Everybody loves a contest. Why else are people going to see the Buccaneers play the Vikings next Sunday? From Project Runway to the Kentucky Derby, from Jeopardy to the World Cup, we enjoy seeing experts duke it out. And we like seeing underdogs win, too. People still remember the “Miracle on Ice” when the US hockey team beat the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics. And one of the reasons for Tom Brady’s popularity is his backstory: no one ever thought he’d make it to the top. Because that possibility - the long shot - is what keeps bookies in business and us coming back for more.
The pure thrill of vicarious competition is addictive. That’s why reporters in general focus more on the winners and losers in political races than the issues. Contests are entertaining, and thinking is hard, even though political races are far more complicated and consequential than sports. But sometimes the stakes are much higher even than who is going to be our next President. And the most important battles of all are, as often as not, often barely noticed - if at all.
And that is the battle between right and wrong, between good and evil, between moral and immoral. All of us face these choices every day in our lives, from fudging on our tax returns to whether or not to get a divorce in order to maximize our social security benefits. Yes, folks - our laws are written so that unmarried people do better than married ones in a whole lot of ways - not just the marriage penalty in the income taxes. Sometimes the battle lines are clear, and we know exactly what we should and shouldn’t do.... Sometimes there seems to be wiggle room, and we find ourselves trying to balance one good against another. Do we “obey the governing authorities,” as Paul tells us to do in Romans 13, or do we follow a stricter standard? God is more forgiving than the IRS, after all. But shouldn’t we realize that God’s standards are simply better than the world’s, even when there’s a price to pay? And do we really want to be the kind of people who can be bribed to ignore God’s clear instructions?
There are other times when the line is much fuzzier. After all, we have to live in the world, don’t we? And how important is it, really, that when we shop on a Sunday - as I do - we are demanding that others work on the Sabbath for our convenience? When is it right to buy a new car instead of making do with a used one and giving the difference to charity? When is it right to keep silent in the face of injustice just because we’re pretty sure it won’t do any good? When is it okay to watch “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” instead of reading your Bible?
How do we know that something is an idol that we should avoid, or simply a harmless diversion? Back in the 17th century, when the English Puritans under Cromwell were briefly in charge, there were huge conflicts over having games in the town square on the Sabbath. I got into another fairly fierce argument with one of my profs at seminary over whether or not having an American flag in the sanctuary was blasphemous. He said it was a question of the Lordship of Christ; I said it’s a question over whether or not patriotism is idolatry. For some it is, for some it isn’t. Paul wrote to Timothy, “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving.” [1 Tim 4:4] So if we can receive it with thanksgiving, and give it up with equanimity, it’s probably not an idol. But it’s all too easy to rationalize our decisions.
What are your idols? We all have them - things that we are tempted to put ahead of God. The most obvious ones are fame and money, sex or drugs, things that most of us know we should avoid. But there are other gods - like family and career - that can also be dangerous to our spiritual health. And there are still others that are hard to recognize as idols: old grievances and new fears, the people we believe just because they agree with us, the shallow celebrities we waste our time on. False gods are everywhere, many disguised like Lucifer as angels of light. And social pressures push us into bowing to them even when we know we shouldn’t.
Back in Elijah’s day social and economic pressures pushed people into bowing to the god favored by Queen Jezebel. She was a pampered princess from Sidon who worshiped the Canaanite fertility god Ba’al, and her husband King Ahab slid promptly under her thumb and bowed down to Ba’al as well. And the people followed suit. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was pretty shaky in their knowledge of YHWH God, and they slid easily into idolatry often without even knowing it. I expect many of them thought “it doesn’t matter which God you serve, as long as you are sincere.” Others may have known they shouldn’t, but thought, “God knows I don’t really mean it when I go to the Ba’al festivals and make occasional sacrifices, but I have to keep my position at court - the title to my land - perhaps even my freedom or my life.”
We want God’s approval, but we also want to fit in, to be safe, to be approved of. We want God to provide and protect us, but we don’t always trust him to, so we hedge our bets. We want the advantages both sides offer, and so we stand right in the middle of the battlefield like deer in the headlights. And that means that, no matter who wins, we will lose.
So, obviously, the thing to do is to pick the winning side - and stay there. That’s where we come in, with the prophet Elijah speaking to the people. “'How long,' he asked, 'will you go limping with two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.' The people did not answer.” [1 Ki 18:21]
Elijah had been preparing for this moment for years. He had gone to King Ahab and warned him that there would be no rain for the next three years except on Elijah’s command. The implied threat and promise were, of course, that Ahab, Jezebel, and the rest of the kingdom would have to turn away from Ba’al and come back to worshiping YHWH. But the three years are up, and it’s show time. Or perhaps I should say, showdown time.
By this time the people must have been in serious trouble. Drought means famine. It’s bad enough in our country when the rains fail, but at least we’re able to import from other parts of the country, and even from overseas. But in Israel people were dying. And I expect that their prayers to Ba’al were already frightened and desperate. Even the waverers were probably visiting the temple prostitutes. It was a good thing that Ba’al wasn’t big on burning firstborns like Chemosh and Moloch, the gods of Moab and Ammon, or the temple fires would probably have been going night and day. Those few who still worshiped YHWH in their hearts were probably crying out, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
But Ahab and Jezebel weren’t about to back down. In fact, Ahab blamed Elijah for the mess they were in. “When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, 'Is it you, you troubler of Israel?' And he answered, 'I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father’s house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals.'” [1 Ki 17-18]
Well, of course the real troubler of Israel was not Elijah. It wasn’t even YHWH God, though he’s the one who caused the drought. It was Ahab and Jezebel. But have you ever known a leader - particularly a dictator or despot - admit he was wrong, back down and change course? Can you imagine North Korea's Kim Jung Un giving up his missile program just because international sanctions hurt his people? I don’t think so.
