Title: How Much Is Enough and Who Do You Trust for It? Part I
Text: I Kings 17:8-16 (16:29-33 and 17:1-7)
Thesis: Just because some gods let us down does not mean there is no God at all… god’s let us down but God does not!
Introduction
I always shudder when I hear someone suggest that God punishes us through natural disasters. I not only shudder but I am embarrassed when it is a Christian politician, pastor or televangelist who makes such claims. They say hurricanes and tornados and floods and droughts and earthquakes and fires are God’s wrath being poured out against the sins of America. So… if natural disasters are indeed expressions of God’s anger then who are we to pray for relief from an extended drought or step in to aid those whose lives have been ripped apart by a tornado? Some even suggest that the severity of the disaster indicates the degree of God’s anger. So we can tell if God is a little irked or if God is really “Sodom and Gomorrah ticked-off.” (God must really be mad at Moore, OK.)
The reason it bothers me is that such claims suggest that God’s wrath for the sin of mankind was not satisfied in the death of Christ… it suggests God still has some anger bottled up inside that requires a good natural disaster to relieve the pressure.
Yet there was a time when God was in the natural disaster business. I confess it bothers me and confuses me but one of those times is found in I Kings 17.
I. God was in the disaster business… back in Elijah’s day
“As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain during the next few years until I give the word!” I Kings 17:1
Of course there is a back story.
A. Ahab had come to power and was the new King of Israel.
B. Ahab did more evil in the sight of God than any of the kings before him.
C. Ahab married Jezebel, a pagan princess from Sidon and began to worship Baal.
D. Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria and set up an Asherah pole.
Twice in the brief span of just four verses Scripture says, “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of God of Israel than any of the other kings of Israel before him.” I Kings 16:29-33
That’s why and when God got involved in the climate change business. He sent his prophet, Elijah, to confront King Ahab and to inform him that there would be consequences for his idolatry, i.e., a severe, extended drought.
Droughts are not periods of plenty. Droughts are periods of scarcity. There is no water and since there is no water there is no food.
Earlier this week the Denver Post ran an article in the business section about the drought in southeastern Colorado. There is a photo of farmer, Burl Scherler, walking in what is supposed to be a field of wheat. A farmer in Kiowa County, Chris Tallman, stated, “We are at zero. We will have absolutely no wheat crop this year.” (Steve Raab, Southeastern Colorado Wheat Crop a Disaster, Denver Post, 6/6/13) Of course those farmers were thinking in terms of economic loss locally… not widespread food shortages and starvation.
I do not mean to downplay a drought in southeast Colorado but that does not preclude a bumper wheat crop in northeast Colorado. But, were there to be a drought in southeast Colorado and northeast Colorado and North and South Dakota and Nebraska and Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas… that would be a problem. And were the drought to spread east through the corn-belt it would be disastrous over time. No rain. No food. No food, people starve to death. No water, people die of dehydration.
Sixteen days after the Bangladesh factory collapsed in May, rescue workers pulled a woman from the rubble… she survived only because she had some bottled water within reach of where she was trapped. You can live up to 8 weeks without food but under ideal circumstances 3 – 5 days without water.
I read a sardonic remark this past week to the effect that, “We can live without love for a long time, but we cannot live without water.”
So we’ve said all this to simply say, a nationwide drought was about to strike the nation of Israel.
There is more to this back story…
II. God’s interest in climate control is about trust.
Earlier I said, “First Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal… then he set up an Asherah pole.” I Kings 16:32-33
Baal was a pagan god that was generally believed to be a fertility god who enabled the earth to produce crops and people to produce children…. there are many variations but all are very connected to controlling the weather. That is why Elijah challenged Ahab in 17:1 w/a drought, i.e., God vs. Baal. The idea carries over into chapter 18 where Elijah the Prophet of God challenged the prophets of Baal to see which could make it rain. Ultimately Baal offered only empty promises…
God was confronting Ahab for having placed his trust in the pagan god, Baal, for rain to water the crops that would produce a bountiful harvest.
I remember an episode of Seinfeld in which George Costanza’s father, fed up with the tradition of Christmas, invented his own religion. He called it Festivus for the Rest of Us. And he replaced the traditional Christmas tree with a stark, aluminum pole. The aluminum pole was the centerpiece of his newfound religion.
Along with the temple and altar for Baal Ahab had also erected Asherah poles which marked pagan religious sights. Some say that the goddess Asherah was Baal’s mother. Others say Asherah was Baal’s lover. In either case she is often pictured with signs of fertility and sexuality.
So when the King of Israel and the people of Israel went to the temple and worshiped at the Asherah pole and the Altar of Baal they were praying that Baal would grant them great weather, plentiful rain and a bountiful harvest… their trust was in the pagan god Baal rather than the One and Only Almighty God of the Universe.
Essentially God drew a line in the sand and asked, “Who do you believe controls the weather, Baal or Me?”
So that is the major portion of the back story. Elijah had confronted King Ahab and informed him of an impending and widespread drought. Probably laughable to Ahab at the time but it would not take long for Ahab to put out an APB for Elijah’s arrest.
