1 Kings 19:1-15a
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."
He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then again there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." Then the Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus...."
Today is the day we begin our Summer Sermon Series for 2019. As we discussed last week, having pretty well covered the New Testament over the past three summers, we are going to spend this summer looking more deeply than we normally would into the Old Testament readings supplied each week through the Common lectionary. The Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, were the only Bible, the only written scripture, that Jesus and the early church had available to them. In an age free of any written or electronic competition, this was the only word they knew, and most of them knew it well, being able to quote and discuss long passages.
Jesus was not a Christian, he was a good, observant son of Judaism. We all know this, but it is important to remind ourselves from time to time because it’s so easy to forget. Jesus didn’t read the gospels – he lived them. He knew nothing of Paul’s many journeys and letters. He did know the history of Israel as set out in scripture. He knew their heroes and kings and prophets. He knew their triumphs and their failures and their many, many wars. And he would have known of God’s never-failing love for the People chosen by God to be his own. My hope is that this study will give us a better understanding of the things Jesus said and did – through his eyes more than our own today.
This may get a little tricky some weeks because we’ll need to look into the historical context for each reading in order to understand just what is going on – all in the usual short time we have for our Sunday Message. This week we especially need to understand a whole lot of things that have led to today’s story.
The book of 1 Kings begins with the advanced old age and death of King David, his story having been told in other books. He was followed as king by his son Solomon, and the next several chapters detail the life of Solomon, who, though he is commonly known today for his wisdom, was so entranced by his 100’s of foreign wives and concubines that he allowed their various foreign gods to be worshipped freely, even in the Temple. He even went so far as to follow some of them himself.
This, of course, made God very angry and after Solomon’s eventual death, the kingdom began, bit by bit, to unravel. Judah remained true to the Davidic line of succession but the other tribes turned to another line, out of Samaria, who followed other gods, so that for a while the combined kingdom was split again, with a king for Judah and a king for Israel The fourth of these false kings was the Ahab of our story today.
Ahab, like the others before him, gave lip service to the worship of Yahweh, which was still the official religion of the kingdom, but he, again like those before him, freely allowed the worship of other gods. Ahab was a fairly ordinary king for his time. It was his chief wife, Jezebel who brought it to ruin.
Jezebel, it is believed came from Sidon, on the Mediterranean coast. Her very name has come down through the centuries as a synonym for an immoral, painted, loose woman. She worshipped the masculine god Ba’al and the goddess Asherah, who was in centuries long past referred to as Yahweh’s wife. She was a strong woman who appears to have run her marriage with Ahab. You can see where none of this would go over well with the hyper-masculinized priesthood of the Temple, especially since Jezebel was pushing Ahab to take over rulership of Judah as well as the other tribes he already ruled. Jezebel went too far when she pushed her husband to publicly abandon Yahweh and make Ba’al and Asherah the official deities of the recombined lands.
The kings of Judah and the Temple in this time had very little power in fact and generally accepted what they could not change in return for being left alone. It was the prophets, the few true prophets, who led the fight for the expulsion of all these false gods. The role of prophet by this time had become something similar to a civil service job – just serve whoever is in power at the moment and affirm their policies. But there was a true prophet in this story – Elijah – who would become the most revered figure in Hebrew history after Moses.
At God’s command, Elijah called Ahab out for abandoning the worship of Yahweh. It’s a long story, but in the end Ahab challenged the prophets of Ba’al to a duel. Each side would build an altar on which to offer a bull and then pray for their god to set the offering pyre alight. Elijah even went so far as to drench his altar and offering in water to make his task even harder.
The prophets of Ba’al prayed and prayed for hours, but nothing happened. Than Elijah prayed: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel..... Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
The fire burst out, the offering was consumed and the people who had turned out to watch turned back to God. They then hauled all the false prophets away and killed them – every one. This, naturally, enraged Jezebel...and this is where our reading today begins.
And ... except for setting up the scene and explaining why Elijah is fleeing for his life out in a desert somewhere and then giving up and throwing himself down to die, all this complex history doesn’t really have anything to do with today’s story – but you need to know it to know why it’s even happening.
So – for forty day and nights (there it is again, that familiar forty days and nights in the desert – it’s a phrase with power) – for forty days and nights Elijah runs from his pursuers, being miraculously fed by an angel, and after forty days he’s worn out, he’s had it, he’s finished, he’s got nothing left.
And God stops by and says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah answers: "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."
Then God tells him to go stand in the mouth of the cave because God is going to appear to him. So he stands there, and first, there is a mighty wind, but no God. Then there is a massive earthquake; then a fire – but God is not in any of these. And finally there is absolute silence, and out of that silence come the voice of God asking, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
And Elijah responds in the exact same words he just used a few minutes ago: "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.".....And this time, I believe, Elijah hears himself. When he said the same things a few minutes ago, he was so exhausted, so defeated, that I doubt he even heard what he was saying – but this time he hears his own words.
He remembers how he became a prophet in the first place—because God called him to serve him and to speak for him. I believe the most important words he hears himself say are: I alone am left. He’s the only one left to speak for God. The only one left to do God’s will in this time and place. God called him to this and God does not abandon the ones he calls. So Elijah gets up and continues on to wherever God will lead him.
