1 Kings 18:20-39 "Fire from Heaven"

I know today’s Bible reading very well. The school where I went (a private Christian school) had their fifth grade act out this story each year for chapel. Our chapel services were K through 5^th grade, with the sixth graders doing things with the Junior High classes. And normally, our chapel services happened in the assembly room, but every now and then, like when we acted out the story of Mount Carmel, we got to have chapel in the gym. So, growing up, I would watch the big fifth graders act this out and I got to know it well. By the time I reached fifth grade and was able to be in it, I knew all the parts and looked forward to it. And so, in fifth grade I began my regular habit of playing villains in school plays and played one of the priests of Baal. It was a lot of fun. I got to dance around a pile of stones in the gym, probably the only time dancing was allowed in that gym, by the way, and call out and act all crazy and watch as nothing happened to the stones in front of me. Oddly enough, I don’t remember much about Elijah’s part or what happened next, except that at the end the people of Israel went around and grabbed all of us priests and took us to the side of the gym and pretended to kill us. Like I said, the beginning of a long career throughout school of playing the bad guy.

I think, because I grew up knowing this story so well, it has always held a place close in my heart. Here is a place where someone prays for God to do something and it happens. Here is a place where someone publicly puts God to the test and God proves that he is God and there is no other. Here is a place where someone asks God to show himself and God does as clear as can be.

I sometimes wish life were this easy, this obvious, today. I sometimes wish that we could pray as calmly and as full of faith as Elijah did. I sometimes wish it were that easy to show people that the Lord is God and there is no other. But if it were that easy, we would have a tame God, a God who isn’t in control of himself but rather allows us to control him, and in the end we’d be no better than the worshippers of Baal.

I. A Powerless God

Much like the people of Israel in Elijah’s day, we sometimes choose to serve a God without any power. I mean, we believe that our God created this world and everything in it. We believe that our God sent his Son who, when he was crucified, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. We believe that God worked miracles throughout the history of the world. And yet, in so many areas of our lives, we act as if there was no God at all. We live normal lives and do normal things and watch as the world passes us by. We forget the power that our God has. We forget what God is capable of.

The people of Israel in the time of Elijah had forgotten what God was capable of. They had discovered a new god that that they wanted to worship. Their new god was Baal, the god of fertility, the god of life, the god of the fields and the harvest. Their god was not mysterious like the one true God. Life was quite simple for them. They gave certain sacrifices, they participated in certain rights, and Baal would guarantee a good harvest. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be easy if I could stand up here and tell you that if you gave a certain amount to the church then I could guarantee that next year’s crop would be amazing? Would you like that? Well, that is not the way that God works. Our God doesn’t make life that easy, he doesn’t set up such a simple process that guarantees wealth and riches to his followers. Our God is not tame; he is wild and unpredictable. But this does not mean that he is powerless.

Unfortunately, the people of Israel had decided that God was powerless so they had begun worshiping a god who they thought would meet their needs. Again, this is something that we need to be careful of, for it is something that we do ourselves. Oh, we don’t have idols of Baal in our houses and we don’t necessarily worship other gods to meet our needs, but we have found other types of idols to worship. We have found other ways to meet our needs without even considering relying on God. We may not put our trust in Baal, but we might be putting our trust in other things instead of God. Perhaps it is our bank account that we rely on. Perhaps it is our job. Perhaps we spend all our energy and focus trying to find a way to earn our daily bread that we forget that we are called to turn to God and ask him to give us our daily bread.

But God doesn’t like it when you put your trust in something other than him. Israel did this and God’s response was to cause a drought. This was particularly harsh, but quite fitting because they thought Baal would guarantee them the rain they needed, so God took away the very thing that they relied on Baal for. And then, in the midst of this drought we have the great power struggle on Mount Carmel.

