Episodes
Sunday Feb 23, 2014
When the Magic Fails
Sunday Feb 23, 2014
Sunday Feb 23, 2014
Rev. Dean Snyder
1 Kings 19:1-18
The Bible names 42 kings who served as the kings of Israel
and Judah during Old Testament times. Other than David and Solomon and a couple
kings of Judah, the Bible does not speak favorably or positively about any of
them.
But of all the kings the Bible criticizes, no king is
criticized more than the 7th king of Israel after Solomon: Ahab, son
of Omri. I King 16:30 says that Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel
to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.”
One of the things Ahab did was to marry a Phoenician woman
named Jezebel, one of the most hated women of the Bible. Do not name your
daughter Jezebel. You can name your cat Jezebel but not your daughter.
Queen Jezebel worshipped the god Baal –the most popular god
of the middle east—and she was determined to rid Israel of the worship of the god
the Israelites called Yahweh, which means I Am Who I Am.
Jezebel built a great temple to Baal in Israel, she built an
altar to Baal in the palace, she brought 450 priests of Baalism into Israel to
convert all of Israel to her religion and to eradicate the worship of Yahweh.
The book of First Kings in the Bible, chapters 17 to 19
tells the story about an absolutely amazing person in Israel … a prophet and
miracle worker named Elijah. Elijah seemed to be the one person in Israel willing
to take a strong public stand in opposition to Queen Jezebel’s program to eradicate
the worship of Yahweh from Israel.
Elijah was stunning. Absolutely amazing.
He was smart. He was brash. He was fearless. He made miracles
happen.
He was magic.
Baal was a weather god. People prayed to Baal to protect
them from bad storms and to grant them rain and fertility for their crops.
Elijah decided to show Queen Jezebel and her priests who was
really in charge of the weather. On Yahweh’s behalf, he declared a drought in
the land of Israel, and it stopped raining for three years. No rain or even dew
in the morning for three years.
Take that, Baal.
For part of that time Elijah
lived with a widow, and because she fed Elijah, her flour barrel miraculously
never went empty even when others were starving. When the widow’s young son
died Elijah raised thim from the dead. Elijah was a miracle worker.
After three years when the drought ended, Elijah challenged
the priests of Baal to a contest.
He and the priests would both built altars to their
respective gods. They would each sacrifice a bull on their altar and pray for
fire to come down from heaven and consume the sacrifice.
The priests of Baal went first. They sacrificed their bull and prayed for
fire from heaven. No fire came so they prayed louder and louder and still no
fire came. They cut themselves and cried out in pain, still no fire.
Elijah was something. He stood there jeering, mocking the priests: Maybe
you should shout louder. Maybe your god has wandered away. Maybe your god is on
vacation. Maybe your god is asleep. Elijah invented trash talk.
No fire came for the priests of Baal. .
Then Elijah sacrificed his bull. He had people fill four
barrels of water and soak his altar. He had them fill the barrels again and
soak the altar even more. He had them soak it a third time.
Then he spoke his prayer up to heaven and fire came from
heaven and consumed the bull, the altar, the stones setting next to the altar,
and the pools of water.
Elijah ordered the priests of Baal killed.
Elijah knew no fear. He could not lose. He was the mighty
miracle worker of the Lord God Yahweh who could stop the rain and call down
fire from heaven. Elijah was a winner.
It is a heady experience. To be willing to take on every
battle for God and right. To be willing to fight to the end. To be a winner for
God.
But overnight something changed in Elijah. It happened
literally overnight.
Queen Jezebel sent a personal message to Elijah that she
swore that he soon would be as dead as her prophets. In spite of all the
miracles that had happened, all of the manifestations of God’s power that he
had seen and been part of, Elijah suddenly became fearful, full of fear, and he
ran for his life.
Elijah lost his confidence. He lost his faith. He lost his
boldness. For Elijah, the magic died.
He ran for 30 days and then hid in a cave like a scared
child. The mighty miracle worker of Lord God Yahweh hid in a cave like a frightened
child.
In the cave, a Word came to Elijah. The Word told him to
stand at the entrance of the cave because the Lord God Yahweh was about to pass
by.
Elijah stood at the entrance to the cave. A hurricane passed
by, but God was not in the hurricane. After the hurricane, there was an
earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was
a fire but God was not in the fire.
After the fire there was shire silence.
And God was in the silence.
Elijah – who had trusted in power and might and miracles and
magic—discovered that God was not in the hurricane or the earthquake or the
fire but in shire silence.
He also realizes for the first time that he is not alone.
There are 7,000 others in Israel who have not bowed their knees to Baal.
He turns from being a solitary hero to become a part of a
faithful community of followers of Yahweh.
Carlyle Marney was one of my heroes when I was a young
preacher. It has been 36 years ago already since Marney died of a heart attack
in 1978.
Marney was a Southern Baptist preacher who advocated for
racial justice and equality for women and respect for other religions. He was surely
one of the first Christian ministers to speak out against homophobia in an
address and article he published in 1966. 1966!
After serving for many years as pastor of Myers Park Baptist
Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, Marney retired at a relatively young age.
From the study I’ve done of his life, I suspect he’d gotten
a little tired of the constant struggle. I suspect he also gotten a little
tired of the sound of his own voice. He’d been preaching for a long time. I
suspect he felt as though maybe the spark was gone … that he was just saying
the same things over and over again.
He retired to a piece of land on Wolf Penn Mountain in North
Carolina.
He said he thought that if he could just get out of the fast
paced, demanding, conflict-driven life he was living, that God would speak to
him again in a new way. There would be a new word for him from God. He said he
thought if he could just get some time and space on Wolf Penn Mountain (these
are his words) he said he “reckoned God would begin to jabber at him.”
Instead, he said, like Elijah at the doorway of his cave,
all he heard was shire silence.
As though there would be no new word from God until we had
done what God had already told us to do – to do justice, to love mercy and to
walk humbly.
Marney spent the rest of his life counseling pastors who had
been worn down and beaten by the battles within the mainline churches that
began in those days. He invested the rest of his life in the 7000 others who
had not bowed down to Baal.
I am glad for every word God wants to speak. I am glad for
every miracle and mighty work that God wants to do.
But I suspect times come when God just decides to be silent
and God waits for us to speak. I suspect times come when God decides just to be
still and God waits for us to do miracles and mighty acts of justice.
This past season we’ve been studying stories of strength and
weakness from the Bible. And if there is one statement that would sum up all
the stories we’ve looked at –from Jacob to Ruth and Naomi to King David and
Solomon to Elijah-- I think it would be a statement made by the Apostle Paul in
Second Corinthians. Paul wrote: “When I
am weak, then I am strong … for the Lord’s power is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul writes that the Lord said to him: “My grace is
sufficient for you because my power is made perfect in your weakness.”
So it may be that when we are weak and afraid
and broken and most dependent on grace that is when we are really strong.
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