Fairhaven Sermon 6-22-2025

A repeated occurrence throughout scripture that's kind of funny, I think, is a prophetic temper tantrum. Jonah is probably the most famous. You know the book of Jonah. The entire book is about a guy that God has called to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh.

but he doesn't want to. So he does everything he possibly can to get out of that task that God has given him. You know the highlights of Jonah. He gets on a ship.

He tries to go flee all the way to Spain on the other side of the world. He gets thrown overboard. He gets eaten by this great fish, and he gets spat up right at Nineveh, right where he didn't want to be. So we know that part of Jonah, but the end often gets overlooked strangely because chapter four concludes with Jonah pouting.

Jonah is sitting on a hill overlooking Nineveh, which has been saved, you know, despite his very worst efforts to make sure they're not saved, the people of Nineveh have all turned to God. And accordingly, God has decided not to wipe them out. So Jonah, who's very mad about this, is sitting out there moping about his success on a hillside. And God sends him a bush to sit under so he doesn't bake in the sun.

And Jonah really appreciates that. But the next day, hilariously, God sends a worm to kill the bush. And the bush shrivels up and it dies. And at this point, Jonah just loses his mind.

Jonah flips out. He screams to God that, you know what? I want to die too. But God speaks and God makes a point to Jonah. If you are so sad about this stupid shrub dying, Do you not understand why I am so passionate about trying to save all these people of Nineveh from sin and death? And Jonah doesn't give us an answer that we know of.

The book just ends there with God's question. But the reader gets the point that God is trying to make. We see a related little story in the Gospels, in three of the Gospels. It's perhaps best told in Matthew 21.

Jesus is walking with the disciples to Jerusalem, and he gets hungry. And so they come upon this very leafy, this lush-looking fig tree, and Jesus naturally thinks, Cool, lunch, just what I needed right now. I'm hungry, and here's a tree with some fruit. And here's a tree with some fruit.

But he walks up to the tree and finds that despite its healthy appearance, there's not a single fruit to be found on that tree. He curses the tree in his anger and the tree immediately shrivels up and dies, never to bear any fruit again. And there's a symbolic meaning here, obviously. Jesus is demonstrating what happens to people, his disciples, the church, who don't bear fruit.

Like a fruit tree, it's our job to bear good fruit for the world around us. This is a very clear instance, too, of that prophetic temper tantrum theme. It's kind of a mirror image from Jonah because Jesus is right. But God is using this moment of Jesus' anger, Jesus' rage to make a point about God's relationship with us.

And so in the book of 1 Kings this morning, we encounter the prophet Elijah in a very similar sort of moment. Just to get you up to speed at what's happening in chapter 18, The current king of Israel at this time is Ahab, and Ahab's a bad guy. Ahab is an Israelite, but he's married to the pagan queen Jezebel, which you were not supposed to do. If you're an Israelite, you marry within the people of God because Jezebel is not a follower of the God of Israel.

Instead, she's a follower of the Canaanite god, Baal, and she has exerted her influence on the king to tilt Israel away from God and towards worshiping Baal. And this culminates with Elijah telling the Baal prophets off and trying to bring the people back to God, but it culminates in this sort of prophet showdown. Elijah versus 450 prophets of Baal face off on a mountaintop on Mount Carmel, and they gather all the people in the kingdom to come and watch. And Elijah tells these 450 prophets of Baal to call down Baal's power and set the offered sacrifice of a bull on fire.

You know, if Baal wants the sacrifice, he'll come take it. And so these prophets pray and they pray and they dance and they yell and they dramatically slice themselves with knives, which is something that they did. And nothing happens. Elijah just stands off to the side, kind of making fun of them, making fun of Baal.

And whenever they've given up, Elijah takes his turn by himself. He builds a stack of wood. He places another bowl on top of it, and he douses it with tons and tons of water to try to make sure that it's just saturated as non-flammable as possible because he's showing off. And he prays to God.

And all of this just goes up in a roaring fire immediately. Even the water burns. And victorious, Elijah commands the people of Israel to go kill those 450 prophets of Baal. Just to take them, seize them, and kill them by the sword.

And they do. And as you might imagine, word gets back to Queen Jezebel. And she is not very happy with what has happened. And so here in chapter 19, where we start today, we are seeing the aftermath of this showdown.

The prophet Elijah's mood changes real quick. He starts with this massive victory for God. He showcases what he's been empowered to do as a prophet of God. And then he slides right to absolute terror.

Queen Jezebel in her rage has promised to kill Elijah. She says, May the gods do whatever they want to me, if tomorrow I haven't made your life like the life of one of those prophets. Those 450 that were killed. She swears that he's going to suffer that same fate.

