What Are You Doing Here?

"What are you doing here, Elijah?" That's a good question-what was Elijah doing there, in the middle of the wilderness, in a cave on Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai? How did he get there?

He was running for his life from Jezebel, the queen of Israel at the time. Jezebel was a Sidonian and her people worshipped the god Baal. Under her influence, Baal worship was spreading in Israel-people were turning away from the God of Israel.

Elijah was called to be a prophet in this era, to call the people back to God, and away from worshiping Baal. By the time we find Elijah in the wilderness, he had already had many adventures. He has accurately predicted a three year drought. During the drought, he was fed by ravens, and by a widow who only had a tiny amount of meal and oil left. When she gave it to Elijah, a miracle occurred and she never ran out of oil or meal until the drought ended.

Elijah had also challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest to see whose god was superior. Each party would slaughter a bull, lay it on fire wood and then call on their respective gods-whichever god answered with fire was the true god. Elijah was vastly outnumbered by the prophets of Baal, but he was so sure of the God of Israel that he mocked them, and even poured water on his firewood, certain that God would still be able to light the firewood. Sure enough, God sent fire to consume the offering, while the prophets of Baal cried out repeatedly to their god, but nothing happened. When Elijah won the contest, he had the prophets of Baal put to death.

When Jezebel heard about it, she sent a message to him that she was going to kill him and he fled into the wilderness.

Elijah's courage deserted him in the face of Jezebel's wrath. In the wilderness, he asks God just to let him die. Then he lies down and falls asleep. But instead of letting him die, God sends an angel to wake him up and give him food and drink. This happens twice, and each time, he gets up and keeps traveling into the wilderness.

What is Elijah doing in the wilderness? He is running for his life, but he's not sure if he wants to live or die. He is in despair-he has fought the good fight, but he is ready to throw in the towel. He feels utterly alone.

He is in a pretty dark place. We know that place. Our struggles may look very different, but we have all hit the wall, reached the end of our rope, and are not sure we want to go on. Some hope or plan or expectation we had has been crushed. I talk to people every week who have lost their jobs and have no idea where to turn, as the bills pile up and the financial stress gets worse. Or they are struggling with some family issue-a son or daughter goes off the deep end and starts making destructive choices, or an elderly parent reaches the point where it's unsafe for him or her to live alone, but there seem to be no good or affordable alternatives. There are any number of issues that can lead us to the sense of despair and loneliness that Elijah experienced.

Our country is in a pretty dark place right now-with two wars raging on, an oil spill that is doing untold damage to the environment, and a recession that continues to cause great hardship.

Like Elijah, we may be tempted to flee, or to go to sleep so that we don't have to face whatever the problem is. We feel alone, and we may consider giving up.

So how do we get out of that dark place? How did Elijah get out of it? The short answer is that we are able to move on, and Elijah was able to move on, through God's grace. Let's take a look at the details of this story because they can serve as a guide in our own journey out of the darkness.

First, there the angels, unexpected, unbidden, who showed up out of the blue to feed Elijah and wet his parched mouth with cool water. God's grace often takes the form of people who minister to us when we most need it-sometimes they are our friends and family, but at other times, they seem to show up out of nowhere, as unexpected as the angels were to Elijah. I can't tell you the number of times that a stranger has appeared in my life at the right moment, offering a word of encouragement or a solution to some problem that was worrying me. I just heard about a young woman who went grocery shopping, and she met a woman who looked a little ragged, who asked her if she would give her a ride home. She decided to give her a ride home and on the way there, she heard the woman's story. She was about to start a new job, but she was afraid. She needed to exercise for her health but she had no shoes. The young woman happened to have her running shoes with her and offered them to the other woman, and they fit perfectly. She offered her words of encouragement about the job and told her that her children needed her to set an example for them. At the end of their encounter, they exchanged phone numbers so they could stay in touch. The young woman had merely set out to go grocery shopping, but she ended up being an angel to someone who really needed a friend.

So, God sends us angels out of the blue, and we also have the chance to serve as angels for others. The next thing that happens to Elijah is a two step dance-the Lord spoke, and Elijah listened. Or perhaps you could also say Elijah listened and the Lord spoke.

God starts by questioning Elijah about what he was doing there. Asking questions is often the first step toward breaking a logjam. What are you doing here? In other words, you have some choice in the matter-you are not stuck here-there are alternatives. As a nation, we might ask ourselves what we are doing consuming so much oil? What are we doing drilling in the ocean and threatening our fragile environment? What are we doing fighting a war so we can consume yet more oil? Just asking the question implies that we could be doing something different. It helps us get unstuck.

Then God told Elijah to stand on the mountain and he would pass by. In other words, wait, watch and listen for God. That is hard to do when you are in that dark place-often, we panic, and forget to wait and listen for God. I've noticed that very often my prayer life suffers the most when I am most in need of prayer. Remembering to listen for God is the beginning of the way out of the darkness.

Elijah obeyed God and stationed himself on Mt. Sinai, where Moses had so often encountered God. But Elijah didn't see God initially. There was a great wind that split rocks, but the Lord wasn't in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, but the Lord wasn't in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, but the Lord wasn't in the fire. When Moses met God on Sinai, there was thunder and lightning, thick smoke and the sound of a trumpet blast. Perhaps Elijah expected God to come with a lot of noise and dramatic natural effects. But instead, God was in the sheer silence. One message of this passage is that God comes to us in different and unexpected ways. Therefore, we need to look and listen for God in all things--in the events of world history, the circumstances of our lives, the mouths of friend and stranger, in the depths of our own souls. God is unpredictable, and may be found anywhere.

Today's lesson ends before we hear all of what God said to Elijah out of the sheer silence. He tells him to go on his way, but he also tells him to anoint two new kings, and a prophet, Elisha, who would take his place. And God also informs Elijah that he had set apart 7000 Israelites who have not worshiped Baal but were faithful to God.

God didn't solve Elijah's immediate problem-presumably he was still on the run from Jezebel. But God reminded him of the critical fact that he was not alone, and everything was not up to him. God was had already called others to help him, and had a plan for the future.

Sometimes I think the essence of prayer is making room for God to act. We forget ourselves for a moment and turn our attention to God and that creates space-for God to act, or suggest courses of action that would not otherwise occur to us. It is not that God cannot or does not act without us, but rather that God seems to prefer to act with us.

When we take time to pray, God frequently reminds us that we are not alone in whatever we are facing, whether in our lives, or the church or the nation. There is a world of people out there who can come up with solutions that we could never imagine. And there is God, who is active in the world and specializes in making the impossible, possible.

Last year, when we planned a bilingual camp, we had no idea who would staff it, how we would fund it, or whether anyone would come. There were many times when I thought about giving up the idea, because it was too hard. But people kept coming out of the woodwork, members of Christ the King, and complete strangers, to help. And it worked. And this year, when I was again wondering if pulling off a week of camp with two hot meals a day and a bus to pick up the kids from the Gill and Davenport farms, four other area churches decided to help out, and now we have double the staff we did last year.

You would think at this point that I would stop worrying and just trust God totally. But trusting God is a lifelong journey. And it is part of the journey to get up, and fall down, get up and fall down, over and over.

But the message from this passage of Kings is clear: We are not alone. It is not all up to us. Our part is to ask questions, to listen, wait and watch for God, and to trust that God has things well in hand. Amen.