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Sunday July 22, 2008 "The Miracle at Mt. Carmel" 1 Kings 18:20-40 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 6/25/2008 9:43 AM | Last summer, traveling in Palestine and Israel with 18 pastors from around the United States, I was blessed to be able to visit many, many places of importance to our faith. All around Galilee, we were able to walk where Jesus walked, see with our own eyes the sites of some of Jesus greatest preaching, teaching and healing. In Bethlehem, we visited the church of the Nativity, the place of Jesus’ birth; in Jerusalem we visited the church of the holy sepluchre, site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. We walked the Via de lo rosa, the way of the cross that Jesus walked toward his death. We sat on the beach where the resurrected Jesus made breakfast for his disciples and urged Peter to “feed my sheep.”
And we saw the places where miracles took place: the place where Mary was visited by the Angel Gabriel, where Jesus cured the Gerosene demoniac, where the paralytic man was cured by the pools of Bethsaida, where blind Bartemaias was given his sight.
So many places written about in our Bible! So many places of our faith brought to life! It was like stepping back in time and being part of the miracles, and the ministry of Jesus.
At the same time, we found ourselves in a modern country, torn by decades of strife. We submitted to checkpoints as we moved between Iraeli occupied territory and the Palestinian settlements on the west bank and in the Golan heights. We witnessed the hardships endured by Palestinians just to get to work or school. We saw the division that is accentuated by a 40 foot wall attempting to keep Palestinians and Jewish settlers separated. Apparently, the Israeli government has bought into the premise good fences make good neighbors. But clearly, it hasn’t worked.
We found ourselves in the midst of a nation at war with itself. They all have good arguments. They all make sense. “It’s our land,” say the Israeli’s “the British gave it to us.” “But,” counter the Palestinians, “the British took it from us.” “They were only returning what was given us by God through the prophet Moses,” the Israeli’s retort. “The land of Canaan was ours before Moses’ people ran us off it,” answer the Palestinians.
It’s about history too complicated to comprehend. And unfortunately, it’s about religion. Or at least it is all wrapped up in religion. The Jews and the Muslims both count Abraham as their father, but somehow, somewhere, things have gone terribly awry and now this beautiful land, this land that is holy and sacred to so many, is rife with violence and hatred and division.
Everywhere we traveled, when we got to a place that was mentioned in our scriptures, we would take out our Bibles and read the passages that related to the place where we stood. We didn’t get into any big discussions or seek to unpack the theological meaning of the passage. We just stood in these sacred places and let the words of scripture wash over us and carry us back to a time thousands of years ago. There were times when each of us was moved to tears at the power of such an event. No matter where we were, no matter if the site was ringed with a military presence, no matter if we shared the site with a school group and their automatic weapon toting chaperones, we knew we were in sacred space.
Traveling between Tiberius and Jerusalem, we stopped at a beautiful little monastery at the top of Mt. Carmel. There was no one else there that day, except the solitary monk who lived there. He seemed as old as the stones that paved an inviting courtyard garden, but his eyes were bright and in perfect English, he delighted in telling about his Carmelite order. Then he took us up on the roof of the monstery which yielded the most wonderful vista that allowed us to see for mile and miles in every direction. The sky was clear, the view was stunning and I was probably not the only one in our group to think, “You know, being separated from civilization, alone up here surrounded by all this beauty and tranquility, just might not be too bad.”
We went back down to the courtyard garden where every manner of flower and plant served to invite the traveler to just stop and rest. And then, something I had not seen before: a very, very large statue of the prophet Elijah, a scowl on his face, his finger pointing at some unseen enemy. Somehow, it didn’t fit. But of course, this was where it happened, the story we heard read this morning. The confrontation between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal. The miracle at Mt. Carmel.
We pulled out our Bibles and one of us began to read the passage out loud.
We read of the prophet Elijah, the most influential of all the Hebrew prophets. We read of his complete and total opposition to the tolerance of the worship of foreign idols. We read of his outrage when King Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of the king of Tyre. While it was certainly a marriage of political convenience, Jezebel brought with her the practice of worshipping the pagan God Baal, and Ahab, seeing no harm in accommodating his wife’s religion, established a center of Baal worship in Samaria.
We read of Elijah’s refusal to compromise on the issue of idol worship and prophesied to King Ahab that a drought would soon alight upon the northern kingdom of Israel as punishment for this apostasy, this betrayal of the one true God.
We read of how three years passed and Elijah was led by God to go to Ahab and tell him that God would provide rain, but first, he called on some 850 prophets and priests of Baal to a duel of sorts. And this spot where we stood, this idyllic oasis in the high country of the desert, was where it happened.
Elijah set the tone. Each of the two camps would pick a bull to be sacrificed to their God. They would kill it and quarter it and place it upon the altar. They would stack the logs and straw that would burn the bull in sacrifice to their God. But they would not start the fire. No, Elijah said, do whatever it is that you to prepare for your sacrificial fire, and then call on your God to start the fire.
Fair man that he was, he even let the prophets of Baal go first.
They picked their bull.
They killed the bull and quartered the bull.
They placed the wood and straw in the fire pit under the altar.
They placed the bull on the fire place and went into a series of gyrations and began wailing and dancing and bouncing around in an ecstatic frenzy.
But nothing happened.
Their frenzied activity became even more frenetic as they lurched and chanted and spun dizzily out of control.
And nothing happened.