And it's interesting, I think, that Elijah has just seen, he's participated in, he's kind of done it, this incredible power of the God of Israel. He's just done this miraculous thing. But when he faces this first personal threat, he just crumbles into pieces. Right? he should know that God is able to handle it.

But that's not how he feels. Maybe you can empathize with that. You know that God can handle it, but that's definitely not how it feels. Yes, God, you've been faithful up until now, but how do I know that you haven't stopped? How do I know that this time you haven't left me to fend for myself? Yes.

And so Elijah just starts spiraling. He flees Mount Carmel where this battle happened. Mount Carmel is in the far, far, far, far north of Israel on the coast. And he goes to Beersheba in the south as fast as he can.

And whenever he's there, he ditches his assistant. I think that's another kind of funny thing in the Old Testament that they seem to have interns, associate pastors, if you will. He ditches his intern and he keeps on traveling. And he runs and runs and runs until he makes it deep into the Negev desert where he figures no one's going to track him down.

And just like Jonah, he plops down under a bush, a solitary broom bush. Okay. And just like Jonah, whenever he gets there, he says, God, I want to die. And I point out that that's obviously not totally true since he's just run 100 miles or so to flee from somebody who wants to kill him.

Clearly doesn't want to die that bad. And God rightly recognizes that Elijah is a little bit hangry is the term, I think. He's terrified and all of that. That's all true.

But God and God's messenger realize that he also just needs to eat. He needs to drink. He needs to rest from this long journey and for what's coming next. And so God sends an angel to bring him bread, to bring him water, tells Elijah, get up.

eat and drink. And then he lets him lay back down again. He takes a long nap. And the angel comes back after he's all rested up, after he's strengthened again, and says again, get up, eat something.

Because he has a long journey now, 40 days and 40 nights, just like Noah's flood that was purifying. He's like, And I think it's not really clear from the way it's written whether God sends Elijah to Mount Horeb. That's also known as Mount Sinai and other books of the Old Testament. Horeb and Sinai are the same.

But it's not clear whether God sends him over there or if God just lets Elijah go where he was going. Maybe that's where he was headed. to flee far away from Jezebel. But I think it's that.

I think God lets Elijah go where Elijah wanted to go. Elijah was probably already on the way to Sinai, seeking to meet God in a place where God has been known to show up. You know, Moses met God face to face at the Sinai. It makes sense that Elijah, if he's scared, would do the same thing.

And so finally, 40 days later, Elijah gets to Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai, and God speaks. And God just says, why are you here, Elijah? And Elijah, you know, like he's just pushed play. God gladly picks up on his temper tantrum. He's got this rehearsed in his head.

He knows what he's going to say. The same breakdown he was having under the broom tree, he says this rehearsed script that he has in his head. I've been passionate for the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars and they have murdered your prophets with the sword.

I'm the only one left. And now they want to take my life too. Okay. And I have to imagine that God sighs a little bit.

He's frustrated that Elijah barely seems to remember this great fiery miracle that happened on Mount Carmel, this victory that put him in this situation to begin with. He's only under threat because he had won. He's only under threat because he had won. but God meets him there.

And what God says basically is, okay, I'm going to come to you. You came here to see me and you're going to see me. So go stand in that crack in the mountain and I'll pass by. And so we get this beautiful, dramatic moment, one of the most stunning depictions of God in the Old Testament.

And first there comes this enormous wind, so violent that it tears up the mountains, that it breaks the stone around him. But that's not God. And then there's an earthquake. It shakes the ground under Elijah's feet, rattles the whole desert, but that's not God either.

And then there's this whipping wildfire that lights up the sky that I'm sure Elijah can feel on his face, but that's not God either. And finally, there's just a sound. And the CEB version of the Bible describes it as just two words. It says thin, quiet.

You might have heard it translated before as a still small voice, but I like that. Thin, quiet. Quiet. And that's God.

And Elijah knows this. So he covers up his face so he doesn't look straight upon God, but he goes out to meet God. And God asks him again while he's standing there with him, Why are you here, Elijah? And what we might expect now in Elijah, since he got what he wanted, he went to see God and here he is. You might expect a miraculous turnaround.

He's encountered the Lord God. He has seen God's power and might again. And then he met God in a quiet sound of peace that is just for him. This is God just coming for him.

Not some grand sign in the sky, but God speaking to him in this thin, quiet sound. But no, it's as if none of this has really happened, as if Elijah has just been waiting to get through this so God can address his issues. And so he just rattles off that same complaint, word for word, verbatim, this exact script that he had in his head. I've been very passionate about the Lord God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant.

