The Makings Of A Prophet
June 6, 2010
1Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2The word of the Lord came to him, saying, 3“Go from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 6The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi. 7But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
I Kings 17:1-7
Y’all ever watch Jay Leno? I don’t because he comes on after I go to bed. But I do know about one of the more popular segments he does on his show. It’s called Jaywalking. And what he does is, Jay Leno goes out on the street and he finds ordinary people. And then he asks them simple questions, stuff that every person should know. And from time to time, he asks them biblical questions, just your everyday basic Bible knowledge. So, to begin my sermon this morning, I wanted to share a few of the more humorous examples of Jaywalking with you.
In one segment, Jay asks a lady to name the person in the Bible who was swallowed by a whale. Her response: Pinocchio. In another episode, he asks a woman to identify which one of the following is not a book of the Bible: Exodus, Leviticus, DeGeneres, or Deuteronomy? Of course, y’all know which one is not a book of the Bible, right? DeGeneres—It’s not a book of the Bible; it’s Ellen’s last name. Unfortunately, the woman on the street picked Leviticus.
Perhaps this kind of biblical illiteracy shouldn’t come as a surprise to us since you and I currently live in a nation where 12% of the people think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife (that’s an actual statistic). But what it tells me is, that when it comes to knowing the Bible, we have a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of people out there, even in the church, who still don’t know the basic stories and characters of the Bible.
So, this morning, I decided to do my own Jaywalking segment. On your way into church today, I asked some of you to tell me whom you considered to be the most important figure or figures in the Old Testament. And this is a sample of the list I got: lots of Moses’s, a few David’s, Abraham, and Ezekiel. Pretty good list, isn’t it? Those are the names we might expect to hear. Give yourselves a pat on the back. At least, nobody in here said Mary and Joseph.
But only two people in my little survey mentioned the prophet Elijah. You say, “Well, preacher, Elijah’s just not that important.” And I say “Well, maybe he’s not important today.” But back in Jesus’ day, Elijah was considered to be the second most important figure in the entire Bible. Only Moses was more respected and revered by 1st century Jews. All we have to do is read the New Testament, and it proves my point. Remember when Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” One of the most frequent responses given was Elijah. John the Baptist had the same thing happen to him. Folks were always mistaking him for Elijah. And of course, the only two Old Testament figures who make an actual appearance in the New Testament are Moses and Elijah, at the Transfiguration. To a Jew living 2,000 years ago, that would have made good sense because Moses and Elijah were the two figures who really summed up the Bible’s message--On the one hand, Moses was the embodiment of the law and on the other hand, Elijah was the embodiment of the prophets.
So, clearly, there was a point in time when Elijah was considered to be a very significant biblical character. But over the last 2,000 years, things have changed. We still remember Moses, but Elijah has kind of faded from our radar. And I think one of the reasons that has happened is because you and I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the prophets anymore. It’s probably the least read part of the Bible today.
So, during the month of June, what I want to try and do is to remedy that situation. For the next four Sundays, I am going to be preaching on the life of the prophet Elijah. And I hope that by doing so we will not only come away with a better understanding of some basic Bible stories, but that we might also begin to think about what it means to be a prophet. Because I’m convinced that if Elijah was a model for Jesus, then maybe Elijah could also be a model for us today.
That’s the idea. And the place we’re going to start is where the story of Elijah starts: 1st Kings, Chapter 17. Verse 1 says—“Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”
That’s it. That’s the first thing you and I have in the Bible about the life of Elijah. There’s no real introduction. There’s no birth narrative. All we are told about Elijah is that he’s from a town called Tishbe in Gilead. And the fact that we aren’t given any more information about Elijah suggests to me that prophets are made, not born. So, what a prophet did before and what they will do in the future is less important than the fact that they are the right person at the right time to offer God’s message in the present.
And I think there’s something for us to hear in that. Because looking around, I doubt that very many of us in here think we could ever become prophets. But what we have done in the past and what we may do in the future are not necessarily good indicators of our prophetic potential. Sometimes in life, there’s just a moment, and in that moment, that is the right time for us to act. So, I want us to go into these texts thinking about how God might be waiting to call us at the right time. Because maybe up until this point, we’ve lived a long life and we’ve never once been a prophet. But that doesn’t mean there won’t come a day when the time is right.
Remember that even Jesus went 30 years before he began his public ministry here on Earth. Y’all ever think about what Jesus did for the first 30 years of his life? I do. I’m 30 years old, so naturally I think about it a lot. I mean, was Jesus just hanging out in Nazareth, thinking deep thoughts all day? Was he working in the carpenter’s shop with Joseph? We don’t know.
But it seems like for whatever reason, there was a right time for Jesus to begin his prophetic proclamation of God’s word. Maybe all those 30 years before, Jesus had just been doing his own thing. But all of a sudden, one day, it was time. And isn’t it interesting, how that happens? Isn’t it interesting how God waits until exactly the right time before calling us to live into our prophetic identity?
