2nd Sunday after Pentecost-Year C

2nd Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 4C June 2, 2013 It is a dark and terrifying time in Israel. Yahweh has made clear that he is angry with the people, especially with the rule of King Ahab, who is described as more evil than all his predecessors, and Queen Jezebel, who has introduced the worship of Baal, the Canaanite agricultural god into Israel. Yahweh is so angry, that Yahweh has imposed a horrible drought upon all the land. So the King has enlisted the help of 450 prophets of Baal, who is known to be the giver of the rain in Canaanite culture. And Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh, stands alone before them to face off in an epic showdown. But before the show starts, Elijah indicates what is really at stake here. It’s not about the rain or the drought. He faces all the gathered people and says to them, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.” What follows is a great deal of drama, with the prophets of Baal trying desperately to invoke a fiery response from their god and a great deal of taunting from Elijah. Finally, Elijah prays to Yahweh, again, articulating exactly what is at stake here: “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” I was struck by one sentence written by a commentator about this story and the insight it provides into the story. She writes, “Beneath the surface of this narrative throbs the terrible fear of being abandoned by God.”i When the going has gotten tough in Israel, the people fear that they have been abandoned by God, and so they hedge their bets, divide their loyalty, just in case. And that is the problem. Elijah reminds them that they must choose this day whose people they will be, Yahweh’s or Baal’s, and he and Yahweh together make a compelling case to prove that Yahweh has not abandoned them. It is a dark and terrifying time in the life of us modern day believers as well. Underneath the surface of our stories is the deep and terrible fear that we have been abandoned by God. Bad things continue to happen. Disappointments from all through the years pile up until they threaten to overwhelm us. We cry out to God for help, for healing, for some refreshment in the dry, drought-filled, and parched places of our lives. We pray to God whose “never failing providence sets in order things both in heaven and earth” but we might not really believe this anymore. And so we hedge our bets; we seek out other ‘gods’ that make us feel safe and secure and better,--we worship other idols of money, status, security, power, tradition; we make up more and more rules for our religion so we can be the ones who are “in”, assured of God’s love and presence, as opposed to those who are “out.” We choose to divide our hearts between God and other things because, deep down, we live with the terrible fear that God has abandoned us. And just like the people of Israel, it is our very hearts that are at stake here. Part of the reason why we fear that God has abandoned us is because we cannot believe that we are truly worthy of God’s love. In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, sociologist Brene’ Brown writes, “Love and belonging are essential to the human experience. As I conducted my interviews, I realized that only one thing separated the men and women who felt a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it. That one thing is the belief in their worthiness. It’s as simple and complicated as this: If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness-the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving…. Worthiness doesn’t have prerequisites. So many of us have knowingly created/unknowingly allowed/been handed down a long list of worthiness prerequisites: I’ll be worthy when I lose 20 pounds. I’ll be worthy if I can get pregnant. I’ll be worthy if I get/stay sober. I’ll be worthy if everyone thinks I’m a good parent. I’ll be worthy when I can make a living selling my art work. I’ll be worthy if I can hold my marriage together. I’ll be worthy when I make partner. I’ll be worthy when my parents finally approve. I’ll be worthy if he calls back and asks me out. I’ll be worthy when I can do it all and look like I’m not even trying. Here’s what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now. Not if. Not when. We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.”ii In the reading from Galatians today, Paul reminds his readers and us, that the gospel of Jesus Christ proves to us, once and for all, that God has not and will not abandon us. It proves that we (and our divided hearts) are the only impediment between us and God’s love. Another commentator writes that for Paul, “the gospel is the unbearably good news that divine love anticipates us, surrounds us, precedes us; anything that serves as an obstacle to our awareness of this love is ‘accursed.’ The nature of the Divine is to be love, and the great conversion of faith is to let this love live in us. For Paul, the gospel makes every religious, civil, and social authority secondary to confidence in the intimate love of God manifest in Christ.”iii One of the popular reposts among my clergy friends this week on Facebook is a blog entry titled 15 Things Jesus Didn’t Say. They are all pretty clever and insightful parodies on popular Bible passages and the ways that we have distorted Jesus’s teachings in our religion and in our lives. One that is particularly pertinent to today is this one that Jesus didn’t say: “For God so loved the world… you know like theoretically… as in, God loves the big ‘W’-world. But when it come to you specifically, there are quite a few things that would need to change for God to actually and specifically love… or even like… YOU.”iv You are loved by God, no matter what, and God is with you always in and through the intimate love of God as manifest in Christ. The absence and the loneliness that we experience is from our own divided hearts. In our prayers and our breaking of bread together this day, let us pray: Answer us, O Lord, answer us, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned our hearts back. i. Sharp, Carolyn L. Feasting on the Word Year C Vol 3. Theological Perspective. Westminster John Knox:2010, p78 ii.Brown, Brene’. The Gift of Imperfection. As quoted in BibleWorkbench Issue 20.4. The Education Center. p22. iii.Farley, Wendy. Feasting on the Word Year C Vol. 3. Theological Perspective. Westminster John Knox: 2013, p.88. iv.Jim Palmer. http://jimpalmerblog.com/2012/12/14/15-things-jesus-didnt-say/