Preached · October 11, 2020
Turning to Elijah
Well, good evening, good morning, good day to you, Table Church. Hello, friends. My name is Anthony Parrott, and it's my privilege to serve as the lead pastor here at the Table Church. I am so honored and so glad to be here — to talk about Jesus and the gospel and God's word, to be blessed by this worship team and to lift up God's praises, to lift up the truth that God is the God who can turn bones into armies and graves into gardens. That is good news, and that's what we're here to talk about.
So if you have a Bible, I encourage you to power it on, flip it open. We're going to be in the book of 1 Kings, chapter 19. It's in the Old Testament.
We're in between series right now. For the past four or five weeks, we've been talking about the Table Church's values, about what it means to be thoughtfully and authentically following Jesus. You can go to our website and see some of those values and what they mean for our church. And in the coming weeks, leading up to the election, we're going to be talking about what it is to be the church of us versus them — or rather, how not to be the church of us versus them, how we can fall prey to the enemy-making machine, and how we need to stick a big stick in the middle of that cog and stop the enemy-making machine that we can all find ourselves caught up in.
But today, I waited a long time to figure out what was the word I was meant to bring to you all. It took a long time to just sit before God and to hear: what are you up to? What do you want your people to hear? I have my own Bible reading plan that is separate from what I use to plan for sermons, and my Bible reading plan had me in the book of 1 Kings, reading through the story of Elijah. Elijah is this great prophet of the Old Testament. He had some failures and some setbacks, and he had some victories and some stories that would seem amazing. We're going to take a look at 1 Kings 19 today, because I think it might hit us where we're at. We're going to go through this verse by verse, chunk by chunk, and see what it has to say for us.
The Valley After the Mountaintop
This is the word of the Lord. It says:
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
This is a husband and wife, a king and a queen. In the chapter previous, there was this big scene where Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh God, gets all the prophets of Baal — this false, idolatrous god that Israel had — and they have basically a contest to see which God is real. And big surprise: God shows up. Yahweh shows up and burns up the sacrifice, throwing fire down from heaven. And because of the sign that Yahweh was real, the prophets of Baal are put to death. So this is the scene that we're waking up to: how Elijah had done this, how he had killed all the prophets.
So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."
Which is basically a really long-winded way of saying, "I'm going to kill you."
Now Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness.
So Elijah gets this message from the queen: "Hey, you know how you put all the false prophets to death? Well, I'm going to do that to you. I'm going to put you to death." And so Elijah is afraid for his life and runs for the desert, runs for the wilderness.
What I want to talk about today is these five things that I noticed in the story of Elijah as we keep reading — the five things that we need, and that we need to do, and how we need to respond when everything sucks, when everything has fallen apart, when our lives have caved in on us.
Elijah is a lot like us, where oftentimes the valleys come right after the mountaintops. We can have the big celebration, where it seems like there was literally fire falling down from heaven, revealing God — and then we immediately fall into the valley of, "Oh no, something has gone deeply wrong."
I can relate to this. We moved here in March. We moved to the city, to Washington, D.C. I was going to be the lead pastor of this amazing church that I had looked at for years, and I thought it was the coolest church ever. This was going to be great. I got ordained. I got installed. And then I shut it all down, because there was a pandemic. Talk about tops and valleys.
I think many of us can relate to a feeling like this — of feeling like the world is caving in on us, like my life is caving in on me. This was not the year I thought it was going to be. This was not the life that I had imagined. It's a feeling that we all can relate to. And what I want to say to us all today is: you're not alone. You're not imagining this. You didn't make this up. This was happening.
One: Honesty
So let's keep going. Elijah is afraid. He runs to the wilderness.
He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
The first thing I think we need when everything is terrible, when everything sucks, is honesty. I love the honesty of Elijah's prayer. Elijah prays that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord."
I think honesty is the first step to any sort of breakthrough, any sort of progress, any sort of forward motion in our lives. There is a very nasty and wrong theology out there that says that no matter what you're feeling on the inside, that's sinful — you need to shove that down, put on a happy face, and fake it until you make it. It's that theology of positive thinking: that if you're positive enough, if you can think about it, if you can dream it, you can do it; if you just have enough positive energy in your life, then your life will get better automatically. And if your life is going to pot, well, it must have been something you did, something that you didn't think about correctly. That's the theology of positive thinking, the theology of the prosperity gospel. And it forces us to tell ourselves lies. It forces us to tell ourselves things that aren't true: "Well, maybe things aren't that bad. I've got to find the silver lining. At least there's a bright side."
