Earth, Wind & Fire
I Kings 19:1-15a
Emmanuel Baptist Church; June 22, 2025
Rev. Kathy Donley
Image: Photo by paperwall on Unsplash.com
The theme of last weekend’s cabaret was the weather. One reason for that is that there are a lot of songs about the weather. Another reason is that people are talking about the weather a lot these days in situations where they want to avoid talking the controversies of politics. It probably ranks up there as one of the most preached stories in the book of Kings, but most of the sermons I’ve heard focus on the parts most like the weather – the wind, the earthquake and the fire. That includes my own sermons if I’m being honest.
If we’re going to get the full impact of this story, we have to understand the context and you guessed it, that means talking some politics. Just so you know, I did not choose this passage. It was assigned to today by the lectionary.
It's about 900 BCE. The Biblical people of Israel are divided into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Ahab is King of the north. He married a foreign princess named Jezebel. Jezebel came into the marriage with her own religion. Her father was a priest to Ba-al, the Canaanite god, so she takes her religion seriously.
Here's one way to describe the situation: As King, Ahab abandons the values and identity of his people. Maybe he does this because he never cared about his people or because he wants to please his wife or because of the power that his alliance with a foreign nation gives him. But bottom line, Ahab is king and he violates the ancient covenant with God, causing tremendous damage to his country.
Another way to describe it is to say that Queen Jezebel is immoral, shameless and manipulative and she persuades her husband to do the evil that he does. The word Jezebel in English now refers to an immoral woman who deceives people. I’m no fan of Queen Jezebel, but I want to point out that Ahab was described as evil before his marriage and he is supposedly the one in control and yet popular history only remembers and blames Jezebel.
Right before our story, Elijah had challenged 800 priests and prophets of Ba-al to a kind of pray-off, a competition to see whose God would respond to their prayers. Elijah won the pray-off at Mt. Carmel which ends with God sending rain after a 2-year drought. It would have been great if the story ended right there, but it includes the next detail which is that Elijah slaughters all of the priests of Ba-al. In response, Jezebel orders his execution. She brazenly promises to kill the prophet within twenty-four hours.
Elijah had gone toe-to-toe against 800 religious men, but Jezebel’s rage is too much. He races for his life. He far south to Beersheba, which is under Judah’s control and beyond Jezebel’s reach. He is profoundly discouraged and ready to die.
The acronym HALT is a self-assessment tool. It stands for hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Psychologists say that these states impair our decision-making abilities. If we can recognize that we are hungry, angry, lonely or tired, it is best to address those needs before taking other action. This is not my tool, but I think that the A might also stand for Afraid. Fear also impairs our decision-making abilities. Elijah exhibits all four HALT states at once.[1] It is all too much for him.
We might notice that God first addresses his physical and emotional needs. Elijah sleeps and wakes up to food provided by an angel, then sleeps again and is reminded to eat again. Friends, we are in hard times, days when we may feel hungry, angry, lonely or tired. We should not feel shame in attending to those valid needs as they arise.
On occasion, we may need to claim the role of Elijah, even maybe acknowledging that we feel abandoned even though we are not. Walter Brueggemann suggests that in those moments we would do well to recognize the gifts of God at those times. He writes, “They are likely to be given to us through human mediation, through those who care for us and wish us well. Such food as “a baked cake” and “a jar of water” might be a gesture, a note, a casserole, an embrace, a kind word, anything that signifies solidarity in a way that may relieve our sense of abandonment . . . It is amazing how such a singular, inexplicable gesture can reframe our lives as we find ourselves on the glad receiving end of grace generous mediated to us. In the narrative, the reception of food and care comes first.”[2]
The intent of the sleep and food is to strengthen Elijah for a journey. He goes to Mt Horeb, which is also called Mt Sinai. It is the place where Moses talked with God. In his despair, Elijah returns to one of the first places where God was known, where the identity of God’s people started to be formed. This is what we do – we seek comfort in the familiar. In terms of spirituality, most reform movements seek to return to the beginning.
There are clear parallels between Moses and Elijah here. Both spend 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain. It says that Elijah goes to “the” cave, which may refer to cleft of the rock where Moses stood as God passed by. Elijah talks with God, as Moses once did. Full of self-pity, Elijah says that he is the only faithful one left. He has been so zealous for God and now they are trying to kill him.
And then the weather happens. One poetic translation goes like this:
There was a mighty wind
Not in the wind was Yahweh
After the wind earthquake
Not in the earthquake was Yahweh
And after the earthquake, fire
Not in the fire was Yahweh
And after the fire ---
A sound of gentle silence.[3]
God showed up for others in the splitting of rocks or a mighty wind. God showed up for Elijah at the pray-off in a consuming fire. But this time, God comes another way. It’s a word that does not translate easily. Many of us know it from the King James – a still, small voice – but more recent language study suggests that it was not so much a voice as the absence of one.
After the great wind and earthquake and fire, there is the sound of sheer silence. Listen . . did you hear something? Maybe, just barely. Was it a voice? A whisper? or maybe nothing at all. God is always mysterious. God is not locked into any one mode of appearing,[4] even on the holy mountain where Elijah expects God to act in certain ways. When Reformers seek to go back to the beginning, they or we need to realize that God may show up differently than before.
One scholar says, “The answer to the threat [for Elijah] will not come in the spectacular and immediate manner as at Mt. Carmel. It does not come by way of a fire from on high. It does not come by way of a rainstorm. Rather, it is to come in a quiet fashion through the rather unspectacular fact of prophetic succession, . . . through the working out of divine will in the historical process.[5]
Even for a prophet as great as Elijah, change takes time. God does not intervene with the speed we want. God tells Elijah he is not alone. There are actually others, seven thousand or more who are still faithful, still serving God and God’s people. Soon after this, Elijah will begin to mentor Elisha his successor.
When the mountain top retreat is over, God sends Elijah right back to where he began, where he set off running from. God tells him to anoint a new king over Israel and a new king over Judah. He sends him back into the political fray. Essentially, God restores Elijah’s courage by giving him more work to do.
Walter Brueggemann was one of the foremost Old Testament scholars and leading theologians of our time. He died on June 5 at age 92. Back in November of 2024, he chose this passage to talk about his own response to the election. In a long essay, he said that he was tempted to Elijah’s despair, but ultimately, he wrote the words which I want to leave us with:
“So it is with us! Like the ancient prophets, we are dispatched back to the good work entrusted to us. It is the work of peace-making. It is the work of truth-telling. It is the work of justice-doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay it, even in the face of the forces to the contrary that are sure to prevail for such a season. We are in it for the long run, even as the Holy One is in it for the very long haul, from everlasting to everlasting. We do not ease off because it is hard. We are back at it.”[6]
May that be true for you and for me. Amen.
[1] https://www.christiancentury.org/sunday-s-coming/elijah-s-needs-1-kings-19-1-15a
[2] Walter Brueggemann, https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/beyond-a-fetal-position
[3] Translation by David Napier, as quoted by Walter Brueggemann, I and 2 Kings, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary, (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys Publishing, 2000) pp. 235-36
[4] Choon-Leong Seow, New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume III, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), p. 144
[5] Choon-Leong Seow, p 143.
[6] Walter Brueggemann, https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/beyond-a-fetal-position