6/23/13
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Years ago, I was acting in a play in New York, a play, and a part, that I’d wanted to do for a long time. But as rehearsal progressed, I got more and more frustrated, because I couldn’t seem to get a firm grip on the part, I couldn’t find any kind of integrated approach, I got increasingly confused and unsure about what I was doing. And the director turned out to be no help. So finally I called another director I knew, and invited him to lunch, and he listened to me pour out my tale of woe, and finally he stopped me and said, Jack, in this kind of situation, finally, what you have to do is ask yourself, What am I doing in this part? Not Marlon Brando, not Laurence Olivier, not Pee Wee Herman – me. What am I doing in this part? What am I doing here?
Now, as a person of faith, looking back on this, I understand that that question is, what is God asking me to do? God who has made me who I am, different than anybody else, with certain abilities, certain strengths and certain weaknesses: what am I doing? With the time and space God has given me, what am I doing here? It’s a question that cuts right through the underbrush. And – like the questions in the service of Holy Baptism that we’re about to hear today – it reminds us that what we say and do means something to God.
What makes the stories about Elijah so compelling is his humanness; and he is never more human than in the story we heard today.
The main story line about Elijah, that connects all the individual stories, is his struggle with Ahab, the king of Israel, and Ahab’s wife Jezebel, who have abandoned the God of Israel and worship the pagan god Baal. But it’s not just an adventure story, not just a recitation of miraculous events that we’re meant to cheer as if we were at a pep rally; it’s a description of one man’s progress in his relationship with God, and so it’s finally about who we are, and who God is.
In the story immediately before the one we heard today, in a dramatic and powerful demonstration of the power of the God of Israel, one of the great miracle stories of the Old Testament, Elijah defeats the priests of Baal, in what’s known as the contest on Mount Carmel. Jezebel, the queen who is evidently the real power in Israel, not her husband the king - sends word to Elijah that she – not Ahab, but she - is going to have him killed, and killed within a day. The evidence of her power is that she thereby gives up the element of surprise - she tells Elijah, this is what’s going to happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it – and he believes her, is terrified, and flees the country.
This is a man who has just demonstrated his unique ability to invoke the power of God, in defeating the priests of Baal, but he doesn’t do that here. Elijah doesn’t call on God to defend him against Jezebel. He just scrams. It doesn’t seem even to occur to him that this is something God should or would be involved in. Fear takes over, as it does for all of us at some point, and all of a sudden, God is gone, God is not part of his life here. Elijah is alone, so deeply, hopelessly alone that in the story, we are told, he leaves his servant behind – human company is meaningless - goes into the wilderness by himself, and sits under a broom tree, in utter despair. The fact that it’s a broom tree is actually a wonderful detail: the broom tree is a drab-looking thing, that lives, and thrives, in the desert, in the poorest of growing conditions: bad soil, little water.
And poor growing conditions are exactly what Elijah himself is in. This is what makes his story our story. Because Elijah is in such fear for his own life – because he’s so driven in on himself - God is effectively gone, God has left the building; Elijah doesn’t look for God to help him: he’s at the last extremity. From under the broom tree, he says, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” In other words, his calling, as a prophet, has left him; what’s made him who he is, the force that has driven his being, has vanished; his life is gone, already over. This happens, one way or another, to each of us: when we lose a life partner, to death or divorce; when we lose a job; when we fail at something we’ve always thought we were pretty good at: part of who we are just seems to disappear. Elijah’s relationship with God is all but empty; all that is left to ask or expect of God is that God will end his life, and thereby end his desolation.
But God hasn’t gone away, God has always been present; Elijah can’t see it because of the circumstances, and his human limitation; but God begins to draw him back, in stages. First an angel – a messenger from God – gives him food and water. We’re physical creatures, we live in bodies, and we need strength. That’s step one. That attended to, Elijah goes to Mt. Horeb, which is another name for Mt. Sinai: the place where Moses saw the burning bush, received the Ten Commandments: a place that Elijah knows is holy. That’s where Elijah’s faith directs him to go, not knowing what he’s going to find there.
