The Story of Elijah, chapter 7 09/01/2024

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Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord and join us here today
Our lives are funny things.
Fragile, flawed and finite we make our way
There are turns of fortune, both welcomed and unwelcomed, unannounced
Then our plans shift or evaporate
as we try to adjust to the new situation
and then, so often, need to adjust again
For many of us our lives aren’t how we imagined they might be.
Disappointments linger
Betrayals fester
Regrets cloud our minds

But our lives aren’t all sadness
There are joys unexpected
Successes to remember
Friends to cherish
Still, beyond the tally sheet of wins and loses there is you Lord
With us at every step
Making meaning and sense of our lives.
Through every turn you hold us close
You take every event, large or small, happy or sad,
Or completely mundane and ordinary
And give us just what we need
You bring us along a little further
You redeem us
You make us whole
You make us more able to love and be loved

Lord grant us the ability to see you in our everyday moments
To await your touch
To abide in your presence
To cooperate in your will
To be whole, loving, kind and gentle
To love what is good
To be full of mercy for others and ourselves,
To be full of joy,
To be full of gratitude for all you have done are doing now and will do in the days to come
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

So [Elijah] departed from there
and found Elisha
the son of Shaphat,
who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him,
and he was with the twelfth 1 Kings 19:19

The Elijah with whom we spent time in the previous chapter is hardly recognizable in this episode. He is no longer the prophet who lost heart and had been wallowing in defeat, sulking in a cave. He was transformed. Once again he is on the move, and you would have had to jog to keep pace with his long, rapid strides. Every time his foot hit the ground, it raised a small, meaningful dust cloud. He was on assignment for Yehovah–nothing could stand in his way. The wild and fearless prophet was back.
God had given him three tasks to perform involving three men: Hazael, who would become king of Syria; Jehu, would become king of Israel; and Elisha, who would become his replacement. Elijah began with the third task; and as the Lord would have it, Elisha, his protégé would complete the other two assignments after he was gone. So at least he could cross the Elisha task off his “to do” list.

Elijah received specific instructions for where he would find Elisha. First, Elisha was the son of Shaphat. Second, they lived in the village of Abel-mehola. Elijah was familiar with this area, because it wasn’t far from wadi-Cherith, where God first sent him to hide from King Ahab. Elijah may have even known of Shaphat, because he was apparently a wealthy landowner.

Making his way through the low hills west of the Jordan River, Elijah came to a valley of rich farmland. He first caught sight of Elisha behind a plough pulled by two oxen, etching lines in a wide field. Behind Elisha there were eleven other ploughmen also working the field. Twelve in all. That must have seemed fitting to Elijah. Twelve teams of oxen, twelve tribes of Israel. There was, in fact, at that time a large, decorative bowl-shaped pool of water in the temple that rested on the backs of twelve oxen statues.

Marching across the field, Elijah began removing his wide cloak, then coming up behind Elisha, he threw it over his shoulders without saying a word. The prophet did not stop. He passed by Elisha just as Yehovah had passed before himself outside the cave a few days back. It was Elisha’s moment, and Elijah was not going to spoil it with some long-winded recruitment pitch.

Elisha’s surprise lasted no longer than a deep breath. Shockwaves of sheer excitement tremored through his body. He had been waiting for this! He knew someday the call would come. How could he have known it would be today? Right now? Out here in his father’s field, behind the plough.

Elisha sprinted over the furrows of broken earth until he caught up to Elijah. Between breaths he said, “Let me – go home, please, – and kiss my parents – before I go. I want them to know I’m leaving. Then I’ll come back and follow you to–wherever the Spirit takes you.” He was not asking if he could run home and give each of his parents a smooch on the cheek, but to give them a proper good-by. It is quite possible they, too, knew a day would come when their boy would leave home for another life.

Turning to look him in the eye, Elijah told him, “Go back home. What do you think I’ve done to you? What do you think just happened? I’m not placing you under any obligation. You’re free to choose what you do next. You’re free to return to your parents and celebrate this rite-of-passage with them. All I did was throw my cloak on you. I haven’t strapped a yoke on your shoulders.”

Returning to the field, Elisha removed the yoke from the oxen, slaughtered them, stacked the wooden plough and yoke, and set them on fire. He cooked the meat of the oxen over the fire, and hosted a feast to celebrate his departure with his family; who most likely included aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends and neighbors from their town.

Before sunset, Elisha was on the road that brought him to Elijah. Together they headed into the next adventure. During the coming months, Elisha would follow the prophet, attending to his personal needs, and receiving an education in how to listen to the Spirit of Yehovah, and pray miracles into the lives of others.

This is our brief introduction to Elisha–only three verses in the Bible. And after this he disappears until 2 Kings chapter 2–and there he is already a mature prophet, no longer in need of Elijah’s tutelage and ready to go out on his own. Naturally, we would like a few more details of Elisha’s calling and his private education. But there is none of that here.

Maybe we should be thankful that at least we do have this little bit of information. Or, maybe, in instances like this, where the Bible leaves empty spaces, we are allowed to fill in the blank lines with our imagination. Of course, our imaginations cannot bring us to the truth of these circumstances, but still they can lead us to a truth we may not have considered. So, with your permission–or without it, because I’m going to do this anyway–I’ll take us on a brief excursion to a place you’ve never been before.

