Principles of Caring
Presbyterian Support Sunday
9.30am Sunday 24 June 2007
Readings: 1 Kings
19:1-15a; Luke 8:26-39
Both of our Bible readings this morning are
appropriate for
Presbyterian Support Sunday as we consider the ministry
that this organisation exercises on our behalf.
The first is about the prophet Elijah.
Elijah has often been referred to as the prophet of fire, because of the
dramatic nature of his ministry and that fire is associated with a number of
the things he did. Elijah bursts on to
the scene of Israel's
history during the reign of King Ahab.
Ahab had married
Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who worshipped
the Phoenician god Baal. We are told in
2 Kings that Ahab
"served Baal a little,"[1]
and because of he allowed religious freedom, Jezebel was able to set up shrines
to her god. Her goal, however, was to
establish Baal with its fertility cult as the only god in Israel. The LORD, Israel's true God, claimed
exclusive allegiance from his people, and so a confrontation between the LORD
and Baal was inevitable. We can see how
zealously Jezebel set about achieving her goal by Elijah's complaint to God in
our reading, when he says,
"The Israelites have rejected your covenant,
thrown down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword."[2] Jezebel was behind all of this. Elijah, whose name means, 'The LORD is my
God,' is sent to pronounce a drought and thus puts down a direct challenge to
the fertility cult of Baal. The
followers of Baal believed he was the god who made the land produce its
food. The events after Elijah declares
the drought show very clearly that it is Israel's God who controls the
elements, provides food and gives life to his people. We can see this in the way the he
miraculously supplies food for Elijah, and how he is able to bring back to life
the widow's child who died.
[3] (Blank screen)
After announcing the drought Elijah
disappears from the scene for three and a half years during which time
conditions reach desperation levels in Israel. Ahab sends search parties all over Israel to find
Elijah but without success. When Elijah
does turn up, Ahab says,
"Is that you, you troubler of Israel?"[4] Elijah is not the only one of God's servants
who earned that title. The apostle Paul
did, too, for wherever he went he stirred up trouble, trouble in a good
sense. David Wilkerson in a recent
sermon says we need more people who are not afraid to trouble nations by
questioning and challenging the things that are wrong in society like both
Elijah and Paul did. Elijah replies that
it is not he who has brought trouble on Israel, but Ahab. He asks him to summon the people of Israel to
Mount Carmel
and to bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four
hundred prophets of Asherah, who we are told ate at Jezebel's table.
[5] Ahab agrees and all Israel gathers
on Mt Carmel. What takes place on the
mount is one of the most dramatic incidents in the Old Testament, as Elijah,
the LORD's sole representative, takes on all the devotees of Baal. Elijah is outnumbered eight-hundred and fifty
to one. It brings to mind Jonathan's
words to his armour bearer when the pair of them took on a Philistine outpost
single-handed. Jonathan said,
"Nothing
can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few."[6]
Elijah challenges the syncretistic behaviour
of God's people. They were trying to
'have a foot in both camps,' wanting the best of both worlds by serving both
the LORD and Baal. Elijah says you
cannot do this.
"If the LORD is God,
follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him."
The people remain silent. He
then proposes a contest. Both the
prophets of Baal and Elijah would offer a sacrifice and each would call on the
name of their god. The god who answered
by fire would be the true God. The
people agree. Elijah then lets the
prophets of Baal go first as there were more of them. For the best part of the day the prophets of
Baal call on their god, but despite their rantings and ravings and slashing
themselves with swords and spears as was their custom, there is no answer.
[7] Then when the time of the evening sacrifice
comes, Elijah calls the people near. He
repairs the altar of God that had been broken down, dug a trench around it, and
puts the sacrifice on it. He then asks the people to pour water, a very scarce
commodity in time of drought, over it, and to do it not just once, but three
times until the trench around the altar was full. There would be no trickery on his part. He then calls on the LORD who answers
immediately by
sending fire to consume the sacrifice, the wood and the
stones and licks up the water in the trench.
The people fall prostrate on the ground crying out,
"The Lord - he
is God! The Lord - he is God!"[8] The outcome proves beyond doubt that The
LORD is the true God in Israel,
for He not only answers by fire but, a short time later, sends rain on the
parched land. Elijah then orders the
execution of the prophets of Baal.
There is a lesson for us here. You cannot sit on the fence so far as God is
concerned. You cannot have one foot in
God's camp and the other in the world.
Christ seeks our total allegiance.
There can be no compromise. The
very first command God gave his people was,
"You shall have no other gods
before, or beside, me."[9] Jesus said, "You cannot serve both God
and Money."[10]
In the
passage we read this morning we see Queen Jezebel absolutely furious at what
Elijah had done to her prophets and determines Elijah's execution. Elijah takes to his heels a second time on
the same day, this time to flee from Jezebel.
He leaves his servant at
Beersheba
while he himself goes a day's journey into the wilderness. He was gutted. After the great outcome of the contest,
nothing had changed. He had had enough
and prays that he might die.
The
Bible does not camouflage the emotional highs and lows of its heroes. It tells it like it is. Is not this what life is all about, and why
the Bible is so relevant. Life has not
changed much in three thousand years.
There are still people who feel that they are doing right, even doing
God's work, by putting Christians to death.
It is as Jesus said, "the hour is coming when
those who kill you will think they are doing a service to God."[11]
Many today who become Christians know that by doing so they sign their
own death warrant, or know they will be ostracised and disinherited by their
own family. In some cultures they hold a
funeral service for any member of the family who becomes a Christian. Following Jesus is not for the fainthearted,
as both Mary and Leon and
Jean's experiences in Myanmar
and China
showed.
Notice
how God deals with his servant on this occasion.
1.
He meets Elijah's PHYSICAL needs.
