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May 29, 2016
1 Kings
18:20-39
Ahab
sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. 21 Elijah then came near to all the people, and
said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is
God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people did not answer him a
word. 22 Then Elijah said to the
people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets
number four hundred fifty. 23 Let two bulls be given to
us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on
the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on
the wood, but put no fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the
Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God.”
All
the people answered, “Well spoken!” 25 Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one
bull and prepare it first, for you are many; then call on the name of your god,
but put no fire to it.” 26 So they took the bull that
was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until
noon, crying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no answer. They
limped about the altar that they had made. 27 At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god;
either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or
perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” 28 Then they cried aloud and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with
swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them. 29 As midday passed, they raved on until the
time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no
response.
30 Then Elijah said to all the
people, “Come closer to me”; and all the people came closer to him. First he
repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down; 31 Elijah took twelve stones, according to the
number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came,
saying, “Israel shall be your name”; 32 with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Then he made
a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. 33 Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull
in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water and
pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34 Then he said, “Do it a second time”; and
they did it a second time. Again he said, “Do it a third time”; and they did it
a third time, 35 so that the water ran all
around the altar, and filled the trench also with water.
36 At the time of the offering
of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, “O Lord, God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in
Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding.
37 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.” 38 Then the fire of the Lord
fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and
even licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 When all the people saw it, they fell on
their faces and said, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.”
Sermon:
“Limping About the Altar”
I wish I could go back in time to that day: the day Elijah
challenged the prophets of Baal.
Because, while there are some things he got really right that
day, there are some things he also got really wrong.
The demand for a sign was a bit showy, truth be told, but if
he’d have let God do what God does and leave it at that, it might have been
better. Instead, he challenged those 450
prophets of Baal to a fiery, dramatic showdown.
They brought their A-game.
They did all that their god, the Canaanite god of fertility,
demanded. That god wanted blood, so they
bled. Their oblation, or offering, was
self-mutilation. So when our text says
they were “limping about the altar” it was no exaggeration. They were in pain, desperate for their god to
show up.
Here’s where I wish Elijah had been less of a jerk. He saw their pain and limping and jeered a
slew of snarky attacks:
“Speak up! Maybe your god is
meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is
asleep and must be awakened.”
Elijah
reveled in the silence of that god and the pain of his worshippers. This was wrong.
Then,
he did something right. He had the altar
set for Yahweh, with 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel. And rather than soaking that altar in human blood,
he soaked it with water. There’s a
beautiful connection with baptism we can’t help but notice here. He called to Yahweh not through life-taking
blood, but through life-giving water. He
prayed for God to answer and “turn the
hearts of these people back.” And
God did. That holy fire burned up the
saturated wood, and the story goes that, “when
all the people saw it, they fell on
their faces and said, ‘The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.’”
Elijah
did something right. And then he did
something very, very wrong.
The
next verse, conveniently left out of our lectionary reading says he had every
last one of those 450 prophets of Baal killed.
Never mind that they were part of all
those people who said the Lord is God in the end. He let the fire and show and drama get the
best of him, the blood lust, and gave human blood to the God who did not demand
it, thus seeming a lot more like a Baal worshipper in that moment.
I’ve
pondered this choice of his a lot this week.
Why would he do such a thing? Why
did he ask those people to choose Yahweh or Baal but end up choosing Baal’s
violent ways himself? And why was he
still threatened by those Baal prophets after Yahweh had silenced them with
fire? And then, an answer emerged. Perhaps
not the answer, but an answer,
nonetheless. Why do any of us feel
threatened by another?
Usually
that threat is when something they do or say hits too close to home. “They limped about the altar they had
made.” I think these prophets reminded
Elijah of his own limping, his own suspicions that God wanted blood from him,
that Yahweh required suffering as a prerequisite to faith. (After all, he was living through a terrible
drought and a bitterly divided kingdom.)
I think those Baal prophets reminded Elijah of his own need for blood,
his hatred and anger and rage and hunger, and so he silenced them.
Now,
before we get too high-and-mighty and think we’d never do the same, we should
pause and reflect. How are we limping
about the altar, seeking to worship God through our wounds? How do we crave revenge and
retaliation against people who hurt us, often speaking as if we’re doing it on
God’s behalf? How do we repeat past
hurts again and again, opening the wounds anew with bitter words or indifferent
silences? How do we make faith a status
we earn through our piety, our pain and our self-righteousness? These are not easy questions. Which is perhaps why Elijah didn’t bother to
ask them, but acted on violent instinct instead.
Do
we worship Baal, a god who demands blood in greater and greater amounts, or do
we worship the God who blesses through overflowing, drenching waters of
grace? This question can’t really be
answered with simple words. It answers
itself in how we live: whether we
limp about the altar, making our relationship with God one of toil and pain, or
joyfully pray to the God who we trust will answer, in whatever way God chooses
to do that.
Whether
we hold on to anger and past hurt, or release them to the God who has long-ago
forgiven.
Whether
we believe that people can never be changed for the better or believe that,
with our loving God, change is always possible.
Whether
we spend every waking moment of our days in anxiety and worry, fretting about
what we cannot control, or whether we try our best, and trust that this is
enough for God.
As
I read this text again and again this week, a favorite poem kept floating to
the surface of my memory. For me it
captures what faith is meant to be, when it’s not an exercise in harming
ourselves or others to get God’s attention.
It’s called Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver.
You
do not have to be good.
You
do not have to walk on your knees
for
a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You
only have to let the soft animal of your body
love
what it loves.
Tell
me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile
the world goes on.
Meanwhile
the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are
moving across the landscapes,
over
the prairies and the deep trees,
Meanwhile
the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are
heading home again.
Whoever
you are, no matter how lonely,
the
world offers itself to your imagination,
calls
to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over
and over announcing your place
in
the family of things.
God does not demand blood or perfection, friends. Neither should we. God announces our place in the family of
things – in sun and rain, in prairies and trees, in wild geese and despair
shared, and of course, in love. Amen.
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