“I have been most zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. But the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life.”
Elijah is having a meltdown. The ultimate warrior of God, who has repeatedly demonstrated his authority to destroy God's enemies with a single word (or no word) can't take it anymore. He is suffering burnout and moral injury following his slaying of five hundred pagan priests. He is tired, disgusted, angry, disappointed, and fed up. He wants to die.
If as a young man he expected success, it never came. If he thought his power would cow the Hebrews into holy obedience, as Putin imagined his triumph over Ukraine, it wasn't going to happen. He has just decapitated the religion of Baal by cutting the throats of five hundred pagan priests, but Queen Jezebel wants to cut his throat and she represents the majority of people. A crowd was awed by his demonstration of power but they'll soon forget about it. Spectacles don't change people.
Elijah's work is unfinished and will never be finished. As the story goes, he will be taken up into heaven behind angelic horses in a fiery chariot and never seen again. Some think he must return to finish the conversion of Israel to God. But that's idle thinking.
His plight is all too familiar to the world today, especially to well-armed Americans. They are frustrated and disappointed with leaders who only follow the polls. Having attained the status of most powerful nation, they see other nations copying their success and besting them with the very tools they invented. Their schools still set the standard for the world but the best students are not American. Many thought they'd solve their problems by killing. But abortion, capital punishment, and suicide have solved nothing. Their distress only grows worse.
Many would imitate Elijah's violence and take their guns to schools, shopping centers, and churches in a desperate effort to change something, change anything. And yet, like Elijah's slaughter of the priests, the killings change nothing.
They want something but they cannot agree to what they want, nor can they make sacrifices to attain it. They've been told repeatedly that sacrifices are not necessary. You deserve whatever you want; you have only to wish upon a star.
On Mount Horeb, Elijah finally receives the direction he wants. He will complete two routine, ceremonial tasks -- the anointing of two kings -- and then appoint his successor, the young Elias. And then he can retire, in a manner of speaking.
Will his work ever be done?
Elijah's frustration certainly remains with us. The Hebrew prophets who succeeded him complained of the same infidelity. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they did not recognize the hour of visitation. Saint Paul expected all Jews throughout the diaspora to come to Jesus, and was sorely disappointment. His angry denunciations of his contemporaries, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, embarrass the Church to this day. The "conversion" of the Roman Empire to Christianity diluted the Gospel to an idle set of platitudes.
Americans, believing in their city on a hill and anointed with a mission to bring democracy to all the nations, can't make democracy work within its own borders. Many would scuttle the whole experiment.
On this Friday morning we turn to the Lord and pray for relief. Elijah found a measure of relief, albeit temporary, in the quiet breeze on Mount Horeb. God spoke to him and comforted him. His anger was appeased and he was consoled. Horrified by abortion, suicide, and mass shootings, we also beg God for relief. We have nowhere else to turn.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.