Getting to the Getting Over It

Getting to the Getting Over It
1 Kings 19:1-15
Galatians 3:23-29
4th Sunday of Pentecost
June 20, 2010
(not really a father’s day sermon)
Year C

Let me be clear – one of the worst things that you can tell someone in pain – is to just get over it and move on.

But in reality – it is the only answer to any crisis in our lives – life goes on, get over it and move on. It is all in the timing , the way of saying it, and sometimes even the appropriate place for it to be said. Even God realizes that God has to be careful with God’s words even with the most faithful of servants.

We have all reached those moments in our lives when we have done all that we can and things are just not working, and you are ready to throw in the towel and say forget about it all.

We have been looking at the prophetic career of Elijah this summer. He has had some pretty amazing accomplishments. He has done some pretty amazing things.

Last week he challenged the queen of Isreal to a duel. We wanted to prove that his god was stronger than her god. He set fire to an altar and god not only appeared – all of her priest were killed, and she gets a little angry. And threatens to kill him.

Elijah falls into a very familiar trap that prophets still fall into today. We are told to do something by God, we do it because we believe it to be the right thing, and because we are doing what it right, we are expecting praise and affirmation, and instead we get threats our lives and well being. And we are shacked beyond belief. We consider ourselves to be good people and we want people to love us – and we don’t understand what is going on when they don’t. that was enough to take Elijah over the edge.

He had a breakdown and ran. Now Elijah is not the type who scares easy he is a little hot headed in his zeal for the lord Elijah was one to stand up to kings and anyone else he thougth was not doing to will of god. His student was meaner than he was – Elisha sent bears to attack a group of teenagers for calling him bald.

But there was an underlying message in his zeal to prove that his god was bigger than any other god.

The message that he wanted to get across to the world, those in his group and outside – was that there was only one god.

The god of the ancestors is the god of our children to come. The god who enjoys gospel music is the god who loves the anthems of the church. The god of the Chinese and Japanese is the god of the Americans. The god who shone the sun on the convicted criminal this morning is the god who woke you up for church this morning.

God is the same for all of us. Elijahs’s question for us is that if there is only one - why do we have so many different opinions of who god is and what god wants from us.

If God doesn’t change, then things don’t really change for us either. We still need to get the message – of unity and working together. And prophets still get weary of preaching it.

In his time of despair, Elijah needed to go back to the beginning of his faith. The place where moses talked with god.

This is such a rich story of our lives, our feelings , our desire to do the right thing, our desire to see and talk with god face to face in times of trouble.

He went into to a cave, god was not in the earthquake, not in the flood not in the storm but in the silence.

Morse code story….
A group of men answered a want ad for someone to do morse code for the government. they came for the interview one b one, and after about 7 applicants who were waiting - the conversation got to be a little lively. they needed to make sure that it was clear who would be first for the interview, then they needed to talk about who was more qualified for the job, then they needed to talk about who had the most exciting experience in the field. After about ten minutes of constant talking, a woman walks in and sits down - obviously thinking she would be qualified for the hib. As the noise continues, she quietly got up and walked into the office of the interviewer, and 5 minutes later she walked out smiling to announce that she had gotten the job. In the midst of all of the noise of their conversation, the interviewer had sent a orse code over the intercom. It said that the first person to hear this message and walks into the office gets the job. but in the midst of all of the chaos - no one else was paying attention to what was really going on.

God in is everything, in the noise the confusion, the chaos, the arumengs, the fights, the disagreements, the questions, the broken dreams, the hurt feelings


Its just that in the chaos, we get confused, we get torn apart, our minds are not focused on what it right – and we forget the message of one god, for one people.

Another prophet zealous for the lord – had a similar experience. Killing anyone who did not believe in god the way he did – until he met god in Christ and was told that was not the right thing to do.

Christ gave him the message that people are people – they are all children of god, they are all loved, and none of us have to right to exclude others. People are people are god is god.
Instead of making distinctions of what pulls us apart, we need to concentrate on what it is that keeps us together.

The abortion story –
When I was in a church in Aurora - there was an abortion center across from the church. There were demonstrations on our corner all of the time. In a demonstrations similar to those I used to see, there were two groups protesting. One in favor of women's rights, and one against abortion. A stranger came to interview the two sides, and asked one man against abortion why he was protesting - he stted that he remembers his father in world war II. His father used to tell stories of men, women, and children who were killed as a whole village. the one memory that haunted his father the most were the eyes. He could never forget those eyes looking at him seeming to ask what was happening. This man thought of the eyes of the unborn, and felt that he had to do something. The preporter also talked with one of the women on the prochoice side and she was also asked why she was protesting. She remembers her mother, who was told that she should not get pregnant anymore after the 8th child. Her mother did get pregnant again and could not go through the pregnancy. But abortion was illegal at the time. she went to an illegal clinic and aborted the baby. she bled to death in the backroom. it turns out that the lady and the man were married to each other. The man honoring his father, the lady honoring her mother. The reporter asked, if you are married and you love each other, how come you are on opposite sides of this issue? They both said that they were doing what they believed was right. The stranger suggested that maybe they and everyone else should no get so caught up in the issue that separates them and to remember to love the pople involved on either side.
The women and chldren affected by abortion, yrt looking for love and attention in the midst of the situation. what a world we would live in if we could all do that. Love one another more than we love the issues tht divide us.

Paul says in Galatians
As many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer jew or greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are abrahams’s offspring according to the promise.

Elijah mission was not in vain, he won the battle, he proved to the world that he worked for the baddest god the planet – the one god of all. He wanted us to all know that there is only one god, the god of power and might. We should be one people – the people of power and might.

If we go on in this story – as god continue to talk with Elijah – he tells him that he is not the only one zealous for the lord – that there are 7000 others just like him. Who are determined to give the message. God also gives Elijah a helper – Elisha who will listen and carry one the message of the one god for all of the world. He is not alone, doing this all by himself – there are others along with us and others coming after us. The message we have to give is not ours, it is god and god calls us, we don’t call god, there are times when we grow weary in spreading god’s message – but the message is not about us, and our doubts and our fears – it is about the love of god for all people. The message of our lives – but much bigger than any of us. A message that will live on.

God’s final words to Elijah in this story is to get over it and move on. God tells Elijah to go back into the wilderness and to keep working. There are times when we would all like to quit – but as long as we are alive we all have to keep moving on in some way. Let us pray…..