The Power That Gives Up Power

Mayfield-Salisbury Church, Edinburgh, Scotland

 

THE POWER THAT GIVES UP POWER

 

Sermon by Fleming Rutledge                                                             September 16, 2007

 

The Lord was not in the earthquake. (I Kings 19)

 

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My much beloved mother died in April, so I have been spending a lot of time in my home town of Franklin, Virginia. I walk through the cemetery there very often, and I look at the gravestones. It's like a family reunion. Here’s what I see. I see the headstones of my Sunday School teachers, Mrs. Sue McCann and “Miss Lizzie” Smith. There was no parish house in those days; they taught us sitting in the pews. I see the stone for Mr. Finley, who was the Sunday School Superintendent for decades, and greeted every single person in the congregation every single Sunday. And I pay homage to the graves of my grandmother and my aunt who read the King James Bible to me before I was old enough to understand a word—yet that Word of God was working in me even then. And I see the stone Mrs. Sally Shepherd Ray who invited me to her Book Club when I was still a teenager and heard her give a heartfelt testimony to her Christian faith.

 

These were not big voices. They were still, small voices; but they were voices from God in my life that reverberate in my soul to this day, and I rejoice to remember them.

 

Today we’re going to think about the prophet Elijah. There is more drama in the story of Elijah than almost any other Biblical character. He was a mighty warrior for the Lord, and we get the impression that he enjoyed it. You know every time there is a significant hurricane at the beaches on the east coast of the USA, most people batten down the hatches and leave, but there are always a few who stay because they want to see a hurricane. They want to see something really big. They want to see power. Well, Elijah was like that. He loved it when God fully unleashed his might. He relished the whole idea of calling down fire upon the enemies of God, and he did just that, on Mount Carmel, in the story that comes just before today’s reading from I Kings. When Elijah spoke the word, God sent down a thunderbolt and a great storm of rain, and Elijah was exultant. He was a titanic figure, and he had the personality to go with it.

 

I wonder if any of you have seen the World War II movie Saving Private Ryan. One of the minor characters was a rifleman, a sharpshooter. I have to admit that I thought he was pretty cool. He’s a very young enlisted man, almost a boy really, with an accent straight out of the Appalachian “hills and hollers,” but he never misses a shot; he picks off Nazis as if he were hunting in his native woods—and while he’s aiming his weapon, he’s quoting the King James Version of the Bible: “The Lord hath bent his bow, and made it ready. He hath prepared the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors” (Psalm 7:12-13).[1] I remembered that boy when I was thinking about Elijah. After the great contest on Mount Carmel, where the Lord sent down fire and routed the prophets of Ba’al, Elijah pursued the false prophets and killed them all. “Do I not hate those who hate thee, O Lord? I hate them with a perfect hatred” (Psalm 139:21-22).

 

After the great demonstration on Mount Carmel, the victory over Ba’al, and the massacre of the false prophets, Elijah’s adrenaline was pumping. No wonder he ran in front of the King’s chariot all the way to the Valley of Jezreel like a man possessed. Flush with victory, he was ecstatic to think of how the whole nation had now been won for the Lord. Now the wicked queen Jezebel would at last bow down before the one God of Israel. How could God have made his message more plain than he had on the mountain? Surely now the people would return to the One who had redeemed them and forged them into a nation.

 

But that’s not what happened. Here’s what happened:

 

King Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then Elijah was afraid, and fled for his life...into the wilderness, and sat down under a broom tree; and he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers.”  (I Kings 19:1-3)

 

Among other things, this is sound psychology. Elijah has never been afraid of the king or the queen before in his entire ministry. He marched in to the king’s chambers whenever he had a word from the Lord, to the point that Ahab groaned, “Is it you, O troubler of Israel?”[2] but now, after the victory over the prophets of Ba’al, Elijah is deflated, demoralized, and depressed. The king and queen have not been converted; the king’s court has not been converted; the fickle people have not been converted either, for they have gone right back to Ba’al worship again. Elijah is experiencing a colossal comedown; his energy and courage have deserted him. You don’t want to confront an enraged queen when you feel like a failure. So Elijah goes off in a fit of gloom, lies down on the ground and begs to die, since he hasn’t been any more effective than the prophets before him. Anger causes depression, you know—maybe Elijah is angry with the Lord because he didn’t strike Ahab and Jezebel dead. After all the fireworks on Carmel, his enemies are as active as ever. Elijah feels there is nothing left for him to do.