And what he finds there begins with a question that God puts to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Sometimes, in the Bible, God asks a question. And of course it’s never a request for information: this is God we’re talking about; God already knows the answer. The question God asks is a question that God wants the person to ask himself. When God asks a question, God is asking that person to face the truth; and, in facing the truth, thereby to draw closer to God. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, and hide themselves, and God calls out, Where are you? God knows where they are; he wants them to say it. Cain murders Abel, and God asks Cain, Where is your brother? Job complains about the injustice of the tragedies that have befallen him, he blames God; and God says to Job, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? God is asking all of them to face the truth. (In a way that’s not exactly warm and fuzzy: this is the Old Testament.)
These are all rhetorical questions in the sense that God already knows the answer; but unlike most rhetorical questions, God doesn’t ask them so that God can then provide the answer. The opposite is the case. God puts the question that we need to answer, that we need to deal with. God creates the opportunity, and invites us to take it.
It should not be surprising to us Christians that Jesus does exactly the same thing. Jesus is always asking questions for this purpose. In today’s story, he asks the Gerasene man, What is your name? And the man answers, Legion (meaning, many.) This is the truth: there are many demons, many confused and confusing spirits, crashing around inside the man. Jesus knows this, and gives him the opportunity to speak the truth, to name what is going on within him, which is the first and most essential step on the road to healing. The most important question in the gospels – outside the resurrection, maybe the most important single incident in the gospels – is when Jesus asks the disciples, who do you say that I am? And when Peter answers, You are the Christ, the Holy One of God, Jesus doesn’t confirm or deny it, he leaves Peter’s answer where it is: because it’s how we answer that question, it’s the decision we make about who we are in relation to God and what we’re going to do about that, that’s important.
God’s question to Elijah on Mt. Horeb – what are you doing here, Elijah? – is, really, the same question. What do you really believe? And what are you doing about it? Who are you? Now. Today. Here.
The words we will say today in the Holy Eucharist, in the Great Thanksgiving, point to this: “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.” We are answering the question, what are we doing here?
What are you doing here? It’s not an accusation: it’s an invitation. It’s not an indictment: it’s an offer. It doesn’t tell you you’ve been caught: it tells you, you’re in the driver’s seat. This is the respect God gives us – impossible as it seems to believe that – because God loves us; and this is the power God gives us: because God is our God, from first to last, and will never abandon us. So when God asks, What are you doing here?, we can answer; and God calls us to walk through the door that is open in front of us. Thanks be to God.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Years ago, I was acting in a play in New York, a play, and a part, that I’d wanted to do for a long time. But as rehearsal progressed, I got more and more frustrated, because I couldn’t seem to get a firm grip on the part, I couldn’t find any kind of integrated approach, I got increasingly confused and unsure about what I was doing. And the director turned out to be no help. So finally I called another director I knew, and invited him to lunch, and he listened to me pour out my tale of woe, and finally he stopped me and said, Jack, in this kind of situation, finally, what you have to do is ask yourself, What am I doing in this part? Not Marlon Brando, not Laurence Olivier, not Pee Wee Herman – me. What am I doing in this part? What am I doing here?
Now, as a person of faith, looking back on this, I understand that that question is, what is God asking me to do? God who has made me who I am, different than anybody else, with certain abilities, certain strengths and certain weaknesses: what am I doing? With the time and space God has given me, what am I doing here? It’s a question that cuts right through the underbrush. And – like the questions in the service of Holy Baptism that we’re about to hear today – it reminds us that what we say and do means something to God.
What makes the stories about Elijah so compelling is his humanness; and he is never more human than in the story we heard today.
The main story line about Elijah, that connects all the individual stories, is his struggle with Ahab, the king of Israel, and Ahab’s wife Jezebel, who have abandoned the God of Israel and worship the pagan god Baal. But it’s not just an adventure story, not just a recitation of miraculous events that we’re meant to cheer as if we were at a pep rally; it’s a description of one man’s progress in his relationship with God, and so it’s finally about who we are, and who God is.
In the story immediately before the one we heard today, in a dramatic and powerful demonstration of the power of the God of Israel, one of the great miracle stories of the Old Testament, Elijah defeats the priests of Baal, in what’s known as the contest on Mount Carmel. Jezebel, the queen who is evidently the real power in Israel, not her husband the king - sends word to Elijah that she – not Ahab, but she - is going to have him killed, and killed within a day. The evidence of her power is that she thereby gives up the element of surprise - she tells Elijah, this is what’s going to happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it – and he believes her, is terrified, and flees the country.
