“Stories of Faith: The Presence of the Lord” 1 King 18:20-39

Sometimes it seems like life is like a giant game of tug-of-war. Do you remember the game of tug-of-war? Two teams each hold a side of a rope marked with some type of bandana or other flag in the middle and pull. Hard. They take turns dragging each other back and forth over something, usually a mud pit. Repositioning their hands. Sweat making the rope hard to hold. Until finally, one team drags the other across the mud pit.

If life is like that giant game of tug-of-war between choices, the prophet Elijah comes forth in this mornings scripture lesson and says no more. No more tug-of-war over decisions, simply make a choice. Choose God. Or choose the other option, in this case, Baal, the god of weather. Choose and stick with your choice.

If only in life choosing could be that easy. Yet every day we have things in our life that we choose over God. Sometimes its work. Sometimes its our to-do list. Sometimes its our finances. Things and people around us are clamoring for out attention, and we have to make a choice with each and every one of those options. 

We have been spending our last several weeks together in this sermon series about stories - the stories of the faith and how they connect with our story. But here’s the thing, in every great story, written down or not, there is an element of conflict. A choice that needs to be made. Folks, this is your choice in your story - what are you going to choose? I want you to take a moment, close your eyes, and enter into today’s text. 

The prophet Elijah came around during the time period of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Wicked rulers who despite multiple times where Elijah tried to enter into their lives and tell them a new story, still worshiped Baal, the god of weather. It wasn’t uncommon during this time period to worship different gods for different things. And every King and Queen want a good harvest - which requires good weather - because no one wants to rule during times of drought and famine. Yet, that’s exactly what Elijah told the King was on the way - a drought. Not a welcomed message to be sure. Elijah told King Ahab that this particular drought was going to be a bad one - lasting five years. Now, three years later, three years of no rain, three years of the people whom Ahab and Jezebel ruled over praying to Baal for the drought to end, God sends Elijah back, telling him that when Elijah goes before Ahab, God would send rain upon the land. 

While Elijah is venturing off to make this grand announcement, he first came across Obadiah, Ahab’s palace administrator who devoutly loved the Lord. Elijah tells Obadiah to go announce his presence to the King and Obadiah rightly freaks out a bit, worried that he would be put to death for such an announcement. But Obadiah went anyway, and Elijah presented himself before the King, who blamed him for the entire drought because of his prophesy. Elijah wasn’t having any of the blame game though - and switched it right around on the King, telling him that it was because of the King and his family following Baal that they were in this mess in the first place. Which is where we pick up today’s story.

Now the people are faced with a choice. Follow God, the Lord of Elijah. Or follow Baal who their rulers worshiped. And the people said nothing. Isn’t this true of us also? Can’t you see your own story in the people of Israel? When we are faced with having to make a choice that we rather not make, we stay silent. Thinking that by staying silent we will save the skin of our teeth. Or by staying silent we avoid having to make a decision, when really not making a decision is a decision. 

And not only can we see ourselves in the people of Israel, but don’t we all seem to find ourselves with pesky Elijah’s in our lives when we would rather just stay silent. Don’t we seem to find ourselves with people in our lives who won’t let us slide by with our silence, but instead make us make a choice. Elijah turns to the people in all of their silence and says that he is one of the only prophets of the Lord left who hasn’t fled or been killed. Yet, here is Baal with these hundreds of prophets. Let’s make two sacrifices and see which God will send fire down from heaven to light the sacrifice. 

And just when the people tried to drop the rope in the game of tug-of-war, refusing to make a decision but instead, retreating into their silence, the game is back on. They pick the rope back up and resume their sides. Only now, Elijah was seemingly going to help them make a decision. The gods could be at war and they would simply choose the winning side. It all sounds good to them.

The prophets of Baal even got first pick of which bull they wanted to prepare. And longer to prepare their sacrifice. Yet they called on Baal for hours , but no one answered. So they tried dancing. And singing. And shouting. And then Elijah, never the most well mannered of the prophets, started to taunt them, telling them to shout louder so maybe, just maybe they could wake their god up. The flag seemed to be slipping onto the side of Elijah and his Lord.

Then Elijah had the people come to them and help repair the alter to the Lord that had been destroyed by Ahab’s constituents. Then he doused the wood with water. To the point where water was flowing down the alter’s side the wood was so drenched. The flag slipped to the side of Baal, there was no way wet wood was going to light up. Yet, when Elijah prayed, fire came down from heaven and the wood beneath the scarified burned. With one good and final tug from Elijah’s side, Baal’s came tumbling into the metaphorical mud. The people remembered whose they were.

Open your eyes. I think we all want to be on the side of the victor, and we know that our God is victorious. But I have to ask, can you see why the Israelites were struggling. There not only hadn’t been rain or dew in three years, but for those three years Elijah, pretty much the last prophet of the Lord, had been MIA, so they hadn’t heard a word from the Lord. In that time they had lost their love and zeal for the Lord when they were faced with silence. Is it as easy to chant that our Lord is victorious when we are facing the silence? Or when the presence of the Lord seems to be hidden? 

During those times when God isn’ as noticeable to us, for whatever reason, it is so easy to slip into worshipping other things - food, money, relationships. Pastor Mike Slaughter at Ginghamsburg Untied Methodist Church in Ohio states that it only takes him one day to slip away from a healthy fear of our great God. One day of not doing devotions. One day of not praying. One day of not seeking out the Lord. Here the Israelites were losing that healthy fear over three years! How long has it been since you’ve had a healthy fear of the Lord? How long has it been since you’ve slipped into worshipping other people and things instead of God?

But hear the good news. When we slip away, God is going to come after us and get our attention somehow. We celebrate that good news every time we break bread together around the communion table and hear the worlds, “when our love failed your love remained steadfast.” The real question is how far is God going to have to go to get your attention? How far is God going to have to go before you worship in the presence of our Holy God alone? How far until you drop the rope of the tug-of-war for your heart and put our God as victor in the right place? 

Brothers and sisters, we are humans and we are flawed. Saint Augustine, bishop in the early church, was quoted as saying that “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.”  And we know that when our hearts are restless, we wander, and start to worship other things and people, looking for security in different places. May I invite you today to stop wandering. Stop roaming from thing to thing, looking for the victory you can only find in Christ. And instead, return to the God who has won the tug-of-war for your heart. Amen.