The One Who Fills Us

 

1 Kings19:1-15a

If you only knew this particular episode in the prophet’s life, then you would imagine Elijah must have had a pretty lousy run to get so far down in the dumps. But it is really just the opposite.

Before this chapter, Elijah had just come off the greatest success imaginable. It’s one of the highlights of the Old Testament, in fact. Israel has been in a drought for three years. King Ahab would, of course, love to see the drought end because it’s eating away at his approval ratings. But Ahab has another problem too, which involves his wife – Queen Jezebel. She is not an Israelite. When she married Ahab and came to Israel she brought her gods with her – the Baals, as they are called. Baal is not a proper name, but a title, like lord. The Baals are idols of other cultures, and we know from the scriptures that the people of Israel were prone to dabbling in Baal worship. You know how it is; sometimes when you need a little extra boost of luck you look at what other people are doing and you say, “What the heck. It might help. And it can’t hurt, right?

But the scriptures suggest again and again that, yes, it can actually hurt. When it involves turning away from God. Ahab was drawn into Baal worship. He led the people of Israel into Baal worship. It got really out of hand.

Ahab, the scriptures say, did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all the kings who came before him, and that was a lot of evil. As if it wasn’t enough for them to overpower the nation with the worship of false idols, Jezebel and Ahab began a process of killing off the prophets of the Lord God. Much like an attempted genocide. These were the problems that Elijah faced. But, without question, Elijah was up to the challenge.

During the third year of the drought, Elijah went to Ahab to tell him that God would send the long-awaited rains to Israel. On his way he encountered one of Ahab’s head servants, who literally fell on his face at the sight of Elijah, in fear and trembling. He knew he was on the wrong side.

When Elijah arrived, Ahab came out to meet him, saying, “Is that you, you old troubler of Israel?” Elijah, though, was not troubling Israel so much as troubling Ahab and Jezebel. He told the king, prepare for a showdown. Get the prophets of Baal and Asherah, the gods and goddesses that Jezebel adores; get all 850 of them out to Mount Carmel and we will see how they measure up against the God of Israel.

So Ahab said, alright, here we go, and he sent the full complement of Baal and Asherah prophets to Mount Carmel. All the people of Israel came out to watch the show. Elijah stood alone against all the king’s prophets. He directed that two bulls be provided. Let the prophets of Baal choose one and prepare it for sacrifice, but light no fire. Let them call on Baal to produce the fire to burn the sacrifice. So the prophets selected a bull, cut it up and laid it on their altar. Then they called on the name of Baal to answer them, to bring fire to the sacrifice. They limped around the altar all day long, crying out until their voices were hoarse. Nothing happened. They even slashed their own flesh with their swords, drawing their own blood, as was apparently the custom in Baal worship. Still nothing.

Then Elijah took the stage. He repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn apart by the Baal worshipers. He set the bull upon the altar, thoroughly drenched it with water. Then Elijah began to pray. “O Lord, I am your servant; I have done all these things at your bidding. Now answer me, Lord, that all these people may know that you are God.” And suddenly the soaking wet offering was in flames, and the fire consumed all the water surrounding the altar as well. The people fell down and said, “The Lord is God; the Lord is indeed God.” They rounded up the false prophets who were then executed.

After that, the rains came.

It was a powerful show for Elijah. But now he had kindled the wrath of Jezebel, which was nothing to shake a stick at. She sent word to Elijah that he was a dead man, and Elijah took her at her word. He was afraid, and he fled for his life.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so afraid, though. The Lord had seen him through so much already. The Lord had shown great power in many ways. Before the showdown on Mount Carmel, there was the time he stayed with the widow of Zarephath, when a handful of meal and a little oil managed to feed her household for many days; when her son fell ill and died, but Elijah was able to revive him; all this by the power of God.  

I wonder why Elijah did not have faith that the Lord would see him through this episode with Jezebel, just as God has carried him through so many other times. And maybe when he looked back on it later, Elijah saw it that way too; that he should have known that the Lord who had overwhelmed all the prophets of Baal, who had used the birds of the air and a poor widow of Zarephath to feed him, would protect him against Jezebel. But at this particular moment, Elijah was just too exhausted to think that through.

