Heirs to What Comes After

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 18, 2016, the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Happy Father's Day.

1Kings 19: 1-4, 8-15a
Psalm 42-43
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Last week during the collection of the prayers, when the shooting at Pride in Orlando was mentioned, I had seen the headline on my internet newsfeed, but had not read the article. The headline was poorly constructed because the way I read it, it sounded like over fifty law enforcement officers had been shot and killed. I knew if I said this to Marie she would have been so very upset she would have been beyond consolation, so I kept it to myself. When it was mentioned in church I didn’t share my misconception and I’m glad I did not for all the right reasons. Then I found out what really happened, that was enough of an atrocity.

Marie and I have been living without TV for a little over two years now. There are some things each of us miss. She would love to see her favorite crime shows, but she’s been catching up on them between unpacking boxes. She has also been very patient waiting for me to get Starz so she can see Outlander. Me, I miss ESPN. I didn’t get to see my hometown baseball team in either of the last two World Series and I missed that. What I haven’t missed and will never miss is cable news.

News on television has quit being news. It has become 24-hour editorial. I’ll agree that every news outlet has an editorial bias, but we’ve gone way beyond bias and gone to a slant that makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look vertical. What I’ve avoided on cable news I’ve gotten on the computer, and it’s 99.9% noise.

People yelling at each other, both literally and figuratively. It’s as if the loudest wins. Not the best or the smartest points take the day, it’s the loudest points that take it instead. Then comes the bickering. The infernal bickering between “friends” done in Hatfield/McCoy style. It’s when Gun Control folks look like they want to kill you that you know it’s getting real.

The problem with that though is that truth is never found in the noise.

Consider Elijah…

Just before our passage, Elijah had set the people to kill the 450 prophets of Baal who ate at Jezebel’s table. Of course this doesn’t make the queen happy. You know the saying “behind every great man is a great woman.” Considering we know the name Jezebel from scripture and the name Ahab from Moby Dick, I think I know which one has left a greater impression on our culture and on us.

Elijah might be mighty; he knows he has the Lord on his side, but he also knows when it’s time to pick up his cape and his staff and get out of Dodge. Jezebel gets the news and she gets… upset. She’s come after Elijah with both barrels blazing.

Reaching Beersheba Elijah leaves his servant behind and travels into the wilderness. He has made his way into places where people don’t go. He has evaded capture. He is where nobody will find him. He is safe. In his newfound safety he cries out, “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life.” More a cry of passive suicide than victory.

He has won! He has evaded capture. As long as he has water he can survive, but you know what, he is done. Elijah has had enough. Elijah is sick and tired of being sick and tired. He knows truth and light are on his side and there are 450 prophets of Baal enjoying their afterlife to prove it. The Lord accepted Elijah’s sacrifice while Baal has proven to be the lump of clay it is. His servant is faithful. His Lord is faithful. And Elijah is finished. Done. Kaput. He lay down, fell asleep, awaiting his fate.

Fate was not going to make a final stop under that broom tree, not today. Fed by an angel, Elijah travelled forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb. Finding a cave to where he slept. The next day the Lord asked the simplest of all questions, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Elijah wasn’t shy either. Reading scripture, realizing this is a story, an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation long before it was written, I often wonder how this was told. What tone of voice was used? I imagine it could have been like Elijah was giving a report, like a branch manager to the CEO. But I also imagine a bit of whine in his voice, a prophet speaking to his Lord with more than a grain of “aren’t you paying attention to what’s going on with your people?

I can imagine Elijah starting with Hey, look here, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord, being the Lord, is of course the one to say, Relax, it’s going to be alright. “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now Elijah knew two things about the appearance of the Lord. He knew: One, it was going to be impressive and Two, you can’t see the face of the Lord and survive.

So Elijah left the cave and went out to see the spectacle; and a spectacle he saw. There was a wind so great and powerful that it tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks. Then there was an earthquake. The ground beneath Elijah’s feet rumbled and rolled. The noise was great and frightful. Then came fire burning all that could burn and scorching all that would not burn. The crackling and popping and the sound of the air being sucked past him to fuel the fire would have been great and terrifying. Surely this impressive display of power is just the sort of impressive demonstration of the proverb “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

But the Lord was not in the wind.

Nor the earthquake.

Nor the fire.

Friends, I’m fifty-some years old. Some of you say, “That’s all?” The children think “Wow, people get that old?” Still, in those fifty years, which have been framed by the Kennedy assassination, urban riots, Watergate, the Charleston Nine, and the shootings at Pride; all around us we have been braced by the wind, felt the ground roll from the earthquake, and been singed by the flames. Our world has been stupid, I don’t care if you are conservative or liberal, left or right, rebellious or reactionary, progressive or regressive, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female, our world has become less because people tend to listen to the noise when we should be listening to something else.

Elijah heard the noise, and he did not hear the voice of the Lord in the noise. He listened. He paid close attention. Then after the fury of the wind and the earthquake and the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then the voice of the Lord asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Again, with the oral tradition I get to imagine the voice of the storyteller. I imagine a more reticent tone as Elijah repeats what he had told the Lord. In response, the Lord told him what to do. The Lord gave Elijah instructions and said “Go.”

In the words of Paul, there was a time when the nation of Israel lived under the custody of the Law, the Torah, until the faith could be revealed. The Law acted like a guardian taking care of the nation. Then the Christ came and we are now justified by faith and now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

But we still tend to think and act like we not only need to but want to live under a legal guardian, and for some, any law will do. For some, bad law is better than no law at all. The perfect example of that are kids in gangs who live by a code we don’t understand.

So now in Christ Jesus we are all children of God through faith. We come to the font because we who were baptized into Christ clothe ourselves with Christ who is the living Torah, the living law. In this new way there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. We are not different; we are one in Christ. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise of God. We are heirs to what comes after the wind and the earthquake and the fire. We are heirs to God’s question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Our world loves the wind and the earthquake and the fire, and we’ve got to stop paying attention to the noise that surrounds us and pay attention to the whispers from the voice of God in Christ. It’s time to stop arguing about the horrors of this world and if we can’t solve what’s going wrong surely we can be with the victims. We can offer cold water. We can hold a hand. We can shed a tear. There is no slave or free, for we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. There are no Jews or Gentiles—that would be people from our nation and people from other nations—there are only brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is the good news of Jesus Christ. The God who sent his Son to show us a better way, to be the better way, became the living Torah so we can live by faith and not under the law. This is the God who made Israel the children of God, a nation to be a blessing to the world. This same God sent his son Jesus so that we, the foreigners, the gentiles, can be part and parcel of that holy nation to be a blessing. This is what it means to be a holy nation, a Christian nation. It means that it’s time to listen for the whisper of God and be the heirs of what comes after the noise. Then “Go” where the Lord tells us to go; doing what the heavenly Father tells us to do.