November 24, 2024 | Rev. Loren McGrail
I want to talk to you this morning, about angel rescue and cake, about fear, and what we need to be able to choose courage. I want to talk about prophet Elijah and us---the way we too sometimes just wanna curl up under a tree, or in our beds, and die or sleep in a cave under the covers with our fears as company.
Many folks here can identify with this wanting to crawl into a fetal position and escape the future. It could be the political or economic future lurking on the horizon that seems ominous at best, the fear of our loss of reproductive rights or rights to be who we are or marry who our hearts choose, or the ongoing reports of climate catastrophe already here.
We are all exhausted are we not? The fear is so thick some are leaving the country while others are desperately trying to remain in it. I want to talk with you this morning about what could get us through all of this, give us courage to set out again.
Let us consider the prophet Elijah for inspiration. At the beginning of our reading, we learn that he was bold and brave for YHWH by facing down the prophets of Baal, all 450 of them on Mount Carmel. He lived in defiance of the royal house of Ahab and Jezebel. As the result he had to run for his life before the death sentence against him could be fulfilled.
After the battle, he traveled into the wilderness and collapsed under a broom tree waiting to die. God met him in his sleep by sending an angel who brought him cake, angel cake made by the Susans. I kid you not, and then told him to get up and eat and drink water because he had a long journey ahead. God met Elijah in his time of need and brought provisions. God understands our despair, our fatigue and provides nourishment for the journey but God also wants us to continue, to not give up. God wants us to choose courage to continue the journey.
I invite you to pause here with me for a moment and think about the people, the angels, in your life, who have fed you when you were down, or who reminded you that you were one of God’s beloved ones. And for those of you who feed others, I invite you to reflect on some experiences you might have had with the people you have fed. Can you see yourself as one of God’s providers for others? One of the angels? How does it feel to be taken care of? How does it feel to be one of God’s helpers? Angels?
Elijah needed food and water to walk the 40 days to Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai, the same mountain where Moses had his epiphany with God. The food and water provided him the strength to continue but his faith was still laced with fear. When he arrived, he found a cave to crawl into. God met him in the cave of darkness and called him out not in an earthquake, a fire, or even a wind, but in the silence and stillness of his own burning heart.
Our encounter with the Holy is a union between us, the listener, and the Silent One, God, and often contains a commission to go further than we thought possible. I love the part of the text when God questions Elijah, “Why are you still here?” And Elijah answers the way we all would with a self-pitying tone, I have been zealous, but I am alone, and they are trying to kill me! Elijah does not receive assurance or comfort. He is told to return, to go back into the fray, and engage in political subversion by anointing a new king even while there is no vacancy in the royal office. On top God tells him there are still 7000 faithful!
Dear Ones, are we not participants in this same ancient story? I am not sure where you are, but the ending is clear, we are commissioned to continue. We have a choice in how we will respond to this commission, in how we will face our fears, if or how we will choose courage. In recounting the story of Reverend Timothy Njoya from Kenya who was preaching a pro-democracy message, Lappe wanted to remind us that we can’t pray for our fear to go away because fear is within us. Like the lion taking aim, she says, we have to harness the energy of the fear and then choose where and what we will do with it.
Instead of robbing us of power, fear can be a resource we use to create the kind of world we want. I would like to end with this poem by Chelan Harkin as a way to remind us that it is our light that is being called at this moment:
So, Dear Ones, stand up under your broom tree. Allow yourself to be fed by angels because God wants us to go further. Leave your cave and find God not in the earthquake, the fire, nor even the wind but in the silence and stillness of your own breaking heart.
Look for the 7,000 for we are all dispatched back to the good work entrusted to us, says Hebrew scholar Walter Brueggemann, “It is the work of peace-making. truth-telling. It is the work of justice doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay it, even in the face of the forces to the contrary that are sure to prevail for a season or two.”
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