1 Kings 19.4-8                                                                                                                                                       Carol A. Solovitz

Psalm 34.1-8                                                                                                                                                          Pentecost 10B

Ephesians 4.25-5.2                                                                                                                                               August 13, 2006

John 6.35, 41-51

Ready to Give Up

There are few people alive who can say with complete honesty that they have never felt like giving up on something.  In Matthew 5, Jesus says that God “makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”  We need both the sun and the rain, but there can be too much of either.  No one likes living in a drought, and in the same way, we cannot abide day after day after day of rain.  When we experience day after day after day of pain and disappointments and struggles, we begin to wonder if the sun will shine in our lives ever again.  I remember a 15-month period in the early 1990s when I was hit by a new tragedy at least once a month – deaths, divorces, terminal diagnoses, tragic accidents, and sudden job losses among my friends and family.  Not only did I begin to question God’s presence and goodness, but I was beginning to feel that I myself was bad luck!  At times I was tempted to give up; I thank God there were family and friends who were willing to listen and pray with me until eventually I could laugh again.

There are two extraordinary periods in the Hebrew Scriptures which are marked by accounts of multiple turmoils and multiple miracles experienced by God’s chosen people. One period is the time of Moses and the Exodus.  The other is the period of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.  Today’s reading from I Kings 19 is part of the story of the prophet Elijah.  He is a day’s journey into the wilderness of northern Israel.  He is running away, and he is ready to give up. He finds one solitary tree – a broom tree, plops down and sighs to God, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”  What could drive a person to such despair?  Is it possible that a prophet of God could feel so terrible?

The story of Elijah is full of powerful images, miracles, idolatry and danger. We are told in 1 Kings 16 that Ahab came to be king of Israel in Samaria and reigned for twenty-two years.  The next verse adds that Ahab “did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him.”  You see, King Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of the King of Sidon.  When she came to live with King Ahab, she brought her idolatry with her.  She worshiped and served the idol Baal, and she got her husband to build an altar to Baal.  King Ahab also began to worship with Jezebel, and soon there were many priests of Baal in Israel.

God called Elijah the Tishbite to go to Ahab and tell him that the LORD was going to withhold dew and rain until the idolatry stopped.  Then Elijah went into hiding.  God sent ravens to Elijah with bread and meat, and kept a stream – the Wadi Cherith –running with fresh water while the rest of the country dried up.  God sent Elijah to the home of a poor widow, and God kept filling her jar of meal and jug of oil so that she, her son and the prophet could eat.  Her son died of illness, and Elijah brought him back to life.  All the while, Jezebel and Ahab continued to lead the nation in worshiping Baal and snubbing the LORD.  Jezebel was killing off all the prophets of the LORD until only 100 were left.  Finally God called upon Elijah and sent him again to the king.  Elijah announced that there would be a contest between God and the false god Baal.  Elijah challenged the 450 priests of Baal to call upon their god to light a fire for the sacrifice of a bull.  The trick?  They could not help Baal by putting fire to the wood; it had to come in a miraculous way.  Of course, the priests of the idol failed, no matter how long and loudly they prayed.  Elijah mocked them saying, “Either [Baal] is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”  Finally, the idolatrous priests gave up; they destroyed the altar and cut themselves.   Then Elijah repaired the altar, made a trench around it, placed the wood upon it, and then a bull on top.  He instructed the people to fill 4 jars with water and pour it on the bull and the wood.  They did this two more times until the wood was soaked and the trench filled.  Finally, he called upon God for a show of divinity, and God sent down fire from heaven that lit the altar, consumed the bull and the wood and licked up all the water.  The people fell down and cried out, “The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God.” And the prophets of Baal were killed.  Soon after, rain began to fall upon the drought-stricken land.

But the story does not end there.  When Ahab told his wife what Elijah had done, she was furious and threatened to kill the prophet.  He knew Jezebel meant it, and Elijah fled to the wilderness a day’s journey past Beer-sheba, and that is where we meet him in today’s reading.  After doing everything the LORD asked of him, Elijah was at the top of Jezebel’s “Most Wanted” list.  He was in despair.  He had accomplished his task, but in the end, he was no more successful than any other prophet.  The best thing that God could do for him was to let him die of natural causes in the wilderness; at least he would die with his dignity intact.

However, God had other ideas for Elijah.  As he lay under the broom tree, Elijah fell asleep.  An angel touched him and said, “Dinner’s ready. Get up and eat.” There at the prophet’s head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.  He might be ready to give up, but God was not ready to give up on Elijah.  So he ate and drank and fell asleep again.  The angel touched him, woke him, and fed him again, saying, “You need strength for the journey ahead.”  Elijah ate and drank again and on the strength of that meal went 40 days and 40 nights until he reached the holy mountain of God, where the LORD came to him not in the whirlwind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in “a sound of sheer silence.”  The LORD’s great power was best demonstrated in – of all things – silence.

I love that story!  Maybe it is because I, too, have known despair and wondered if the LORD really would equip me and stand by me.  I have cried out to God in my anguish, and I have prayed with “sighs too deep for words” when no real words came from my heart.  I have asked, “Where are you hiding, LORD?  Why did you send me into this messy situation and abandon me?” I understand the “Footprints” poem, where the person is angry to see only one set of footprints in the sand during the toughest times of life.  It is always good news when I get to the part where Jesus says, “Where you see only one set of footprints, that is where I was carrying you.” 

That is the gospel we should take with us today.  In the hardest times, it is essential to open your eyes and see the presence of the LORD.  Perhaps God is carrying you.  Perhaps God is holding you as you cry your heart out.  Perhaps God will send an angel to bake you bread and bring you fresh, cool water in the desert.  God may even meet you in the midst of all your enemies and set up a picnic lunch, as the 23^rd Psalm promises.  Are you ready to give up?  Does it seem that your hunger and thirst never will be satisfied?  Remember Elijah, who was ready to give up, but God had other plans for him.  He actually lived to a ripe old age and did not even die; the last that was seen of him was when his new appointee, Elisha, saw him carried off to the skies in a chariot of fire.  Remember, too, the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel:  “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  Physical and spiritual hungers will be satisfied, and we will never again be left alone.  The living bread from heaven is what gives life, saves life, and provides the hope and promise of eternal life.  “O taste and see that the LORD is good!”  Do not give up, for ours is the God of life.  Jezebel and her priests of Baal cannot compare to the LORD.  Jezebel lost; Baal lost.  The LORD - the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Israel and Rachel – is the victor.  The LORD lives and reigns forever and ever!

 Let us celebrate with prayer and singing:

O God of bread and water and Life itself, take our tears, our fears, our concerns, our anguish, and feed them with your Spirit.  Give us the Bread of Life and the Living Water that we know as Jesus, your Son, our Lord.  In his name we pray, Amen.

We stand to sing the hymn of the day, “I Am the Bread of Life”.