OK, SO SUNDAY, if you’re in church, you’ll hear about one of the great villainesses in the Bible: Jezebel (if your clergy person uses that lesson).
She’s truly awful, at least unless you’re pro-Ba’al worship. She converted to Ba’al, then converted her husband, the King of Israel, who promptly began raising up his own prophets.
The hero of our story, Elijah, starts killing them off, causing Jezebel to threaten him: “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
Gee, that’s pretty clear — there’s no redemption here, no hope of forgiveness, nope, he’s dead as of tomorrow.
Sensibly, Ezekiel flees for his life, running off as fast and as far as he can, where he sits under a broom tree, and asks for God to end his life (not unlike other prophets): “… take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors,” but God has other plans for Ezekiel. The Lord sends an angel, who wakes him up, and feeds him, and then comes back a second day, doing the same, then tasks him with going to Mount Horeb, the mount of God.
Off he goes, 40 days and 40 nights (i.e., “a really long time we don’t know how to count” like Noah’s 40 days on the ark, and Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness).
This is Ezekiel’s chance to become a new man.
And then God goes one step further: He asks “What are you doing here?”
After all, as Elijah correctly noted, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
He’s got a point. From Elijah’s point of view, he’s simply hiding from Jezebel, but God says, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Like the time God appeared in a burning bush, it’s time to empower one of the people of God.
Then, all heaven breaks loose: first, there’s a huge wind, so big and so strong it breaks the very mountain.
That would have to be a Category 10 hurricane, right?
Rock is flying every where, Elijah is cowering in a cave. Who wouldn’t?
But God was not in that wind. And then, appearance two: earthquake. But God is again absent. And then? Appearance three: a huge fire. No God present, though. And then, finally, “a sound of sheer silence.”
And Elijah covers his face.
God might have been in any of those three things, but Ba’al, busy busting up God’s people was a storm deity. He would not have been found in a “sheer silence.”
That quiet appearance was God’s way of saying “Here I am, right here,” and Elijah covers his face.
So far so good, but then God, who can never quite leave us alone, asks a familiar question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
And Elijah, for lack of anything better to say, simply repeats his previous answer. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
Fair enough.
Ask the same question, get the same answer. And here, I think the folks who set the lectionary of the New Revised Standard Version made a mistake.
God sends Elijah to Damascus and we’re told “Thus saith the Lord” by the lector reading the lesson. End of story.
Fine, but if you go past that point in 1st Kings, you see that God doesn’t just send poor Elijah off without a job. God gives him three tasks.
“When you get [to Damascus], anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.”
Thus, God stabilizes the political situation, and makes sure God has a spokesperson. (Elijah isn’t getting any younger, you know), but then God adds “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel — all whose knees have not bowed down to Ba’al and whose mouths have not kissed him.”
Elijah might think God’s plan has failed and that his own life is pointless, but God doesn’t.
He sets aside a remnant of folks to keep the light of faith burning bright.
If Elijah isn’t up to God’s plan and chopping off the head of false prophets, God can at least send him to put the people in place who can do the job, making Elijah not a failure, but instead the hope of Israel.
And let’s know this: many of us have noted on both sides of the current political situation things aren’t working the way they ought, a feeling shared by almost everyone these days. But the Epistle lesson for today from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians has the solution for Christians: “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
That’s it, that’s all.
If Christ finished God’s work of salvation (as Christians believe), then there are no more real divisions.
There may be Jews or Greeks, there may be male or female, there may be straight and queer folk, trans and cis folks, but there is no real difference between the two.
Politically, I know, there are huge tensions, but there are things we can agree upon. You might disagree with me, but we can still grab a coffee together and talk.
You might not see queer culture the way I do, but you can come down to the Pier on Sunday (2 p.m. to 5 p.m.) and support our struggles, or say hello, but we can mostly all agree: people should not go hungry, people should have housing (sadly, we differ on medical care).
That’s not nearly far enough, but it is certainly a place to start. And that’s what we need now: a starting place for all of us.
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. The Rev. Dr. Keith Dorwick is a deacon resident in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia.
