Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

Sunday, June 26, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

Sermon

Matt Helms
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 77:1–2, 11–20
2 Kings 2:1–2, 6–14

I don’t know about you, but I cannot help but feel for Elisha in this passage and wince as he places the prophetic mantle on his shoulders. To say he had big shoes to fill is an almost laughable understatement. For the last twenty years, Elijah had been the preeminent prophetic voice for God within Israel: performing miracles that would have been unthinkable, zealously defeating Baal worshipers, and—as we heard last Sunday—standing up to rulers even in the face of grave danger. Elisha and the rest of the company of prophets that Elijah had formed watched as their mentor prophesied and steered and advocated to bring Israel into a closer adherence to God, even in a divided and broken kingdom.

As if that standard wasn’t already high enough, in a truly jaw-dropping series of moments, Elisha watches as Elijah strikes the water of the Jordan River and the river parts in two, an unmistakable reference to Moses, one of the greatest—if not the greatest of—figures in Israel’s history. Then Elisha sees Elijah ascend to heaven on a chariot of fire, in a whirlwind that the Bible often uses to represent the very presence of God. It’s hard to think of a greater exclamation point or validation of a prophetic career than that, and it’s hard to think Elisha wouldn’t have been harboring some doubts about his ability to live up to this impossibly high standard for prophetic ministry.

Here’s what we know about Elisha up to this point: We first meet him in 1 Kings 19, immediately after the passage that Joe preached on last week, as Elisha is out working in the fields, plowing with his oxen. With a simple invitation, Elisha becomes a disciple of Elijah and presumably joined the company of prophets that Elijah had formed. After that, Elisha vanishes—at least until our passage today—at which point this former farmer assumes the mantle of becoming the chief prophet to Israel. It’s no wonder we see him ask Elijah for a double portion of his spirit. Scholars are split on whether he is merely asking for the standard inheritance given to the firstborn within a family or he truly is asking for double the spirit that Elijah had, but it’s hard to not read Elisha’s words as those of someone who felt inadequate and unprepared for the job, particularly as he strikes the water himself, only for nothing to happen as he cries out, “Where is the Lord?”

Several decades ago, the psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes identified a curious characteristic they kept observing in people who had achieved great success in their life and career, something they ended up describing as an imposter phenomenon. Simply put, despite achieving outward successes like promotions, praise, and awards, internally those people attributed their success to luck or people overestimating their ability, and whenever they compared themselves to others, they felt completely out of their depth and inadequate for whatever title or role that had been given to them. The intensity of those doubts varied a great deal, but subsequent research has suggested that almost 70 percent of adults will end up experiencing this imposter phenomenon at some point in their career or personal life and that it affects men and women equally.

I’ve certainly experienced it in my time at Fourth Church, particularly in the early stages of my ministry but even now sometimes as I’ve heard and read the amazing sermons and writing of colleagues past and present or as I think about the remarkable things that this congregation has done over the years. I find myself consciously or subconsciously trying to copy and emulate colleagues I respect, wishing I could be a bit more like them. Perhaps you’ve felt that way as well as you’ve compared yourself to others—and the odds say you probably have—and you’ve felt like you were struggling to live up to the example set by a mentor or colleagues you admire, or wrestling with this unshakable feeling that you just don’t have what it takes to succeed in the role or position you are in, or that you don’t have anything to contribute. To that, I would say you are not alone. But you are also wrong, and you are deceiving and underestimating yourself.

A handful of years ago, an anonymous university professor shared an eye-opening conversation she had with Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who for a time served as the U.S. Secretary of Energy. After a keynote talk she had given at a conference, the professor was joined by Chu and a group of others for drinks, and at some point he came over and admitted that he had found her talk frustrating. Confused and a little embarrassed, she asked if there was something wrong with her research, but it turns out it was the exact opposite. Chu shared that he had recently taken a position at Stanford that came with a great deal of funding and opportunity. “Everyone’s expecting great things from me,” he shared, “except . . . I have no idea what I’m doing! I had one big success early in my career, and I feel like I’m still riding the coattails of it. I finally thought I had an idea for a decent study to do, but it turns out that’s exactly what you’re already working on, and you’re doing it way better than I could have! I feel like any day someone is going to realize they made a mistake and fire me.”