Elijah, started to taunt them as the hours rolled by. “Where is your God now?” he laughed. “Maybe he went for a walk? Maybe he’s just not answering the door!” One scholar says that in the original Hebrew, one of the taunts could be loosely translated as “Oh, maybe he had to go to the restroom.”
The prophets of Baal began to cut themselves in self-flaggelation, something that is reported in other historical writings of the period. With blood covering their bodies, they give up.
Elijah selected his bull, killed and quartered it.
Elijah placed the wood and straw in the fire pit of the altar.
He built an altar with 12 stones, memorializing the 12 tribes of Israel.
He placed the bull on the altar.
He dug a trench around the altar and he instructed his followers to get 4 vessels filled with water, and pour them each on the altar 3 times until the wood was soaked and the trench was full, once again invoking the 12 tribes of Israel and ensuring that no one could accuse him of any trickery.
Then came time for the blessing prayer: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned your hearts back.
Then, the fire of the Lord fell…”
In the instant that one of my fellow pilgrims read this line, as we stood in this peaceful garden at the top of Mt. Carmel, we were shaken to our core as 3 Israeli jet fighters roared over our heads, seemingly out of nowhere, seemingly just above the tree tops, and leaving us flustered, disconcerted and uneasy. Fire from the sky, indeed.
In that split second, the whole of my Palestinian experience was summed up: the peace of the holy and sacred shattered by the spectre of war.
How very appropriate.
To me, this story of the miracle of the burnt offering captures the very essence of the tension between the holy and the profane.
The lesson we take from this story is an important one. Jesus talked about the same sort of thing: idol worship in any form is impossible for a follower of the one true God. We cannot hedge our bets, we cannot be caught up in the comfort that comes from promises those false gods represent. It is a good lesson to learn, and the people who witnessed the miracle at Mt. Carmel that day surely learned it, once and for all. And that was Elijah’s intention.
The Israelites who were being tempted by the influx of pagan religions had ample proof on that day that those gods were a sham, and the one true God was to be honored and revered.
But that is not the end of the lesson.
Immediately upon the fire reigning down from the sky, Elijah spoke: “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” Then they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there.
What lesson are we to take from this? 850 people who did not follow God; who were pagan prophets. They were not simply chastised. They were not given the same opportunity as the Israelites to fall on their faces and accept God. They were taken to a swampy area, and they were killed. Executed. Because they did not believe in God. I honestly do not know what to do with that information.
But I also know that in this story is the beginning of an explanation of why people continue to war with each other after thousands of years. In this story is encapsulated what one experiences in Palestine today: the wonder of a land witness to so many markers of our faith; and the horror of war and death carried out in the name of God.
This is not what Jesus taught. It may seem logical to kill your enemies and it may go a long way to keeping those enemies in check, but it is most definitely not what Jesus taught.
Where is the grace that allows for all to come before God? Where is the admonition that judgement belongs to the Lord, and no one else? Where is the compassion that led Jesus to heal the Roman centurions daughter? Where is the “turn the other cheek” mentality? Where is the love for neighbor?
I am in awe of the power of God to send such a powerful message to those who were wavering in their faith, but it simply leaves me dumbfounded that this prophet Elijah, this agent of God, then slaughtered 850 people.
And I want to do something about it.
But what are we to do? We are each but one person, and the world today seems more likely to follow the example of the avenging Elijah than of the forgiving Jesus. What can we do?
There is one thing we can do: follow Jesus.
We may each only be one person, but if each of us were to search our hearts and decide that Jesus’ example of forgiveness and grace and openness is the right example to follow, we will be surprised at how many lives we can touch, how many lives we can change. We do it with every interaction we have, and we do it by speaking up, even when to do so is unpopular.
Remember, Elijah spoke God’s truth to power, and was in danger because of it. I may not understand his decision to kill his enemies, but I certainly respect his decision to stand up to King Ahab. He reminded the king who was really in charge, and had a lasting impact because of it.
In a world at war, it is up to Christians to remind the combatants, the decision makers, the people who retaliate, the people who are at risk of slaughter, that there is a better way. Jesus Christ came to live among us, to minister to us, to die for us, to be resurrected for us. But it wasn’t simply so that we could get into heaven. It was so that we could change the world so that everyone could feast at the heavenly banquet.
As N.T. Wright has written, “We’re called, here and now, to be instruments of God’s new creation, the world-put-to-rights, which has already been launched in Jesus and of which Jesus’ followers are supposed to be not simply beneficiaries but also agents.”
The miracle at Mt. Carmel may indeed cause us to fall on our face and ask for God’s mercy. But the lasting impact of that miracle should be for us to stand up and be those agents of God’s new creation. Surely, it was a different time in Elijah’s day, but as 21st century Christians, we must understand that God’s new creation requires us to love those 850 prophets of Baal. God’s new creation requires us to put our arms around their shoulders and say, “Let me help you understand God’s truth.” God’s new creation requires us to be agents of God’s grace. Anywhere. Anytime. Anyhow.
God’s new creation has a name: it’s name is love. It’s name is grace. It’s name is Jesus Christ.
Let us pray: Gracious God, help us to truly be your hands and your feet as we walk among your people. Help us present a witness so strong as to rival fire from the sky. Strengthen us to face those who lash out in anger, against anyone, for whatever reason. Calm us as we seek to be Christ like in all our dealings. We know that you are God, and firmly in your care, we need be afraid of nothing. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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