1 Kings 18:20-39
Psalm 96
Galatians 1:1-12
Luke 7:1-10
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
In her wonderful sermon last week, the Reverend Peggy Rounseville shared that it is difficult to create a sermon without a narrative scripture. Likewise I’ve heard it said that describing the Trinity is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Where Rev. Rounseville met the challenge head-on, this week’s readings from the Old Testament and the Gospel provide wonderful narratives ripe for the sermon writer.
Our Old Testament reading from 1Kings is the wonderful and (in its own way) hilarious story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. The short version is that Elijah takes on the Baal’s priests and Baal doesn’t show up for the show down. Then the Lord is majestic in response to Elijah’s prayer. Good story, but I want us to consider some of the details of the story, details the people who originally heard this story would know; details that are lost to us in modern times.
Let’s begin with a geography lesson; Mount Carmel is in Northern Israel, near the modern port city of Haifa. This is important to us because at this time the land was divided into two kingdoms, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. Especially important to this story is that the center of the worship of the Lord was the Temple in Jerusalem, located in Judah.
Here’s Elijah not only in Israel, where Baal worship was pretty well established (at least that’s what 450 priests would have us believe), but he is a long, long way from home. If might makes right then Elijah is in big, big trouble.
Next, a refresher on what it takes to offer a sacrifice. According to scripture, it took the morning for Baal’s priests to prepare their offering. During that morning they probably didn’t need to prepare an altar or find the wood since they were playing on their home court, but they had to prepare the bull. This would take a while using Iron Age tools, but with 450 priests I imagine the work went by pretty quickly.
Because he was working alone, it would take Elijah much longer. Elijah started by collecting and arranging twelve stones to make an altar, one stone for each of Jacob’s sons. This must have taken a while to accomplish without Home Depot and a Bobcat. Then without the benefit of a Kubota he made a trench around the altar. I’m assuming he took wood from the same pile used by Baal’s priests, but if he didn’t that took another little while, especially without a McCulloch.
As for preparing the bull, Elijah would have used the methods detailed in the Law of Moses. Let’s be honest, if you have ever harvested livestock from the hoof you know how long it can take. Now take into account kosher laws and Iron Age tools. Based on our reading, it took a full day to prepare the sacrifice.
Then comes the water, if Baal’s priests filled oblation jars then they poured over 350 gallons of water over the offering. No wonder it covered the wood and filled the trench, 350 gallons is bathtub size! This is just what it took to prepare the offering, not including the liturgical ritual of the sacrifice.
The ritual, their prayers and their cries; when this didn’t bring Baal Elijah invited them to keep at it. "Cry aloud!” he told them. Then the mocking starts. “Make sure you yell really, really loud because he may be sleeping in or at brunch or on the golf course or half-way to Dallas to see the Rangers play the Royals.” Then comes the ritual stabbing, with swords and lances they slash one another until they paint themselves crimson.
We read the priests limp around their offering just like they limped around their declaration of whether the Lord or Ball is God. This is where a quick Hebrew lesson helps. The Hebrew word for “limp” can also mean” waver” or “dance.” So where our translation says they limp, they could also be said to waver in their dedication to Baal or the Lord. As they dance around their offering, they may be dancing around their faith in Baal’s ability to answer their prayers.
Then, after Elijah’s long day of preparation, with a simple prayer it happens. The fire of the LORD fell and consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust. Even the water in the trench is licked up. Only then, only when the people saw, did they fall on their faces and say, "The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God."
That’s a good story, and now we know more about what it takes to create this great miracle. That’s just one of the things we should take from this reading.
To continue, let’s start here, miracles are hard work. In fact, it often takes longer to prepare for a miracle than it takes for the miracle to actually happen. It took a full day and all of his priestly skills for Elijah to prepare his offering. Then the Lord came and consumed the sacrifice in an instant. Only when everything was ready for the Lord to come did he come.
