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May 3, 2009
First Friends
1 Kings 19:1-13
‘Hold the Special Effects!’
Doug Gwyn
This series on stories from the Old Testament keeps bringing up
Hollywood movies. Maybe it’s all those miraculous events in
the Hebrew Scriptures. It makes me think of special effects in
movies today. Especially with computerized imaging, they do
special effects so well now, many films are based more on special
effects than good writing. Apparently, it’s easier to come
up with a good gimmick than a good story. So not only do action
movies and science fiction movies thrive on special effects. Even
comedies often center on a sight gag that works through special
effects. Like ‘Click’ – a recent Adam Sandler
comedy where he uses his TV remote to stop the action around him.
Of course, sometimes we get a film that combines good writing with
special effects. Seeing Forrest Gump talk with John Kennedy,
Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon was one of the funniest parts of that
movie.
So we shouldn’t read stories from the Hebrew Bible and dismiss
them as the product of a more primitive culture. People may look
back on our culture, especially our glitzy films, and see a very
primitive society. I do hope the human race will get past the
stage we’re stuck in now.
Well, the story Andy just read is a great one from the Old
Testament. It’s full of special effects, and yet it points
toward something better. Elijah was one of the great Hebrew
prophets. But he’s also a transitional figure. The
bridges between the early prophets, who were sometimes also warriors,
and the great, classical prophets that come later, like Isaiah and
Jeremiah. This story comes from the reign of Ahab. Ahab was
a great military leader who consolidated and strengthened Israel.
One of his strategic moves was to marry Jezebel, daughter of the king
of Sidon, to the North. Jezebel brought with her Baal, the god of
her people. This brought Ahab and Jezebel into conflict with
Elijah, who stood up for Yahweh, the god of Israel. Tensions
mounted until a great showdown took place, between Elijah and the
prophets of Baal. Elijah showed that his god was greater than
theirs. He prepared a sacrifice, then drenched it with water, and
then called fire down from heaven to light it. Then he
slaughtered all the prophets of Baal right there on the spot. Now
that would make a great movie! Special effects, murder,
mayhem.
Now, as Andy picks up the story, Jezebel is not pleased.
I’ve always felt some sympathy for Jezebel, a religious woman,
after all. She must have wondered, what’s with these
people? They’ve got their god, I’ve got my god
– what’s the problem? Well, she’s had enough of
Elijah. She promises that he’ll be dead within 24
hours. So Elijah flees for his life, down to the desert in the
South. Out there in the desert, Elijah is ready to give up.
He says, “It’s enough now, Lord, take away my
life.” But an angel of the Lord feeds him and tells him to
keep heading south. So he walks for 40 days into the Sinai.
He eventually reaches Mount Horeb, which is another name for Mount
Sinai, the place where Moses received the law.
And the Lord asked him, “What are you doing here,
Elijah?” It’s a wonderful leading question. I
suppose God knows why Elijah is here, but Elijah needs to articulate it
for himself. And so he pours out his heart. I’ve been
very zealous for you, Lord. But all Israel has forsaken you and
the covenant you made with Moses here on this mountain. They are
all turning to Baal. They’re killing all your
prophets. I’m the only one left and now they want to kill
me.
God tells Elijah, get ready, I’m about to pass by. And here
come the special effects. A wind so strong it splits mountains
and breaks rocks. Take that, Stephen Spielberg. But God was
not in the wind. Then came an earthquake and then fire. But
God was not in the earthquake, not in the fire either. Now,
it’s worth noting that in Exodus, when the children of Israel
reached this mountain, God was waiting for them, with all these special
effects raging away. Moses had to go up the mountain by himself,
because everyone else was afraid to come any nearer. But now, all
these special effects seem hollow to Elijah. God isn’t in
them.
Finally, after all that hell breaks loose, there’s nothing
– just the sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he
wrapped his face in his cloak. He recognizes God in the
silence. Now God can begin the conversation again in earnest,
“Why are you here, Elijah?”
That’s where Andy’s reading stops. I’ll just
mention that, as the story continues, Elijah tells God the same sad
story he told before. Now God sends Elijah back into the
fray. He’s commanded to anoint a new king over Israel, and
a new prophet to replace himself. And then they’re supposed
to go on a killing rampage against all the forces of Ahab.
It’s disappointing, really – especially for
Quakers. More bloodshed. We hear the story of Elijah
finding God in the silence and we think, now we’re getting
somewhere! But history doesn’t work quite as directly and
quickly as that. There’s still a lot of bloodshed ahead for
ancient Israel – indeed for the world down to this day. But
this story is significant, because it gives a hint of something better
to come. It hints at things that become clearer in the great
prophecies of Isaiah. Something that comes into full view in the
story of Jesus.
The hint is contained partly in one detail in God’s command to
Elijah. God says, you’re not the only faithful Israelite
left. There are 7,000 still in Israel whose knees have not bowed
to Baal. There’s a quiet remnant you can count on.
Elijah has been so wrapped up in his own violent struggles, his own
pyrotechnical displays, that he doesn’t see his real allies
anymore. Just as the sound of silence speaks louder to Elijah
than the earthquake, wind, and fire. So he will return to Israel
and find 7,000 people quietly keeping the faith. He will have to
quiet himself down to find them and hear them. But they are
there. This will be Elijah’s learning curve.
It’s the learning curve for the faith of ancient Israel –
and for all of us.
Our faith seems to work this way as we mature and develop. We
often have the clearest and most dramatic spiritual experiences in our
younger years. They are wonderful, powerful, very real
experiences that can reorient our lives and set us on the right
track. It might be nice to keep having great, dramatic,
mountain-top experiences. But generally, it becomes more subtle
as life goes on. We have to sense God with us and guiding us in
more quiet, subtle ways. God slowly weans us from the dazzling
moments because God wants us to learn just to BE with God. When
we learn be quietly and faithfully with God, then knowing and doing
God’s will in our lives becomes easier and more natural.
It’s similar with our most important relationships. When we
fall in love, there are lots of fireworks. Romance sets some nice
chemicals flowing around the brain. It feels great! The
earth definitely moves! And that’s where the movie usually
ends! That rush of euphoric, idyllic feeling. People pay
money to see attractive people play out those stories. But who
wants to see what comes after that!? That long, difficult
struggle two people face to learn how to love each other for who they
really are. To learn how just to be together without the
high-grade brain chemicals, expensive vacations, and other special
effects. But that’s where love will reveal itself most
clearly. Love shines through faithfulness best of all.
Because love and faith are really the same thing. God is
love. We finally learn that by being faithful with God and with
each other.
Several years ago, somebody wrote a book with a great title, The Seven
Divorces of a Healthy Marriage. It was about seven ways we have
to give up on each other in the course of a marriage, in order to let
the other person be who they really are, to love that person for who
they really are.
The long saga of the Old and New Testaments is in some ways a long
series of divorces. We see the people of Israel and the disciples
of Jesus having to give up on their most cherished ideals about who God
is and what their lives are really about. We see even Jesus
struggle with this. And in 2,000 years of Christian history, we
see the struggles go on. Sometimes it’s hard to see that
we’re improving at all. The wars go on. The hunger
for special effects continues. It’s easy to despair, as
Elijah did, and think we’re the only ones left. But when
we’re quiet with God, we begin to recognize others around us who
are also quietly keeping the faith. Let’s enter that quiet
now, together with God.
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