Good morning and welcome to worship as we continue with the 3rd part of a series on the prophet Elijah.
In the first two weeks of the series, we heard from Pastor John about the situation in Israel and how the people had fallen once again into worshipping false gods. Elijah was sent by God to inform King Ahab that there would be no rain. God needed to get Ahab's attention. And last week we heard how even with the drought God provided for the widow of Zaraphath. She offered all she had to give Elijah a meal. And God gave her the gift of life when he raised her son from the dead.
Today's reading is in 1 Kings 18. If you have your Bibles let's open up to 1 Kings 18 (p. 349 in the blue Bibles). As the chapter begins, the drought continues. Which is ironic because Baal is a god of rain--at least it's in his job description. There's a big problem though--this god of rain had left them high and dry through several years of drought and Asherah a goddess of fertility wasn't fertilizing the crops and there was a famine.
You'd think that would be enough proof for Ahab that Baal wasn't the way to go. I mean here he is, King of Israel, out combing the hills trying to find grass to keep his mules alive. At least he still has mules. I winder how many in Israel had already butchered their mules because times were so tough!
It's a time of crisis for Israel and they have been looking for help from false gods.-----Where do people today look for help in time of crisis?? Where do you and I look? Sometimes we believe technology can solve all the world's problems. Sometimes we see one political system or another as being the answer. Sometimes we turn to materialism as the source of security. And sometimes in time of crisis we just give up and go for the pleasure of the moment. We may not turn to Baal or Asherah in 2009 but just like the people of Israel, we're not very good at turning to the Lord either. What we read about in 1 Kings was not just an ancient problem.
But that's why Elijah was so important. Elijah was there to turn them back to the one true God. And that's where things begin in chapter 18. It's a long and full chapter with lots of angles we could consider and learn from. But I'd like us to look at the series of encounters Elijah has with several individuals and groups.
First there's Obadiah-- Obadiah was in charge of the palace for King Ahab. But while Ahab promoted the false god Baal, Obadiah was a devout believer in the Lord. That probably made for some tense palace staff meetings! But since he was a child Obadiah had been faithful to God and he was not about to stop now. Queen Jezebel had been killing the Lord's prophets but Obadiah had been saving them. He had hidden them in caves and given them food and water. He had saved their lives--and yet he worked for the wicked king and queen.
It must have been a hard place for Obadiah. We can hear his fear quite clearly when he runs into Elijah. Look at Verse 8----Elijah wants him to go and tell Ahab that Elijah is back in town. But Ahab has had people searching for Elijah all over the place and Elijah has eluded them. Obadiah says--"if I go and tell Ahab that you're here but then he doesn't find you--he'll kill me!!" Obadiah's fear is very real. He's seen what Ahab has done to others. He's not merely a worry-wort, he has reason to be afraid.
What do we do in the face of fear? I don't mean just worry or anxiety. Dr J Balas describes the difference. It's worry or anxiety if you think when you open the door there might be a bear standing there. It's fear if you know there's a bear out there and he's clawing on the door. It's worry when you think you might lose your job. It's fear when you are already laid off and the bills are due. Most of the time it's worry and anxiety we deal with--things that concern us that will never happen. But there are those times of true fear as Obadiah faced. He was going to walk into the bear's den and tell Ahab that Elijah was back. Obadiah's life was in danger.
How did Obadiah respond to his fear? He could have refused to tell Ahab, he could have run off and hid with those prophets he was hiding in the caves. Instead he called on the Lord in faith to give him strength to face his fears, just as he had when he defied Jezebel and saved those prophets. He trusted that Elijah would be true to his promise to meet Ahab. And he went and confronted his fear.
Christ himself knew fear. In the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified, he prayed that there could be another way other than the cross. But he didn't run from his fear--he stood in faith and confronted the soldiers who came to arrest him, knowing that the Father would give him the strength he needed to face death.
Most of what we face is worry about things that will never happen. Worry saps the energy we need to face the real fears of life. We need to turn the worries over to God and then be confident he will give us strength to overcome our fears. When we avoid what we fear, we prevent the Lord from filling us with his strength. When we face our fear head on, he provides us with the courage we need.
So Elijah's next encounter was with Ahab. They don't have a good history as you may remember. Elijah is the one who told Ahab that this drought and famine was all Ahab's fault. He had led Israel on the path of idol worship and God was trying to get his attention with this drought. But of course Ahab blamed the messenger Elijah for stirring up trouble. In fact when they meet, instead of a nice hug, Ahab calls Elijah the "troubler of Israel". Elijah throws it right back at Ahab and says that it is Ahab and his father who have troubled Israel. In reality Ahab was the troublemaker. (He is seen by many as the most evil king in Israel's history.) And Elijah was bringing the solution to the troubles. But Ahab didn't want to hear that.
Do we ever do that? Point to others as the source of our troubles instead of realizing they're self-inflicted? Lots of finger pointing these days about the economic climate--Republicans blame Democrats and Democrats blame Republicans. Local officials blame the feds and the feds blame the states. Who is the troubler of America in 2009? Who isn't! We all are tempted to demand answers that have no costs and no consequences. And too many politicians try to provide just that. Too few of us want the truth and too many of us want whatever will support our own interests. The truth is in short supply. Certainly, those in positions of authority bear special responsibility when they distort the truth. But we are all troublers of America when we ignore the truth and only want to hear what agrees with our opinion or what benefits us.
Elijah wasn't the troubler of Israel. Ahab was but so were the people of Israel who were short-sighted in wanting an end to the drought but not looking at why it happened in the first place. The worship of false gods by Ahab and Israel was the issue but the people thought Baal would fix it all!