What Elijah needed was some down time and a little TLC.

I think because he knew that Jezebel had been going after the prophets of the Lord, Elijah really thought he was the only one left. He thought he was utterly alone against a fierce and vicious enemy. And even though he had triumphed in the battle that day, he feared he was losing the war.

It has been said that the words of Psalm 42 could have been written by Elijah, because they so well articulate the way he probably felt at this point in his life. Forgotten. Alone. Without hope.

And I wonder if some of us feel like Elijah at times. We look at the world around us, and we see too much violence. Too much hatred. We see evil seeming to hold the upper hand. I have heard too many people lately using the word hopeless to describe how they feel – particularly in the context of gun violence in our nation.

We see the efforts of men and women to make some constructive changes lead to nothing, again and again. And so we lose hope in our institutions and in our leaders. But it is when we have reached our human limits that we know, once again, that our hope does not reside in institutions, our hope is in God.

Elijah fell down in despair and lamented that he was all alone and without hope. But as it turned out there was hope for Elijah. Once again, God fed him and gave him rest. Take and eat, the angel said to Elijah, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.

Strengthened with food, water, and rest, Elijah journeyed on to the place where God had sent him – the Mount of Horeb. This is the place where God had spoken with Moses centuries earlier. Here Elijah tucked himself into a cave in the side of the mountain and waited there for the Lord.

 A great wind came along, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. At this point there was the sound of silence. And Elijah came out of the cave to greet the silence.

And in the silence, there was the voice of the Lord.

Now Elijah was ready to carry on with the work of his ministry for the Lord. And, as the Lord would tell him, he was not alone as he thought. There were thousands working on the Lord’s side with him.

In the work of ministry, of which we all are a part, there are intense highs and there are utterly abysmal lows. The Lord will carry us through it all.

The Lord will give us rest. We know from the gospels that Jesus stole away to a quiet place to pray when he needed it. And he told his disciples, “Come to me all you who are weary…”

The Lord will give us nourishment. We have only to remember the many times Jesus broke bread with others, and with us every time we gather at the table; feeding us in body and in spirit.

The Lord will give us hope. In truth, it is only in the Lord that we will find hope. So when we feel hopeless, in despair, fearing that nothing will ever change, let us turn to the Lord and receive rest…

And nourishment…

And hope to live and fight another day.

Photo by Hillie Chan on Unsplash 

 

Blessed Trinity

 

Romans 5:1-5    

John 16:12-15    

Today is Trinity Sunday, which is a thing that is hard to get excited about, I have to admit. It just feels very abstract. The doctrine of the trinity is hard. In fact, the first thing you need to say about it is that it is not a thing we can really comprehend, so we shouldn’t even try.

But we do try. We are continually making all kinds of creative analogies in order to make sense of it. The Trinity is like water, we say, which can take three forms: ice, liquid, and steam. Or the Trinity is like a man, who can be at the same time father, son, and uncle. St. Patrick said the Trinity is like a shamrock, one object with three distinct leaves. And none of these analogies work. Because there is nothing that is like the Trinity.

But we continue to try. And so we pull apart the three persons and analyze them each individually, hoping this approach will work. We try to assign them roles, saying this is the Father’s job and this is the Son’s job, and so on. We seem to want to line them up like a 3-person team, standing on the field of life, ready to play the positions they’ve been assigned. The Father tosses the ball to the Son, the Spirit runs interference for the Son – each one plays their part. But the persons of the Trinity don’t want to be lined up in that way. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit all resist this effort to keep them in their unique places.

In part this is because the most important quality of the Trinity is the relational quality. The Trinity is a relationship between the three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And it is from this relationship that all the energy comes. The relationship is so crucial that we cannot really separate the persons from one another. They are three, and still they are one.

Perhaps for today a helpful way to approach the Holy Trinity is to look at how this blessed relationship can bless our relationships; our sometimes fraught, often frail, human relationships. And so I want to share with you a story about a young woman, whose story may in some ways be similar to yours.

