A very wise friend of mine reminded me that we understand our lives by the stories we tell. That’s why I wish that we got more of the story of Elijah and Elisha in the lectionary than just today’s reading. The theme of light, of opening our eyes and minds to the truth of what is around us, comes to a stunning emphasis in our four readings today. Our psalm talks about God revealing Godself in power, fire, and storm. Our reading from Corinthians talks about the pulling back of veils so that true knowledge of God through the testimony of Christ can be seen and grasped.
Many of us may think that these readings and their themes don’t have much in common with our everyday lives. Too often we put blinders on ourselves, to the point that we no longer see what’s right in front of us. That’s why I want to share the early story of Elisha and Elijah—two great prophets in a time when prophets were more readily acknowledged, yet probably resisted as much as they are now.
Once, long ago—3000 years ago, actually-- there was a boy name Elisha out plowing in a field with 24 oxen, plodding along grudgingly. This was the boy’s life—staring at the butts of oxen all day, trying not to slip in their poop, trying to keep them plowing a straight path under the broiling sun, carrying water for them, trying to get them to engage in very un-oxen-like behavior by pulling a plow all day rather than finding a nice mud puddle in the shade and just chilling. This was the boy’s life—and it will tell you something about how different our world is from the world of this boy that that job was actually a pretty good one at the time.
One day, though, a crazy-looking old man came wandering up over the hill, and stood watching the boy Elisha as he was plowing. Elisha was so engrossed in his task he didn’t notice the old man until he was close enough to smell him. But there was a strange blue light in the old man’s eyes. There was a silence and stillness and power within him, and it brought that boy and his oxen to a halt as if they’d dropped anchor. The crazy old man also had on a fine mantle that stood out from the rest of his dust-stained, sweat soaked clothes, thrown over his shoulder casually. That mantle also caught the boy’s attention. Who WAS this old fossil?
The man looked into Elisha’s eyes, and some sort of strange shiver went through the boy as if he had just dived into a cool spring on a hot summer day, and he saw the glorious light of eternity in those eyes. Without a word, the old man threw his mantle over the boy, and Elisha knew. He just knew he had to follow this old man. Dreams danced before his eyes as that mantle touched his shoulders. Praise songs of angels rang in his ears like an echo, even though he was quite sure there was no sound but the sound of the wind and of the impatient oxen stamping their feet. Light and power coursed through that boy like a lightning strike and it was almost painful, contracting his muscles. And in placing his mantle over him, the old man was claiming the boy as his son.
But Elisha was a good boy, and wanted to not worry his parents, so he spoke first, and asked if he could kiss his parents good-bye. The old man turned, almost triumphant at this sign of what he considered to be doubt. “Do what you want. What’s it to me?” the old man hissed, and he whipped his mantle off the boy’s shoulders and turned and stalked off.
This response stung the boy. So Elisha decided to show this old man he was serious. He took those oxen, still hitched to the plow, and slaughtered them, and then fed them to his dumbstruck neighbors, who undoubtedly thought he had lost his mind. But there was no going back to plowing now. Elisha then ran off and followed that crazy old man, serving him and the God the old man served for years, leaving his former life behind without a backward glance. Elisha had seen the light of God, and it had transformed him and empowered him.
That old man was the prophet Elijah. And that boy was Elisha. Elijah was one of the greatest prophets in all of Israel—which means he was also one of the most hated and most feared men in the land, because prophets tend to be seen by many as bearers of bad tidings and ill portents. Yet what prophets really do is call for us to transform our ways of seeing, and help us to see a better way of living, reminding us that we are God’s own beloveds. They pull back the veil of fear that keeps us divided and distracted, especially as communities, from the real sins of injustice and oppression within those communities. That’s what prophets do.
Even after Elisha was at Elijah’s side, Elijah kept pulling back the veil and telling truth to power. He kept rebuking the rich and powerful for their idolatry, for their worship of other gods—gods like Baal, a local storm god. And there are gods that still lead us into darkness today, like racism, and sexism, and economic exploitation of the poor, and our indifference to violence when it’s not right in our faces.
This is also another one of those great “call” stories we get in scripture, and I think it’s important to remember, as we ready ourselves for Lent, that Lent is not just a time of darkness and penitence only after we have spent the last six week talking about light. Lent is also a time of hopeful discernment and renewal, a time to remember God’s call to us to commit ourselves to continue to transform by ourselves --and our communities. Lent is not just about giving up things like chocolate or caffeine—which for some people is like lighting a short-fused firecracker in a room full of fainting goats—but about committing ourselves to taking more seriously the call to transformation and renewal, to honest examination of our sins and then moving to reconciling with those who have been affected by them.
The reading from 2 Kings closes with Elijah being taken up to heaven by a chariot of fire, even as Elisha struggles to keep his eyes on the old man as he disappears into the clouds in a dazzling display of light—and light, of course, is a theme of the season after Epiphany which draws to a close today.
