Rev’d Jonathan Gale
1 Kings 19: 1 – 4, 8 – 15a
Elijah Flees from Jezebel
19Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.’ 3Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’
8He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. 9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 10He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’
Elijah Meets God at Horeb
11 He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 14He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ 15Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus;
Galatians 3: 23 – 29
23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,* heirs according to the promise.
Luke 8: 26 – 39
Jesus Heals the Gerasene Demoniac
26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes,* which is opposite Galilee. 27As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn* no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’— 29for Jesus* had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. 31They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons* begged Jesus* to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 36Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes* asked Jesus* to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus* sent him away, saying, 39‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Elijah was one of those all or nothing type personalities and as a result he was subject to the highs and lows that sometimes go with that personality type.
However, we are all of us, no matter what our personality type, subject to bouts of the blues. It comes of being human beings who are a complex blend of chemical reactions.
John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress (for many years the best-selling book in English literature after the Bible) and in the story Christian (the indomitable pilgrim of the story) enters a bog called The Slough of Despond where he sinks under the weight of his sins and his sense of guilt for them.
Here he is abandoned by a fellow pilgrim, and I quote: “At that PLIABLE began to be offended, and angrily said to his fellow, “Is this the happiness you have told me of all this while? If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect ‘twixt this and our journey’s end? If I get out again with my life, you shall possess the brave country alone.” And with that he gave a desperate struggle or two, and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was next to his own house: so away he went, and CHRISTIAN saw him no more.”
Mr Pliable senses correctly that the life of a believer is going to involve occasional unhappiness and he is out of there!
Our personalities also contribute towards what it is that pushes us into a depressed state and as Christians we can be particularly subject to depression simply because we know the living God and expect things to be good as a result. When things don’t work out for us we undergo a frustration that gets us down. After all, I’m a child of God. Everything should go well.
Perhaps that was PLIABLE’s problem.
Elijah was certainly a case in point. He went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ All his spectacular efforts for God amongst God’s chosen people seem to have come to nothing. He had hoped to make a difference but, he claims, I am no better than my ancestors.
Things haven’t changed. The royal family is out to kill him. He is chased from pillar to post and he appears to have no human support. That would get most of us down.
It certainly gets him down and he isolates himself. People have hurt him and the now solitary man sits under a solitary broom tree in the wilderness.
You see, what Elijah has lost sight of – and this so easily happens with people who stand up for good, long for good, encourage others to associate with the good – what Elijah has lost sight of is human sinfulness.
We are so conditioned to look for the good in people we forget that at the very core of human nature is a propensity to draw away from God.
Early in Genesis 6: 5 we read, The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
The establishment of the Covenant at Mt Sinai introduced a sense of right and wrong to which the Israelites signed their names.
However, it of course only made people all the more aware of their sinfulness. As Jeremiah tells us (Jeremiah 17: 9) The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Jesus, on two occasions, expressed similar sentiments.
Neither does the law, what Paul in our reading calls “a disciplinarian”, help much other than to highlight our sinfulness.
When we forget that our tendency to go it alone (like a car with a front wheel out of alignment and that pulls to one side) is a force constantly to be reckoned with, we can easily find ourselves blaming ourselves when things don’t go the way we expected them to go.
Now you need to understand that I am not speaking about serious pathology here. Serious depression can have any number of causes unrelated to sinfulness and needs serious medical attention. What I refer to here is the propensity we all have to find ourselves off the rails and bumping across the countryside.
One moment everything is going well, but then it seems that suddenly the Jezebels of this world are out to get us. Things are not working out as we had hoped. And we blame ourselves and get down about it.
Now isn’t it interesting that we so easily lay the blame upon ourselves. There’s a reason for this. When we lose sight of our utter dependence upon God we drift into self-sufficiency, begin serving in our own strength and deviate from the straight and narrow. We are therefore right sometimes to blame ourselves! Often however, things descend upon us that have nothing to do with our behaviour.
The need to stay linked with God is so important that Jesus died for it!
We so easily think of sin in moral terms. It is not primarily a moral thing at all. It is a technical thing with moral implications. At its heart is a separation from walking with God. The rest is simply a logical result of that separation.
Like Elijah we want to get away from it all. 4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.
But we can’t get away from ourselves.
Eventually Elijah realises that the only place he can go to is God and he travels for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. 9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Horeb is another name for Mt Sinai, the place where God cut covenant with Israel. Elijah goes back to the heart of things. If he is to understand what went wrong he needs to go to where it all began to go right and that is in the presence of God. He goes into a cave where he can wait upon God, where he can sleep the night, where he does not have to rush on.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 10He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’
There Elijah stills himself and waits on God. He does not find God in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in the still small voice/the sound of sheer silence.
In drawing aside to hear God, Elijah stands in the mouth of the cave and receives instructions from God that are to have momentous implications for Israel. It all came about because he drew aside and centred himself in God once more. He went to the heart of the matter and that was the covenant with God.
When Paul tells the Galatians that, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ he is taking them back to the heart of the matter and that is the new covenant through Christ.
In faith in Christ is an acknowledgement of our dependency upon God. In our clothing ourselves with Christ is our complete identification with God. This is why in every Sunday Eucharist we confess our sins and are assured of God’s forgiveness. It is our way of ensuring we remain on track with God.
Hopefully none of us go through the depths experienced by the Gerasene Demoniac. But even there, the ministry of Jesus heals him. The people came out of the city and they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.
There is nothing like the power of Jesus. Whatever our sense of having let God, or others, or ourselves down; when we come to Jesus and seek his deliverance and restoration he is always there to embrace us.
What was good news to the Gerasene Demoniac is good news to us. Jesus is in the restoration business.
In July 1994 we were on holiday in Western Australia and I had a few hours on my own one day. I sat under a gum tree on a farm a good distance south of Perth and had a great time of prayer and meeting with God. It was probably that time that led to our coming to New Zealand.
But Elijah needed more than sitting under his solitary broom tree. He needed to go further, for forty days and forty nights in fact, to Horeb, the mountain of God and into a cave before he heard God.
Sometimes our first efforts at getting ourselves back on track don’t quite cut it. We have to persevere, to wait on God. Jesus commanded the demons to come out of the demoniac but they started negotiating with him. He persevered and eventually the man was delivered and healed.
You’ll notice that the man was clothed and in his right mind. He needed a little more than simply deliverance. He needed clothing too.
26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Faith will get us there but identifying with Christ will keep us there.
Whether you think of it as from broom tree to cave, or from faith to being clothed with Christ, this thing remains true; we all have a tendency now and again to drift from God and our journey back on track is helped by knowing that it sometimes takes a little perseverance, a little waiting on God. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Let us pray:
As you have listened this morning, if you feel that you may have slipped a little in your relationship with God, have developed something of an independent spirit, if you find yourselves a little down and wonder what went wrong; perhaps you would like to pray the following quietly with me:
Dear God.
Forgive us when we begin to depend upon ourselves, when we drift from fellowship with you. We confess our fear of giving ourselves over entirely to you. Forgive us, Lord. Help us to trust you and to give ourselves completely into your keeping. Help us too to clothe ourselves in Christ, to identify with you altogether, to wait upon you so that our strength might be renewed. These things we ask in the name of Jesus our Lord.
Amen.