We all probably have people in our life who, when we want to bring our complaint and just say, "Hey, I'm not doing great, things are coming down right now," they say, "Well, at least think about something positive." We've all had people in our lives like that. And that feels corrosive, like a straitjacket put on us, because we can't be honest with ourselves, we can't be honest with God. And so we see this example of Elijah: "I wish I could die. I've had enough."
So that's point number one, if you're taking notes: honesty. That's the first thing we need. We need to be honest about where we're at.
Again, I want to say: whatever it is you're feeling, you're not alone. If you have felt alone sometime in the past six months — that's me. If you have felt depressed — that's me. If you have felt anxious, if you have felt like a crazy person because you feel like you're imagining this and the world has moved on — that's me. If you have felt like maybe this is my fault, because I did something wrong and God's punishing me — that's me. If you have had thoughts of "I'd be better off dead" — that's me. You're not alone. You're not imagining this.
The first step that we all need to take is honesty, because we can't be honest with each other if we're all just pretending that everything's okay — if we're all just pretending like everything is going to be fine, and we plaster on the smile and pass ourselves six feet away in the hallway and say, "I'm okay, you're okay, we're okay." Then we'll always feel more and more alone. And I love the fact that Scripture has a story about a guy who has seen a literal fire fall down from heaven and says, "God, I wish I could just die. I've had enough."
Two: Means
Let's keep going. Point number two. So Elijah lays down under a bush, and he falls asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
And then — this is what I love — he literally gets poked by an angel, gets reminded to eat, and then lays down again.
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." So he got up and ate and drank, and he was strengthened by that food.
The second thing we need when everything seems terrible, when everything sucks, is means — M-E-A-N-S, means. Let me explain what that means.
There can be this idea, again in some kinds of theology, some kinds of ways of talking about God, that if God is going to do a miracle in your life, it's going to be zap, boom, done — the miracle has happened. But when you look at the story of Scripture, that is very rarely, if ever, the way that God performs miracles. The number one way that this shows up in very unhealthy forms of theology is around mental illness and depression, where someone says, "You don't need therapy, you just need the gospel. You don't need antidepressants, you just need Jesus."
I would suggest that when we look at the miracles of Scripture, God always uses means to accomplish those miracles. He doesn't just zap people well. Elijah is famished; he has run into the wilderness, he's hungry — and God doesn't just zap him with calories. He says, "Get up and eat something." Jesus feeding the five thousand and the four thousand: Jesus doesn't just zap them all so they're filled with food. No, there are some loaves and some fishes that are multiplied. When the Israelites have the Egyptians on their back and a wall of water in front of them, God doesn't just magically "beam me up, Scotty," teleport them across the sea. God uses Moses and the wind blowing all night long. Go back and read the story: the wind blows all night long, and the sea becomes dry land, and then the Israelites walk across it. In the miracles of Elijah, there's a story about a widow with a little bit of flour and a little bit of oil. Elijah asks for something to eat, and the widow says, "Look, I don't have anything. I'm going to make this little meal, and then me and my son are going to die, because that's all we've got. There's a famine, there's a drought. That's all we have." And Elijah says, "Use what you have, and God will provide the rest." So God doesn't just zap them with calories; he uses some means.
And so in the same way, when someone says, "Hey, God wants to heal you from your depression, God wants to heal you from your anxiety, God wants to heal you from your mental illness, God wants to heal you from your sickness, your disease, whatever it is that ails you — but don't see a doctor, don't see a therapist, and don't take an antidepressant," I don't know what they're talking about. Because God wants to bring healing, God desires to make you well, and God does those kinds of miracles through normal, ordinary, everyday means — bread and oil and water and wind, and even some so lot. That's how God works. God uses the good things of this world, and God uses the talents and the abilities of the people that he put in it to bring about the means of healing.
And so Elijah is provided with what he needs — but he has to be poked awake by an angel to say, "Hey, dude, there's some food here, why don't you eat it," and Elijah takes that faithful step of eating it. So for any of you who are struggling with something — sickness, illness, depression, anxiety, loneliness — God does want to heal you. And I'm sorry if anyone has ever told you that you can't, that you don't have enough faith, or that you can't have therapy, or that you just have to think and pray hard enough and God will bring healing. Yes, God does turn graves into gardens and bones into armies — and he does it through means. He does it through the normal, ordinary, everyday stuff here on planet Earth.
