2 Kings 2: 7-14

MOTHERS’ DAY 2018

[Read “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins]

This poem needed to be re-read, not only because it says something about Mothers’ Day, but because it captures something crucial about a problem shared by both Israel and the Church; namely, how sorely we lack imagination when it comes to knowing goodness.

KINGS OF IDOLATRY

It seems from the very. moment Solomon’s kingdom split, Israel ran back to idols like heroin addicts to their needles. So many kings, so few of them faithful. Hence into a series of kings in Israel and Judah until both are conquered by pagans.

As an antidote, God sent prophets to speak his word to the people. Sometimes it was fair warning, other times it was simply the news that they had gone too far. In general, the prophets were not popular, because they—like Moses, Samuel, and Nathan before them—told the people what they did not want to hear, but what they needed to hear.

WORD-BEARERS

We can have the wrong idea about prophets. A lot of folks think a prophet’s main job is to predict the future as inspired by God, but that is not their chief purpose. Their chief role, simply put, is to bear the word of God to the people. They are word-bearers, truth-tellers, and messengers with God’s message for his people.

Yes, sometimes that involves forecasting the consequences of sin, but even when a destiny is forecast, it is always presented as a challenge to the present community and its way of life.

The greatest of all the prophets is Elijah. Just as Moses is the one person associated with the Law of God, Elijah is the one who represents the whole realm of prophecy. Elijah best represents the spirit of prophecy, and he had a tough life. He got tired of being the unpopular one—the only one in all of Israel remaining faithful to The Lord.

CARMEL CONTEST

We mustn’t neglect to mention the contest on Mt Carmel. Ba’al worship was rampant—the new normal. It was the worship of Ba’al which posed the most constant threat toward Israel.

Ba’al was a sky god, lord of storms and rain. For a people in an arid climate who depend upon rain for survival, Ba’al provided a specific good. From his chariot he dispensed both rain and fire (lightning).

Elijah called out the prophets of Ba’al to the sun-drenched slopes of Mt. Carmel to decide who was God. “If the Lord be God, then follow him, but if Ba’al be God, then follow him. The sacrifices are prepared and each call upon their god to send down fire (lightning) from Heaven.

The prophets of Ba’al are at it all day to no effect. Elijah taunts and abuses them: “Cry louder, why don’t you? After all, he’s a god, isn’t he?  Maybe he’s asleep in bed, or having a nice, long read in the bathroom?” The prophets of Ba’al continue their weird rituals all day, cutting themselves in the hopes that the sight of blood might rouse the sleeping deity, but they get nothing.

Elijah steps up, and raises the stakes by completely drenching his sacrificial altar three times with water. He prays that The  Lord would reveal himself, and the lightning consumes the sacrifice, even licking up the water in the trench.

Furthermore, The Lord brings rain there and then, revealing that the only Lord of the storm, of fire, and of rain, harvest, and all else, is The Lord God of Israel.

Passing the mantle

Elijah and his Associate Prophet in training Elisha come to the Jordan River. Elijah takes his cloak, rolls it up, and smacks it onto the water. The waters part to the left and the right, and Elijah and Elisha walk through the parted waters. Just in case you missed it, Elijah encompasses the spirit—that is, the authority—of Moses.

When Elijah asks his protegé Elisha, Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.

At death, all human beings go “down into the Earth,” or “back to dust.” Elijah, unlike the rest of humanity, is “taken up.” When the time comes, a fiery chariot appears, and Elijah goes up in a whirlwind. What does this mean?

Not only is Ba’al not God, but even Elijah is superior to Ba’al. The image is of Elijah—the greatest prophet—taking Ba’al’s place in the sky in his fiery chariot.  The Lord is God of all, and his chosen are superior to the false gods of the nations. Elijah’s lonesome ministry is completely legitimized by God.

Elijah drops his cloak down to Elisha, and Elisha crosses back over the Jordan—dividing the waters—with the same spirit and authority as Elijah.

Elisha’s ministry—imbued as it was with Elijah’s spirit—exercises great works and miracles characterized by compassion. We can’t help but see the parallels with Christ who’ll come hundreds of years later.

Elisha purifies the water at Jericho. Jesus will transform water into wine. Elisha supplies a miraculous supply of oil for widow, foreshadowing Hannukah. There was a miraculous birth of son and a resuscitation, both prefiguring Jesus. Elisha multiplied loaves, as did Jesus, and he cured incurable leprosy, as did Jesus. None of this is credited to Elisha, but the spirit of Elijah working through Elisha.

Elijah represents all the prophets, even as Moses represents the Law.

It was understood that Elijah would return before the Messiah came, meaning that the spirit and authority of Elijah would become manifest in Israel before the Christ came.

Jesus says that no prophet was great than John the Baptist—clearly an indication that he fulfilled the return of Elijah’s spirit to Israel.

IMAGINATION

Back to the lanyard. Can I suggest that one major problem at the heart of the idolatry problem is a lack of imagination? Just as the boy who made the lanyard lacks all imagination in understanding the supreme goodness of his mother, so humanity lacks imagination in conceiving how immense—how great and glorious—is the goodness of God.