So Elijah proposes a contest. He says to Ahab---
" Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. (1 Kings 18:19-20)
Ahab agrees ---which might seem strange, but he must think Baal will come through and he's thrilled that it will all happen on Mt Carmel. This was regarded as the sacred dwelling place of Baal. You can imagine Ahab laughing under his breath--"Elijah gave us the homefield advantage--Baal can't lose!"
Which brings us to the third encounter that Elijah has ---with the people of Israel who gather at Mt Carmel. Look at verse 21--- "Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing." (1 Kings 18:21)
The people are wishy-washy! Wavering back and forth---The Lord or Baal? Elijah challenges them--"You can't have it both ways!" And what do they say?---nothing!
They don't know what to say.
Why are they so ambivalent? There are all kinds of reasons possible. There are legitimate times in life when a situation is 6 of one, half dozen of another. But this is not one of those. Pick the Lord or Baal. One or the other. You can't worship the lord god and keep Baal as a backup. But the people don't want to make a decision.
Sometimes we don't want to make a decision because there's too much at stake. We're paralyzed because we don't want to make the wrong choice.
Sometimes we need more information before we can decide. You can be sure that they were getting lots of mis-information from Ahab and Jezebel about why they should vote for Baal. But every time the people of Israel turned to Baal or other gods over the centuries it was disastrous. Though maybe that group of Israelites had never been told that--- so Elijah is about to give them all the information they need.
We can be judgmental about these wishy-washy Israelites. We would never be like that!!?? How could you worship an idol? And probably none of us have a statue of Baal or Asherah on our mantelpiece. But we're good at worshipping more modern idols--the latest electronic gadget that will give us everything we need right in the palm of our hand. The latest pop star that we try to look like and sound like. The political or economic guru who's going to show us the way to the promised land. Wherever we turn in time of crisis, that is in effect our god. We look to political systems, material things and technology to save us. All of them can be useful tools when used for the purpose God intends them. But they are not the savior.
Whenever we start to look away from Christ and to anything else, we are flirting with other gods just as the Israelites did. Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life because he knew how easily we look to other ways for the truth.
Even Elijah himself wasn't perfect. While he didn't worship Baal in any sense, he did doubt the Lord and worry about what would happen to him. He had a "woe is me" attitude at times thinking it was all up to him as if the Lord were on vacation. "I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left" he said. Forgetting the hundred prophets that Obadiah protected and the fact that if God is on your side--one person is more than enough. Challenging times create an emotional roller coaster for the people of Israel, Elijah and you and me.
Like Elijah, we can look around our world and think "What a mess--what can we do? Doesn't anybody care but me?" But we are never alone in times of crisis. We have the strength of the Lord through his Word and Sacraments, through his Holy Spirit and the people he raises up to bring hope.
In recent years I have often felt like Elijah, wondering how the world and even the Christian church can get so far off track. and yet every time I feel like that, the Lord brings me hope. Not too long ago that hope came through a book I read.
Thomas Oden is a professor and theologian from Drew University. He wrote a book called the "Rebirth of Orthodoxy". He describes his own journey that began with views that Karl Marx and communism were the way to truth and that the church should adopt that kind of thinking too. But after trying that path for years, he found it empty and hopeless. And then he rediscovered the way of orthodoxy. By that he doesn't mean the Eastern Orthodox Church, but the basic use of the term "orthodox" as right thinking or beliefs especially as found in the centuries' old teachings of the Christian faith.
Oden describes signs of new life in the Christian faith as people, especially a significant number of young people, are rejecting the various gods that our modern society chases after and looking to return to the teachings and beliefs that Christ gave to the first Christians. Oden foresees major changes in the Christian church as it rejects the false gods that have created such turmoil over the last generation. And Oden is not despairing like Elijah was at times, but very hopeful for new life among Christians.
We all have to consider the choices we have. The one true God who serves us, who went so far in his service as to die for us on the cross. Or the many false gods who demand our service and ultimately enslave us. We don't need a god like Baal that we have to appease and please. We need our Lord God who comes to save us in the midst of our hopelessness.
With the Lord our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit we are free to follow the one who is "the way the truth and the life. (John 14:6)
The final encounter for Elijah in this chapter is with the priests of Baal.-------I can't read this section of 1 Kings without thinking of the children's musical that our church in Pennsylvania presented on Elijah. Priests of Baal marching around and around the sacrifice on Mt Carmel. Getting nowhere. And the chief priest in the musical was a little boy who is a born actor. He was gesturing wildly and saying--"you've got to try harder guys--- this is embarassing! "
After the priests of Baal failed, Elijah gave the wishy-washy people the definitive answer they needed. God's fire consumed the sacrifice, the altar and everything around it. And when all the people saw it they fell on thier faces and said "The Lord is God! The Lord is God!---- But we may wonder why God doesn't do the same for us. Why doesn't he intervene with fire today and prove his power? He certainly could. But as always it's a matter of God knowing what is right. If we want to call down God's judgment, we may not be happy with the judgment we ourselves may receive. We may want quick and spectacular results like Elijah's victory on Mt Carmel, but Christ's mercy is most often quiet and calm. We'll see in Ch 19 that when Elijah was at his low point God did not appear to Elijah in the earthquake or the wind, he came as a still small voice.
So what are we to make of Elijah's encounters in ch 18-- We see faithful people making a difference in the midst of fear like Obadiah. We see self-serving people of power like Ahab. We see the confused, misinformed people of Israel and those who are intentionally trying to mislead them--the priests of Baal.
And of course there is Elijah--at his worst times, stressed out and prone to despair. At his best times, a courageous, faithful prophet for the Lord.
Where do we fit in? And from which of these do we as individuals, as a congregation, community and nation need to learn?
AMEN
