Sunday, June 20, 2010              San Williams

I Kings 19:1-15a

“Elijah Loses His Nerve”                                             

The academy award-winning movie The Blindside has a scene of a high school football game.  At the beginning of the game one player asserts his dominance over the opposing team.  He is all over the field, crushing the opposition, spoiling plays.  He’s full of swagger and trash talk.  But his bravado is short-lived.  The movie’s main character, Michael Oher, who later becomes an offensive lineman with the Baltimore Ravens,  begins to assert himself, and the once unstoppable player is literally knocked out of the ball park. By the end of the game, we see him limping around the field, dejected and eager for the game to be over.

Well, a similar turnaround happens to the prophet Elijah.  In the episode preceding our reading today, Elijah was full of resolve, fearless and utterly confident. But as we just heard, this once fearless prophet flaked out.  In today’s episode, poor Elijah has lost his prophetic nerve.  

Now, to understand Elijah’s predicament, we need only recall the famous confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal that immediately precedes today’s episode.  Baal was the Canaanite god of storms and fertility. Jezebel, King Ahab’s wife, had introduced and encouraged the worship of Baal among the Israelites.  But of course such worship was anathema to the prophet Elijah. So Elijah boldly challenged the prophets of Baal, all 450 of them, to a kind of duel.  He proposed they build a pile of wood, cut up a bull and put it on the wood, which they did.  Then he challenged them to call upon Baal to send down fire.  The prophets of Baal danced, they chanted, they screamed, they cut themselves with swords, but no fire came forth from Baal, and eventually the prophets gave up. 

Then it was Elijah’s turn. He built a similar pyre. Not only that, but he upped the ante by digging a trench around the wood.  Then he had water poured over the wood until the wood was drenched and streams of water filled the trenches.  Yet when Elijah prayed to the Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, fire consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and even the water in the trenches.  Through his undaunted courage and unshakable faith, Elijah made believers of the people, discredited the worship of Baal, and had the false prophets put to the sword. Clearly Elijah was at the top of his game. He was one tough prophet, or so we thought. 

But in today’s reading, Elijah’s confidence and courage have vanished.  Like a scared rabbit, he’s afraid and running for his life.  And all because Queen Jezebel threatens to do to him the violence that he has perpetrated on the prophets of Baal.  Elijah is ready to throw in the prophetic towel.  “It’s enough, take away my life,” he wails.  Elijah feels forsaken, alone, done for.  His bravado has turned to self-pity.  We hear him whining, “This isn’t fair. After all I’ve done to defeat the prophets of Baal, now I’m a marked man. My work is all in vain.  I’m all alone with no one to help me...as good as dead.”

When we hear Elijah wallowing in self pity, we may be tempted to wag our finger and scold him:  “Come on Elijah, a lot of people are worse off than you are. Get a grip, for heaven’s sake.” Interestingly, though God offers no such judgment, no scolding, no harsh words of correction.  Quite the contrary.  At the point in which Elijah gives up hope and lies down to die, we read the words, “Suddenly, an angel touched him and said to him.  ‘Get up and eat.”  Elijah looks up to find food and water have been provided.  And when Elijah falls to the ground a second time, the angel of the Lord comes yet again with more sustenance and gentle words of encouragement:  “Get up and eat; otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” 

See what’s going on?  This passage is not so much about Elijah’s fears and failures as it is about God’s faithfulness.  Sure, it’s easy to trust in God when we’re at the top of our game and things are going our way.  There are times when—as with Moses on the mountain—God’s presence and power seem obvious, powerful and as real as earth, wind and fire.  Yet there are other times—as with Elijah on the mountain—that God seems absent. He can't be found in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, yet he is present in the “sheer silence,” or, as often translated, “the still small voice.”  That whisper, that intimation of God’s presence was enough to send Elijah back down the mountain to continue his prophetic calling. The good news embedded in this episode is that in those times when we are the weakest, least confident and most fearful, God stays with us, feeds us with his presence, and sends us out to do the work that our baptism sets before us.

Our most recent Presbyterian statement of faith contains the simple but profound sentence:  “God is faithful still.”  So when we are tempted to run, as Elijah did, and hide ourselves in some cave of self pity or self- loathing...When we lose our sense of God’s guidance and presence in our lives or even our confidence that God exists…When the world seems hopelessly violent and self-destructive…When we come to the conclusion that our lives don’t count…When we feel that we don’t have the energy, the intelligence, the imagination or the love to make a difference in the world…In short, when we are in danger of losing our nerve…Friends, God is faithful still.

Look, just as God provided food and drink for Elijah in the wilderness, God has set a Table for us in the wilderness of our lives.  God feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. Thanks to these gifts from God, we are given the strength for the journey and the nerve to rejoin Christ’s ministry of love, peace and justice.