She was going through a very difficult time in her life. Karen was about to graduate college. She was faced with some hard choices, particularly about marriage. And she felt very alone. She had lost her father, with whom she was close, just a few years earlier. Her mother did not have the strength to give her much support. Karen had always leaned on her sister, someone who had always been there for her. But now, for the first time ever, she and her sister were going through a very hard patch.

She felt alone and knew that she would have to make some very important decisions all by herself. It all felt very unfair to her.

But then something happened that changed everything. She was lying on her bed thinking about all the uncertainties and dilemmas of her life, and she was overcome by a mysterious sense of peace. And a message like, “It will all be well. Everything will be well.” From this point on she was able to move forward and make the decisions she needed to make. And, most importantly, she was able to heal the broken relationships.

What was this? It felt like divine guidance to Karen. Somehow, God had spoken to her, filled her with what she needed at that moment, and continued to help her navigate the relationships of her life.

Was it the Holy Spirit who helped her? Yes. Was it Jesus? Yes. Was it God the Father? Again, yes. They work together and they are never at odds with one another, which raises another important point about the Trinity.

You cannot pit God the Father against the Son, although we sometimes do. We act as though Jesus had to come down to correct God’s mistakes; we assume that the God of the Old Testament has been superseded by some newer, nicer God wearing the face of Jesus. But that gets it all wrong.

As the Apostle Paul wrote, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have been justified. Forgiven. This is the same God that always was. But the relationship between the Father and the Son makes it possible for us to enjoy this relationship, too. We become adopted into this very large and always growing family.

With God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – the Spirit who intercedes just when we need her. As Jesus says to his disciples: I know that you have as much as you can take on your plate right now. But the time will come when you are ready and then I will send the Spirit who will guide you into all truth.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – they are all in this work together, this work of drawing us into the relationship they enjoy, and into relationship with each other.

More than anything, the Trinity should help us see the importance, the sacredness, of relationship. When we meditate on the Trinity we see glimpses of a bond made of perfect love, love that enjoys, love that serves, love that is willing to sacrifice for the other; love that recognizes how much we need one another.

We say that God is love, and can we really know love in any way other than in relationship? There is abundant love that flows between the persons of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and this love pours out over us as the Holy, Blessed Trinity draws us into themselves.

I know the language is weird. I know this is all confusing. But, as someone once said to me after the funeral for her father, “I got lost while you were talking about Paul, but I got unlost when you talked about my dad.”

When we look at the Trinity, maybe we should simply look at how much they love one another, and us, and just let that love be a blessing to us. Let the love of the Trinity be a model for us to follow.

The mystery of the Trinity is one we will not ever comprehend fully. But, thankfully, the blessings of the Trinity may be known completely.

All thanks be to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-art-ballerina-ballet-209948/

Spirit Breath

Acts 2:1-21        

Breath is the most natural thing in the world, until it’s not. It’s almost entirely automatic, and that’s a good thing. If we had to think about it our lives would be in peril every time we dropped off to sleep, or our minds wandered even a little bit. We take breathing for granted most of the time, but then there are moments when we realize how amazing it is.

When a newborn child takes his first breath, there is a cheer of relief and delight in the room. In the same way, those who sit watch at a deathbed let out a sigh of prayer when the dying person has breathed her last. Breath separates life from death.

So many more of us became acutely aware of this during these past couple of years of COVID-19. Many more people experienced what it is like to not be able to draw breath. Many more people fought hard for breath, many more breathed their last during our season of pandemic.

It is a terrifying thing to struggle for breath. An asthma attack, a panic attack, will make you focus on one thing alone – drawing air into your lungs. Breathing. When I was a child I sometimes had moments of anxiety and I would rush to my mother and say, “Mama, I can’t breathe!” She would get down at my level, hold my eye and say, “Yes you can. Breathe in…now breathe out.” And she would get me to match my breathing with hers until I calmed down. I just needed someone to remind me: I am alive, I can breathe. I am here in the now.

We don’t really control our breath in the big picture – whether we mean to or not, we breath. But in some small, yet significant, ways we can. Sometimes when I am tense, I take very shallow breaths, but if I can remember to breathe deeply, the tension will dissipate. In exhaling fully, you let go, in more ways than one.