This is a man who has just demonstrated his unique ability to invoke the power of God, in defeating the priests of Baal, but he doesn’t do that here. Elijah doesn’t call on God to defend him against Jezebel. He just scrams. It doesn’t seem even to occur to him that this is something God should or would be involved in. Fear takes over, as it does for all of us at some point, and all of a sudden, God is gone, God is not part of his life here. Elijah is alone, so deeply, hopelessly alone that in the story, we are told, he leaves his servant behind – human company is meaningless - goes into the wilderness by himself, and sits under a broom tree, in utter despair. The fact that it’s a broom tree is actually a wonderful detail: the broom tree is a drab-looking thing, that lives, and thrives, in the desert, in the poorest of growing conditions: bad soil, little water.
And poor growing conditions are exactly what Elijah himself is in. This is what makes his story our story. Because Elijah is in such fear for his own life – because he’s so driven in on himself - God is effectively gone, God has left the building; Elijah doesn’t look for God to help him: he’s at the last extremity. From under the broom tree, he says, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” In other words, his calling, as a prophet, has left him; what’s made him who he is, the force that has driven his being, has vanished; his life is gone, already over. This happens, one way or another, to each of us: when we lose a life partner, to death or divorce; when we lose a job; when we fail at something we’ve always thought we were pretty good at: part of who we are just seems to disappear. Elijah’s relationship with God is all but empty; all that is left to ask or expect of God is that God will end his life, and thereby end his desolation.
But God hasn’t gone away, God has always been present; Elijah can’t see it because of the circumstances, and his human limitation; but God begins to draw him back, in stages. First an angel – a messenger from God – gives him food and water. We’re physical creatures, we live in bodies, and we need strength. That’s step one. That attended to, Elijah goes to Mt. Horeb, which is another name for Mt. Sinai: the place where Moses saw the burning bush, received the Ten Commandments: a place that Elijah knows is holy. That’s where Elijah’s faith directs him to go, not knowing what he’s going to find there.
And what he finds there begins with a question that God puts to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Sometimes, in the Bible, God asks a question. And of course it’s never a request for information: this is God we’re talking about; God already knows the answer. The question God asks is a question that God wants the person to ask himself. When God asks a question, God is asking that person to face the truth; and, in facing the truth, thereby to draw closer to God. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, and hide themselves, and God calls out, Where are you? God knows where they are; he wants them to say it. Cain murders Abel, and God asks Cain, Where is your brother? Job complains about the injustice of the tragedies that have befallen him, he blames God; and God says to Job, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? God is asking all of them to face the truth. (In a way that’s not exactly warm and fuzzy: this is the Old Testament.)
These are all rhetorical questions in the sense that God already knows the answer; but unlike most rhetorical questions, God doesn’t ask them so that God can then provide the answer. The opposite is the case. God puts the question that we need to answer, that we need to deal with. God creates the opportunity, and invites us to take it.
It should not be surprising to us Christians that Jesus does exactly the same thing. Jesus is always asking questions for this purpose. In today’s story, he asks the Gerasene man, What is your name? And the man answers, Legion (meaning, many.) This is the truth: there are many demons, many confused and confusing spirits, crashing around inside the man. Jesus knows this, and gives him the opportunity to speak the truth, to name what is going on within him, which is the first and most essential step on the road to healing. The most important question in the gospels – outside the resurrection, maybe the most important single incident in the gospels – is when Jesus asks the disciples, who do you say that I am? And when Peter answers, You are the Christ, the Holy One of God, Jesus doesn’t confirm or deny it, he leaves Peter’s answer where it is: because it’s how we answer that question, it’s the decision we make about who we are in relation to God and what we’re going to do about that, that’s important.
God’s question to Elijah on Mt. Horeb – what are you doing here, Elijah? – is, really, the same question. What do you really believe? And what are you doing about it? Who are you? Now. Today. Here.
The words we will say today in the Holy Eucharist, in the Great Thanksgiving, point to this: “Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.” We are answering the question, what are we doing here?
What are you doing here? It’s not an accusation: it’s an invitation. It’s not an indictment: it’s an offer. It doesn’t tell you you’ve been caught: it tells you, you’re in the driver’s seat. This is the respect God gives us – impossible as it seems to believe that – because God loves us; and this is the power God gives us: because God is our God, from first to last, and will never abandon us. So when God asks, What are you doing here?, we can answer; and God calls us to walk through the door that is open in front of us. Thanks be to God.