When we are depressed we must not neglect to nourish our physical
bodies. Elijah had scaled the heady
heights of success and had hoped that Israel would be purged of its
apostasy, only to find that nothing has changed in the capital of the
nation. Jezebel is still in control and
is intent on his murder as she had murdered the other prophets of the Lord who
had dared to speak against her.
Exhausted Elijah falls asleep.
Suddenly an angel touches him and urges him to eat. He doesn't do it just once but twice. God meets Elijah's physical need for
nourishment. And then in the strength of
that food Elijah journeys forty-days to
Mount Horeb, where God first
appeared in the burning bush to Moses.
Elijah desperately wants to meet God.
There is an
important principle here that is reinforced throughout Scripture. We must first minister to people's physical
needs before we can tackle the underlying spiritual needs. People cannot focus on the deeper issues
behind their problem until the immediate surface needs have been attended
to. Presbyterian Support does excellent
work in this area as we saw in the DVD.
But for total healing it must go deeper than that, and Support Services
does do this where there is the opportunity.
Jesus calls his church to exercise a holistic ministry, one that
ministers to people bodies, minds and spirits.
This was the ministry Jesus modelled, as we will see in a moment from
the passage in Luke.
2.
He allows Elijah to TALK.
He says,
"What are you doing here Elijah?" He wants Elijah to share his concerns. He lets him air his grievances. That in itself is helpful for you and I to do
when going through a tough time. Often
just verbalising a problem puts it into perspective and enables you to see the
issues more clearly. What has been
bottled up inside now has a chance to come out in the open. You and I cannot be helped or encouraged to
see things differently, until we have first had the opportunity of sharing what
is on our hearts, and to share it in a way where we know we have been
heard. Elijah does this. He tells the LORD how zealous he has been for
his cause, how bad things are in Israel, how he alone is left to
carry the flag of the LORD, and that he is now a fugitive from Jezebel, running
for his life.
3.
He REVEALS himself to Elijah. Notice that it was not in the great and powerful wind that tore the
mountains apart and shattered the rocks, nor in the earthquake that caused the
ground to tremble with terrifying effect, nor in the fire that consumed all
before it, a reminder of his great might and majesty, his power and strength,
but in
"a
gentle whisper"[12]
that God spoke to Elijah and again gives him
the opportunity to unburden his heart.
While God does speak loudly at times as he did at Mount Horeb when he
first gave his commandments, he just as often, if not more so, speaks in a
gentle whisper or through an inner prompting that we can miss if we are not
quiet and attentive.
4.
He ENCOURAGES
Elijah. He
does this in two ways.
a)
He gives him a TASK. If we read
on in Kings we would see where God commissions
Elijah to anoint Hazael king over Aram,
Jehu king over Israel,
and Elisha as his successor.
There's
no retirement or use-by date for God's servants. As long as there is breath in our bodies we
can serve God.
b)
He tells him he is not ALONE.
The LORD says,
"Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel - all whose knees have not
bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him."[13] Thinking of our 'Better
Together' focus for the year, God never intends us to serve him alone. He wants us to work together as a team to
make him known.
Our second
reading this morning is the strange story of the deranged man from the region
of
the Gerasenes where Gentiles lived.
In Bible times there was little help or hope for such people, not as
there is today. They would have to be
restrained by whatever means available, but in this man's case, not even chains
were enough, such was his spiritual and mental state. He was a lonely, tormented and troubled
being, rejected and shunned by society, and destined to live out his days in
the desolate surroundings of a graveyard, that is, until Jesus came on the
scene. It is not just coincidence that
this event took place immediately after Jesus had calmed the storm on the
lake. Jesus has authority over both
natural and spiritual realms. He has
been given all authority on heaven and earth.
[14]
Note the
cause of this man's problem. He was a
man possessed by demons, not just one, but a whole host of these evil beings
who tormented him day and night. The
passage tells us that they drove him into solitary places.
[15] The evil one loves to isolate us, knowing
that when we are out of fellowship with others, he is free to work on us as he
wants. When Jesus arrived on the scene
it was as though 'all hell broke loose' in the demented man, for we read,
"when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at
the top of his voice, 'What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High
God? I beg you, don't torture me!"[16] For Jesus, we are told, discerning the cause
of this man's condition, had ordered the unclean spirit to come out of
him. Then in a sequence of events that
are strange to the modern mind, the demons plead not to be sent to the Abyss,
where they know they will eventually go, but beg to be sent into a herd of pigs
grazing nearby. Jesus gives them
permission to do so, at which
the pigs go berserk and
stampede into
the lake and drown. No wonder those
tending the pigs took to their heels to report the incident. Those who come to check out the situation are
confronted with something they find hard to believe. The madman was now sitting at the feet of
Jesus, dressed and sane. It is a
wonderful picture of what Jesus does with a broken life. The Bible says,
"God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a
sound mind."[17] Jesus brought to this man new possibilities
for the future, a future filled with hope not despair, of sanity not
insaneness, of community not isolation, of testimony not torment. Although he wanted to go with Jesus, Jesus
told him to return home and tell how much God had done for him. And from Mark's
Gospel we can imply that it was because of the testimony of this man that when
Jesus returned to this area at a later time, he was welcomed not feared.
[18]
Three
thoughts to
leave with you in closing:
1.
God
treats all people alike. Whether it be his
despondent prophet or a deranged
Gentile, he treats both with the same care and compassion.
2.
God
will judge the world. Elijah exercised God's judgment
on those who were leading God's people astray, and the Luke passage reminds us
that one day all that is evil will be consigned to the abyss. The Bible says God has appointed Jesus as
judge of the living and the dead.
3.
Wholeness,
freedom and forgiveness are found in Jesus alone.
[19]
(Jer29)