In addition to trust, God’s interest extends to obedience.
III. God’s interest in trust extends to obedience
Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you for food…” I Kings 17:2-4
Names mean something. Kerith means something. In my reading this past week I was amused to read about an attempt to turn an unhappy place on the planet into a happy place. The plan was to train 50 people to be happy and then send them into a sad place to see if they could transform it into a happy place. They focused on a community outside of London named Slough. A slough is a swamp or a bog or a muddy, miry place. When a snake sheds its skin we say it is sloughing its skin. When Bunyan wrote of the Slough of Despond in Pilgrim’s Progress he was referring to a spiritual bog into which Christians sometimes find themselves. A slough is a terrible place and not normally a happy place.
Slough, England is just outside of London’s major beltway. It is directly in the flight path of Heathrow Airport. Back in the day Slough was a rest stop for carriages and farmers fertilized their fields with the massive amounts of manure dropped by the horses. During WWI the British used Slough as a repair depot for disabled military vehicles and referred to Slough as “The Dump.” Slough is not a happy place.
God did not send Elijah to a place like Slough but interestingly God told Elijah to go and hide by Kerith Brook. The name Kerith means “cut-off.” If you want to hide from the King, go somewhere no one would ever think to look for you… go to the most remote and cut-off place you can find. God told Elijah to go to such a place. (Today if you wish to hide from someone the best place to hide is in plain sight. The best place to hide is right in the middle of the most populated place you can find where there are places to earn a few bucks, places to stay, places to eat, amusements…) But God told Elijah to go to a cut-off place and Elijah did just that.
A. Elijah Obeyed and went to Kerith Brook
So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside Kerith Brook… I Kings 17:5
God sent Elijah to a place where there was water…
When we lived in California I enjoyed hiking in the desert. On one occasion I hiked a trail over fairly level desert terrain into the Joshua Tree National Park. After about 4 miles I came upon a deep canyon with a steep trail leading to the bottom and to the Lost Palms Oasis. There were many palm trees with a stream of water running through the canyon. During my hike I did not see a single person but all around were signs of wildlife that survive in that barren and desolate place because there is water.
Elijah obeyed God and God provided Elijah not only with water but food as well.
B. God Provided food
The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening and he drank from the brook. I Kings 17:6
I read recently that the UN is considering insects as a potential form of protein for starving people around the world. Mother Earth Network is also promoting entomophagy or bug eating as a way of life. They say that bugs could replace meat as our primary source of protein…They say smoky roasted and seasoned crickets are delicious.
However, God did not send Elijah to a place called cut-off to eat bugs. God provided bread and meat twice a day. Ravens are large birds, kind of big versions of crows. They have black plumage and large beaks. My experience is that they are not pleasant birds. If you ever saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds you have some idea of how menacing they can be.
But Ravens were God’s food providers for Elijah…we aren’t told where it came from but God fed Elijah bread and meat every day. It was not road kill or dumpster delight… it was good and apparently sufficient for his needs.
Conclusion:
I began with the question: How much is enough and who do you trust for it? The story today is not about how much is enough. That comes later. The story today is about who we trust… for enough.
Our story is not about whether God does or does not cause natural disasters like widespread droughts. But it is about who we trust during such times.
Our story today comes to us on the front end of a disastrous drought … next week we pick up on the drought in full-swing so to speak. That too is about trust but also about how much is enough.
Today the primary issue in question is about trust. Who do you trust and who do I trust?
Do we trust the pagan Baal gods of this world that offer us empty promises?
1. Success? Get that education and work like a maniac and you can be assured that your employer will value your loyalty and reward you with higher wages and increasing job security.
2. Youth? Eat right and exercise. Take your vitamins. Hit the tanning booth. Color your hair. Get a shot of Botox now and then and maybe even a little tightening up and lifting here and there. You may look ridiculous but no one will know your age.
3. Relevance? I struggle a little bit with relevance. I thought maybe a cell phone would help. Then I thought a smart phone would help. I even bought a Kindle. I learned to use email and to text. I learned to surf the worldwide web. I tried sushi. I even went so far as to roll my shirt sleeves out instead of under. And do you know what? I’m still a geezer!
4. Wealth? I confess, I felt a little envy when Gloria MacKenzie won $590 million in the PoweBall Lottery. But I really felt bad for Mindy Crandall, who so politely and graciously offered the elderly Mrs. MacKenzie her place in line… raising the question, had she kept her place in line would she have purchased the winning lottery ticket?
I really appreciated Mindy Crandall’s 13 year old daughter’s comment after the fact, “Being polite is better than being rich.” You can’t take that to the bank but she’s right. And if we are trusting PowerBall to whisk you into the land of milk and honey, don’t hold your breath.
Who do you trust in life to send the rain to water the earth and cause the crops to grow to fill our pantries? Who do you trust when you find yourself in what feels a lot like a ”Slough of Despond” or a “cut-off” place to meet your needs?
The false gods of this world will ultimately fail, but the God of all creation will not!