Here we have God making himself known to his people as clear as you can. The setup is quite simple. There is going to be a contest between the gods. Baal’s priests are going to set up an altar and pray that Baal can start it on fire. Then Elijah is going to set up an altar and pray for God to start it on fire. Whoever’s God can start the fire is the true God worthy of Israel’s worship.

Baal’s priests get to go first. And they make a big deal about asking Baal to come down with fire and prove that he is the one with power. They dance, they cut themselves, they scream themselves horse for a full day. Nothing happens. We skipped over some of the taunts that Elijah comes up with while they are praying, “Shout louder!” he calls to them, “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” Of course, nothing happens. Maybe the problem isn’t that Baal is sleeping. Maybe the problem is that Baal doesn’t exist at all. Maybe the reason that Baal is so predictable and so easy to tame is that he is a figment of their imagination.

And so we come to Elijah and his altar.

II. Fire From Heaven

Now Elijah has a point to make to the people of Israel. He needs to show them clearly which God has power. He has put a choice before them, who are they going to worship, and now he needs to make it clear to them that there is only one God worthy of worship. So when it is Elijah’s turn, when the priests of Baal have danced themselves to a standstill, when they have cut themselves, when they have exhausted themselves completely, Elijah has water dumped on the altar three times, to the point where there is a trench around the altar and it is full of water. Then Elijah calmly speaks a prayer, no dancing around, no cutting himself, no working himself into a frenzy. Instead, he prays a simple prayer to God.

“Lord, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

Elijah prays, not for things to get better for him, not for his own name to be great. He prays that God might turn the people of Israel back to God by showing them this sign.

Elijah isn’t standing in front of these people, testing God, so that his world might become a better world. He isn’t doing it to get something out of it. He isn’t trying to harness God’s power for his own ends. Rather he is asking that God use God’s power to touch God’s people and bring them back into relationship with God.

Elijah isn’t just worshipping God, he is following him. He doesn’t just trust in God, he obeys him. He isn’t trying to tame God, rather he is allowing God to lead him.

“Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, ‘The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!’”

The people had seen God’s power and they made their choice.

III. Choices

God is big into choices. On Wednesday night we were looking at an ancient writing, the Didache, which is an early writing of the church. Probably written within twenty years of the end of the Bible. In it, God’s followers, the Christians are told that they can choose one of two ways to live. There is the way of life and there is the way of death. The way of life is to love the God who made you and love your neighbor as yourself. They way of death is to live a life of sin, a life that puts yourself and your needs above all else. Here, in today’s scripture, the people of Israel are given a choice as well. They can choose whether to follow God or they can choose to worship Baal. If they follow God, they cannot guarantee that God will always do exactly what they want. They will be following a wild, untamed God. They will not be in charge, rather they will be the followers. Or they can worship Baal. With Baal, they don’t necessarily need to be followers. They get to be the ones in control. They set the rules and they choose what it is they want from this make-believe god. But then there’s the problem. Their god is a make-believe god who really has no power at all.

And so, I wonder how we respond to the choice put before us. Are we willing to follow the way of life? Are we ready to serve the wild God who will not always answer you the way you want him to? Are we anxious to follow God faithfully though it may mean that our simple lives will not remain simple? Or do we want the simple deception and false promise that the rest of the world lives by? Do we simply trust that this world will take care of us? I know that I have chosen the wild God that sends fire from heaven and speaks in whispers. I know that I have chosen to follow the God of power instead of having the illusion that I am in control. Let us all choose to follow God today and throughout our lives. Amen.

Revelation 7:9-17, 1 John 3:1-3 "A Great Multitude"

This morning we watched as the children of our church reminded us of some great stories from the Bible and great people who followed God in unique ways. We did this sort of as our own way of celebrating Halloween and giving the children an opportunity to dress up as their favorite Bible characters. But this wasn’t just an excuse for them to dress up. Tomorrow is Halloween, whose history is quite messed up and confusing. Halloween has pagan roots and sometimes is even referred to as the devil’s night. But the early church, when it came across the harvest celebrations and the odd pagan beliefs, decided that it was best to work towards sanctifying them, making them holy. We discover that the church did this with many holidays and we find that our Christian celebrations throughout the year often correspond with earlier pagan holidays that people were already celebrating.

