The Park Road Pulpit

“You have heard the ancient Story. Let us listen, now for the word of the Lord.” We added these lines to our worship liturgy during Advent, two years ago, when our theme called our thoughts to “God, the Good Ol’ Days, and the Story of Christmas.” Apparently those words have stuck in the craw of some of our hearers ever since. Perhaps one of your Pastors should have explained why we retained that response, and abandoned the traditional one. (“This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.”) Today would be an appropriate day to do so, for our reading turns us again to scripture, the purported “word of the Lord,” but our passage is from the troubling story of the great and revered prophet, Elijah.

If we are believers with any confidence in our own scriptures. If followers with any trust in the God behind the word. If we have indeed set out on a journey with Jesus, whom we call the Christ, and, traveling with him, are concerned with what we see on the world horizon today, then we must to be willing to ask if the word we just heard is “the word of the Lord,” simply because the reading came from somewhere between Genesis and Revelation.

There were 450 prophets of Baal, and after the great contest was decided, the prophet of God, the great Elijah, seized them, and… ministered to them? And… taught them? And… demonstrated the love of God to them? “…and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there.”

Elijah is considered one of the all time greats. So revered was he by the Jews that his second-coming, his own, post-mortem return, was the sign for which the devout waited, as an indication that God’s Reign had come to earth. Jesus once questioned to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8.28) As good, Jewish disciples, they knew what many of the people were thinking, “Some say you are Elijah…” (In maintaining this tradition, the orthodox still set a plate each year, hold an empty chair for Elijah at table when the Passover meal is served. His empty seat is a sign for them, still, of hope.) And Elijah, the great, Jewish prophet, is also upheld as a fit example for Christian emulation. But his story, through and through, is disturbing.

Elsewhere in scripture, we read of children who once taunted old Elijah. Elijah had apparently grown bald, and these children, unable yet to know the great, testosterone laden pain of losing one’s hair, taunted him as children might be expected to do: “Go away, baldhead! They laughed and played. Go away, baldhead!” And what does the kind, understanding, caring, prophet of Jesus’ God do? Love them, anyway? Understand their childish ways? Hardly. “When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.”

This is the word of the Lord? 2 Kings 2.24. Thanks be to God? Many of the words of scripture must be heard carefully, in order to discern God’s word in them.[1] Today’s text is certainly a case in point.

We have only read a brief portion of today’s narrative, from that competition between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, yet I hope this hearing gave you pause. Was this really the action of a true Prophet of God? Was the absolute, blood-soaked slaughter of 450 men, however misguided they may have been, the desire of the God of Jesus, whom the prophet represents for us?[2]

Our liturgy carries no divine sanction, you understand, yet reading stories such as the narratives from Elijah’s life, makes me want to defend our unique, biblical call-and-response even more. For now, as ever, a battle of the gods is being waged.[3] It is hardly more than a childish and petty game of “my god’s bigger than your god,” yet it is being played-out on a global stage. It is misguided, yet it has complex political and economic sub-plots. It is dangerously immature, for its actors, from the headliners to the one-liners, seem ever so willing to take Elijah’s role. Ours is no ancient world, but too many of our contemporaries seem type-cast for the part, “Prophet of the True God.” Daily headlines make it evident that too many are all-too-ready to fulfill their role, slaughtering the infidels, in a life-and-death contest in which the winner-god takes all. To the victor go the spoils.

Elijah’s story, Elijah’s ancient story is an incredibly dangerous one in such a world as ours. So if we are to read it now. We must listen, now, too. Part of the problem is that for generation upon generation, those who claim to speak for God have read the story, and, thoughtlessly, or dutifully, or sadistically, have added, “This is the word of the Lord.” The other part of the problem is that for generation upon generation, the masses, listening intently to those who claim to speak for God have heard the story and, thoughtlessly, or dutifully, or sadistically have responded, “Thanks be to (our) God.”

Listening now for the word of the Lord is absolutely, life-savingly, world-chang-ingly necessary. Listening carefully. Listening critically. Listening with open ears and open hearts. Listening, always, now. I do not believe that this story, simply because we have found its plot and characters within the pages of the Bible, is “the word of the Lord.” (Not the word of the god who was Jesus’ Lord.) Yet I believe that within the larger framework of scripture, a living word can still emerge from Elijah’s story. If we are willing to listen in the ever-present now.

The problem is that if this is, simply, the word of the Lord, read, heard, and accepted only at face-value, then we must be admonished to “go and do likewise.” And armed with such confidence, we will begin to wage our battles, whether personal or corporate, whether spiritual or geo-political with the disturbing belief that we (and God), ought to claim our victories. However small they may be. And however large. And that, as the victor, we ought to relish in the spoils of our wars. Armed with such Christ-less confidence, we will be tempted to pray, as I heard Billy Graham pray at the start of the first Gulf War, that “God would be on our side.”