The ancient idolators only know how to talk about goodness from their own goods: rain, harvest, fertility, health, wealth, and prosperity. These are all far short of the greatness of God’s glory. 

Similarly, as we mentioned last week, today’s so-called prosperity gospel is heresy (and idolatry) because it too defines God’s goodness only in terms of our own earthly goods.

Today it is no different; we too lack imagination. Most folks—even the most pious—tend to imagine God far too small. Some make it worse by imagining the Devil and Hell being much too big and too great. Perhaps it’s just so much easier to imagine Hell, the Devil, and extreme evil than good. There are preachers who can go on and on about the evils of Hell, but say little more about Heaven than that it is there. Why not the opposite? Why not apply our imagination to Heaven and to broadening our scope of how great God is?

How do you imagine Heaven? Is anyone still picturing angels in white robes perched on clouds strumming harps? How big is the God of your imagining?

Personally, I tend scoff at critics of religion and the God of the Bible because it seems overwhelmingly obvious to me that they neither know him or anything about him. I often find myself in complete agreement with them when they attack the dumbed-down, over-simplistic ideas about God that they see in others.

Idolatry today is still rampant among the faithful. Idolatry, in all its forms, is the attempt to make God manageable—to reduce God’s greatness and glory to something we can get our mitts on.

For the ancients, it meant reducing “gods” to little, portable statues of wood or even gold. For our contemporaries, it means reducing the grandeur of God to simple explanations and religious platitudes—“four steps to true Christianity,” and/or any of the popular “isms” making up our denominational pride.

There is no good but God alone.

We hitch our trailers to God and try to trust in our own, religious devices to keep us connected. All are idols—ideological idols—and whenever we  reduce God’s unspeakably great glory down to a formula or pastoral best-seller, we indulge in the same instinct.

It comes down to this: we want our hands on the steering wheel of the universe!

All genuine faithfulness, in direct opposition to this, is a matter of surrendering our controls and comforts, humbling ourselves, and saying in all honesty: “God, you are great beyond our imagining! We know nothing and trust in You alone for all things.” That is worship, and it is a far cry from Church triumphalism, theological coherency, and  it is a rejection of all manmade artifices designed to secure us in God’s good favor.

Every generation wrestles with this same idolatry. Evangelistic con men selling you guarantees for your soul’s sense of security, but they don’t have it to sell, and whatever it is they are selling you is no different than a plastic statue of Buddha.

The only escape from idolatry is to return, again and again, to that place where we admit our human inadequacy and throw all our trust upon the Lord in praise, prayer, thanksgiving, and endless adoration.

SEEING THE GLORY

Moses asked to see God’s glory, which is the right religious instinct for us all. Elijah glimpses God’s glory from the cave at Horeb. How about you? What are your glimpses of glory? If we admit (as we should) that our imaginings are inept and tend toward idolatry, then how can we rightly apprehend The Lord?

First, we have the sufficient self-revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the face of The Lord—the true revelation of God’s nature and character—and he is risen and reigns as Lord over all things. Whenever we worship and proclaim his lordship, we are rightly aligned with truth and our proper place in the cosmos.

But the Holy Spirit gives us glimpses as well. Can you name your glimpses of God’s glory? Any special moments to share?

I have many, for which I am supremely and endlessly thankful. I’ve shared some of them from this pulpit, and I’ll share another this morning.

At five years old, on a sunny morning in Riverside, I was sitting beside the fishpond in our backyard. I was looking at the day lilies and mint leaves growing at the edges of the pond, which was bordered by sharp, gray stones.

Glory touched me. I became immensely and overwhelmingly aware of my life, as if my soul came to the surface and peered out my eyes. I knew I was alive and knew God was there and everywhere. I knew my soul was God’s and belonged to him, and I immediately felt compelled to thank him and give him all my praise. It changed me forever.

That’s it, but the memory of it is as fresh as this morning, and it has fed me through difficult times. It was a glimpse of glory—just a glimpse—but it was almost more than I could take. When I try to imagine God’s goodness or his great glory, I think of moments like that one and try to imagine it larger, which is nearly impossible.

George Frederick Handel had a hard life. But he too got a glimpse and it changed everything: Writing Messiah, as he got to the Hallelujah chorus, his assistant found him in tears saying “I did think I saw heaven open, and saw the very face of God”.

What are your glimpses of glory? Are you aware of them and have you ever tried putting them into words? With whom have you shared these stories?

Don’t you know that every soul is starved for the glory of God? Have you not heard that God’s glory is the very thing we are created for? Every soul seeks the glory of God like moths to a light.

When we talk about “making Jesus known,” as our evangelical mission, we  do not mean feeding folks a dumbed-down version of conversion. We are not going to sell salvation like an AMWAY membership.

The best way for you to make Jesus known is to share your glimpses of glory. How have you met God and how have you seen the face of Jesus? Start there.

Most of our Christian do-gooding amounts to little more than weaving a plastic lanyard. We are not—and will not—ever merit God’s grace or goodness. If we think so, then we have clearly reduced God to idol size.

God is bigger, better, more pure, more perfect, and more glorious than we can possibly imagine. Let’s hold this Lord up high, and let him draw to himself whomever he will.†