Poor Elijah! Before this particular passage, Elijah has just experienced a spectacular victory in the \u201cWhose God Is the Best?\u201d competition against 450 prophets of Baal. But his \u201creward\u201d is receipt of Jezebel\u2019s murderous vow, and Elijah quickly shifts from God\u2019s \u00fcber-prophet to just a common fugitive, running for his life. After traveling some distance, he ultimately dismisses his servant and walks into the wilderness to die alone.<\/p>\n\n
But God does not let go of Elijah. God sees to it that Elijah is fed and well-rested. When he reaches Mount Horeb\/Sinai, where Moses too spoke with and saw God\u2019s glory, God asks Elijah twice what he is doing there. To both inquiries, Elijah supplies identical responses, unimpressed by neither the traditional means of God\u2019s manifestation \u2013 wind, earthquake, fire \u2013 nor by the \u201csound of sheer silence\u201d (v.12), and his replies sound very much like a truculent child! You can almost hear God sigh after listening to Elijah\u2019s complaint for the second time before ignoring Elijah\u2019s whining and instead giving him a new assignment, a new purpose. Probably the most miraculous part of this story is that Elijah accepts God\u2019s charge and continues in God\u2019s service.<\/p>\n\n
While these are psalms of deep longing for God, they are also psalms of deep faith. People mock the psalmist for this faith, faith in a God who, from all outward appearances, has abandoned him. The psalmist recalls God\u2019s faithfulness through both day and night, biblical code for \u201cat all times.\u201d Yet, his soul is \u201cathirst for God,\u201d so while the psalmist may not feel abandoned by God, he surely feels God\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n\n
Three times through these two psalms (42:6-7, 14-15, and 43:5-6) the psalmist repeats what seems to be a conversation with himself, asking what is the reason for this distress. No answer is provided. However, each time he asks these questions of himself, the psalmist responds with quiet confidence, knowing that there will be a time when he will again give praise and thanks to God. This is a faithful follower, one who will not let go of God.<\/p>\n\n
These six verses are probably some of the most revolutionary words in the entire Bible. Through them, Paul overturns the world order, the worldview, of both Jew and gentile, and consequently, all of us. Paul proclaims that through faith in Jesus Christ, the law is obsolete. For the first-century Jew, these would be outrageous words. And then Paul tears away the strict social stratification of the first-century gentile by claiming such a radical inclusiveness that all social distinctions are washed away in the baptismal waters. Through union with Christ, through being \u201cclothed\u201d with Christ in our baptism, ethnic differences, class distinctions, and gender-based roles no longer exist. How could the Church have missed this radical message of inclusiveness for much of its 2,000 years?<\/p>\n\n
It seems that Jesus has sailed across the Galilean Sea for the sole purpose to drive demons out of this man, this man who has no name other than that to which the demons have reduced him, \u201cThousands.\u201d With those legions of demons vying for control over him, the cacophony of this man\u2019s interior life was probably far worse than his exterior life of living in the wild, naked among the tombs. But Jesus asks him his name, already exercising his authority over the demons by forcing them respond to him.<\/p>\n\n
Jesus frees this man from the spiritual chains that have shackled him for years. As Jesus turns to leave, the man begs to accompany Jesus, the one person who could see beyond the horror that had become his life, to the person he was created to be.<\/p>\n\n
Rather than allow the man to join him, Jesus instead gives the man, much like God does with Elijah in our Old Testament reading, a purpose, a mission: \u201cReturn to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.\u201d And so he does, spreading the good news of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n
1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a Poor Elijah! Before this particular passage, Elijah has just experienced a spectacular victory in the \u201cWhose God Is the Best?\u201d competition against 450 prophets of Baal. But his \u201creward\u201d is receipt of Jezebel\u2019s murderous vow, and Elijah quickly shifts from God\u2019s \u00fcber-prophet to just a common fugitive, running for his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201221,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,52,33,3],"tags":[372],"class_list":["post-766713","bible_study","type-bible_study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-studies","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-7c"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":23,"label":"Bible Studies"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":372,"label":"Proper 7C"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bible_study"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952338,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible_study\/766713\/revisions\/952338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}