June 23, 2013 | 8:00 a.m.

Practical Instructions

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

1 Kings 19:1–18
Psalm 42

May you know the presence
of those who have passed
through the desert before you.
May they point the way
toward freedom
and sustain you
with their stories.
In the wilderness
may there be wellsprings,
may there be wings.

Jan L. Richardson
In the Sanctuary of Women

This past week’s very sad floods in India have reminded me of an image—one of those that is indelibly etched in my mind from the time of another flood, the one caused by Hurricane Katrina eight years ago already. The image came on the TV screen after an interview with a Coast Guard member in those first few days of the rescue operation in New Orleans. What I saw on TV that day visually represents so much of the meaning I take from today’s story about Elijah.

The first shot of the news clip was that of the Coast Guard member being lowered by helicopter onto a rooftop of a house where the water had risen to a point just under the house’s eaves. Only the roof was visible above the water line. The next camera footage showed the Coast Guard officer chopping a hole through the roof to get at the man who was paraplegic and trapped inside. He had been trapped there for several days, ever since the day the levies were breached. The next shot was of the two of them—the Coast guard officer face-to-face with the paralyzed man, his arms wrapped tightly around him—as the rope attached to the helicopter above hoisted them up to safety. Face-to-face, arms wound around one another, holding onto a rope for dear life, being rescued. Being saved.

I saw in that news clip the same message I glean from today’s reading: That God ministers to us when the circumstances around us are desperate and it looks as though all hope is lost. That God intends for us, just as he intended for Elijah, to rely on others, to involve others in the task, to spread out the work, to accept help and care, to know that we are not alone.

Elijah was desperate. Jezebel’s husband, King Ahab, had entered into a political alliance with the neighboring nation and in that negotiation—in that deal—he allowed the worship of Ba’al. The battle Elijah was fighting was to bring the Israelites back to a pure worship of Yahweh, unadulterated by the elements of Ba’al worship. Ba’al worship included fertility rites and many gods and human ritualistic cultic activities, all to effect certain responses from God. Elijah was desperate because he had just conquered thousands of Ba’al worshipers. It was a great success, but his great success had drawn the attention of Queen Jezebel, not only a woman of power, but a fervent Ba’al worshiper. She was so angry at Elijah’s success, she promised to have Elijah killed. Not only was he exhausted from his great battle, but now he was desperate for his life and scared—running and afraid and exhausted—so exhausted all he wanted to do was throw in the towel.

You and I aren’t fighting Ba’al worshipers. I doubt that the Coast guard fellow or the paraplegic trapped in the attic of his home were fighting Ba’al worshipers. But in our better moments we are fighting to live the way we hope God wants us to live—wrestling as best we can with issues of money and spending, wrestling with how best to treat a boss or an employee, wrestling with our own sins and addictions or the problems of our family members, fighting to raise children or support aging parents or to hold onto a relationship that is crumbling, fighting through our own sense of who God is and wondering why so many others don’t see it our way, wrestling with our thoughts of government and knowing that government doesn’t always operate as God would choose. We are not always conscious of the battles we fight or just how hard we are working to stay on top of our lives—we cope and we go about our lives—but the battles are there, and we find all sorts of ways to escape them or to give up or to become exhausted and not even know it, to carry stress, and to finally just want to give up completely.

That’s where Elijah was. He had hit a wall and he was desperate to get away from Jezebel. He wanted out. He fled to the wilderness and found a spot under a broom tree.

Anna Carter Florence says this about that broom tree: “Make no mistake, Elijah is definitely pouting. A broom tree in the desert is not exactly a ‘willow beside still waters.’ It’s a scrubby little bush that’s low and it’s prickly and it’s uncomfortable, and you don’t choose to lie underneath it unless you’re making a statement.” Elijah was depressed and he’d had it.