Unfortunately, Christianity’s version of Halloween didn’t catch on quite as much as some of our other holidays. Christianity’s take on Halloween was to have a special day, November 1^st, where we celebrated the lives of those who have gone before, those who ran the race and fought the fight and followed Christ. And so, this morning, with our kids’ help, we celebrated All Saints Day (a couple days early), and we briefly remembered some of those who have gone before, those who we can learn from, those whose own faith inspires and encourages our faith.

The Bible actually spends a fair amount of time talking about the saints. It has a very simple definition for saints, one which we have gotten back to in Protestant churches in the last few hundred years. A saint is someone who is living or has lived in right relationship with God. A saint is someone who has had their sins forgiven by God. And on All Saints Day we remember that we are not the first saints in this world. There were many before us, many who we remember, who affected our lives in tangible ways, and many who lived throughout history. So, today, we celebrate the saints who have gone before. Maybe we remember people from the Bible whose stories inspire us. Maybe we remember a parent or grandparent that taught us what it means to be a follower of Christ. Or maybe we just remember that we are not alone in our faith, but share it with so many around the world and throughout history.

I. Saints

Perhaps we like to think of saints as being heroic, but heroism isn’t what brings sainthood on someone, rather it is faithfulness. Revelation 7 tells us a bit about what it means to be a saint. John sees a great multitude standing around God’s throne. They are all wearing white robes, they all have palm branches and they are from every tribe and nation, every people group from around the world. And they are crying out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

John is asked by his host or guide who these people in white are and he wisely answers, “Sir, you know.” John is told that these are the people who are going to be before the throne of God. They are the ones who get to serve him day and night. They will never face hunger or thirst, they will never have to deal with getting sunburned (hey, it says the sun will no longer shine harshly down on them… no more sunburns) and all tears will be wiped away from their eyes.

Sounds pretty good. I think I want to be a part of that group. So, how do I join up? Well, there’s something about a great tribulation, more on that later, and then there is the fact that the Lamb is their shepherd, and then there is the fact that their robes have been washed in the blood of the lamb.

The book of Revelation, with its many visions and signs spends a lot of time talking about the end of time and heaven, but it also is talking about today, just like it was talking about the time that John lived in. These visions of John’s tell what God’s followers have to look forward to, these visions of John’s help us to live through the difficulties of today, because we know there is something great in store for us. We know that in the end, we will stand in God’s presence at the throne, surrounded by a great multitude, facing neither hunger nor thirst, having our tears erased. Does this mean we will no longer have to eat or drink? No, we are told that there will be feasting in heaven. We are told that we will be able to drink from springs of living water. We just won’t want for food or drink, it will be available for us. And what gives us and those around us the opportunity to enter into God’s presence? The blood of the lamb, which washes our robes white. It’s odd imagery. It doesn’t totally make sense, especially if you’ve ever tried to get blood out of any clothes you have. And yet, the saints are those that have been washed in the blood.

II. Washed in the Blood

When I hear someone say they’ve been washed in the blood, I automatically think of them in a certain light. I think of an old Baptist preacher, with his Bible in his hand, waving it over his head. There’s a power in the words, “Washed in the blood”. But I’m not sure if this is an image that speaks as strongly to people today. I think John explains this better in his other writings. Instead of using this great, visual, powerful image of being washed in the blood, he describes Christ’s followers in a different light. In 1 John 3 he refers to those who follow Christ as the children of God. Now this is a phrase I can wrap my heart and mind around. Bbeing God’s children doesn’t mean all is well. 1 John 3 makes the point that the world is not always going to recognize you. It might treat you the same way it treated Christ. The world didn’t treat Jesus very well. And that takes us back to that mention in Revelation 7 of some sort of tribulation that this great multitude went through.

