: idolatry, racism, sexism, homophobia, ecological collapse.”   Even in the silence, the message is the same: "Listen, Elijah, you need to get back to work; I have things I want to accomplish, and you're the instrument for getting them done!" (Kate Huey)

         In other words, “Do not let these rock walls define your mission, Elijah.” Do not let these artfully painted sanctuary walls define your faith, O you who proclaim to be Christians, followers of Jesus, disciples of his message of peace and of his dream of transformation.

         And Elijah did as God commanded.  He left the cave.  He turned his back on the silence and ventured into Damascus, one of the busiest, noisiest, dirtiest cities of the day.  And there, when he had thought all along that he was the only faithful one left, Elijah found 7000 just like him – men and women loyal to God who had never so much as nodded at Baal. 

         And Elijah’s prophetic voice – renewed, restored – once more proclaimed God’s love for the world and God’s passion for justice.  May our voices do likewise.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond VIllage Community Church, Raymond, Maine

www.rvccme.org

1 Kings 21:1-15a - "The Power of God"

         King Ahab was in a funk – and that was because he did not get his own way (which, being king, he was used to getting all the time), so he went to bed and sulked.  So angry and sullen was he that he turned up his royal nose at both lunch and supper, which set off alarm bells for his lovely wife, Queen Jezebel, as she was putting on her evening make up.  She poked around their living quarters looking for him and found him that stifling hot evening – reclined and pouting.

         But let’s take a step back first and set all this fussing and tantrum throwing in context.  You see, King Ahab ruled over the northern kingdom of Israel from about 874-853 BCE, and he was the worst of all the kings of God’s chosen people.  It says so – right in the Bible:  “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the LORD the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him."

         And it did not help his reputation much to marry Jezebel.  She was a Canaanite woman – a pagan foreigner who brought to the marriage her own religion, which consisted of a bunch of prophets and the god, Baal. 

Jezebel was bold, wily, and very, very nasty – not hesitating to take matters into her own hands when she felt the situation demanded it.  In short, Jezebel wore the pants in that particular royal family. 

         Biblical scholar and United Church of Christ pastor Karl Allen Kuhn calls the two of them "the most degenerative royal couple," referring to "Ahab's impotence and self-consumed narcissism and Jezebel's vicious guile." Perhaps separately, neither one could have accomplished the atrocity that lies at the center of today’s story, but together they represented unbridled power and so were capable of uncontrolled evil. 

         It all began because Ahab could not get what he wanted – and what he wanted was Naboth’s vineyard.  Now, you would think that a king would have all the land he needed, but when Ahab looked out of his bedroom window and day after day saw row upon trellised row of luscious grapes growing in a particularly fertile field that did not belong to him, his eyes flashed with envy, and his heart burned with greed.

         And so he went to Naboth, a commoner and the vineyard owner, and attempted to negotiate with him.  "Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money." Not a bad deal, and on the surface, it looked as if Ahab was offering a win/win situation. 

         However, Naboth was one of those royal subjects who still believed in the laws of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and so his religious beliefs became the crux of the problem because it was on that basis that Naboth refused to turn over the vineyard to King Ahab. 

         You see, land had a value and importance in those days that is unfamiliar to us in modern times.  As Lutheran scholar Roger Nam wrote, “Land was rarely bought and sold, and when it was done, it was only done to people within the kin….Land was a gift from God, a symbol of provision and conquest. In a time with limited mechanisms to store wealth, land was the income, resource, home, bank account and retirement plan of the people. Through the land, people grew their food, paid their obligations to the royal house, sheltered their children, and assured some degree of livelihood for their progeny.” 

No,” Naboth said, “This land is my piece of God's promise and it is the life of my family. The rules of our culture require that land can only be passed within families, from father to son in each generation. The LORD forbid that I should break that rule, and treat this land -- this vineyard -- as a bartering tool for wealth, rather than as a blessing from God." (Rachel Hackenburg)

         Even as king, Ahab could not legitimately take the land from Naboth under those circumstances, and so, as UCC pastor Rachel Hackenburg writes, “Ahab returns to his palace, stares out the window at the tantalizingly unavailable vineyard, and resumes his pout. Because what good is being king if you cannot get what you want when you want it? What good is money if you cannot buy quick-and-easy happiness? What good is power if you cannot use it to persuade and convince and lobby your way into getting the rules changed just for you?”

         In a nutshell, that is why the king was sulking, and that is where the ruthless Jezebel comes in.  “Buck up.  You’re the king,” she says – and, unhesitating, proceeds to trump up a smear campaign that is sure to bring Naboth down.  