Surely, “the word of the Lord” means more than claiming God for “our side.” Don’t you think? How could the One, True God, the creator of heaven and earth, the one whom Paul calls the “Father of all,”[4] how could such a God have such “a (small) side”? If the best that our understanding of “the word of the Lord” does for us is to lead us to take our enemies to the river and kill them there, then I am confident we have not heard the word of the Lord.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?…And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? (Matthew 5.43-47)

Such a god is no more than a god of our own possessing, a god who does our own bidding, a god conceived in limited vision and limited to violent conceptions. Such a god is surely “our god.” Possessed. Contained. Defined. Understood. Known. Controlled.[6]

Perhaps such a god was the god of the great prophet Elijah, standing knee-deep in the blood of his slain enemies, standing with his god and their blood-thirsty people, singing a song of victory.[7] But Elijah’s river is not the “fountain filled with blood” of which Christians sing. Cringe as you may, and I will appreciate your sensitivity: “There is a fountain filled with blood… drawn from Emmanuel’s veins…” When it comes down to it, folks, life is and always has been about blood.[8] But the questions that Christ would have us ask, the answers to which he would have us listen now, and always are, “Whose blood?” And, “How will it be shed?”

I had run to the waiting room. Though it was Thanksgiving Day, there was a crowd there. A great shout went up when I made my trembling announcement: Nine pounds, five ounces. “For unto us… a son!” (Isaiah 9.6) When I returned to the delivery room I was stunned by what I saw. I had been there through it all, but I was not prepared for the bloody shock of re-entry. Opening that door, I was not sure if I was back in “Labor and Delivery” or if somehow I had been warped away into some violent war zone.

At that bedside, the graphic sight of love, much too visible, I heard the word of the Lord. It was a word about the goodness, but the complexity, of our world. It was a word about the surprising grace of life. It was a word about the presence of God. It was a word that I heard in a Mother’s Love.[9]

Jesus’ disciples had been rejected, and they were seething in their righteous indignation. So they turned, to their Bibles -- always a great weapon for those who are angry -- “Do you want us to call down fire from heaven -- just like Elijah did?” (This is the word of the Lord.) But Jesus had listened more intently. And fire from heaven was not the word he had heard. What he heard sounded more like a Mother’s Love!

If we could only listen, now. We could still hear it. Her word still brings life.[10]

[1] I was once asked if the Bible “is God’s Word,” or if it “contains God’s Word.” I didn’t know at the time that this was a trick question, designed to catch me in a “heresy” of not ascribing to an inerrant biblical position. For Fundamentalists, the Bible is no less than God’s Word, period (for some, it is actually “God’s words). I don’t remember how I answered then, but clearly, today, the answer is the latter.

[2] Throughout this sermon I make reference (anachronistically, for Elijah), to “the God of Jesus.” The point I am pushing is that there are many conceptions of God, even, I believe, within scripture, as we discern the “growth” in faith of the people of God, from a polytheistic culture, to a solid, radical monotheism. As Christians, we must always turn to “Jesus’ God” for our understanding of who God is, and what God does. If not for the life of Jesus, “God” would be only a “concept,” yet in Jesus’ life, Christians claim to have seen the face of God.

[3] At this point in our nation’s history, the “battle” with Islam is my obvious allusion here, yet this “battle with the gods” has raged since ancient times, “holy wars” accounting for many of the wars in human history.

[4] Ephesians 4.1. I have not done my exegetical work here. Perhaps Paul’s claim is that God is “Father of all” – within the Christian faith. I should be fair to the specific text, yet broadening the text to include the narrative of creation, I believe I am on solid, biblical ground, to claim that God is “Father of ALL.”

[5] I wanted to entitle the sermon, “The god Who Wins For Us,” for as the sermon makes clear, I believe that it is not God, but only “a god” (of our own making) who can be claimed as serving up our victories. In keeping with proper formatting convention, however, I chose to capitalize the title, yet the upper case/lower case usages of God/god are important to the message.

[6] See my sermon from the series on the Ten Commandments (“You shall not make for yourself an idol…”), “A Half-Baked God.”

[7] Many people will, no doubt, take issue with the distinction I draw between Elijah’s god, and the God of Jesus, yet I think it is important to note that “scripture corrects scripture.” If we listen carefully, we can discern a growth within the people of God, within the generations of the writing of scripture. But it must be clear: the god to whom Elijah gave victory is not the same conception of God, whom Jesus displayed, through the self-giving of his own life.

[8] In a conversation about the distasteful “blood hymns” that many churches have moved away from, a friend of mine said, “If it were my choice, I’d do away with the ‘blood hymns’ – but, I’d have to find some way to leave in the blood!”

[9] The story was not told to give praise to my own wife, as much as to mothers everywhere, whose “labors of love,” almost literally make the world go ‘round. To all mothers, many thanks, and, Happy Mother’s Day!

[10] Our opening hymn on this day was a new, beautiful hymn by Brian Wrenn, “Bring Many Names, in which he calls God, “strong mother God… warm father God… old, aching God… young, growing God… great, living God…” I recall the first time I heard anyone refer to God with the use of a feminine pronoun, and though I would have acknowledged at the time that God was not “male,” I was offended by calling God “she.” Too small was my conception of the divine!