Three: Time
Number three: what is the third way that God wants to bring healing when everything sucks? We continue on. The angel of the Lord comes back and tells Elijah, "Get up and eat, the journey's too much." Elijah is strengthened by food, and then:
He traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night.
So over a month, until he reaches Horeb, the mountain of God. In the Old Testament there are two names for this single mountain, Sinai and Horeb — the place where Moses and the Ten Commandments and all that happened, Mount Sinai, is also called Mount Horeb.
We've talked about honesty. We've talked about means. Thing number three is: healing takes time. The thing that we need when everything sucks is time.
Again, I firmly, absolutely believe that God desires healing. God desires to make us well, and the world well, and to make everything reflect the kingdom of Jesus Christ, where God's rule and reign is coming to fruition everywhere and in everybody and in everything. And it doesn't happen instantaneously. Again, there are dangerous forms of theology that say, "Hey, if you asked for healing and it didn't happen, it must be the sin in your life. If you asked for healing and help and it didn't happen, then you just didn't say the right words, you didn't say the right prayer, you didn't say the right magic incantation to get God to do your will." Whereas what we see time and time again in the story of Scripture is that healing — and reconciliation, and the work that God does to make graves into gardens — takes time.
So God knows that Elijah needs some healing. God knows that Elijah is in a dark place, where he's wishing death upon himself. And so he gives him some food, and he gives him some time to journey to a mountain. He journeys forty days and forty nights and shows up at this pilgrimage site of Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. This is the place where God's presence had come down — some saw it as beautiful gemstones and some saw it as lightning bolts and fire, but it was where the law, the Torah, the Ten Commandments came. And this is where Elijah shows up. But again, what does he do? He takes a nap. He went into a cave and spent the night.
And that's okay. The healing that God wants to bring into our lives, the healing that God wants to bring when everything is awful, sometimes requires a nap — or one, or forty. It's going to take some time. And if it's not instant, it's not a sign of your failure. It's not a sign of God's failure. It's not a sign that you didn't say the right thing or do the right thing, or that God is displeased with you. It's a sign that we are mortal human bodies, flesh and bone, and that we can't always take healing instantaneously, because it might break us.
Four: Ordinariness
So the word of the Lord comes to Elijah in verse 9. God says:
"What are you doing here, Elijah?"
And he replied:
"I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, they have torn down your altars, and they have put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me too."
So the Lord says:
"Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."
By the way — this is a different sermon for a different time — I love the progression of how God reveals himself to Elijah. In verse 5, an angel touches him and speaks. In verse 7, it's an angel of the Lord that comes back and touches Elijah. In verse 9, it's not an angel — now it's the word of the Lord, personified. And then in verse 12, it's the Lord, the Lord's self. So God is revealing God's self in this progressive way, over time.
So the Lord says, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."
And a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper — but some translations call it the sound of sheer silence. And when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. And a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
I think the fourth thing we need when everything sucks — we need honesty, we need means, tangible objects, we need time, not instantaneousness — the fourth thing we need is ordinariness.
Very often we shape God into our own image and want God to show up in the whirlwind. And I know this is a controversial take — enough of you have told me this — but I think the God in the book of Job that shows up in the whirlwind probably isn't the true, real God. I think the God that shows up here in the gentle whisper is much more accurately reflecting what God is actually like. It's not the wind. It's not the earthquake. It's not the fire. It's the sound of sheer silence, and a gentle voice: "What are you doing here?"
We want God to show up in the extraordinary and the supernatural and the amazing and the astounding. But I think God also shows up with naps and cozy blankets and health food and junk food and exercise and Netflix. I think God shows up in the quiet moments and in the still moments, and in the moments when we're alone, crying out in desperation, and all we hear is nothing. God's there too. God shows up in all sorts of mundane, ordinary ways. It's not all parted seas and resurrections. And I will again remind you that the parted sea was the result of a night's worth of wind, and the resurrection happened after a couple days' wait. God shows up in the ordinary and the mundane.
Now, some of you might ask: if that's the case — if it happens through honesty and time and means and antidepressants and therapy and cozy blankets and stuff — some of you are going to ask, "Why bother with God? Aren't we just telling ourselves a fairy tale now?" And here's my response. I think this is the classic orthodox response to this question:
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. (James 1:17)
What Scripture says is that if it's good, it's God. Very simply. If we can identify it with moving toward overall well-being in the world — toward health and wholeness and justice and righteousness, and the world being put back in place, and the things within our souls being healed, and the scars being healed, and the dryness being quenched — if it's good, then it must be God's work and no one else's. And so I believe in God even in the ordinary and the mundane, and even if it takes a long time, and even if God uses very ordinary means to accomplish God's purposes. I believe in God because I believe it's the only source in the universe that can accomplish healing and good. And if it's bad, if it brings disorder and injustice and sorrow and harm and wrong, then it's something else.
