November 7 2021
1 Kings 19:1-18
Last Sunday evening Jennifer and I decided that the time had come to get ready for the upcoming frosty weather. Our son Matt one year brought us back from Florida a tiny lemon tree and palm tree both of which are now fairly large and both of which do not take kindly to being frosted. So, we had to take them from the deck and place them in front of whatever windows they would fit at inside our house. Then we had other outdoor plants that we had placed around our deck and we saved a few of those and drug them inside as well. All of this was done because we knew that cold weather was coming and with the cold snap all of the flowers we had enjoyed all year were going to be gone until next spring. Its not really a shock but it just happens way too quick as the years roll around. As I walk among the frost-bitten and wilted flowers I can’t but help think of what the prophet Isaiah wrote thousands of years ago as found in the fortieth chapter of his book that the grass withers and the flower fades. Isaiah knew that the changing seasons at least teach us of the impermanence of even the most simple of pleasures. Isaiah goes on to say that, just like the grass and the flowers after a hard frost that wither and begin to fade away, this is not much different from us, our lives are just as fleeting. Yet there is one thing that is unmoved throughout the seasons and that is the word of our God, because it is the word of our God which will stand forever.
The word of God for us is often thought of to be the Bible. How often have we heard scripture referred to as the Word of God? While this is in a sense very true it would be better to say that scripture is the way that God through the Holy Spirit speaks to us and I say this so that we never assume that the written words of the Bible are in some way the only words of God. Our God is a God who is always communicating with us if we, like Elijah are still enough to listen.
The story of Elijah and the still, small voice of God is a story that is a fairly common story but it is, I’m afraid, perhaps misunderstood because it is a story that can be comprehended only within the full context of the life of Elijah. We don’t know much about the early life of Elijah because Elijah just suddenly appears on the scene like someone leaping out of the shadows. What prompted his arrival was the reign of Ahab, a king over the northern state of Israel. He was an extremely evil king who went against the law of God at every turn. The law specifically stated that no one, most especially the king, was not to marry themselves to a foreigner yet Ahab blatantly wed himself to Jezebel, the daughter of the king of the Sidonians. This was done perhaps as a way to secure peace for Israel but in doing so Ahab was marrying one who was a worshipper of Baal, the God of nature, and as a worshiper of Baal she adhered to a different code of ethics. Ahab, to make his new wife happy erected an altar for Baal and set up idols to other gods as well. Now, the problem was that Ahab, and the rest of Israel with him saw no problem with worshipping the one true living God and, at the same time, worshipping Baal and whatever gods might strike their fancy but the problem with this is that worshipping the one true living God was always meant to result in his people living a vastly different way of life, one where every life was sacred, the very basis for the righteousness demanded by God.
So, into the midst of all this evil that Ahab had done in the sight of God, there arrives Elijah, who tells Ahab that God was bringing his curses upon him and the nation of Israel. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy we read that when the nation of Israel turned from God, God in turn would strike them with fiery heat and a drought so that the heavens over their heads would be like bronze and the earth under their feet would be like iron. The Lord would make the rain of the land be nothing more than powder. This is what Elijah came to declare to Ahab. So, this word that Elijah brings to Ahab was the beginning of what would turn out to be a three year drought where Israel would become nothing but a wasteland as all vegetation died and likewise the animals that depended on that vegetation; death and decay were everywhere.
Well, the time came at last when God decided to bring rain once again to the land of Israel and so Elijah sends word to Ahab to meet him. The person that Elijah uses to speak to Ahab was a man called Obadiah who was a servant of the king, the one who managed the household of Ahab. Now, even though Obadiah worked for the king he remained faithful to God and when Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, tried to kill all the prophets of the one true living God, it was Obadiah who hid them in caves and made sure they had food to eat. It is Obadiah who arranges a meeting between the king and the prophet Elijah. Elijah tells Ahab that he is planning a showdown of sorts between the prophets of Baal who are supported by Jezebel and himself. This showdown took place on Mount Carmel.Elijah and the prophets of Baal were both given a bull to sacrifice and whichever respective God answered by fire that God would be the real deal. Now, it is here in the story, that we begin to see a flaw in Elijah which is easy to overlook because of him being the one to confront the opposition but its important to understand what comes later. Elijah, in laying out the rules of the contest, states that he only is left a prophet of Israel. This sounds very courageous but the writer of First Kings has told us that this is in fact not true because there are one hundred more prophets hidden in caves that are being kept alive by Obadiah. So, we must see this claim of Elijah, that he is the lone survivor, to be a serious issue, and is in fact the issue that is dealt with in our scripture for today.
