I will begin again with a little summary of where we up to in out series on Kings for our visitors and those who have missed some.
We began with David’s son Solomon, whose wisdom given by God, was described as surpassing the wisdom of all the people. Despite this gift Solomon went after other gods. And despite Deuteronomy’s explicit instructions to future kings not to acquire great quantities of horses, wives, silver and gold, Solomon amassed these things to himself.
We then reflected on the story of the kings who succeeded Solomon who continued to accumulate great wealth, enslave their people and seek after other gods.
The Kingdom splits into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
At first the people are fighting for freedom from the king and the excessive burden he has placed on them. They elect a new leader to be their new king but soon he too turns away from God and is corrupted.
The split is followed by ongoing instability, insurrections and conspiracies. With few exceptions the kings of both Kingdoms do evil in the sight of the Lord.
Into this mess comes the prophet Elijah to pronounce the beginning of an indefinite drought because of the evils of king Ahab and his wife Jezebel who worship the god Baal.
The King does not like this of and Elijah has to run away and hide in the desert so that he won’t be killed. But the drought continues and so Elijah is sent to Zarephath in Sidon, the home country of Queen Jezebel herself, to be fed by a widow. Despite her extreme poverty, she helps him and so she and the prophet survive.
In the third year of the drought the word of the Lord comes to Elijah and tells him to return to King Ahab to tell him that the drought is to be broken.
Elijah does this. And then he decides to set up a contest between himself and the prophets of Baal. Two bulls are laid on wood but no fire is lit. Rather they are to call on their gods and the one who answers with fire is indeed God.
The prophets of Baal call on Baal and Elijah calls on the Lord. And it is the Lord who answers with fire and the people return to God.
Elijah then kills the prophets of Baal and the drought ends.
Ahab goes home and he tells his wife Jezebel what Elijah has done and she promises to take revenge on Elijah for the killing of her prophets by also killing him.
It can be hard for us to hold these conflicting narratives. A wise king appointed by God who is also greedy and abuses his power. A freedom fighter who on obtaining power fears losing it and so he makes gods for the people so they do not turn away from him. A prophet, who speaks the truth of God to power, who exposes the deceit of the idols who have no voice, who also kills 450 people.
We want people and movements to pure. To be good or bad, right or wrong but this story offers much more complex people and narratives. People who yearn at times for the best of things but also lust at other times for the worst. People who love and follow God and then don’t. Who please God and then don’t. People like us I suppose who still struggle to hold our faith against the promises of the false gods of wealth and security and prestige.
As this country and this church wrestles with its own complex history sitting with this paradox matters. As culture wars and holy wars become ever more fervent and violent and we are pushed to take a side on everything holding tension with humility and care matters.
And so Elijah again flees into the wilderness. Despite his victory he is despondent and somewhat ironically, since he has fled to save his life, he asks God to end it. God does not.
Elijah makes his way to Mt Horeb and there he again encounters God. But in contrast to the God who answers with fire so dramatically on Mt Carmel, this time God comes not in the wind that splits the mountains, not in the earthquake, nor in the fire but in the sheer silence, sometimes translated as the still, small voice.
Again we are confronted with a difficult tension. Those who want to attribute every fire, earthquake or storm as the work of God cannot. But those of us who only want a tame God who only appears as silence, who never intervenes in nature have to confront the fact this is not the God we encounter in the Bible.
God then tells Elijah to anoint Elisha as a prophet in his place which he does. King Ahab fights a war with the Arameans which he wins.
And then word of the Lord again tells Elijah to go and confront the king. Ahab, despite having everything he could possibly need, desired more. He wanted the vineyard of his neighbour Naboth. He initially tried to buy the vineyard but Naboth refused saying, “the Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.”
Naboth was shaped by a different notion of land value to most of us. He, was shaped by the tradition of Moses and God’s law given at Sinai that said, “You must not move your neighbour’s boundary marker, set up by former generations, on the property that will be allotted to you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.” Naboth understands land to be a gift from the Creator, its use contingent upon an intergenerational enduring covenant relationship. This view of the land and way of relating to it, is strikingly similar to that of First Nations people here in Australia and across the world who speak not of owning land but of the land owning them.
Jezebel though convinces her husband that he should not accept no for an answer and she plots to have Naboth killed. Using the effective strategy of divide and conquer, she recruits local leaders, who likely feared for their own safety, to stone Naboth to death.
