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A sermon preached by the Reverend Dr. Royal
Kemper
What are you doing here? And he came there to a cave and spent the night there, and, behold, the word of the Lord (Yahweh) came to him and said to him, "what are you doing here, Elijah?" -1 Kings 19:9
FROM TIME TO TIME we receive a newsletter from a church where our faith was once nurtured. Reading the pastor's column helps us keep in touch. It's like putting your finger on the pulse of that church.
In one article, the Pastor commented on how he had the good fortune to meet a couple who were members of a former church that he had served. The couple had moved away and the pastor had accepted a call to another church, so their relationship was interrupted. But it was good to see them again. After the usual greetings and inquiries about their family, the pastor chanced a casual question. "Have you found a new church home where you are now living?" "No," they chimed in together. We're searching around." Then one ventured to say, "We're looking for the perfect church." Amused by the remark, and smiting to himself, the pastor hesitantly asked just what they meant by the "perfect church".
Dutifully, they ran down their list of 'must have's' in their search for the perfect church. First of all, the church must have an outstanding preacher, one who captures your attention and holds it during the entire sermon. (He should be 30 years old with 40 years of experience and his wife should be the model of perfection.) In conjunction with such a strong pulpit, the educational system must involve professional educators with high credentials and offer learning opportunities for all age groups at the convenience of the parents, of course. Such a state- of-the-art program requires a strong financial base, where the entire congregation gives generously of their time and financial resources. And too, there must be active community involvement, reaching out to the poor and needy and those who suffer injustice in society. Mission outreach must be the backbone of any vibrant church community. Taking all this in, the pastor mused to himself that he would like to find such a congregation!
You know, and I know, and I know that you know, such a congregation does not exist! There are no short cuts to success in this life and no "golden ring" to be found in the merry-go-round of church life. For every rainbow there is going to be a storm cloud, and for every mountain top experience one must pass through the valley of despair. From the time the Holy Spirit gave birth to the church on Pentecost, even that community of believers had their ups and downs. Often they were challenged for their very faith in Christ. Read any of Paul's Letters and you will see this spelled out. In 2 Corinthians 4:7 he writes that "we have this treasure in earthen jars" - meaning that the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be found in these human lives of ours! God's unconditional love for us fills our lives with his power daily.
What this says is that there may be times in our lives when we feel like Elijah and would like to hide in a cave somewhere and forget about the rest of the world! Have you ever been in the "cave mood" and wished that you could close the door on the rest of the world? What are we to do? Let's take a look at Elijah and see what we can leam from his experience.
From our text in I Kings 19, we find Elijah hiding in a cave where he has spent the night, when the word of the Lord (Yahweh) came to him and asked, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He replied that he has been very zealous for the Lord, yet the people of Israel whom God has chosen have forsaken the covenant, torn down the altars, and killed off the prophets, and then exclaims, "And they are after me, too!"
What brought Elijah to this discouraging point in his life was that, in his zeal to serve the Lord he ran head on into a never-to-be-forgotten lady name Jezebel. Jezebel was a follower of Baal worship - a false religion. Elijah had questioned the people of Israel why they went limping between two opinions. If the Lord (Yahweh) is God, then serve him. If Baal is god, then by all means, serve him. But don't try to serve both! Choose one or the other! To embolden this decision, Elijah called for an animal sacrifice, with the understanding that whichever god answered with fire, consuming the sacrifice, that god was the one the people of Israel were to serve. As you might expect, the Lord God (Yahweh) won the contest, with the fire licking up the water that was poured over the sacrifice. The prophets of Baal were so angered, they slashed themselves with knives and many died. This outrage infuriated Jezebel that she cursed Elijah and said that; the same would happen to him by this time the next day. Elijah fled for his life! What are we to make of all this?
heart had gone into hiding. He was a prisoner of himself. From this we leam that Happiness in life is something that you create out of the raw stuff of life that is handed you. Let us look at another illustration for the cave mood.