So here we are with two immovable forces approaching a moment of truth. It’s too late to back down, it’s too late to change sides, it’s too late to do anything but let the gods decide. And I mean that literally. Because it’s not between Elijah and Ahab. It’s between the god who had won the local popularity contest and the God who created the universe. It was a no-brainer - to people who knew their history, who knew their God. But they had forgotten. And so they had committed themselves irrevocably to the losing side. It’s one thing to love the Chicago Cubs. It’s another altogether to bet the family farm on them.
The players for this life-and-death encounter were Elijah on one side and 850 prophets of Ba’al and his female counterpart Asherah on the other. The arena was Mt Carmel. The rules were simple. Each side got a bull, an altar and a prayer. Each side was to choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the altar, but not to set the wood on fire. And the God who provided the fire for his worshipers would be declared the winner.
The Baal worshipers went first. They prayed and danced around the altar all morning, howling, pleading and cutting themselves in an effort to get their god to come through for them. But nothing happened. By noon they were limping around the altar. “Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.’” [v. 27]
How do you suppose the people watching felt? They had risked their lives and fortunes on a cause that was crumbling before their very eyes. Do you suppose they knew where they had gone wrong? Do you suppose that they understood that they were losing because their so-called god was powerless in the face of the judge of history? Do you suppose that, too late, they were sorry? Or do you think they blamed Elijah for the whole thing as Ahab had done? Let’s see what happened next.
After the priests of Ba’al were worn out, it was Elijah’s turn. And see how quickly the people changed sides? they immediately went and helped Elijah set up. First, they repaired the ruined altar to YHWH with twelve stones representing the twelve tribes. Then they made a trench around the altar, laid out the wood, cut the bull in pieces, and placed it on the wood. Elijah next had them pour water on the bull and the firewood until it filled the trench. . . and then he prayed, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” [v 36-37]
Well, we all know what happened. “The fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The LORD indeed is God.” [v. 38-39] Do you think they really meant it?
After the battle had finished, Elijah commanded the people to seize all of those prophets, throw them in the Kishon valley (which was just east of Mt Carmel) and have them slaughtered, and the people obeyed. This was good - I think. But remember what happened at the beginning. When Elijah issued his first challenge, the people stood by and did nothing. They refused to take sides until they saw who was going to win. And I will wager that this change of heart that they were so loudly proclaiming, even to the point of slaughtering the priests they had previously served, would be very short-lived.
It began to rain, and the people were doubly sure that YHWH God was in charge. But Jezebel did not handle defeat well. She sent a messenger after Elijah and threatened to have him killed. Could she have done this if the people had not immediately gone back to serving Ahab and Jezebel just as they had before the battle of the gods? Was that where their true allegiance lay, or were they just happier with one foot in each camp?
What a sad place to be. And yet most of us spend our lives there. We know what it’s like to want to have our cake and eat it too. We know what it’s like to want the best of both worlds. We know what it’s like to promise ourselves to God on Sunday but go back to compromise with the world on Monday. You know. I know. We know. And it’s a sad place to be.
But God doesn’t want a half-hearted people. He wants us on Sundays, yes, but he wants us the rest of the week as well. I’m grateful that he doesn’t call us to kill the priests of all the false gods who try to seduce us down the paths of destruction - but maybe it would be easier if he did. At least, then, we wouldn’t have their voices ringing night and day in our ears.
Because God rarely sends fire down from heaven in such an obvious way that even his opponents have to bow down. Later on, when Elijah is hiding from Jezebel, God speaks to him not in thunder and earthquakes but in a “still, small voice.”
And God still speaks to us most clearly in silence. Because he knows that loud noises and miracles have a pretty short shelf life. Look at what Jesus said when Pharisees kept demanding additional signs: “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house.” [Lk 11:17] That’s certainly true of nations and states, but I think it’s most true of all for individuals, for people like you and me, when our hearts are so torn between God and the world that we are paralyzed when the time comes to make a stand. The battle Elijah fought against the priests of Ba’al is fought in our own hearts every day.
What are your idols? We all have them. Can you be bought, like those who have to choose between government benefits and the promises they make before God in marriage? Can you be pressured or frightened into denying Jesus as some of our brothers and sisters in other countries are? For most of us it’s not that simple. For most of us we don’t even recognize how real and dangerous our idols are - or even what they are. Because they’re so familiar and comfortable, like fish in water we don’t notice if the poison in it is colorless and tasteless until it’s too late.
What gives us hope and ensures us the victory is that even our divided hearts belong to Jesus Christ. Even our half-hearted efforts are supported by the power of the Holy Spirit. But sitting on the fence is uncomfortable, and besides, it doesn’t get you anywhere but in trouble. This is not a contest you can win alone and unprotected. In the battle between good and evil, dark and light, YHWH God and Ba’al, the only safe place to be is squarely behind God - all of the time.