However, Naboth’s resistance will not be silenced. Elijah, appears (as prophets do) to challenge Ahab’s sin. On behalf of God Elijah asks, “Have you killed, and also taken possession?”
He then tells Ahab because of this evil, disaster will be brought upon him and his descendants.
Ahab is contrite and thus avoids the disaster that was pronounced against him but it is not enough to save his sons. It is also not enough to save Jezebel. She is thrown out of a window by her own attendants and her sons bleed to death on the very ground of Naboth’s village. The violence of colonisation’s murder and dispossession ultimately consumes its perpetrators: divine judgement as historical consequences perhaps.
It is I think, a stunningly contemporary story. It is as Ellen Davis says, “an emblematic tale of two economic systems or cultures in conflict, each with different principles of land tenure.” And this clash of covenantal and commercial is everywhere evident among us today, its consequences seen in the housing crisis, climate change, social media, I could go on.
But let us move to today’s story.
The time has now come for Elijah to be taken up to heaven by a whirlwind. It seems Elijah’s death is to be as wild and remarkable as his life.
Ahab and Jezbel have both died as well as their son Ahaziah who succeeded them.
Elijah is with Elisha, the one whom he anointed as prophet to take his place. We have not heard anything about Elisha since then but we can assume that he has been with Elijah due to the bond between them.
Three times Elijah tries to leave Elisha behind but Elisha will not let him, each time declaring, “as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”
These words and his faithfulness recall the faithfulness of Ruth and her promise to never leave her mother-in-law.
This story also recalls the stories of others who went before. As Elijah and Elisha make their way through Gilgal, the place where the Israelites camped after crossing the Jordan. Bethel, the site of the house of God where Jacob dreams of the ladder to heaven and Jericho, where the Israelites were victorious over the Canaanites.
These stories, are the traditions on which they stand. Again they are complex stories filled with paradox. As we as a church continue to grow and move into the new thing that God is doing in this place, we too do so holding onto a tradition. It is not perfect, but it is none the less older, deeper and wiser than we often are.
And as they go, Elijah and Elisha gather more prophets. These prophets tell Elisha that his mentor will die but Elisha, perhaps too aggrieved to face the reality of it, tells them not speak of it.
They arrive at the Jordan, the sacred river where the Israelites pass into the Promised Land. There Elijah asks Elisha, “what might I do for you, before I am taken from you?
Elisha responds, “please let me have a double portion of your spirit.” It is a beautiful request. Elijah tells Elisha for this to be granted to him he must see him taken. It seems Elijah knows that the time has come for Elisha to face this reality.
And so Elisha watches as Elijah is taken up on a chariot of fire and horses.
It is a glorious moment and yet it is tinged with grief. It does spare Elisha the pain of death and having to face life without someone he cannot live without. No matter how it happens, no matter how strong our faith is, death hurts.
But somehow, in his grief Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle and goes back across the river. He still has no idea whether Elijah’s “double portion” will rest on him, or not, none the less he chooses to stand up, shoulder his grief, take up his teacher’s mantle, and cross the threshold into a new and unfamiliar life. This choice is neither easy nor inevitable. But the decision Elisha makes bears witness to faith, battered faith, trembling faith, faith that is no longer the same but none the less yields abundant life. Death hurts but it does stop the spirit of God.
Elisha’s life, like Elijah’s continues to witness to another reality, “to assert that YHWH, the giver of life has other agents and other avenues outside power to give the gift of life.”
Last week I found myself speaking yet again speaking with someone about failed referendums, curfews, certain presidential elections, the influence of proud online misogynists like Andrew Tate, you know all the good things. And she asked what it is that keeps me going? I found myself referring to this series on Kings. As we have read and reflected on these stories, I am reminded that while it may often feel that the King Ahabs of the world are winning the word and the witness of God will not be silenced. It continues to rise up from the ground, in a myriad of ways, many of which we have reflected on this past, speaking truth to power, grace to sin and hope to despair.
And so I will finish with the words of pslam 37, again. Hold onto them this week and beyond when you are tempted to despair,
“Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for they will fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
Trust in God, do good and dwell safely in the land.
Take delight in the in the Lord and he will grant you the desires of you heart.
Be still before the Lord and wait, patiently for him.”
