Jarrett McLaughlin
A Life Worth Living: What Are We Doing Here?
January 12, 2025
1 Kings 19:1-13
Cold Open:
I have this weird affinity for both of the Voyager Space Probes. They launched respectively on August 20th and September 5th 1977 – mere months before I was born. When we were both 35 years old, Voyager 1 crossed the Heliopause – that is, it left the gravitational influence of our Sun and entered interstellar space.
NASA now refers to the two probes as “elderly spacecrafts” – I try not to take that too personally. A little over a year ago, as the craft sailed 15 billion miles from the earth, the data it transmitted became absolute gibberish.
Technicians said that the spacecraft suffered something of a stroke.
It’s 46-year-old software was in desperate need of a reboot.
It took them a number of months but NASA was able to get it back online, communicating clearly once more after so many months of nothing.
Even so, by the end of this year, the Voyager crafts will likely run out of power and cease broadcasting. It’s days are numbered.
I’m hopeful that I’ll last a bit longer, but the fact of the matter is that we only get so many days in this life.
It’s only natural for us to wonder “What are we doing here?”
With that question, we continue in our sermon series “A Life Worth Living.”
Our reading today comes from the book 1 Kings. This is a chapter from the life of the prophet Elijah. As a bit of background – you could accuse Elijah of being a bit…extra. A tad over the top. Immediately prior to our selection today he had a showdown with the prophets of Baal, the cult of a foreign god that was leading Israel into idolatry. It’s lonesome Elijah squaring off against 450 prophets of Baal.
He designs a test where they will each sacrifice a bull on an alter but they are not allowed to set fire to it themselves. They must call on their respective gods to ignite the offering from the heavens.
After watching the prophets call on Baal all day long with no success – Elijah orders a servant to dump water on top of his offering – not once, not twice but three times until the Altar is sopping wet.
He then prays to the Lord – though in my mind I cannot help but hear his best Jim Morrison impersonation: “Come on Yahweh Light my Fire” – and the whole thing goes up in flames – water and all.
So yeah, Elijah has no shortage of swagger. Which is why it’s so perplexing that we find him like this immediately afterwards.
A reading from 1 Kings, chapter 19, verses 1-13.
Scripture:
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba; he left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.
He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep.
Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again.
The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
[The Lord] said, “Go out and stand on the mountain, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
This is the Word of the Lord
THANKS BE TO GOD.
Sermon:
In 1956, Mighty Mouse failed to save the day when he crashed into a street sign and collapsed in a heap.
Kermit the Frog hit a tree branch in 1985 and shriveled up like a cucumber in pickle juice.
The Rainbow Connection was not found on that day
In 1986 Superman got tangled up with a tree that ripped his right arm clean off.
So much for being the Man of Steel.
In case you’re wondering what in the world I’m going on about, I refer to the giant balloons made in the likeness of these characters for the annual Macy’s Day Parade.
My favorite piece of balloon lore, though, comes from the 1927 Parade – the first to feature what would become Macy’s trademark floats. The first parade balloon ever was of Felix the Cat. They figured out how to engineer that enormous balloon to walk down the busy streets of New York City, but nary a thought was given to how one might empty the air out of the balloon, so they just had to let it go.
It promptly popped and fell to the ground, deflated.
Have you ever felt deflated?
Has the wind ever come right out of your sails and left you in a crumpled heap on the ground?
A neighbor told me a story from when he took his family to Christmas Eve service several years ago. His three children skewed young enough to attend the family service.
The Pastor spent the majority of a 15 minute sermon talking about the real meaning of Christmas – how it’s not about presents or buying stuff or giving stuff – but it’s about Jesus.
At the end of the sermon, the preacher says, “So then kids, what is Christmas about…?”
My neighbor’s son – who had been spacing out with sugar plums dancing in his head – tuned in just in time to hear that question and so stood up and with a great fist pump hollered “PRESENTS!”
I hear the slump of that preacher’s shoulders was something to behold. He was deflated.
When we check in on the prophet Elijah, he is a shriveled-up shadow of his former self.
God asks him a question: “What are you doing here Elijah?”