         It begins with some letters to the editor outlining all the reasons why the religious elders and town selectmen should turn against Naboth.  It continues with a classic set up around the dinner table when two scoundrels testify openly against Naboth.  It all morphs into a quick and dirty kangaroo court that concludes with Naboth being taken into the marketplace and stoned to death. 

         “There,” says Jezebel, wiping her hands on her brocaded robe and, in a sense, washing them of the matter as another Biblical character will do on a balcony in Jerusalem in a future year.  “Now you have your vineyard.”

         However, as with all good Biblical stories, this one does not end on such a petty and grossly unjust human note.  God, perhaps strangely absent through all this, chooses now to step in – and does so through the prophet Elijah.

         Now, a king like Ahab had a bunch of prophets advising him.  Later we will find out that he had a good 400 Baal-worshipping ones that Jezebel brought in from Canaan.  They all realized, however, what side their bread was buttered on and so told Ahab only what he wanted to hear. It was only Elijah who spoke the truth of God’s passion for justice to this petty King of Israel.

         One can certainly imagine that King Ahab and the prophet Elijah never got along.  In fact, Ahab was quite surprised to see Elijah after a three-year hiatus during which Elijah had minded his own business – and not the king’s.  But Elijah spoke now as God has told him to do – and the words were not pretty. 

         “You shall say to him, "Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?" You shall say to him, "Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood." 



         This is not a story for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach!  For so it would come to pass – for both Ahab and Jezebel.  Dogs did finally eat Jezebel’s body after a vicious and bloody death (she was thrown off a high castle wall by a couple of eunuchs), leaving only the bones of her skull, her feet, and her hands. 

         And Ahab?  Well, he died a soldier – interestingly enough, a noble death.  But it is said that his chariot was so filled with blood that it had to be washed out in the river where the prostitutes bathed, and when it was, dogs came and licked up the blood, just as Elijah had foretold. 

         Perhaps in giving Ahab a good death though, God reminds us that even at our worst, the Holy One still is merciful and, in the end, forgives.  Surely that is one lesson we can take from this story.

         However, ultimately, this is a tale about power – about the misuse of human power and the ultimately victorious power of God.  And because it is a story about power, it is also a story about justice – because power and justice are intimately intertwined – and because justice lies at the heart of God’s dream for the world.

         This is also a story for us, and in many ways, about us.  It is a story that challenges us because we live in a culture where there are startling similarities to that of Ahab and Jezebel.  We live in a culture where the rich and powerful still take away from the poor the little that they have.  It happens in our own nation, and it happens between nations.  It is a story with three more lessons for us.

         As United Church of Christ pastor Kate Huey wrote, “We often try to forget what we may be dimly aware of, just as Ahab tried to forget what he knew quite well, that if we stand by and let others do things that benefit us, we are participating in the wrongdoing all the same.

         We may wish it weren't true, but the story of Ahab reinforces that liberation theology teaching about God's preferential option for the poor. We may not have the power of kings and queens, but we do have some power, and with it comes the responsibility to use it for good and not for our own selfish ends, individually or collectively.” 



         That is the first of the three additional lessons we can glean from this story:  When it comes to how we treat the poor and marginalized among us, our actions – even our individual actions - have consequences.  The choices we make every day matter to God because each time we are choosing whether or not we will be just.  We have a responsibility to the poor and marginalized, to the ones like Naboth who get bullied and trampled upon by the power brokers in our world.       

         The next lesson has to do with the role of God’s power in our lives.  What good is God’s power if we refuse to let it flow through us, we who are the hands and feet of Jesus? What good is God’s power if we do not acknowledge and affirm the Holy Spirit swirling about this place, urging us to speak out and stand up – to be anything but silent - for the ones like Naboth?   What good is God’s power if it does not move us to work for justice and healing in a world filled with Naboth’s?

         Ahab was a weak king, and Jezebel was a nasty woman.  Together they were a ruthless pair and stirred up a lot of evil doing.  And yet, in the end, God prevailed – and surely that is the final lesson this story teaches us – and perhaps the most important one of all. 

         In spite of the blood and gore, in spite of the bullying and pushing around of the little guy, in spite of the might that seemed to prevail and the right that appeared to falter, this story is a hopeful one because when all was said and done, God prevailed.  What a glorious fact to carry with us as we leave this place of worship.  For surely that fact means that our work for justice, for healing, for transformation, our work of ministry in the name of Jesus will, in the end, not be in vain.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church (U.C.C.)