Normally, when we hear the word tribulation, we think of some great disaster during the end times. Normally, when we think of the tribulation it is the sign that Jesus is about to return. I have heard people comment on the disasters that have been happening across this world and how we just might be at the point of tribulation right now. And you know what, it’s possible. But it is important to remember that disasters have happened from the beginning of time. Even in the time that John was writing, it was unsafe to be a Christian. They faced persecution for their faith. They daily faced death for what it was that they believed. The Christians alive in John’s time, when the book of Revelation was being written were more in the midst of tribulation than we are today. They had a much better candidate for Anti-Christ in the Roman Emperor Nero than we have had since. And throughout the history of the church, Christians have faced horrible disasters. In the Middle Ages there was the plague that wiped out a third of the people living in Europe. I cannot even imagine such destruction. There have been wars and rumors of wars faced in every generation who has lived on this planet. World War I was to be the war to end all wars… and it was only a beginning.

John was writing the book of Revelation to people suffering their own tribulation. The visions that John received were able to give hope to people as they faced suffering and even death for what they believed. When John talked about these children of God who are not known by the world; when he talked about this great multitude standing at the throne of God, he was telling these people, these saints, these ordinary followers of Christ that what they were going through was worth it.

III. Heroes

The heroes of the Bible, the people who we look up to who have gone before us, all were willing to face what they did because they knew it was worth it. David was willing to face Goliath because he knew God would be with him. Miriam was willing to hide by the shore and watch her baby brother because she knew God was going to save him. John the Baptist was willing to live in the desert and eat wild honey and dress in weird clothing because he knew God was sending a Savior into the world. These people weren’t heroic in and of themselves. They didn’t eat a special form of Wheaties that gave them super heroic abilities. They didn’t need spinach to get them through their trials. No, what allowed them to do what they did, what gave them the strength to step out and face impossible odds was a certainty that God was with them. Further than that, it was the promise that something great was in store for them.

We have this same promise that they had. We serve the same God that they served. And yet we allow ourselves to shuffle along in our ordinary lives doing ordinary things, without a thought to what we could be doing. We need to be filled with the great trust that filled these heroes that have gone before us. We can step out and step up in faith the same way they did, and we can trust that God will be there with us and for us as we do so. This means taking risks. This means being faithful even when it hurts. This sometimes even means facing a time of tribulation. This means allowing the Holy Spirit to work in your life. It means allowing the Spirit to work through you in ways you may not even understand. It means reaching out to the community around you with your faith and your love. It means loving God with your heart, soul, mind and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Are we going to allow ourselves to be inspired by those who have gone before us? Are we going to allow ourselves to be motivated by the promise of greatness that God has given us? I hope and pray that we will allow ourselves to take the same kind of risks that so many have taken before us. I hope and pray that we will allow God to work mightily in our lives and on our behalf, so that we can truly become more like those who have gone before us and so that we can read Revelation 7 and realize that John is talking about us, washed in the blood of the Lamb and living as children of God. Amen.

Mark 12:28-34 "The Jesus Creed"

What does it mean to be a Christian? How do you pick one out from a crowd? Is it by the way they act? Is it how they dress? My father used to work at Warner Lambert as a salesman. He sold Rolaids and other over the counter pharmaceuticals. During his meetings that he would go to, he would tell me that people would actually turn to him after they had sworn and apologize. He didn’t give people dirty looks about swearing. He didn’t try to make a big deal about his faith. But people knew from his demeanor and from his own language what he was about. And so, when they were having a conversation with him and a swear word slipped out, they would actually apologize to him for it. Basically, they acted differently around him because of the way he acted. Somehow, his lifestyle spoke to them in a way that didn’t need words and they knew he was a man of faith without him having to make a big deal about it. But again I ask, what does it mean to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus?

As good evangelicals it usually is defined by our having a personal relationship with Christ. It involves having asked Jesus into our heart, probably when we were children and most likely at camp. It involves trying to follow the commandments and live good lives.