William Faulkner, in his novel, Absalom, Absalom. chisels out the twisted life of Thomas Sutpen who crawled back into his own hiding place. Some thirty years before the Civil War he carved out of the wilderness in the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi, a plantation unequaled in architectural form and beauty. He paid for the property with Spanish gold coins and with his slaves from Haiti built a magnificent residence. His plantation became known as "Sutpen's Hundred." When Confederate troops began to appear in the little town of Jefferson, he closed his store and kept it closed all during the period when soldiers were being mobilized and drilled. He became so frightened that he lived in the back of his house. When a detachment would march past, he would peek out through the slightly opened blinds and rattle off Scripture verses about being besieged by enemy forces. One day he learned that his store had been ransacked and most of its provisions taken. He crawled up into the attic and nailed the trap door shut, throwing the hammer out the attic window. For three years he lived up there, with Miss Rosa sending food up to him by means of a rope and pulley. Then one day the hand did not reach out for the basket of food. Neighbors had to break in where they found him dead with three days supply of food beside him. He had cut himself off form all of society and retreated into his self-styled cave. Thomas Sutpen was in the cave mood.
There is Elijah in his cave, zealous for the work of the Lord. And there is Thomas Sutpen, isolated and cut off deliberately from the world. The two of them found sanctuary in their own kind of cave. What should we dp when we ieel that every attempt at bettering ourselves has ended in failure? We feel that we aye in the cave mood.
For starters, I would suggest that we look at the meaning of Elijah's name. A free transliteration from the Hebrew might sound something like this: The letters 'El' at the beginning mean 'God'. The letter T is a personal pronoun meaning 'my'. My God. The second part of the name, 'jah' may be transliterated as meaning, 'Yahweh' or, the Lord God. Thus he name means, "My God is the Lord." By that he meant that the god any one of us serves may be any one of a number of things. Martin Luther identified a person's god as "whatever your heart clings to and relies upon."
This business of trying to make the most out of the raw stuff of life handed us is much the same thing that Elijah fought for and one that beggars our attention. It is something on the order of what the couple were looking for in their search for a "perfect church." It may just be your attitude about life and what you make of it that defines how you handle those unfortunate circumstances unannounced. As someone once said, "life is what happens when you make other plans."
What impresses us about Elijah is that in his zeal to serve the Lord he became fearful for his life. Off he ran towards Mt. Horeb. On his way he lay down under a juniper tree, which in itself is indicative of his mood for it doesn't provide much shade. As he slept he dreamed that an angel came to him and told him to rise and eat. A loaf of bread had been baked on hot coals and beside it was a jug of water. He arose and ate and was satisfied. He returned to his place of rest and fell asleep again. A second time the angel came to him and told him to rise and eat, for the "journey is too great for you." Elijah headed for Mt. Horeb where we find him hiding in a cave.
In the Gospel lesson from John's Account, this morning, Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." As the good Lord took care of Elijah and fed him^ spiritually as well as physically, so will the Lord take care of us and feed and nourish our hungry, thirsty souls. Here we take the name of Elijah to be our name which means. My God is the Lord, andYahweh is his name. Happy is that person who transforms his-cave-dwelling experience into a state of trust and confidence in the Lord. When once we learn that we are not alone in our cave, and that the Lord is aware of our needs, he will remind us of our name, that as Elijah trusted in the Lord, so may we place our trust in him, for our god is the Lord. Next time when you feel isolated and cut off from all support and God himself, recall what the Lord said to Elijah.
"Go, stand on the mountain." The Lord passed by. Next there was a strong wind that tore at the mountain shattering rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake, fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire the sound of thin silence. A voice came to Elijah, saying, "what are you doing here, Elijah?" And the Lord said, "Go, return to the place from which you have come to the wilderness of Damascus. Damascus may be the place where God has placed us especially for a kind of ministry that he figures only we can do. It is our responsibility to take care of that portion of God's Kingdom where he placed us. Don't concern yourself about what's on the other side of the fence. Look closely: that green growth may be nothing more than weeds!
As you go toward your Damascus, where the Lord has placed you to care for his Kingdom, remember these words: You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go. God is sending you. Wherever you are - God has put you there. God has a purpose in you being there. Christ who is in you has something he wants to do through you where you are. Believe this and go in God's strength and love and power.
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