Well, the contest went as planned. The prophets of Baal cried out to their god all day long and, of course, nothing happened because Baal was nothing more than an illusion of their imagination. When they at last gave up, Elijah, placed his bull upon the stone altar he had built, then, in an act of defiance, had the altar and the sacrifice and the wood for the fire soaked with water. This proved no problem at all because fire came from heaven and consumed the bull, the wood, and the very stones of the altar. So, take that, you prophets of Baal. These promoters of false gods were then summarily sacrificed themselves.
Once Elijah proved the falsehood of belief in the gods of Baal, then at last the rain could come back to Israel. Elijah prayed to God for rain three times and at last the rain came from the Mediterranean Sea. Elijah told Ahab to get his chariot ready for a storm was brewing. Ahab set off by chariot to the capitol city to outrun the rain and to his surprise alongside the chariot was running none other than Elijah. Now, it is unclear why Elijah thought it would be a good idea to follow Ahab to the capital city, to place himself in the vicinity of the queen Jezebel when he had just done away with four hundred of the prophets of her religion. It just makes sense that she is going to seek revenge on Elijah and since he had come to her, all the better. So, when Elijah finds out that the queen has put a hit out on his life he gets out of town and fast. Elijah, we are told, heads south, afraid for his life. He heads out past civilization, out into the wilderness. It is this word, “wilderness”, that is an important clue, to the thought process of Elijah from this point on. There in the wilderness we are told he is fed bread prepared for him by an angel. Does this sound at all familiar? In the seventy eighth Psalm, we are told that the manna that fed the people of God in the wilderness was the bread of the angels. It isn’t hard to understand then that Elijah is, in a way, reliving, the wilderness journey of his ancestors. This understanding becomes clearer when we are told that this meal was his last because he fasted for forty days and nights as he headed to Mount Horeb which is another name for Mount Sinai. Now, has what Elijah is doing becoming obvious? What we know about Mount Sinai is that this is where Moses brought the people of Israel when God rescued them out of the slavery of Egypt. Moses went up on the mountain and there he fasted for forty days. It was when Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments that he discovered the people of Israel engaged in idol worship, dancing and singing around a golden calf. God told Moses that since he was the only faithful person left he would just wipe out everyone else and begin anew with Moses. Only the intercession of Moses saved God from going to such drastic measures.
You see we have to realize that Elijah had Moses on his mind as we come to our scripture for today because this is what helps us understand why Elijah has come to this place, of all places. I am sure that when God asked Elijah just what in the world Elijah was doing there he already knew the answer but God asks the question so that Elijah can hear himself say what he has pondered in his heart. God knows that sometimes we need to say things out loud to hear that our thoughts are in need of correction. Elijah tells God that he has been very jealous for the Lord, God of hosts. This way that Elijah speaks of God, that God is the leader of the heavenly armies, is important because Elijah also understood himself as being a foot soldier for God. Elijah goes on to say to God that the people of Israel had forsaken your covenant, they had thrown down the altars of God, and they had killed the prophets of God by the sword and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away. Can you hear how off track that Elijah has become? All of Israel has forsaken the covenant of God, really Elijah, what about Obadiah who is risking his life sneaking around to ensure the survival of one hundred faithful prophets to God? Are you really the only one left Elijah because as God will soon disclose to him there were in fact seven thousand people who remained loyal to God in the midst of such overwhelming evil. This is what has to be kept in mind when we read what comes next, when God tells Elijah to come and stand before him. There, as the Lord passed by, we are told a great wind had come up which was so strong that it busted rocks to pieces but, the Lord, we are told was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake and again we are told, that the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire but, once again, we are told that God was not in the fire. All of these as we can read in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus, happened when Moses brought the people of Israel to meet God at the foot of Mt. Sinai. What God did for Elijah, then, was to give him the very same experience that his ancestors had at that mountain but none of that experience was an experience of God. After the wind, and earthquake and fire then we are told that Elijah heard the sound of a low whisper or as it has been written of often, a still, small voice. What is hard to believe is that it is the quiet voice of God because as we have heard already God began this exercise with Elijah by speaking to him, asking Elijah, “What are you doing here? Throughout the story of Elijah, God