He responds a bit hyperbolically – “The Israelites have forsaken you. I am the only one left who cares about you, God, and even now they are hunting me down to end my life. Why don’t you just end it all for me right now.”
God’s follow-up question should have been: “Where is my prophet and what have you done with him?”
Seriously –
What happened to Elijah the bold who called out the King and Queen for idolatry.
What happened to Elijah the brave who single-handedly faced down 450 prophets of Baal.
What happened to his strut and his swagger.
It’s all gone – blown away by his fear of Queen Jezebel’s reprisal.
Death threats are nothing to shake a stick at – but our fearless prophet is clearly in need of a reboot.
And so God resolves to do something that God rarely does in the pages of Hebrew Scripture.
God says to Elijah – “I’m going to show myself to you.”
God has only done this once before – only for Moses.
In fact, there is a tradition that mortals cannot see God or else they will die.
(And because I know somebody is thinking it, yes that is why Raiders of the Lost Ark ends with Indiana Jones closing his eyes while all the Nazis melt like candlesticks. I was also scarred by that at a young age.)
Elijah stands out at the mouth of the cave and catches an earth(quake), wind and fire concert, but discerns that God is not in any of these natural wonders. After all that bluster, though, he perceives God to be present in what Scripture calls the sound of sheer silence.
This could be a commentary on Elijah’s expectations – a reminder to our strut-and-swagger prophet that God isn’t only present in the flash and flare, but also in the quiet, unassuming actions of ordinary people. But in this moment, I’m less interested in the sound of silence and more interested in what God says to Elijah immediately after.
Did you catch the repetition?
He asks our prophet the very same question again – “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
And though I didn’t read it, Elijah’s response is also identical –
“The Israelites have forsaken you. I am the only one left who cares about you, God, and even now they are hunting me down to end my life. Why don’t you just end it all for me right now.”
There is much debate about whether this is a scribal error.
Did some guy hand-copying 1 Kings get a bit drowsy, doze off and then forget where he was and write that part twice? And then is that the edition that was handed on and copied ever after?
Maybe.
OR – is it an intentional repetition?
Is it a question so good, so crucial, that it must be asked twice.
No, really, Elijah. What are you doing here?
Isn’t there some other place that you should be?
Isn’t there some other work for you to be doing right now?
Life can deflate you.
There are any number of threats that can take all the wind right out of your sails.
AND even when we are lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, God still has a question for us: What are you doing here?
God knows that there is still purpose for us beyond our fears and beyond our defeats.
Because God repeated the question twice maybe I’ll say that again
God knows that there is still purpose for us beyond our fears and beyond our defeats.
On Thursday America laid to rest President James “Jimmy” Carter.
If you want to see the definition of a deflated man, consider Carter on January 20th, 1981.
He lost re-election to the Presidency by a country mile.
In the aftermath of this political defeat he stayed awake for two entire days overseeing negotiations for the release of American hostages in Iran. After relinquishing the White House to Ronald Reagan he flew to Germany to greet the hostages, only to be met with intense anger from many of them because he hadn’t secured their release sooner.
On January 22nd, he returned to his ranch house in Plains, Georgia and slept for a full 24 hours (sound a little like Elijah underneath that broom tree).
Fast forward 21 years later and a phone call would awaken Carter one morning in that same house – informing the President that he had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
Jimmy Carter went from the shame of being a defeated, one-term President to one of the most respected voices in global conflict resolution, not to mention a champion of Habitat for Humanity all while still teaching a weekly Sunday School class at his beloved Baptist Church where services often host no more than 30 hearty souls.
“What are you doing here?”
It would seem that President Carter implicitly understood the meaning behind God’s question.
There is always work to do – even beyond our fears; even beyond our defeats.
In a moment we will ordain and install a new class of Elders and Deacons.
Those who have said Yes to that call will be asked a series of nine questions:
Things like:
“do you trust in Jesus Christ your savior?”
Or
“Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love?”
They are questions designed to clarify purpose – our common purpose.
They are questions that define what it is the Church is to be about.
And not just for the officers, but for all of us – all who seek to serve, worship and follow Jesus Christ.
In other words – it’s a longer way of asking “What are we doing here?”
May we each be ready to respond – not just with the words on our lips, but with the content of our lives. Amen.