God Is not Finished with You Yet!!

Many years ago I had a falling out at church it wasn’t particularly dramatic it was a simple question asked during a service that didn’t go down very well. I left the service and found a quiet place and sobbed crying tears of frustration and self-pity. In the same room  where I was hiding out was a young mother trying to settle her noisy infant, she naturally asked me what was wrong and so I told her what had happened, I told her I’d had enough of church and that I was going home, for good. And I did. When I got home I told the family that I was through with the church and that I was exhausted.  I think I was trying to do to many things, and be too many things to all people, mother, Sunday school superintendent, elder, part time retail nursery worker, you get the picture. Despite my workload however I was doing well, everyone was pleased with me and for the most part  things were great. And yet on the day of the falling out I plunged into the depths of despair, with a bit of frustration and anger thrown in and like Elijah I felt like I was all done.

Although my story has some similarities with Elijah’s emotional, spiritual, and physical breakdown I certainly wasn’t fleeing death threats like the prophet, nor was I at the point of giving up on life, for me it was just the church.

So I wonder does Elijah breakdown because he is scared, or is he depressed or simply burnt out? Regardless of the reason it seems odd that he becomes so full of despair, so ‘over it’,  because in the previous chapter of 1 Kings he is full of confidence, wit, and bravado.  Elijah challenges the prophets of the false god Baal, to set alight an animal sacrifice by calling upon their god to send fire from above. To say that it doesn’t go well for Elijah’s opponents is an understatement, they are humiliated, ridiculed and ultimately put to death and this embarrassing defeat of Baals prophets and their demise is the reason why Elijah becomes a marked man, and why he tries to put as much distance as possible between himself and the Baal’s biggest fan the powerful Queen Jezebel.

Despite Elijah’s fear and his desire to give it all up, God provides for him, encouraging him to eat and drink and rest. We all know that taking time out to take care of our own wellbeing is a good remedy for burn out, it worked for Elijah, and it worked for me too all those years ago. At some point in the afternoon, on the day of the falling out, there was a knock on the front door and when I opened it there was my church elder with a bag of shopping. She had heard about my tears and my decision to leave the church for good and said, “ I figured you wouldn’t feel like cooking today so here’s a roast chicken from woollies, some salad, and some rolls. I hope you’re feeling better soon, I will be praying for you.” And with that she left. God cared for me that day, just as God did for Elijah, although my angel was just an ordinary person with a big heart. It was a small thing in a way to drop in a roast chook and rolls and yet it made all the difference.

Elijah’s story also has a lot of similarities with our story as the church. Like Elijah we too have had our glory days, Elijah had his amazing victory over the prophets of Baal;  we have had in the past, a Sunday school  packed to the rafters, hundreds of people on our church roles and plenty of volunteers to fill the rosters and run numerous activities. We probably thought that things would stay that way forever. Because things were relatively easy, and it was the norm for the majority of people to go to church I wonder if we forgot who it is who makes all things possible. Let me explain that by going to back to Elijah’s story. I suspect that the mighty, successful prophet had forgotten something very important after his amazing victory.  He may have forgotten that it was all down to God that the prophets of Baal were defeated, and perhaps for a moment he was convinced that he was the powerful one. We too can lose sight of the fact that it is in God‘s power we continue to be the church and that it is Gods mission we serve, not our own personal agendas. We mustn’t confuse Gods mission to reconcile all people to Godself  with keeping a building going or keeping a roster going or in thinking that it’s down to us to keep God’s mission going. That’s way too much pressure and that kind of thinking will lead to burn out. Rather all that we do must be done through God’s power within us for as it is written in our weakness he makes us strong.

Like Elijah I’m sure we’ve all had moments when the pressures of being the church in today’s society in which everything has changed so dramatically gets too much for us.  We have probably all felt a little bit like the prophet sitting under the broom tree. Perhaps we have wished for some dramatic word from God, a vision or plan that cannot fail and yet like Elijah sometimes we can miss or fail to understand that God speaks to us in whispers, in every day moments in simple things like a friend at the door with a barbecue chook from woollies.

The other important lesson we learn from Elijah’s story is that God will always find a way to be a presence, and a revelation to humankind. After Elijah had had his lament, been fed, and rested, and had time to think things through, (did you  notice that he had to travel forty days, to the cave in which he hears the small still voice, that’s a lot of time for self-reflection and prayer)) he receives word from God some simple instructions about his next move. Here at Carlingford you have also had your ‘forty days’, a time out in between ministers, a period of time in which many of you have been thinking through your next move. In Elijah’s story we can see that the mission of God will not rest solely on his shoulders, he is told to place that mantle on the shoulders of Elisha and Elisha becomes an apprentice prophet. God’s mission carries on.

What would it have been like for Elijah in his moment of despair to have had a glimpse of the future, to see that God‘s plan would be for fulfilled, that out of the people of Israel will come the saviour of the world, that in a small and ordinary event, a woman giving birth where the animals were kept, the revelation of God in the flesh would take place? From that perspective Elijah is a small piece of the plan, one of many who although quite flawed and quite ordinary, play a part in God’s mission. Read more of Kings and you will see what I mean, by flawed; the leadership of the nation that was called to be a light to all nations is pretty messed up, yet God’s mission carries on.

Like Elijah we cannot know what the church, what God’s mission will look like in 10 years, in 20 years, in 1000 years, in 2000 years, but we can trust that it will be through God‘s power that a light to all nations remains visible in the world . It is not all down to us, we simply do our part and trust that it is enough, trust that we are enough, and we are because God love us. The most beautiful thing about Elijah’s story is that it shows us that we matter to God. Our God is a compassionate God, who comes to us when we feel down and out, who listens patiently to our laments and complaints, and if we are open to hear God’s spirit speak, if we stop still long enough to hear the soft whisper of God we will receive renewal and direction. God always finds a way, God is never finished with us, and it is in Gods strength that we continue on. Hope in God, for God is love, light, and truth.

Amen.