Elijah’s ministry had mutated into a mess. Like all great calls to duty it had started out with high minded ideals and elaborate fantasies of success. Then reality began to intrude. Elijah saw the greed and corruption in the rulers and leaders of the people. These rulers and leaders talked about God all the time as if they were on first name basis with God. According to them God was always on their side especially when they were conducting fruitless wars on drugs and later a war on the poor.
As a prophet of the Lord, Elijah invoked the word of the Lord against these false leaders. Entitled, entrenched leaders always respond to any threat with violence. The leaders conspired to get Elijah fired. The powerful always know how to deal with prophets. Prophets come and go; they can be flicked off like a flea.
Elijah was harder to run off than they first expected, but they had a lot to lose and finally got Elijah evicted from his prophet’s job for doing exactly what God had told him to do. As you can tell it is virtually impossible for a parish priest of 43 years to hear this story as anything but a witch hunt for the faithful pastor.
Elijah’s biggest problem is that he doesn’t work for the congregation of the people of Israel; he works for God. As everyone knows, God is an uncompromising taskmaster and he goes looking for Elijah and finds him hiding out in a cave. Like most pastors Elijah had a very narrow skill set; he knew how to carry the Word. In fact he carried it so boldly it led to his undoing. So now he is unemployed and virtually unemployable with truth police goon squads looking for him everywhere except in the caves. There were a lot of caves and as long as Elijah is hiding out he can’t inflame anyone.
God asks Elijah: “Wassup?”
Elijah launches into a memorized set piece about how all he wanted to do was preach God’s word and the nasty people ignored him, ran him out of town and now he is at the end of his rope. God tells him to go outside because God is coming by. Sure enough a gigantic awe inspiring son et lumiere show began. First came prodigious winds; then an earthquake and finally a huge fire. But this was only the prelude; God wasn’t in any of these. It turned out God was in an enveloping stillness.
Out of the silence so deep it felt like deafness, God spoke to Elijah:
“Wassup?” (Broadly interpreted what God meant was: “How do like them apples?”)
It is very hard to tell whether God’s artistic display had any effect on Elijah at all. For no sooner had God finished his question than Elijah launched into his whining set piece, virtually identical to what he said the first time. Elijah was unchanged in his attitude by an astonishing encounter with the living God.
Now, whatever theory of biblical inspiration anyone might have, when the Scripture gets what it is like to be human we know we are in the presence of the holy. God’s solution for Elijah is to quit the jibber-jabber and go out and do something. Prophets anoint leaders, new leaders, leaders who have a clue about who they are and whose they are.
You know the story of Gandhi. His talking had gotten him into trouble; he was often on the run. So what to do? He decided to take salt. It was illegal for Indians to move salt. So Gandhi walked to the seaside where the salt was, picked up a pinch of it and carried it. You know the rest of the story.
One day Albert Einstein was invited to speak to an important conference. He rose slowly from his chair, moved to the lectern, and said quietly, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, but I have nothing to say." He paused while a stunned silence greeted his speech, and then added: "But when I do, I'll come back." Six months later he came back to the same group at a different function and made an important speech. That is how prophets operate when they are in high gear.
God reformats Elijah’s ministry with new tasks (really old tasks on new objects). No new techniques; no shiny gismos; no slick programs. Just doing what he is supposed to do.
Here at Holy Cross we are better off than Elijah. Like him we hear the word of God. Unlike him we have places to go and things to do—no hiding out for us. Like Elijah we have had our share of failure. Like Elijah our ministry is being reformatted. That retrofit is all about doing our ministry in company, with comrades and colleagues. Every one of us has part of the ministry; every one of us has some responsibility for the whole ministry. Every one of us is surrounded by a group of fellow Christians who share that vision. This is the ministry to which God called Elijah. That same God calls us.
I read in the announcements of the ministry projects that some of the small groups have adopted. Alone in a cave these would never bear fruit. Out in the world they are surpassing our goals like Loos for Lutherans and Towers of Tissue. Down to earth yes! In a cave? Never!