Sermon for July 3rd, 2016

1 Kings 17:1-7

1Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2The word of the Lord came to him, saying, 3“Go from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 6The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi. 7But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

Elijah Rock: Elijah the Tishbite

Our story begins not in Ancient Israel, but in El Paso, Texas sometime around the year 1992, in the choir room at Coronado High School. The choir director had just handed out to the choir a new piece of music--an arrangement of the Negro Spiritual, "Elijah Rock." I happened to be in that choir, and I remember two questions going through my head as the music was passed around: Who's Elijah? and What's the Rock?

As much as I enjoyed learning and singing the song, it doesn't really answer either question. Most of the lyrics to the song consist of unrelated phrases, "Elijah rock, shout! Shout! Elijah rock, comin' up Lord!" At some point there's another line about a rock: "If I could, I surely would stand on the rock where Moses stood." But that's not much help, either.

After a lifetime of Bible study and four years of seminary, I think today I can probably come up with a halfway decent answer to the question of "Who is Elijah?" And in fact, that's part of what this sermon series will attempt to do.

But if you're waiting for the answer to the other question, "What's the rock?" I have to admit, I still have no idea. There's no shortage of theories out there, and I'm sure you'll come up with your own, but as with many old folk songs that have entered into the popular imagination, we will probably never know for sure. I chose to call this series "Elijah Rock" simply because in my own mind, in my first encounter with Elijah, those two things went together. And because the character of Elijah, like the words to the song, is enigmatic, mysterious, and perhaps not completely explainable.

On to Elijah. We move next in our story back in time, to Ancient Israel...but...not to the Old Testament, not to the time of the prophets. Not yet. First we're going to stop in 1st century Israel, the time of Jesus of Nazareth. In the gospel of Luke (chapter 9), we read that Jesus took some of his disciples with him up a mountain to pray. "And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him." A cloud forms overhead, a voice speaks from the heavens, and then Moses and Elijah vanish, leaving Jesus and his disciples alone on the mountain.

This episode, which occurs in three out of the four gospels, is known as the transfiguration, and most scholars and theologians agree that the point of the story is to show that Jesus stands firmly in the tradition of the greatest leaders of Israel's past: Moses the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets.

According to Jewish tradition, there were 55 prophets (including males and females) spanning hundreds of years and every corner of Israel. Some are named only in passing, and some, like Isaiah and Ezekiel, have entire books of the Bible named for them or attributed to them.

No books or writings are attributed to Elijah, and his story takes place in six rather brief chapters in the books known as 1st and 2nd Kings. By contrast, 105 chapters of the Bible are either about or attributed to the prophet Jeremiah.

And yet, there are more references to Elijah in the New Testament (and in later Jewish writings) than any other prophet. So what exactly makes him so great?

When Elijah appears in today's scripture passage, that's actually the first time he appears in the Bible. We don't get an origin story, like we do with the prophet Samuel. No story about how Elijah was called to be a prophet, or who his parents were. This is pretty unusual in Hebrew tradition--usually new characters are introduced as "the son of..." or at least "from the tribe of..." We do read that Elijah is from Tishbe in Gilead, but no one today really knows where Tisbhe is, or was. Gilead is on the other side of the Jordan river from Israel, so it's kind of like saying "He was from over there...you know...far away."

So Elijah appears out of nowhere in 1 Kings 17, and says to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”