 

The Lord is gentle with Elijah. Instead of rebuking him for abandoning his ministry, the Lord sends an angel to feed him, encourage him, and strengthen him. Partly recovered, he pushes on to Mount Horeb where he takes shelter in a cave. He doesn’t know it yet, but the Lord has brought him on a retreat.

 

And there he came to a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord  came to him…“What are you doing here, Elijah?” And Elijah said…“The people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

 

“Only I am left”: notice that! How often we feel that way! Nobody is on my side!  Nobody understands me! I haven’t had any successes! I’ve knocked myself out for nothing! I’ve been abandoned! Moreover, Elijah fails to mention the prophets of Ba’al that he killed with the sword; he’s focused on his own colleagues whom Jezebel killed. He has gotten to the point where he sees only himself and his grudges. He thinks he’s the only worshipper left in Israel. He has ceased to trust God. The Lord’s great plan is no longer in his mind.

 

But again, the Lord is very good to Elijah. He has fed him, strengthened him, and spoken to him. And now God says,

 

“Go forth, and stand upon the mountain.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord.

 

This, of course, is Elijah’s favorite thing. He’s a tornado-chaser; he loves pyrotechnics. When he sees the Lord splitting rocks it makes him feel better already.

 

But the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire….

 

The Bible teaches this lesson in many places, especially the Psalms. The Lord is the master of creation, but he is not “in” creation. The creation praises God, but it is not itself God; God is not “in” it. The sunset, the mountains, the lakes and rivers, the mighty ocean and the creatures in it—the Lord God made them all and they serve him, but they are not God; he is not “in” them.

 

Where is God then?

 

God is in his Word.

 

The Lord was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. He came to Elijah another way, “a still small voice.” (I hope you noticed the hymn we just sang: “Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire/ O still small voice of calm.”[3])

 

God does many things to prepare us to hear his Word. Sometimes he gets our attention with big displays, but far more often he wins our hearts and minds with a still small voice. Sometimes people have “conversion experiences” at big rallies and revivals, but the initial power of such events cannot be sustained without the steady witness of the less flamboyant members of the faithful people of God—the Sunday School teacher; the retreat leader; the greeter, the simple, everyday believing Christian. The Holy Spirit blows where it wills.

 

In the Gospel lesson for today, we read that the people of a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus. The disciples James and John were seized by vengeful feelings. They said, “Lord, do you want us to bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54-55) That’s just like Elijah, isn’t it? Burn up all the enemies! I can’t help thinking of Ann Coulter. She is an almost indescribable American columnist, so far to the right of Ivan the Terrible that you can’t even see her on the spectrum.[4] Shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, she stated that we should bomb the Middle East into smithereens, take everybody who was left and convert them to Christianity. Yes, she really did say that.[5] What’s wrong with this picture?

 

Here’s what the Lord said after James and John asked him if they could incinerate his enemies: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). The Son of God, the incarnate Word, has not come in fire, or thunder, or great demonstrations of power. His power is of another sort. It is the power of the Creator of the world, but it is the power that steps away from power. It is the power that offers up God’s self in suffering love: the still, small voice.

 

What of Elijah then? He wrapped his face in his mantle, we are told, to hear the Word of the Lord, who gives him his new commission and then says: “By the way, Elijah, don’t be so self-important; you aren’t the only faithful servant I have. I have reserved to myself seven thousand people that you didn’t even know existed.” Hearing this, Elijah submits to the voice of God. He has learned humility. Before his career is ended, he will call down fire from the Lord a time or two more, but essentially he will become a calmer sort of prophet. He will anoint Elisha to be his successor, and he will be a father and mentor to him. He will not be jealous of Elisha, but will rejoice when his disciple receives a double portion of the Holy Spirit. And as his reward, Elijah will be taken up into heaven in the grand manner, by a whirlwind and horses of fire as Elisha watches, overcome with awe, crying, “My father, my father! The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!”[6]

 

We may learn this lesson from Elijah today. There will be no fireworks this morning, no crashes of sermonic thunder, no oratorical displays. But the Lord is present here. He is present in the preaching of this Biblical story because that is what he promised. He is present where two or three are gathered in his name, because that is what he promised. He is present in the prayers of his people because that is what he promised. May we, so to speak, wrap our faces like Elijah—wrap our faces in thanksgiving, in adoration, in awe and in humility before the presence of the Lord. AMEN.