Sunday, June 13, 2010              Judy Skaggs

1 Kings 21:1-21a

“Choices”

This summer, we are going to be preaching from the Old Testament texts in the lectionary, a series on the prophets. San began with one of the stories of Elijah last week. We continue this week with another Elijah story, one of his encounters with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.                     

Ahab was king in the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes called Samaria, as it is in our text. Ahab is described as doing more evil than all the kings before him. And his queen, Jezebel, helped to turn him away from God by introducing the worship of the Canaanite god, Baal, into Israel. So let us listen for God’s word to us in this ancient story. Read 1 Kings 21.

I am going to make a confession to you – I love the TV show, Law and Order. And I was very unhappy to hear that the show is ending after a 20 year run. I have appreciated how the producers of the show have not backed away from taking contemporary controversies and making them into a segment of the show.So, I have had fun this week thinking about this biblical story as a segment of Law and Order.

Lt. Van Buren gets a call that a man named Naboth has been stoned to death, and she tells Detectives Lupo and Bernard to go and investigate. They go to the scene and began asking questions. Of course, they are told about the gathering where Naboth is accused of cursing God and the King, and they learn that the elders of the town carried out the law of their God by stoning Naboth to death. But you know those detectives – they dig deeper. They end up interviewing the two scoundrels that had actually lied about Naboth. And that led them back to Queen Jezebel!

I’d love to have heard that interview. I’ll bet she had an answer for everything! She was just the lowly little queen of a powerful king doing everything she could to make him happy.

And when they go into the chamber to interview the king, they learn that he has been so depressed that for a while he had turned his back on everyone and had stopped eating. Very mature behavior for a king, right?

King Ahab tells them that he only wanted a little vegetable garden, and that he offered a fair price or even another piece of land, but Naboth was just too stubborn to take his offer.

Upon further questioning, the detectives discover that Naboth was only being faithful to his God. The Levitical law says that the land is not really his to sell. The land belongs to God. And Naboth only wanted to honor God’s law. He remembered what Ahab had forgotten. The land of promise was to be held in trust – they were only stewards. Naboth is one of those faithful people who understands the meaning of covenant, even when Ahab seems to forget such things and Jezebel seems completely ignorant of them.

The detectives learn that even though Jezebel does not believe in this God of the covenant, she is not above using God’s own law to manipulate others so that she can get what she wants when she wants it.

So Detectives Lupo and Bernard, turn over everything they have learned to the DA, Jack McCoy (AKA, Elijah), who goes to confront King Ahab with his crimes against Naboth.

Now in our story, when Elijah shows up, it is as if the story begins all over again. “Then” the text says. “Then” God sent Elijah. For Elijah is God’s prophet, and this is a big problem for the king. Elijah is the enemy of the king. Elijah is the enemy of injustice. And Elijah always shows up!

The ancient Jews believed that Elijah would continue to show up. The Old Testament ends in Malachi 4 – Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.

So Elijah was always expected. And when he came, he would do the impossible of healing families. For the spirit of Elijah was a new reality, a reality where justice and righteousness were possible.

Elijah is profoundly in the midst of the story of Jesus. Like Elijah before him, Jesus preached a new reality that he called the kingdom of God. And Jesus came, offering a choice for a different way of life than the way that is offered by those in power, like Ahab and Jezebel.

Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggeman, uses the term of “otherwise” to describe this alternative reality.  Last week, San used the Gershwin song – It Ain’t Necessarily So – to describe it. Brueggeman suggests some of the carriers of otherwise who are from our time and who keep open all the possibilities of a different reality of life. Clarence Jordan who defied racism, Mother Teresa who defied poverty and worked for life for all people, Nelson Mandela who never seemed to grow weary fighting injustice, Martin Luther King, Jr who dreamed beyond hate.

So as we read this ancient story of greed and violence and injustice, we might miss the hope that is here. Elijah does show up, and thanks be to God, there are those who have that same spirit who continue to show up.

Even when we look around at our world and see great wrongs being carried out, we have choices about the way we meet those wrongs. No matter what is going on around us or within us, the reality of God at work in our lives and the dream of God for the life of the world is greater than any evil we encounter. Even when we get a case of amnesia like King Ahab had, and we forget who we really are, God does not forget.

And that is what we can learn from these ancient texts. God does show up – in this case in the person of the prophet Elijah. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have continued to believe that Elijah will come. They set a place at the table for him every time they celebrate the Passover Seder. There is even a time in the liturgy when they open the door so that Elijah can come in.

The last cup of the Seder is the cup of Elijah, which may be the cup that Jesus took and declared to be the cup of the new covenant – my blood that is poured out so that sins may be forgiven. So in a sense we also celebrate the presence of the prophet in this meal in which we remember Jesus.

So friends, let us look for that alternative reality in our everyday lives. It is never too late to leave an empty chair for Elijah. We might find that the spirit of Elijah continues to enter our world, we might even find that we have a bit of that spirit within each of us and that we are the ones chosen to show up in the places of injustice. For we all have choices about the way that we live. We have the gift of “otherwise” – we might call it Easter, or resurrection, or new life. God’s gifts of love and grace are truly amazing. Thanks be to God. Amen.