These are all good things, but are they really the center of what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ? Maybe there is something else that better defines being a Christian than a prayer you said as a child or what you wear or whether you have a fish on the bumper of your car. Maybe the center of Christianity is actually found in today’s scripture, when Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment is: we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are called to live lives that center around these commandments. This is the center of what it means to be a Christian.

1. A Good Jewish Boy

Jesus grew up as a good Jewish boy. This is something that we sometimes forget. He was raised with a religion and with habits that those around him shared with him. He traveled to Jerusalem as a child for Passover. He participated in the holy celebrations of his day. His parents brought him up to go to synagogue every Saturday and even they were surprised by his religious fervor when, during his twelfth year, he got so caught up in discussions going on at the temple that he missed the train home. Jesus followed the religious customs of the day. We later see that he picked and chose certain rules and laws that he would follow, making a point that the Old Testament laws, like the celebration of the Sabbath, were for our good, they weren’t just things we had to follow.

But one of the habits that Jesus most likely did follow was the recitation of the Shema multiple times through the day. The Shema was recited aloud when you rose and when you retired; when you woke up and when you went to sleep. And it came from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It began with the Hebrew word, Shema, which means “Hear”, thus it’s name. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

The Shema. It was the first “prayer” that Jewish children would learn, and it would be spoken at least twice a day by those who took their faith seriously. Jesus took his faith seriously. We can expect that Jesus participated in the strange custom of repeating this aloud each morning as he awoke and then to saying it again at night when he prepared for sleep.

I can hear the questions already. “Why repeat the same thing over and over again? Isn’t it just going to become vain repetition?” Or “that isn’t even a prayer, it’s a command from God. What’s the point of repeating it on such a regular basis?”

Well, I think there was something healthy that happened when people of Israel repeated this to themselves each morning and each evening. It helped them set their minds on the right path for the day. It wasn’t a prayer designed to get them in contact with God. Rather it was a communication from God designed to help them focus right away in their day about what was important… Loving God with all their being. The Shema reminded them what was important in life. Love God and pay attention to his commandments.

Jesus grew up with this. Those around him grew up with it as well. His disciples did, the Pharisees did, the teacher of the law who asks him a question in today’s reading did. I’m not sure about Matthew, the disciple who had been a tax collector. He had probably fallen away from his faith as a Jew when he became a tax collector, but I would imagine that when he began following Jesus he probably started up again. The disciples didn’t see their following of Jesus as an end to their Judaism. Rather they saw him as a completion of what they believed and did as Jews. And so the Shema was important to them. It was a center of what they understood their faith, their very way of life, to be about. It was the true center of what it meant to be Jewish. And so, of course, Jesus came in and amended it.

