I Kings 19:1-15; Luke 8:26-39
Elijah and Sheer Silence ; Jesus and the Demoniac
June 20, 2010
What drives you? What is the driving force that pushes you forward?...that directs your thoughts and actions? Today’s lectionary passages have 2 stories that on the outset may appear to have nothing in common, other than they are great stories. As we listen for God in the Word, may we be open for the Spirit speak anew, teaching us the things of God. Listen as we engage these 2 stories:
From I Kings 19 we join in the story of the prophet Elijah who has just completed that famous contest on Mt. Carmel between himself and Yahweh and 450 prophets of Baal. There had been a God-sent drought as a sign to the wayward people of God. King Ahab, married to Queen Jezebel, together had led Israel far from Yahweh. Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal met on Mt Carmel to test whose god was the greatest. Each had built and altar and killed a sacrificial animal. All day long the prophets of Baal had called out to Baal to come and ignite the altar. Nothing happened. Then Elijah, in the midst of drought, poured water 3 times on his sacrifice, the wood and stones and filled a ditch around the altar, and called upon Yahweh to hear and answer. God responded by instantly consuming in fire the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and all the water. All declared Elijah’s God as the true and only God… and then killed the 450 prophets of Baal. What a victory for Elijah! What a victory for God(?)
Now, I really don’t want to address the contest, and the killing---though those are good questions to consider. What today’s focus is about, is what happens immediately after this great contest….how King Ahab, a bad king, and his wife, Queen Jezebel, responded… AND of course, how Yahweh’s prophet, Elijah, responded. Listen for the what drives each person…. (I Kings 19:1-15)
Is there someone you connect with in this story?
Ahab, the king… who seems more like a messenger boy… who has the status of authority but does not have the where with all to act on his own behalf? His status as king is such that all he need do is state his dissatisfaction with things and “someone” ---Jezebel---will make it all better for him. Ahab is a whiner, who pouts and complains… is driven by his own personal needs. (You should read the pouty, spoiled-brat stories of Ahab which surround this one…)
Jezebel, the Queen… who is driven by power, who has the military forces behind her, who is not going to be put-out by one spiritual leader. With her threats and anger she spews forth venom that sends the mighty prophet of Yahweh running for his life. Her words strike him down with fear and cause a mighty prophet to run for his life. Driven by her desire for power and use of power and love of power…. POWER is all that matters.
or do you connect with Elijah, prophet of Yahweh, the God of gods… who shortly after a mighty contest that may have him flying high in success… maybe his ego got away from him… but the words of Jezebel threaten his life make him afraid. He can take on 450 prophets of Baal and strike them down, but Queen Jezebel has him running for his life into the wilderness, ready to die because it’s all too hard. How soon glory can turn to despair.
Have you ever had a great experience, and then one person makes a judgmental comment and your whole day gets turned around? It amazes me… and yet, I completely understand Elijah’s depression and despair. You think everything is grand and then BOOM! Down comes that derogatory comment that sends you into a tail spin… and off to the wilderness you go, despondent, depressed, ready to call it quits…. The mighty man of God… what was driving him? Was it God? or is it true that even the most faith-filled can succumb to fear?
And God comes calling… “What are you doing?” and we, like Elijah, whine and whimper our woes.
I love this encounter that Elijah had with God… in which we and he might expect God who has done mighty battle with the prophets of Baal might come sweeping in… in thunder, earthquake, fire. Elijah may have gone to the wilderness to escape, to run in fear, to hide. But the wilderness finds us in our solitude. In those wilderness places of the soul we have to confront ourselves. In out of the way places, in silence and solitude God comes and says…. what are you doing here? what is driving you? Fear? Your own ego? Your need for power? Status? Have you lost perspective of the what is your purpose? Are you ready to throw in the towel. In the empty space, the empty sound, the solitary mountain of silence… God comes; is present, and sets Elijah and us on our way again with a few simple words.
Then there is the story of the crazy, wild, homeless man, who was likely mentally ill and considered to be a raving lunatic. Listen for where God is in this story:
LUKE 8
Jesus and his disciples boat over to “the other side” of Lake Galilee… the side that is no longer Israeli, the area of people called Ger’a gesenes, who were not Jews. Why did Jesus go there??? to get away for a while? Just before this story Jesus was crossing the lake of Galilee, asleep in the boat when the wind and waves started to fill and sink the boat. The disciples, seeing they were in danger wake Jesus, who tells the wind and waves to be still. The story states that when the waves and wind calmed down… then “they were afraid and amazed”. It doesn’t say they were afraid of drowning… rather that they were afraid when Jesus displayed power over the nature. The disciples were driven by fear in the boat before and after Jesus acted.
In the story that follows, it doesn’t seem that that the herdsmen are afraid of the wild-man who lives naked in the caves and in the tombs. While the demons are afraid of Jesus, the herdsmen are not afraid until Jesus the loss of their animals threatens their pocketbooks… he becomes an economic and social threat that is too much for them to endure. They lost their stock market investment for the sanity of a man.
We have Jesus, his disciples who have just witnessed and been afraid of his calming the sea and wind, we have a wild, homeless, possessed man, the demons, called Legion afraid of God’s grace at work, and finally the herdsmen and village dwellers who are so afraid of who and what Jesus might require of them that they ask him to go away. Fear seems to be a primary driving factor for all these various characters in both stories. How quickly it can sneak up on us.
As I listen for the Word of God for me today, the question comes…. Miriam, what’s driving you? What motives are you operating under? So I ask you the same questions…. what is driving you? What motives do you operate under?
Is it status, like King Ahab?
power, like Jezebel?
or is it underlying fear? like Elijah… the disciples…. Legion the demons?... the herdsmen’s?
What is the driving force and motivation in your life?
OR is it possible to be like God? like Jesus?
Could it be that we might be driven…. if we need to be driven at all, or moved and motivated to act by wholeness, by returning to God? Could our driving force be to be fully present, to give ourselves our full self, even if it is in silence? Could God, could grace, could love, could healing and hope be our driving force?
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquiet within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise the Beloved, my help, my God.”
Pss 42 &43