What God said to Elijah in the lowest point of his desperation was a message that came through an angel: “Here, take this bread and this water and eat. You need nourishment for the journey.” Elijah slept and ate and woke again, and a second time, the angel appeared with more bread and water. Elijah took it again. And he slept again. In the lowest points of our desperation or frustration, when we feel as though we are losing the battle and defeated, perhaps the message is to just take care of ourselves. To take in the practical instructions and sleep and eat. To stop. To let go. To stop running as though we are hamsters on a wheel and to perhaps sit—with a scripture verse each morning, something that would give us sustenance for the journey. Elijah thought everything was up to him and to him alone. Perhaps the message from God is that God is in the midst of all of this with us and we had better allow ourselves to take in bread for the journey. The image of the rescue I described doesn’t include a thing about food or sleep, but it tells me that even in the midst of desperation and feeling trapped, God can chop through that roof of ours and provide something of salvation. A rope. A person. A word. Sleep. Food. Sustenance.

Elijah was a prophet, so I have to assume that he was already on what I would call a spiritual journey. But I would also like to imagine that his time in the wilderness refined and deepened that spiritual journey, because struggles often do that if we let them. I saw a posting on Facebook last week that said something like “When things fall apart, they may actually be falling in place.” When things seem to be falling apart, perhaps they are actually falling in place.

Years ago, my husband decided to quit his job and look for another. He thought his search in that particular economy would take about two months, and we were prepared for that. But two months stretched into three months and eventually into five months, and we became desperate and scared. He made an appointment with our pastor at the time, long before I’d even thought of being a pastor. During that meeting, our pastor suggested to my husband that he make his job search into a spiritual journey, that he look for God’s hand in the ups and downs of the job search, that he trust God with the leading, that he pray. That suggestion changed everything for my husband. It wasn’t magic. A job didn’t come the next day. But the journey and the relationship with God was changed.

There is a chaplain I know who has a plaque on his door that says “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” It means that whether we are asking for God’s presence or even if we are not, God is present. In a way, the plaque reminds me of God and Elijah on that cliff and Elijah straining to see or hear God—looking for God in the earthquake, straining to hear God’s voice. One commentator suggests that it’s not that God is only in the silence on this particular day for Elijah. God is in all of those other things too—the earthquake, the fire, the wind, and perhaps Elijah knew it but was avoiding God, pushing God away. As much as Elijah didn’t hear, God pursued Elijah and showed up once all the other attempts failed—showed up in the silence. Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

The image of the two men clinging to a rope, being pulled up to the safety of the helicopter above, speaks to me of God’s instruction to Elijah at the end of this passage. God may as well have said, “It’s not all up to you, you know. You’re not my only person here fighting this battle. In fact there are 7,000 others who have not succumbed at all to worshiping Ba’al. Go and anoint Elisha, and others—rely on others, let others help build a community of people around you.”

Elijah had become a bit narcissistic in his battle, focused on himself, convinced he was the only one good enough for the job. Everything was up to him. The load was all on his shoulders. Basically he was having a pity party—no one would help, he was giving up—and threw himself under the prickly old broom tree. You know what that’s like. No one will help. No one notices. No one can do the job as well as you can. When we get into that place, we’re really saying to the world how important we think we are. God tells Elijah, “It’s not just about you, chap. Get others to help.”

The Coast Guard officer wouldn’t have gotten very far if he had relied on himself and himself alone to get to the roof, chop the hole, pull the paralyzed man out—and then what? Fly? The two of them by themselves to rescue. There were layers of support. He couldn’t have succeeded at this rescue alone and neither can we.

When we are at our most desperate moments, it might be the practical instructions that are important. Eat, sleep, go to someone for help, see a pastor, ask for prayer, rely on scripture, call a friend. Even if we can’t hear God or sense God, God is present—Bidden or Unbidden, God is present. We are not to fight the battle of bringing about the kingdom of God, or living the way we hope God is calling us to live, or walking through this journey of faith alone. The battle belongs to all of us, not just one of us.

This table reminds me of today’s passage too. On the table is the food of Jesus Christ—a visible sign of his life given for us because God loves us so much, a visible sign of what nourishes—the bread of the love of God come into this world and the cup of salvation of knowing we are not alone. God is present here, whether you can hear God or not, see God or not, feel God or not. And we come together, around this table, in community, in fellowship, knowing that we are not alone. Alleluia. Amen.