This is basically a story about vocation, about being the person God calls us to be – and it’s not just for prophets and preachers – it’s for each and every one of us. And being retired now doesn’t let you off the hook, either. We’re called to be people, not employees. We are each called to be a whole person, with our whole lives, for our whole lives in everything we do whether it’s challenging kings or speaking up for justice or feeding the hungry or offering respect and kindness to our neighbors.
We are called.
Jesus was not a Christian, he was a good, observant son of Judaism. We all know this, but it is important to remind ourselves from time to time because it’s so easy to forget. Jesus didn’t read the gospels – he lived them. He knew nothing of Paul’s many journeys and letters. He did know the history of Israel as set out in scripture. He knew their heroes and kings and prophets. He knew their triumphs and their failures and their many, many wars. And he would have known of God’s never-failing love for the People chosen by God to be his own. My hope is that this study will give us a better understanding of the things Jesus said and did – through his eyes more than our own today.
This may get a little tricky some weeks because we’ll need to look into the historical context for each reading in order to understand just what is going on – all in the usual short time we have for our Sunday Message. This week we especially need to understand a whole lot of things that have led to today’s story.
The book of 1 Kings begins with the advanced old age and death of King David, his story having been told in other books. He was followed as king by his son Solomon, and the next several chapters detail the life of Solomon, who, though he is commonly known today for his wisdom, was so entranced by his 100’s of foreign wives and concubines that he allowed their various foreign gods to be worshipped freely, even in the Temple. He even went so far as to follow some of them himself.
This, of course, made God very angry and after Solomon’s eventual death, the kingdom began, bit by bit, to unravel. Judah remained true to the Davidic line of succession but the other tribes turned to another line, out of Samaria, who followed other gods, so that for a while the combined kingdom was split again, with a king for Judah and a king for Israel The fourth of these false kings was the Ahab of our story today.
Ahab, like the others before him, gave lip service to the worship of Yahweh, which was still the official religion of the kingdom, but he, again like those before him, freely allowed the worship of other gods. Ahab was a fairly ordinary king for his time. It was his chief wife, Jezebel who brought it to ruin.
Jezebel, it is believed came from Sidon, on the Mediterranean coast. Her very name has come down through the centuries as a synonym for an immoral, painted, loose woman. She worshipped the masculine god Ba’al and the goddess Asherah, who was in centuries long past referred to as Yahweh’s wife. She was a strong woman who appears to have run her marriage with Ahab. You can see where none of this would go over well with the hyper-masculinized priesthood of the Temple, especially since Jezebel was pushing Ahab to take over rulership of Judah as well as the other tribes he already ruled. Jezebel went too far when she pushed her husband to publicly abandon Yahweh and make Ba’al and Asherah the official deities of the recombined lands.
The kings of Judah and the Temple in this time had very little power in fact and generally accepted what they could not change in return for being left alone. It was the prophets, the few true prophets, who led the fight for the expulsion of all these false gods. The role of prophet by this time had become something similar to a civil service job – just serve whoever is in power at the moment and affirm their policies. But there was a true prophet in this story – Elijah – who would become the most revered figure in Hebrew history after Moses.
At God’s command, Elijah called Ahab out for abandoning the worship of Yahweh. It’s a long story, but in the end Ahab challenged the prophets of Ba’al to a duel. Each side would build an altar on which to offer a bull and then pray for their god to set the offering pyre alight. Elijah even went so far as to drench his altar and offering in water to make his task even harder.
The prophets of Ba’al prayed and prayed for hours, but nothing happened. Than Elijah prayed: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel..... Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
The fire burst out, the offering was consumed and the people who had turned out to watch turned back to God. They then hauled all the false prophets away and killed them – every one. This, naturally, enraged Jezebel...and this is where our reading today begins.
And ... except for setting up the scene and explaining why Elijah is fleeing for his life out in a desert somewhere and then giving up and throwing himself down to die, all this complex history doesn’t really have anything to do with today’s story – but you need to know it to know why it’s even happening.
So – for forty day and nights (there it is again, that familiar forty days and nights in the desert – it’s a phrase with power) – for forty days and nights Elijah runs from his pursuers, being miraculously fed by an angel, and after forty days he’s worn out, he’s had it, he’s finished, he’s got nothing left.
And God stops by and says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah answers: "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."
Then God tells him to go stand in the mouth of the cave because God is going to appear to him. So he stands there, and first, there is a mighty wind, but no God. Then there is a massive earthquake; then a fire – but God is not in any of these. And finally there is absolute silence, and out of that silence come the voice of God asking, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
And Elijah responds in the exact same words he just used a few minutes ago: "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.".....And this time, I believe, Elijah hears himself. When he said the same things a few minutes ago, he was so exhausted, so defeated, that I doubt he even heard what he was saying – but this time he hears his own words.
He remembers how he became a prophet in the first place—because God called him to serve him and to speak for him. I believe the most important words he hears himself say are: I alone am left. He’s the only one left to speak for God. The only one left to do God’s will in this time and place. God called him to this and God does not abandon the ones he calls. So Elijah gets up and continues on to wherever God will lead him.
This is basically a story about vocation, about being the person God calls us to be – and it’s not just for prophets and preachers – it’s for each and every one of us. And being retired now doesn’t let you off the hook, either. We’re called to be people, not employees. We are each called to be a whole person, with our whole lives, for our whole lives in everything we do whether it’s challenging kings or speaking up for justice or feeding the hungry or offering respect and kindness to our neighbors.
We are called.
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