has been speaking to him so it isn’t like Elijah needed to hear God speak to him and there up on the mountain he at last heard the still, small voice of God. No, to understand what is going on we have to go back to the experience of Moses and ask ourselves just what is missing in this experience of Elijah? There was a significant experience that Moses had when he went back up on the mountain after he had encountered the people of Israel engaged in idol worship and the whole creation of a people who would be faithful to God looked to be in great peril. Moses went back up on the mountain and prayed and interceded for his people. Moses asked God to allow him to know the ways of God so that God’s favor, his grace might be with him. Moses then insisted that God’s presence go with them because how else would his people know that God’s favor, his grace, was with them unless they experienced the presence of God with them. So, God agreed that his presence would be with his people just as Moses had asked him to do. Further, God told Moses that he would allow his goodness to pass before Moses and in that moment God would allow Moses to know his name. Then we are told that up there on Mount Sinai, God descended in a cloud and stood with Moses and there was proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed that he was the Lord, God, who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who by no means will clear the guilty.’ You see, for people who know the story of Moses, they are left wondering just where in this story of Elijah is this experience of God’s proclamation of his name? The answer I believe is in what is in this undefinable moment, this low whisper, this stillness, this moment of sheer quietness. It is as if that God is barely speaking his name because he expects that Elijah, who knows the story of Moses so well, he should already know the name of God. God, in other words, expected Elijah to”fill in the blank” because it is the name of God, this is where God is to be found. This truth is what had been revealed to Moses. Moses asked for the presence of God and God in return gave Moses his name, a name which spoke of God’s faithful presence. We are to know that God is a God whose love is gracious and merciful and that he is a God who is steadfast and faithful. The question that hovers over this encounter that Elijah has with God is does Elijah remember the name of God? The importance of the name of God especially in the context of the covenant that God makes with his people is that the fulfillment of the covenant is solely because of the faithfulness and steadfastness of God and nothing else. God, as his name insists, is the one who is gracious and merciful, willing to forgive transgressions, sins and iniquities for the very reason that we are unable to be faithful to the covenant as we promised to be. Only the promise of God, his word, this is what can be counted on throughout the seasons.
This is what Elijah so desperately needed to remember. You see, in the midst of such raging evil, Elijah had come to believe that if the covenant God had with his people were to survive then it would survive because of his faith and nothing else. Elijah came to believe that since he was on the frontlines battling the powers that be that there was no one else who was being faithful to the covenant. In his spiritual tunnel vision, Elijah wrote off the heroic efforts of Obadiah who saved one hundred prophets while being in the service of an evil king as not even being worth his time. When he got ready to confront the queen Jezebel, his doubts about whether the covenant of God would remain if he were to die got the best of him. This is why he headed back to where the making of the covenant happened, back to the holy mountain called Sinai so that God might begin again with him.
What Elijah, in his zeal, forgot is that God is faithful and God in his faithfulness has a plan to bring his covenant to its proper end. So, what Elijah also forgot is that he was just part of a the greater plan that God was faithfully executing. All was not lost as Elijah had assumed; on the contrary, God’s plan would prevail in the end. This is why God asked Elijah, twice, “What are you doing here Elijah?”, because God had a role for Elijah to fulfill within God’s plan and Elijah couldn’t be obedient to what God desired for Elijah to do if he was hopelessly caught up in the belief that it was all up to him. Elijah was to anoint others who would join him in the fight, a fight God never intended Elijah to do alone.
In these days we live in we see much rampant evil, much idol worship, many of God’s people going astray and it is easy to be fooled into thinking that it is all up to us and our faithfulness to God. Yet, Jesus was born in our corrupt flesh so that we might at last understand that only God in his faithfulness could uphold his covenant. Only Jesus, the very Son of God, loved perfectly as the covenant demanded and he did so even unto death relying solely upon the faithfulness of his Father present with him in the presence of the Spirit. Thus the life of Jesus witnessed to the name of God, that our God in his love, grace and mercy is steadfast and faithful. God in his faithfulness has a plan and he is asking you to be part of that plan just as he asked Elijah to do so so long ago. The question then is this: Will you hear God’s word and obey? To God be the glory! Amen
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