II. Jesus’ Amendment

In today’s scripture we are told that one of the teachers of the law came and heard Jesus, the Pharisees and the Sadducees debating. This teacher of the law was probably the equivalent of a seminary professor. Here is someone who knew his Torah or first 5 books of the Bible. Here is someone who definitely recited the Shema on a daily basis. It must have been central to his life, for it was what he studied and taught. And we know that he took it seriously because he was dedicating his life to fulfilling it. As a teacher of the law, he was making sure that the commandments were being taught to the coming generation. And so the teacher of the law asks Jesus an important question. “Which is the most important of the commandments?” This was a very important question for the people of the day. They knew that God commanded them to keep the commandments. They also knew how difficult this was, so they would argue over which ones were more important and which were less, so they could have their important commandments that they paid closer attention to. We do the same. We think of the commandment not to murder as more important than the commandment not to bear false witness against our neighbor. We think using vulgar language is worse than taking the Lord’s name in vain. That one doesn’t totally make sense to me. There are certain swear words that Christians are just not allowed to use, but if you want to exclaim, “O God” it’s okay. It has been okay to take the Lord’s name in vain on television at least since the late eighties, though there are still vulgarities that are not allowed. This teacher of the law basically was asking Jesus to rank the commandments for him. But Jesus wanted to do something much greater than just ranking the commandments. He wanted to redefine them. And so he answered the teacher of the law by stating the obvious, and repeating the Shema to him, but then he amended it. He added another commandment, not from Deuteronomy 6 but from Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is a big deal. Jesus took the center of Jewish life and practice and changed it. This is like someone coming to you and telling you that the Lord’s Prayer needs to be re-written. And we’re not just talking about what word we use to talk about sins. I’m talking about total rewrite. I’m talking about taking the first couple phrases in the prayer and keeping them and then finding a different prayer from the Bible and making that just as important. It’s a big deal. It’s earth shattering. And yet, the teacher of the law doesn’t call Jesus out on this. Instead he thinks about what it is that Jesus has said and he agrees with him. Scot McKnight, in his book The Jesus Creed, points out that putting these two Old Testament commands together is something that is unique to Jesus. Jesus isn’t taking someone else’s idea and just repeating it. The other records we have of Jewish life of the time do not connect these two scriptures in any way. And Scot McKnight goes a step further in saying that by putting these two scriptures together; Jesus is defining the heart of Christianity.

III. The Center

Jesus took the center of Jewish faith and faithfulness and changed it. He took the extreme importance of loving God and putting God first and tied it together with the idea that we need to love those around us. And when you begin to look closely at the teachings of Jesus throughout the parables you notice something quite amazing. All that he teaches about involves one of the two of these. The Ten Commandments are the same way. The first four commandments are about loving God, the last six are about loving others. Jesus has given us a center of our faith that, unfortunately, we have placed to the side and mostly ignored. Maybe we need to do as the Jews of Jesus’ day did. Maybe we need to do what Jesus did and recite this updated Shema to ourselves on a daily basis. Maybe we need to take this Jesus Creed and use it to remind ourselves as we wake up and as we go to bed what our faith is really about.

But many of us don’t like to repeat things over and over again. We live in fear that by repeating them we somehow rob them of their meaning. How many of you actually pay attention to the words of the Lord’s Prayer when you pray it on Sunday morning. In all honesty, I really don’t, I’m more worried about whether I’m going to get the “debts” part right. But when I’m praying on my own, I do say the Lord’s Prayer, and I do take the time to pay attention to the words. And the same can be done if we focus on this Jesus Creed in our lives. I’ve gotten in the habit of saying it when I put my watch on in the morning and again when I take my watch off. It helps because it is tied to something physical. I don’t say it out loud, Lisa might look at me weird, but instead mouth the words silently, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” And after saying this to myself I make myself promise to live like that today. I ask God to help me live up to such a great commandment. And then, in the evening, while I remove my watch, I ask myself whether I lived up to the great commandment today. Usually the answer is no. Most of us are built to love ourselves more than we love our neighbors, most of us don’t naturally put our love of God first, above all else, in our lives. But then I ask God to help me do better tomorrow.

This is not something that I do because I am a pastor. This is something I think many Christians could make a part of their lives, and I think it would help us to grow in our faith in a powerful way. Scot McKnight, who is a professor at North Park University wrote a book about it. He is the one who has named this updated Shema “the Jesus Creed” and he is the one who is encouraging God’s people to take up the habit of repeating this creed on a daily basis and watching ourselves be transformed by it. I’ve got one copy and if you’d like to borrow it let me know. It’s got a lot in it, and opens your eyes to how revolutionary this great commandment is. But I challenge you, this week, starting tonight as you prepare for bed and continuing in the morning, to recite the Jesus Creed. You can write it down and tape it to your bathroom mirror. You can have it sitting next to your bed. Eventually you will have it memorized. I always get the heart, soul, mind and strength out of order. It doesn’t matter. Just try it. It’s not going to change God. It’s not going to affect how well he hears you when you pray. But it will affect you. It will put you on the right path each day. It will focus you in the right direction.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” Amen.