But the light we have been praising and witnessing to in these last few weeks is meant to be carried forward into the season of Lent that approaches. The light Elisha sees as his adopted father Elijah is taken up into heaven is known in the theology trade as a theophany—a visible showing of God’s presence. There is a theophany in our gospel account of the Transfiguration, as well. We hear another claiming of a son by a father in the voice coming from the heavens. We even see the reappearance of Elijah in our gospel reading. In all our readings today, we see a drawing aside of the veil of hopelessness and helplessness that keeps us from seeing each other and Jesus as we really are: beloved, holy, glorious.
Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus all were sent by God to speak light into darkness, to reveal to us God’s abiding love for us and desire for us to live into our full glory as children of God. To recognize within ourselves the divine spark, and to be changed by that knowledge so that we will be eager to work for the establishment of God’s justice and true peace in the world.
In our reading from 2 Kings today, when the glare from that theophany wears off, Elisha looks down and sees the old man’s mantle—that same mantle Elijah had draped on his shoulders back when he was just a farm boy plowing the fields—laying at his feet. And so a final decision: should Elisha take up that mantle, and thereby also commit himself to continuing speaking truth to power? In the verses immediately after this reading, we learn that Elisha says yes. He undergoes his own transfiguration of his understanding, and of his role as the one who now doesn’t just follow, but bears the mantle himself.
Now, here we are living half a world away and thousands of years beyond the stories of the ancient prophets of Israel. What have we got in common with characters like Elijah and Elisha living in their dusty backwater?
Maybe nothing. But isn’t it possible, that for all our modern context, many of us still walk around in circles like that boy in his field, doing the same thing day after day, going through our daily lives, adjusting ourselves to the scenery, no matter how disgusting or appalling it might be? There are powers within us and around us that seek to deny the light in ourselves and in others, who seek to keep us divided and in denial of our true nature? That the worst poison that affects our communities is the belief that nothing will change—and to ensure that by our inaction?
Times like these call for people who can speak those truths about justice, equality, and hope—people who can dream dreams, and point the way, and pull back the veil on the divine spark within us. People who know that reconciliation can never happen without the light of truth.
God still is speaking to us today, regardless of what some might say, whether from fundamentalism or atheism. God has thrown God’s mantle over us and claimed us as God’s very own children. But that also means God is calling for us to throw off the convenient claims of powerlessness that make it all too easy to become part of the very systems we acknowledge as being broken. Silence in the face of oppression is assent, my friends. It also denies our Redeemer’s mercy and grace at work in the world.
Times like these call not for silence in the face of fear, nor soul-killing numbness to violence, racism, sexism, and economic oppression, but for those who are willing to speak and act in hope—hope that we can be better, hope that we can be transformed by God’s abundant love. How often do we despair, waiting for a sign from God, refusing to believe that God will actually show up in our lives, when really our Savior is knocking at the door of our hearts, and we are too comfortable in our cynicism to let him in?
If Jesus’s very best friends spent much of their life being unable to really see who he was, but for this brief moment on the high mountain recounted in our gospel, can we be surprised that we are any different? Yet each of these stories reveals to us that God’s presence surrounds us, if only we can marshal the will to pull back the veil, to see with new eyes the light that surrounds us even when life itself is difficult?
If we can dare to be vulnerable enough to be astonished, and filled with wonder. If only we will let the light and glory of God into our hearts, and then let that love and healing flow through us, we are not only transformed for our own sakes, but we then become the prophetic witnesses that peels back the veil that keeps the world from seeing God’s reconciling presence all around us. That’s what listening to God’s beloved Son really means.
Times like these call for transfiguration and transformation of ourselves, and our communities, to reject and resist the ways of darkness and hate around us.
Times like these, especially as we continue to celebrate Black History Month, call for telling the truth about our history, so that we understand that the role of history is to remind us that it is OUR history, all of ours, and not just for one month, because we are one people. That’s prophetic work, indeed.
Times like these call for us to embody God’s truth into the world, even if that truth may seem to be the last thing the world wants to see or hear.
Dare we consider taking up that same mantle of transformation and reconciliation today, and embody Christ’s light?
We can if we can hear again in these readings the reminder of Christ’s unfailing presence and abiding faithfulness with us, and that we receive God’s grace in order that we may reflect God’s light faithfully.
We can when we examine the thousands of little ways we ourselves believe that what we say and do doesn’t really matter, especially here in our most beloved fellowships—for instance, when we criticize more often than we praise, when we complain more often than we rejoice, when we say “that won’t make a difference,” rather than fully opening our hearts to try anyway.
We can take up that mantle when we empty ourselves of our self-absorption, cynicism, and negativity, so that we can join together as the Body of Christ, beloved and whole because we seek to exclude no one.
May we have faith enough in the promise of God to be with us, and have our way of seeing transfigured so that we embody and testify to the beauty and wonder of each of us as children of God.
Readings:
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
Preached at the 8 am service at Christ Church Cathedral on February 11, 2018.
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