As an adult I have learned to use breath prayers to bring a sense of calm. It is the simplest kind of prayer. A short phrase on the inhale and another short phrase on the exhale. A breath prayer helps to ground us right where we are, when our body and mind want to fly off somewhere else. I often say, right here in the present moment is the best place to be because it is where Jesus is.

Jesus is here…with us…right now…always. It is what he promised us so long ago.

His first disciples heard this promise, but of course it was too hard for them to really understand it. He was gone, and they were left on their own. What were they to do now?

They remembered his words about sending an advocate for them, a counselor, two different ways of translating the word paraclete. What could this paraclete be?

Soon they would begin to discover. On that day of Pentecost, which is one of the Jewish festivals, also called the Feast of Weeks. It is a harvest festival. And it was a time for the Jews to make pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem.

The day of Pentecost was a little more than a week after the day they had seen Jesus ascend, when they had gone with him out to the Mount of Olivet. On that day, he seemed to disappear before their eyes rising up into the air. They stood there, dumbly, not a clue what to do, until two angels appeared and said, “So, why are you just standing here?” They went back into Jerusalem then, back to the room where they had been staying for some time. Over the next ten days, they devoted themselves to prayer. And they selected someone to take the place of Judas as the 12^th disciple, or as they are now called, apostle.

That was pretty much it. For ten days. Pray, fill an open seat on the leadership committee. And maybe, just maybe, they were reminding one another to breathe deeply.

And that is when the Spirit of God rushed in.

It sounded like a violent wind, they said. It seemed to be coming directly from heaven, they thought. The sound of wind, the appearance of flame, the effect of breath and speech.

Everything changed in that moment when God poured out God’s Spirit.

The Spirit gave them words to say and the courage to say them. The Spirit gave them ears to hear and hearts to receive these words. The Spirit gave them dreams to dream and a willingness to change. When they had reached their human limits, the Spirit was there.

When we have reached our human limits, the Spirit of God will step in and the power of God will take us where we need to go.

In the book of Acts, we see how this played out after that first Pentecost. The apostles spoke, they sang, they dreamed the dreams God gave them and then they followed those dreams where God led them. The apostles of Jesus went where they were sent and turned away from places that were shut off to them. They were obedient to the Spirit and the church flourished.

Our identity as the church is dependent on the pouring out of God’s Spirit. And God is generous in doing so.

Each time we gather around Christ’s table and receive bread and cup, the Spirit refills us, renews us, preparing us for whatever new thing God will send us into. The Spirit will open doors and unite people who might have previously thought themselves too different from one another. This is what the Spirit does best.

On Pentecost we see very clearly the way God blows past barriers and brings people together in surprising ways. By the power of the Spirit, Peter was understood by the crowds of people who came from everywhere in the diaspora. By the power of the Spirit, everyone was able to understand his words, no matter what language they knew.

How do we see God opening up new paths for us today? God is bringing people from all walks of life into our domain. Through the ministry of HOPE downstairs, we meet different kinds of people. Through the ministry of Rebirth in the Langeler Building, we meet different kinds of people. We meet people who speak languages different from our own languages, people who have walked paths quite different from our own paths, people whose abilities and expectations might be quite different from our own abilities and expectations. People whose lives put them at a very different starting point than our own starting point.

God is doing some very interesting things here in this place. The Spirit of God is ready and able to guide us, empower us to work together. And so we have a choice: we can be like the ones on that day of Pentecost who sneered. “Nothing good is going on here. They’re drunk.” Or we can join those who ask for God to show us, “What does this mean?”

What does it mean? Do we yet know? When in doubt, breathe in the Spirit of God:

Spirit of God –
We breathe in and receive your love;
We breathe out and share it with the world.

When we don’t know what to do, I trust that God will show us. When we have reached the limits of our imagination, I know that God’s Spirit will pour out upon us. When we are open to receiving it, I rejoice that God will guide us into the lovely work God has prepared for us to do.

All thanks and glory to God. 

Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash