Second Sunday After Pentecost

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST,

June 19, 2022

“It’s Not Over, ’Til It’s Over” (I Kings 19:1-18)

As soon as I was big enough to get up on a chair to reach the greenhouse bench, I started helping my Dad. He would fill the flats with soil and create the rows. I would carefully plant the little tomato seeds. Sometimes, he would even entrust me with the responsibility of counting out a set number of seeds per row, when part of his experiment was determining how well a certain variety germinated. As I grew, I acquired new jobs. One of his favourites involved handing me his jack knife and a ball of string – this was in the days before twist ties – so that I could stake and tie up his bigger plants. I took great pride in my work. When I finally finished, there would be no dead leaves in sight, and every fruit bearing branch would be fully supported. It was at this point, that Dad would inevitably start to pitch out pots of tomatoes. He had learned all he could from these particular plants. Time to move on to further his quest to map the chromosomes of the tomato. Younger plants would be brought into the greenhouse – plants that all too soon needed staking. It felt like a never-ending job that got me precisely nowhere. Some days, I was tempted to throw my hands up and just walk away.

I wonder if Elijah is feeling a bit like that as he heads out into the wilderness. Elijah has responded to God’s call to speak in God’s name. With a king like Ahab who is much more willing to listen to his Phoenician born wife than to any man of God, Elijah has had his work cut out for him. At the contest on Mount Carmel, Elijah stood on one side, and all the prophets of Baal and Asherah on the other. With ease, and great drama, he won hands down. Imagine his sense of deep satisfaction. But Jezebel is not about to call it quits. Her name may have become synonymous in English with “an impudent, shameless, morally unrestrained woman”, but Queen Jezebel is clever and utterly ruthless. She makes sure Elijah knows: this is not over. She will get her revenge.

Elijah has lived through drought and famine. He has confronted people in power and been threatened before. But this time, he doesn’t seem to have the will or strength to take on Jezebel. He is ready to call it quits. If Elijah were living in our time, we might speculate that he is suffering from burnout. Thanks to two years of pandemic, we have become all too familiar with that phenomenon. Burnout among healthcare workers. Days of being on the frontline, battling a virus whose mode of transmission wasn’t initially understood, and in the beginning, without any form of treatment or vaccine. And there were the deaths. In the early days, only a small percentage of those placed on a ventilator recovered. Months of long shifts, and staff shortages. To add insult to injury, instead of pot banging and lawn signs commending health care workers, protesters against the covid-19 mandates started to demonstrate outside of hospitals, sometimes verbally harassing the staff. Is it any surprise that many of our experienced nurses are leaving the profession? They are not alone. The pandemic made other jobs more difficult like those of airport security officers, grocery store clerks, restaurant servers and teachers. It didn’t help either when they were faced with long lines of grumpy, irritated, angry customers or for teachers, with blank squares on a screen – not inspiring.

The church is not exempt from burnout. We may believe that we are all children of God – each unique and loved by God. And yet, at times, we can become so fixated on the positions to be filled, the jobs to be done, that we lost sight of the needs and desires of the individual. Listen to these scenarios, all drawn from my real-life experience. “We need a chair for the board / this committee. We have all done it. It’s your turn.” Or “We understand you want to step down, but you can’t until you find a replacement.” Or “I am so tired of doing this job, but there is no one else so I guess I just have to keep going.” Now, be honest. Do any of them sound familiar? As a minister, I try to identify an individual’s gifts and then match him or her with an appropriate role or task that will hopefully give them some joy and satisfaction. I can get this right, but on occasion, I have mismatched badly. Then my and the community of faith’s challenge is to make it as easy as possible for the person to resign or give it up. If we don’t, there is a real danger they will burnout and exit the church completely.

Elijah has certainly exited his community. He has gone right out into the wilderness – a desolate region of rock and burning sun. There he sits under a lone broom tree as Hagar did with her son Ishmael, and as a disappointed, angry Jonah did after God spared the inhabitants of Nineveh. Like them, Elijah is ready for his life to end. Elijah is sure that it is all over for him. Even after an angel, a messenger of God, appears with food and water. Even after he has travelled forty days and forty nights to the mount of God, his thinking – “this is it” – and his feeling – “I can do no more” – remains unchanged. He holes up in a cave and tells God, not once, but twice: “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

Elijah may be a mighty prophet, but this sounds a lot like a pity party. I used to think that as a person of faith, I was not allowed to hold a pity party for myself and that I should try to talk and cajole others out of theirs. Then I sat with this story of Elijah. I noticed that Elijah is not scolded by God for a bad attitude. On the contrary, he is cared for and nurtured. Elijah is not told to pull up his socks, and immediately sent back into the fray. He is given time – a long time – alone in the wilderness to reflect on events, and get in touch with his feelings. Could it be that there are moments in our lives when we need to allow ourselves to withdraw; to hole up in our caves, and throw ourselves a pity party? “Poor me. I have tried so hard, and my efforts are not recognized, not appreciated. I am the only one who cares deeply about this, who is really attempting to make a difference. I am like Sisyphus condemned to roll that same great boulder up that same hill, day after day – no change, no progress.” Could it be that a pity party, by letting us get all of our feelings out, helps to clear the way for us to move on?

Elijah may be holed up in a cave. He may be feeling sorry for himself. But God does not give up on him. God does not abandon him anymore that God abandons Hagar and Jonah. Elijah is invited to meet with God. There is a great wind like the wind that swept over the deep at the time of creation. There is an earthquake like the one that shook this same mountain when God handed down the ten commandments. There is a fire like the fire that Moses saw burning the bush but not consuming it. Wind, earthquake and fire are all associated with theophanies, with appearances of God, but this time, God is in none of them. It is only after all these pyrotechnics that Elijah becomes aware of God’s presence in what is sometimes translated as “a still small voice” or “the sound of a gentle breeze” or “sheer silence”. I love this part of the story. I hear in it a reminder that God is always with us even when a mighty wind does not blow through our sanctuary like on that first Pentecost, and no tongues of flames light on our heads. We don’t need the dramatic or the spectacular to become aware of God’s presence. For one young woman, it was enough simply to sit in silence in the sanctuary of Bloor Street before the service began. For some, it is through music, especially familiar hymns, that they feel close to God. For others, it is in working together for justice or to bring support and comfort to people on the margins. For still others, it is out in nature when they are at one with creation.

For Elijah on that particular day, it is through sheer silence. Elijah is not left to bask in the glow of this encounter with God. He has a job to do. There are two kings to anoint. Elijah may have thought he was finished. But with God, it’s not over, ’til it’s over. This may sound like hard news – after all his work, doesn’t he deserve a nice restful retirement, perhaps lounging on a sunny beach? But – and this is a big “but” – Elijah who has felt so very alone; Elijah who has been sure that he is the only one left serving the God of Abraham and Sarah, will no longer be all on his own. He’ll have Elisha by his side. He’ll have a successor to teach and train. He’ll have the assurance that God’s mission and ministry in this world will keep on after he is gone.

At times, we like Elijah may grow discouraged. We may be ready to throw in the towel. But thanks be to God who never gives up on us. Thanks be to God who keeps inviting us to be co-workers because with God: it’s not over ’til it’s over. Amen.