That’s it how it happened with Elijah. One day, he wasn’t there and the next day, he was. Elijah came to Ahab and started proclaiming God’s word. And I think that Elijah’s message is helpful to us this morning as we consider what it is that a prophet really does. You and I tend to have this skewed idea that prophecy is all about predicting the future. We basically equate it with fortune telling. But I think that’s a misunderstanding. Because a prophet’s job is not so much about predicting the future as it is about imagining a new kind of present. Y’all catch that? A prophet’s job is not so much about predicting the future as it is imagining a new kind of present.
Walter Brueggemann, who is the most famous Old Testament scholar alive today, wrote a book by that title, The Prophetic Imagination. And in that book, he explains that a prophet’s main task is not judgment. That’s how you and I typically think about the prophets, as messengers of doom and gloom. But Walter Brueggemann says that a prophet exists not primarily to preach condemnation, but to offer hope. Y’all with me here? Because this is important. A prophet’s job is to give voice to a different kind of world. It is about articulating a vision of not just what is, but also of what can be.
That is what Elijah does in this passage of Scripture. Elijah goes to Ahab, the corrupt and notorious king of Israel, and tells him that the Lord the God of Israel lives. He goes to Ahab and says, “Listen--Just because you worship Baal, doesn’t mean that the real God is dead. On the contrary, I see a different reality. I see a reality in which Baal is dead and the Lord, the God of Israel, is alive. And oh, by the way, you see those rain clouds on the horizon? You think that Baal is sending you some rain for your crops. But I’ve got news for you, I see a different reality. I see a reality in which it’s not going to rain until God says so.”
You see, Elijah doesn’t just accept the world around him at face value. He knows that there is more truth to be told. Because from the earthly perspective, it seems like Ahab and Baal are in charge. But a prophet knows better. A prophet has the imagination to see a bigger story. And that, my friends, is what you and I are still called to proclaim today.
There’s a right time for it, of course. There is a moment when we are called out. But I believe that you and I need to start asking ourselves when that prophetic moment might come. Because I believe that the gravest sin we commit in the church today, including Park View Baptist Church, is the failure of our imagination. We are not imaginative enough. We do not dream big enough dreams. We only see the world for what is and by doing so, we fail at our prophetic task to see the world for what it might be.
Some folks would look around here at this struggling congregation and think that our problem is that we’ve been hoping for too much; we’ve been setting the bar too high. But I don’t think so. I don’t think our problem is that we’ve hoped for too much; I think our problem is that we’ve hoped for too little. Our expectations haven’t been too high; they’ve been too low. We’ve been content to settle for what we think of as the reality around us instead of engaging in the prophetic task of envisioning a different reality. We have become so stuck in what is that we cannot even imagine what might be.
And I’m not just talking about pipe dreams here, folks. I’m saying that if you and I can only imagine a gloomy day of judgment for Park View Baptist Church, then it’s going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you and I cannot imagine an alternative to what currently exists, then what currently exists is going to define us.
You say, “Well, preacher, we gotta be realistic. Things aren’t looking good. How are we gonna do it?” Walter Brueggemann is prepared for that excuse, too. He says, “Our culture is competent to implement almost anything. But the prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined.”
Brueggemann nails it. It is the imagination that you and I lack, not the resources. How many of us in the room this morning believe, and I mean really believe, that there is any future for Park View Baptist Church other than death? I’m including myself in this question. Because if we can’t imagine that it might be different, it won’t be different.
“Well, preacher, I want to believe, I really do. But I look around and I see how few people we’ve got and I see how little money we’ve got and I just don’t think it’s possible.” And I say, “Bingo…that’s the problem.” We can’t see anything other than what currently exists. We can’t see beyond this reality, and it’s true, the reality around us right now stinks. Believe me, I know that.
But what disappoints me is not the fact that things are bad. What disappoints me is the fact that so many of us in this room have given up hope that things will ever be better. And let’s be honest here—I’m not talking about what you tell me at Church Council meetings or after a particularly peppy sermon. I’m talking about what we really think in our heart of hearts—We think it’s over. And we think that there’s nothing anyone can say or do to change that.
Park View, if that is our perspective, we’re dead already. We might as well close today. As soon as the service is over, let’s just lock the doors, turn off the lights, and hand over the keys. I would be all for that. Because there is no need to worry about the implementation if we can’t handle the imagination. There’s no need to worry about how we’re going to get by if we can’t articulate why we should get by.
You know, it’s interesting to me the order in which things occur in this passage of Scripture. Because it’s not until after Elijah tells Ahab about the coming drought that God makes a provision for Elijah. In other words, when Elijah was standing there in the throne room that day, talking about no rain, he was just as clueless as Ahab about where he was going to get food and water.
But it didn’t matter. It did not matter to Elijah how he was going to get by. Because that’s not the job of a prophet. The job of a prophet is to imagine, not to implement. And the focus of the prophetic imagination is not the need of tomorrow, but the dream of today. Park View Baptist Church, we’ve been pussy-footing around here for a long time. We’ve been in our carpenter’s shop a whole lot longer than 30 years. But I for one, believe that our prophetic moment is at hand. I believe that if we’re ever going to do it, this is the right time for us to step forward and to articulate a different reality. The question is—can we imagine it? AMEN