Right? They have torn down your altars. They have murdered your prophets with the sword. I'm the only one left, and now they want to take my life too. And again, I think this is kind of funny.

God ignores him. God ignores what he said. Presumably, once more, God is sighing because he didn't get it. And God just, all right, that's enough.

Brush yourself off, Elisha. Get up. He says that again, get up. It's time for you to do the next thing.

Your next job's going to be in Damascus. You're going to anoint a new king of Aram. That's the next task that God has for Elijah. Go do it.

And Damascus, by the way, is well north even of Mount Carmel. So not only is God sending him back to where he came from, he's sending him further. This is a big task he's being given. He's not taking baby steps back into it.

So what are we supposed to get out of this with Elisha? I think this story is a depiction of God's firm, persistent, and compassionate call on God's people. Presumably, whenever Elijah went to Horeb, whenever he fled the kingdom where he was prophesying into the wilderness, he figured he was pretty much given his two weeks' notice. I'm done being a prophet. I'm done being a prophet.

I'm running away. I'm not going to be here anymore. It's too much. I need to go somewhere else.

Things had gotten a little scary once it got personal with Jezebel. But the Lord who called him is not having that. That's not even an option. God has chosen Elijah.

God has a job for Elijah. And God knows also that Elijah can do it. Elijah might not know that Elijah can do it, but God does. God does.

And so God has compassion. God meets him. God responds to him. But God also doesn't let up.

And so the Lord ends up giving Elijah not what he wants, which is retirement. But what he needs to make it through, from the bread and the water and the desert supplied by the angel, enough to keep him fed for 40 days, to then this encounter with God's very presence in Mount Horeb, because he needed that too in his soul. And so Elijah has fled Israel fully convinced that he's a dead man walking. But God patiently, gently comes to him, provides for him as he takes this brief tantrum or sabbatical.

and then he sends him back to work. Elijah's needs have been met. They will continue to be met. God has remained faithful, even on this brief detour.

And this is what we're to understand here. God will give us what we need, even when we feel like it won't be enough, even when it's not what we personally have chosen, even when it's not what we personally have chosen. in order for us to accomplish what God has for us. You and I have the resources, we have the stamina, we have the ability to get it done, whatever it is.

And I'd suggest, maybe you know what I'm talking about, whatever that is for you. But if you don't, maybe lean into God's will a little further, see what God is equipping you to do. Because a reliable feature of God's call on people across all of scripture is that whatever we're given to do is probably a little bit scary or frustrating or isolating or all of those. And Elijah gets all of them.

And so Elijah is this prophet who is in motion. Right? He's one with a mission. And every one of us who is called and claimed and renewed by God in Christ is also supposed to be in motion on a mission for our whole lives. We're building the kingdom of God within us, around us.

We're growing in grace and love. We're reaching out to other people with the good news of God's love for them. And again, giving up on that really isn't an option. And yeah, Elijah kind of in some ways gets tough love from God.

But more importantly than that, he also just gets love. He's cared for. He has a need. He has this breakdown.

And God gives him a nice meal in the desert miraculously. Right? God comes, you know, like a mom who knows her little boy has just had a rough day at school, brings him a snack, says, take a nap. I'll be here when you get up. When Elijah feels like he's weak, like he's abandoned, like he's in danger, God physically comes to him.

He demonstrates with the fire, with the earthquake, with the wind, that there's divine power that Elijah can rely on. But he also demonstrates with this thin, quiet sound that God is at work even when, or maybe especially when, the earth isn't quaking, when the wind isn't whipping, when pagan prophets aren't being struck down by the dozen. God's there in the action and God's there in the quiet. God's in the ups.

God's in the downs. And so God takes a minute to give Elijah a bit of what he needs to keep moving. He tends to his wounded spirit. He nourishes his body.

But then he puts him back on the road. And that's what God has for us as we participate in God's mission of saving us, of saving the world, bringing us all and all things back to God. That's what God has for us. So maybe this morning you're sitting hangry under a tree in the desert and you're sitting hangry under a tree in the desert.

Maybe you're tired of praying and praying and praying and not seeing results. Maybe you're tired of being part of the church with its flaws and its slowness and people you don't always like. Maybe you're tired of pursuing some kind of special task or vision, big or small, that God has called you to. Maybe out of fear you haven't got to it yet.

Fair enough on all those because me too. But in the midst of life-threatening danger, of wild wind, of the quaking of the earth, of raging fires, this thin, quiet sound cuts through. God is there. God extends a hand to you to pick you up, to brush you off, to get you on the way, gives you a snack, gives you some encouragement, and scoots you out the door.

so get up, and God will give you what you need to make sure you can do what God has always known you can do. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.