Loving God, you have revealed to us both your power and your love through the Scriptures, and you have continued to make yourself known to those who seek you.  Fill us with your Holy Spirit as we gather together today, empowering us not only to experience your love but to be able to share it with others; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Imagine, for just a moment, that you are Elijah.  You have been called by God to be a prophet in Israel, but some days are just very discouraging.  You see, you live in a culture where people worship many different gods.  In fact, some of them even worship the God of Israel with a few other Canaanite gods on the side.  And they don’t necessarily see anything wrong with this.  They just want to make sure they’ve covered all their bases.

    However, these other gods require very different things than the God of Israel.  For some of these gods, you’re supposed to cut yourself and make yourself bleed in order to get their attention.  For others, you’re supposed to go visit temple prostitutes in order to remind the gods that they really do need to make it rain.  And then in really extreme cases, some of these gods demanded that you actually needed to burn your children in the fire as a sacrifice.

    None of these things are even close to what the God of Israel actually asks of the people.  For the God of Israel teaches justice and mercy and love.  The God of Israel asks people “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [their] God” (Mic. 6:8).  The God of Israel also gives as the very first commandment:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me (Ex. 20:2-3).

And so, imagine that you are Elijah, and that you are trying to come up with a way to show people that the God of Israel is the one true God.  How do you do it?

    You do something that at that time and in that culture makes sense.  You invite people to come to a sacrifice.  You give each group a bull to sacrifice, and you set up some terms where only the real God will be able to respond.  You say, the god who answers with fire from heaven – that’s the one who really is God!  And of course there is no answer from Baal, for he is a false god with no real power.

    Fast-forward then to today.  We also live in a culture that has many idols and many gods.  And yet, we have been called to be witnesses to the saving power of God that has been made known through Jesus Christ.  As we seek to do this, some days are just really discouraging.  You see, people have better things to do than to spend time worshiping God.  There are like ten other things that are way more important.  Would you like to help me make a list?... [playing or watching hockey, soccer or any sport; working out; sleeping; working; homework; housework; family]

    Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that these things are unimportant.  I'm also aware that it's difficult to balance out everything that we want to do in this life.  However, I am asking a very simple question: Are they important enough to be your god?  While most people probably wouldn’t think of any of these things as their god, your god is your ultimate concern – whatever it is that comes first in your life.  And so, these days we don’t tend to have statues that people are bowing down to or sacrificing to or anything like that, but we have plenty of other things that, realistically speaking, function as people’s gods.

    And so today, if you wanted to show others that our God is the One True God and is worth worshiping, how would you do it?  I think we could start by saying that holding an animal sacrifice and asking for fire from heaven is not going to work.  I’m not saying that the fire from heaven isn’t possible, but you’d have PETA protesting and the SPCA, and who knows how many other organizations.  People today would quite simply not be impressed if God were to burn up a bull on the altar.  And how many other things could we list that simply aren’t going to work?

    Berating people and telling them that they have to come to church won’t do it.  Going to church on Sunday and then acting like you forgot it all on Monday won’t work.  Sending people on guilt trips isn’t really God’s style.  Preaching to people who don’t want to hear doesn’t seem to accomplish much.  Neither does it work when we never, ever say anything about our faith.  So what are we to do?

    Perhaps one way to approach this question is to ask ourselves what would make us do the same as the people at the end of today’s reading?  What would make us fall on our faces and say, “The Lord indeed is God!” (1 Ki. 18:39)?  A few suggestions, and perhaps you have some more:

    What about seeing a group of people who worship, learn and serve together and who actually love and serve one another?  Might that show that the power of God is real?  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:35).

    What about seeing an obvious answer to prayer?  The letter of James talks about how the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective, and he points to Elijah as an example (Jas. 5:13-18).  As well, many of those who first believed in Jesus did so because a prayer for healing had been answered.  And so, what if you had experienced an obvious answer to prayer and shared that experience with others?

    What about having experienced (either in yourself or others) a totally changed heart and mind because of an encounter with Jesus Christ?  What about seeing somebody who started living for God and for others instead of for themselves?  What about seeing somebody who started doing good rather than doing harm?  Would that show you that the Lord indeed is God?

    These are not easy questions to answer, but they are well worth thinking about.  We can also ask how each one of us can show our faith and confidence that our God really is God.  Can others tell that we believe in Jesus?  If we were accused of being Christian, would there be enough evidence to prove it?

    The thing is that there is a very good reason that God demands to be at the center of all that we do.  For out of all of the possible gods that we have named, there is only one God who actually gives life, and that is the God of love who sent Jesus for the sake of the world.  May we not only experience that abundant life for ourselves, but may it show up in our lives in such a way that others want to experience it to, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Pentecost 24 (NL 2)                            1 Kings 18:20-39
November 8, 2015
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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