So my goal in my life is to align more and more closely with what James calls that heavenly light, that source of good. And changing our awareness to God's constant good can dramatically change the way we see the world — not God as some outsider who occasionally deigns to enter into our affairs and mess with us, not God who only shows up in fires and earthquakes and hurricanes and amazing displays that we can put on TV. No. If we can change our perception to God who shows up when we feel warmth, and when we feel something clicking into place during a counseling session, when we feel our heartbeats accelerating with a really good song, when we feel the connection between a friend and a loved one — if we can decide and believe and have faith and hope that that's God's presence too, then we'll see burning bushes everywhere. We'll see God's presence aflame in the world, and not just far off.
Five: People
The story continues. Elijah says:
"I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword."
And this is what Elijah says — and this is for the third time — "I am the only one left." He says it in chapter 18, verse 22: "I'm the only one of the Lord's prophets left." He says it again in verse 10: "I am the only one left." And here he says it again in verse 14: "I am the only one left. And now they're going to try to kill me too."
And so the Lord says to him, "Go back the way you came, to the desert of Damascus. When you get there, you're going to anoint this guy, also anoint this guy, and then anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat from Abel-Meholah, to succeed you as prophet." We'll skip ahead to verse 19.
So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.
So Elisha left his oxen and ran after Elijah. "Let me kiss my father and my mother goodbye," he says. Elijah says, "Okay." So Elisha goes back, takes his yoke of oxen, slaughters them, makes a meal out of them, burns the plowing equipment to cook the meat, gives it to the people, and they eat. And he sets out to follow Elijah and becomes his servant.
The fifth thing we need — we need honesty, we need time, we need mundane, ordinary things — we need people.
The story begins, in verse 3, with Elijah running for his life, and he leaves his servant somewhere else. Elijah goes into the wilderness all by himself. He meets God face to face in the sound of sheer silence. And God's first instruction to him is: go find some people.
Now, this is a two-way street, because — again, I've heard this sermon — "Hey, if you want everything to be okay with your life, go find a community, go find some friends." And in the middle of a pandemic, when it's really hard to meet people, and we're all stressed out and just trying to deal with our own lives, that's really difficult advice, right? And if you're somebody who deals with shyness or social anxiety, or you just don't like people very much, that's going to be a really hard thing to do.
This is a thing that takes two to tango. This doesn't just require people who are lonely to go out and say, "Hey, can you help me not be lonely anymore?" It also requires those of us who are not so lonely — who have good social groups and social interactions and friend groups, and dare I say cliques — to get out of those cliques so that we can help those who are alone and desperate and feeling the weight of it all, and say, "Hey, can I be your friend?" We need both. We need people to show that willingness, and people to show, "Hey, I'm open for friendship." This is a two-way street.
So I don't want to put the burden on those of you who are feeling lonely right now to find another burden, to go out and find some friends. There's also the work that has to be done of, "Hey, if you're in a place where you're feeling all right" — because I know some of you are — "have an open door, have an open line, have an open ability to connect with folks." So we need it. We need people in our life to find healing.
And I love what Elisha does. Elisha gets called by Elijah, and literally Elisha burns his former life down so he could be with Elijah, this prophet of God. It's one thing for me to tell you, "Go make friends, go be social." There's the second part of that too: that you have to open up whatever social circle you already have. You've got to make space for more. Loneliness can't be fixed by just one person wishing they weren't lonely anymore.
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
So as we continue in a really difficult season, thinking about really difficult things, wearing a lot of heaviness and just weight and weariness, I want you to avoid whatever tells you that this is going to get fixed instantly — that this is going to get fixed by lightning bolts and hurricanes and Red Seas parting. Friends, this is going to take faithfulness — what Eugene Peterson called a long obedience in the same direction. It's going to take a fifty-year mindset of: what direction are we going, as individuals and as a community, as a family, as a church? What direction are we going? Can we go there together? And can we find God — not just in the big moments, in the so-called supernatural, but also in the quiet moments, the still moments, the ordinary moments?
