Sermon for June 6, 2013
by
Pastor Peggy Ray
1 Kings is part of the “Deuteronomistic History,” a prophetic interpretation of almost 400 years of Israel’s history, from the death of King David to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Each king is judged on how well he promotes the exclusive worship of the Lord. Ba’al is a term that can refer to a number of gods: gods who were patrons of cities, a god of the rain, and even Ba’al Zebub, the “lord of the flies” who will be identified as the “prince of demons” in the New Testament.
After the death of Solomon, the kingdom David had assembled breaks in two: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Ahab is the second king to reign over Israel. He marries Jezebel, daughter of the king of the Sidonians, and worships her God, Baal. At the beginning of the story, Elijah tells Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” Can you imagine what courage it took to go before the king (who had chosen to worship his wife’s God) and threaten him? The king, who had the power of life and death?
Then Elijah follows God’s instructions and hides for three years. Imagine trusting that you hear God’s word, can follow it in total obedience, and can trust God to keep you safe. In the 3rd year of the drought, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, “Go present yourself to Ahab, I will send rain on the earth.” So, Elijah tells Ahab to have all Israel assemble at Mount Carmel with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah (Baal’s female consort). Eight hundred fifty to one! It took enormous courage to go up against those odds.
Our Old Testament reading started with that assembly. Elijah’s proposal would have made sense to all those gathered. Both the followers of Yahweh and the followers of Baal believed that the appropriate worship ritual was to burn food offerings to send up a pleasing aroma to their God. So, starting early in the morning on Mt. Carmel, the prophets of Baal pulled out all the stops to get their god to set fire to the sacrificial offering. They danced around the altar till their feet were sore. They made themselves hoarse shouting instructions and encouragement at the sky. They jabbed at themselves with knives thinking that the sight of blood would start things moving if anything would, but
by mid-afternoon, there was still no sign of fire from above.
Then it was Elijah's turn to show what the Lord, the God of Israel could do. He was like a magician getting ready to pull a rabbit out of a hat. First he had a trench dug around the altar and filled with water. Then he got a bucket brigade going to pour water over the offering. Then, he got them to do it again, and then a third time. Then Elijah called on the Lord. Lightning flashed. The water in the trench fizzed like spit on a hot stove. Nothing was left of the offering but a pile of ashes and a smell like the Fourth of July. The Israelites see this and they are converted, falling on their faces and proclaiming, “The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God.” And then the Israelites slaughtered all of the prophets of Baal.
The Lord and his prophet, Elijah, were triumphant. The losers were annihilated and Ahab and Jezebel were discredited. It’s an exciting story, isn’t it. A story of great faith, total obedience, complete trust.
Don’t we love it! Don’t we love exciting stories that end with a clear winner and a clear loser. Don’t we love for our God to triumph over other Gods. The Lord indeed is God! And the Lord is a powerful God. But, what would Jesus say about the way the Ba’al prophets were treated?
In the story of the centurion and his slave from the Gospel of Luke, we have another set of gods at play. As a member of the Roman army, the centurion would have worshiped Jupiter, Apollo and Diana – among many others. The gospel writer tells us next to nothing about the centurion, not even his name. We have no reason to believe that the centurion converted to Judaism, or afterward followed Jesus. We are told simply that he loves God’s people.
Jesus and the centurion never encounter one another face-to-face. First, some elders come to Jesus, and later the centurion sends some friends to carry his message--Tell Jesus, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.” For Jesus, this is enough to grant his request. The servant is healed. Jesus was always ready to meet the needs of each person he encountered.
If we fail to ask how Jesus might have behaved had he been present at Mt. Carmel, we can easily use the Bible to justify violence and fail to remember that we are called to worship the Prince of Peace. As Bruce McLaren points out,
“Jesus didn’t kill anybody—something that can’t be said about Abraham, Moses, David, Paul or Mohammed (no disrespect intended to any of them). He didn’t hit anybody. He didn’t hate anybody. He practiced as he preached: Reconciliation, not retaliation. Kindness, not cruelty. A willingness to be violated, not violation.”1
We humans prefer to believe that Jesus was crucified because a violent God required the punishment of Jesus in our place. What a slick way to escape responsibility for the reality that humans don’t like prophets who ask them to give up their conviction that they know what is right, that they can speak for God, even when God, in the form of Jesus, is telling them that’s not my nature. I am a God of grace for all.
The Lord indeed is a powerful God! A God who, as we said last week, has been looking for partners since the beginning, people who will take seriously their God-given responsibility to care for the earth and each other in loving and sustainable ways. But what is the nature of God?
The Bible is a collection of books representing the faithful testimony of persons who have experienced God over the centuries. There is enormous variety in the picture of God in the books in this library. There are many verses that present God as kind, reconciling, and compassionate, and against favoritism and violence. But there are also other images of God found in the Bible—violent images, cruel images, un-Christlike images, stories like today’s Old Testament story that appeal to our all-to-human desire to be the top dog, number one, the most powerful nation in the world, the followers of the One True God.
The variety need not just leave us feeling confused. If we look closely, we can see how our ancestors’ images and understandings of God continually changed, evolved, and matured over the centuries. We also can see God initiating this evolution. For example,
“in Hosea, the Lord says that a time is coming when Israel will no longer refer to its creator as “master,” but instead as “husband” (2:16). The more dominating understanding of God will fade and give way to a more intimate one.”2
And when we didn’t listen to the prophets, God will come to earth himself.
As John Wesley taught, we should always read Scripture through the lens of Jesus, discarding any teachings in disagreement with the teachings and practice of Jesus. If Jesus truly was the highest and fullest revelation of God, if Jesus was truly the Word, then his life and teaching reflect the true nature of God. Choose to follow Jesus Christ.
1McLaren, Bruce, Is God Violent? Sojourners, January 2011, 16-20
2McLaren, Bruce, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten questions that are transforming the faith. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010, p.99
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