A week after Elisha left the farm, his mother stood in the doorway of their home, looking out at the fields where servants and day-workers were carrying jars of water from the cistern and pouring them into the furrows where the seed had been planted. Her husband came toward her, all-business like and was about to say something. But noticing that her eyes were blurred with tears that had not yet spilled over onto her cheeks, he said nothing. Instead, he came close and stood next to her. After a quiet moment, being as gentle as was possible for him, he said, “You know he’ll come back. Once he’s been out in the real world for awhile, he’ll get this nonsense out of his system, realize how good he has it here, and he’ll return home where he belongs.”

She turned her head slightly, left-right-left-right. “No,” she whispered, “he won’t be back. You know, he’s always been a dreamer; always seen things we could not see; heard a voice we could not hear. No, God has him now.
“We lost our son,
because he found himself.”

If we can imagine a conversation like that, then it could help us get a better understanding of Elisha’s actions before he left. So when we return to what the Bible does say, we get what’s going on here.

That Elisha would throw himself a going-away party fits the occasion, even though it was spontaneous, sudden, and the guests were not given advanced notice. However, what is less clear is why he would make provisions for the instant feast by slaughtering his oxen and burning his farm equipment. Certainly his family must have had other ways to feed their guests. And it is not likely that firewood was in short supply.

Elisha was making a statement.

He did not only set fire to his farming tools, he was burning bridges. He was eliminating the devices that had him grounded in the soil of his father’s fields. Elisha made it so that he could not return–he could not go back to doing what he had done before. He could not resume the life he had lived or again become the person he had been. He was primed for the moment that Elijah’s mantle fell on his shoulders. In that instant his life became something else.

Elisha had visions of other fields besides his father’s. In his minds eye he saw men, women, and children; kings and commanders; perhaps even one day a school of prophets that needed a leader and mentor.

Someone as serious about their calling as Elisha was, does not make “slight adjustments” to their lifestyle or tweak their daily routine. Hundreds of years later, the Lord Jesus would explain, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is well-placed for work in the kingdom of God” [Lk. 9:62] That makes sense. How can a person plow a straight furrow while looking backwards? Somewhere it is written that people of faith “make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” [Heb. 11:14-16]

If there are people whose entire lives flow as smooth as oil, we have yet to meet them. For the majority of humankind, passing through a single day entails interruptions and a series of starts and stops. Still, it rarely happens that we see a person’s life turn on a dime, and generally if it does, it results from a crisis or unexpected hardship. So for us, to see the sudden and radical change of Elisha’s life, we realize that something unique has happened. What could motivate Elisha to completely abandon his stable life for an uncertain future with a impulsive prophet? The answer has to do with a phenomenon known as “hearing the call.”

Although the timing of Elijah’s arrival may have caught Elisha off guard, he was not surprised that it happened. He had been waiting for this moment. Elisha knew that he was meant to dedicate himself to a specific adventure; that God had singled him out for more than an average life. He was not supposed to settle for a life of success, but commit to a life of significance. When the call came, he was ready. He had his bags packed and set to go.

Did he know how the call would come to him? Did he know exactly what he would be doing? Did it ever occur to him that he would only know the day and the hour when a cloak was thrown over him? Probably not, and it’s possible that none of those things mattered. He eagerly anticipated the day that he would be pulled into a life worth living. He did not need a written document to arrive, a special messenger to bring the big announcement. He was pleased if the only indication of his call was when skilled journeyman walked by and handed him a tool belt.

In theaters that host live action plays, a few of the actors on stage have important roles. Other actors have less important roles, and some are merely “extras” to create the illusion of a busy street or a crowded restaurant.

God does not create or use “extras.” God does not give life to any human person just for them to take up space, to accomplish nothing, to be nothing. Everyone’s existence is meant to have as much significance as Elisha’s. Everyone has a calling.

And we need a calling. We have to know that passing through this life we are doing something significant, something helpful for others, something good for the world. We need to know our calling, and to know that it is so big that it causes everything in our lives to make sense.

Some of us know our calling–we know it so well we can try to avoid it, refuse it, run from it. Others of us are not certain of our calling. We think it might be this or that. And some of us doubt that our lives mean anything, either to ourselves or anyone else.

To know our calling, we need to understand that along the way, even though something is accomplished, we are not called to accomplishments. We are not called to an artistic creation, or to build a business, or lead a community. We are not called to a duty or a task. To get to the heart of it, we have to ask, “Who is doing the calling?” Whose voice invites us to come and follow them?

When Jesus called the fishermen from their boats and their nets and the lake, he told them he would make them fishers of men and women. That was what they would eventually be doing, but their calling was to follow him. He could have made them become something else. Since then he has needed carpenters and cooks, teachers and tailors, janitors and generals. He has made many people to become many things, but he began with all of them by calling them to himself. If when your calling becomes clear, your immediate reaction is, “But I’m not qualified for that! I haven’t the education, or creativity, or whatever, to do that!” know this, Jesus will “make you” for whatever he wants you to be.

There is a moment when a voice comes to everyone, saying,
“Your destiny is upon you!”
“Your name has come up, you’ve been chosen and called.”

It’s never too late to wake up to your calling.
Never too late to answer the call.
Never too late to follow Jesus.

I wish we all were as aware of God’s desire for us as Elisha was.
I wish we all were as excited about what the Lord has planned for us.
How wonderful if we were as convinced,
as certain,
as eager about receiving and having this call as Elisha.

I leave that to you and to your temperament.
Just know that you have not been overlooked.
Look at what has given to you.
Listen to the effect you have on others.
Pay attention to life around you and the life within.
Notice all these things and see if like an arrow
they point in the direction of your calling.
And when you receive the call–or when you realize you have already received it–
jump up, leave everything, and follow Jesus.