The next lesson to take from this is that the Lord wants us to participate in the Gospel. The Lord wants us to prepare for miracles. Camp Ferncliff is the PC(USA) camp in the middle of Arkansas. It’s a lovely little camp and has become lovelier over the last ten years with many renovations and additions. To plan these additions, the camp staff and board got together to prayerfully ask the question “What are we being called to do?” They had space, they had donations, they had plans about the mission of Christian camping, but they wanted to know what else, so prayerfully they asked.
A part of their answer came from the Arkansas branch of Presbyterian Women who offered to donate funds to create an emergency preparedness center. You had better believe the staff and board saw this as confirmation of their prayers about new vocation. In no time at all they cleared the land and built a pole barn to serve as a supply center for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA). As they were celebrating the completion of Phase I, Katrina landed on the Gulf coast.
As you all know, PDA and its new supply depot went into high gear. Today there are still PDA volunteers in the Gulf along with teams from the Jersey Shore to Long Island assisting after Super Storm Sandy and teams in Oklahoma preparing to roll in as soon as First Responders give the all clear. The Lord can do miracles, but the bigger miracle is for us to hear and respond to what the Lord calls us to do to make miracles happen.
How long did it take between the first vision and the Oklahoma response? Ten years give or take? To make the point, it took longer to prepare for the response than it will take to respond. Preparing for a miracle takes as long as it takes, even when it takes years.
Unfortunately there are responses to the Gospel that aren’t right. The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka has bought the internet domain GodHatesOklahoma.com. I won’t mock them like Elijah mocked the priests of Baal, but I say there is no life in a Gospel of hate. Because of miracles like Elijah’s offering and like Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, we have the faith and the tools necessary to respond to God’s people in need. That’s proof of God’s love. That’s the Gospel in action.
The Gospel of Baal and the Gospel of Westboro are the sort of things Paul warns the Galatians about in chapter 1. They are warned about words and beliefs of people who turn from the Lord. I often wonder where people get such spurious ideas about the Lord to think that anything of our world can separate us from the grace and peace of God’s love. I guess that’s the nature of sin, people will take up their idols and turn to a different gospel. Whether it’s Baal worship, or God’s hate, I can’t imagine replacing the Gospel of peace with anything else.
What’s dangerous is that people today often don’t recognize new idols for what they are. But the love and worship of power, prestige, celebrity, legal tender, or any one of an infinite number of things placed in front of the Lord have become American idols. Just watching the news we see a turn toward the Gospel of “I am not my brother’s keeper.”
Recently, a Gallup Poll showed that 70% of Americans believe religion is losing its influence in America. Another 70% believe this is a bad thing. As for those who have abandoned the Gospel of Christ, losing influence isn’t a bad thing. In truth, it’s really not up to us to keep to the religion. It is up to us to keep the faith, faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The final point I will make is about leaders and followers. Luke’s centurion knows about power and authority. He knows Jesus has the power and authority of the Lord to heal his servant. As a man under authority he knows that Jesus doesn’t need to be present bodily for the miracle to happen. Like Elijah doing the heavy lifting before the Lord consumes the sacrifice, like the attentive discernment of camp staff and Presbyterian Women preparing for a disaster that comes years later, the Lord will come when we are prepared and the time is ripe. In the meantime, it’s not up to us to decide what that work will be. It is up to the Lord our God.
The Lord is our God. Jesus is Lord. This we know. This we confess. The Lord does great things, but the Lord wants us to live the Gospel, not just read it. The Lord wants us to be a part of the miracles this world needs every day. The Lord prepares us; in scripture the Lord has shared what’s needed. It is up to us to find our place in the Gospel. The Lord wants us to be as confident as Elijah and the centurion. The Lord wants us to prepare for the miracles to come. Jesus wants us to remember that the control belongs to him.
This becomes evident to us when we learn that when translated into English, Elijah means “The Lord is my God.” The Lord has the power and authority. The Lord leads and calls us to follow.
“The Lord is my God.” This should be our name too.
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