Another well-known physicist, reflecting towards the end of his life, had this to say: “The exaggerated esteem in which my life’s work is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself more as a swindler.” That physicist was Albert Einstein, whose life’s work virtually transformed the entire field of physics and our understanding of the universe. If two Nobel Prize winners—including one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century—feel inadequate or like frauds, what hope do the rest of us have? But that’s the thing: most of us consistently underestimate our own ability—our ability to perform the job or role we have been chosen to do, sure, but also our ability to make a positive impact and difference in this world if only we are willing to take the risk of being involved and engaged. We do not trust God has called each one of us for a reason. We do not trust God has given us gifts to use for the benefit of our world. And we do not trust our ability to live up to the example of those who came before us—but perhaps we should.

Standing on the banks of the River Jordan, wearing the mantle of perhaps the greatest prophet Israel had ever seen, filled with uncertainty and doubt as he cries out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Where is he?”—Elisha decides to trust in his calling in the verses immediately after our passage today. So hear now the rest of verses 14 and 15: “Elisha took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water. He said, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Where is he?’ He struck the water again, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha crossed over. When the company of prophets who were at Jericho saw him at a distance, they declared, ‘The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.’”

This entire passage is reminiscent of Joshua taking on the mantle of leadership following the death of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. In fact, many forget that it was actually Joshua who led the Hebrew people into the Promised Land rather than Moses himself. Every time and every era requires new leaders to emerge, but through the help of God’s spirit, those leaders soon discover they are indeed up to the task. Elisha was not Elijah, similar as their names might be. They had different gifts from one another, with Elisha demonstrating a political skill and savvy that Elijah’s sharp condemnations seemed to lack. Over the next twelve chapters in the book of 2 Kings, Elisha would go on to serve Israel for more than six decades, and in what is surely not a coincidence, he is recorded as doubling the number of miracles that Elijah performed in his ministry along with guiding numerous kings through times of war and trouble as well as intervening in the lives of everyday citizens in a way that Elijah was rarely recorded as doing. For whatever self-doubt Elisha may have been carrying, he proved to be exactly what was needed in the time he was called, and the people of Israel benefited from him leaning into the gifts and strengths God had given him rather than trying to copy and paste what Elijah had done.

But there is one final and crucial layer to this idea of trusting in our God-given gifts and using them for God’s purposes, and it has everything to do with this post-Pentecost season we are in. Just as there are echoes of Moses and Joshua in this passage’s account of Elijah and Elisha, there are unmistakable echoes of this Elijah and Elisha passage at the start of the Book of Acts, as Jesus ascends and leaves the disciples—all of them—in charge of going forth, teaching, and demonstrating to others all that Jesus had commanded them. There was no longer meant to be a singular mantle of leadership passed down like there was from Moses to Joshua or from Elijah to Elisha. Sure, Peter was revered as a leader of the early church, but make no mistake: every single disciple, every single follower of Jesus, was given a responsibility in that moment to share the gospel in their words and actions, and on the Day of Pentecost they were given the gift of the Holy Spirit to help them fulfill that responsibility. That is the new mantle of responsibility and leadership passed down over the years, the exact same one that rests on each one of us today. In this season after Pentecost, we are asked to accept that each of us have not only been given gifts by God to use for the benefit of all—we have a responsibility to do so.

Most of us are going to have those internal doubts creep in as we hear those words. “Who am I to think I can make an impact on this world when so many have tried and failed or not gotten as far as they would have liked?” we might ask ourselves. “What I have to offer feels like it pales in comparison to so many others—men and women whom I admire as leaders, authors, or speakers—or those who practice in a very real way what it means to live a life centered around love and service.” To that I say, don’t listen to any internal voice that tells you are an impostor or don’t have anything to offer. Trust that God needs your particular gifts in this particular moment. Resist the temptation to disengage and feel powerless. Just like Elisha was brave enough to do, pick up the mantle of those who have struggled to bring justice and hope and love into this world and engage deeply wherever and whenever and however you can.

It’s OK if you are still reeling and processing from what feels like a constant deluge of tragedies over these past several years, but don’t fall into the trap of believing what you say or do doesn’t matter, because it absolutely does. Practice what it means to live a life defined by loving God and neighbor. Advocate and give to what you want to see more of in the world. And above all, trust that God truly has called you to be a part of bringing those things into being. May we pick up the mantle before us, and boldly may we continue forward. Amen.