Sermon: Depressed Prophets and God's Call

1 Kings 19:1-16

Depressed Prophets and God’s Call

James Sledge                                                                                       June 23, 2013

It isn’t that unusual for people who feel a strong sense of call in the work they do to become cynical, burned out, jaded, or depressed over time. Teachers, social workers, community organizers, and others who begin careers filled with a passion and zeal to make the world a better place, sometimes get worn down by the difficulties of the work. If you feel called to your work but start to think your work isn’t making the difference you hoped it would, it is easy to become disenchanted and depressed.

Clearly the same sort of thing happens with prophets. The Elijah we meet in today’s scripture is thoroughly depressed, and not without reason. After all that he  has done for Yahweh, after many impressive, even miraculous, accomplishments, the same corrupt regime is in power, and is seeking to kill him. It’s more than Elijah can take. “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life.”

If you’ve ever talked with someone who has become disillusioned and depressed about the work she is doing, you likely know that it can be hard to break through that depression. The teacher who has made a difference in the lives of countless students may still think he is doing little good, and the person who reminds him of all his successes often makes little headway. When people who are passionate about their call get burned out and depressed, the failures seem monumental, that the successes minimal.

Elijah is no different. Firmly in the grip of depression, he’s sees nothing good. All Israel has abandoned God. No one lives in the ways Yahweh commanded. No one is faithful. Everyone has embraced the corrupt rule of Ahab and Jezebel. All the true prophets besides Elijah are dead. What’s the point. It’s all useless.

Of course none of this is totally true. All the prophets are not dead. Everyone has not abandoned Yahweh. There are faithful people who long for an end to the rule of Ahab and Jezebel. But in his depressed, burned out state, Elijah cannot see this.

Remarkably, even God cannot break through Elijah’s depression. Divine messengers speak to him. Food is miraculously provided for him. God is vividly present to him. But none of that matters. Elijah can see no sign of hope, nothing but gloom.

Elijah is directed to Mt. Horeb, another name for Mt. Sinai. This is the mount of God, the place where God spoke to Moses, the place where the 10 Commandments were given, the place of revelation for Israel. Elijah returns to the starting place, to the spot where Israel came to be as a nation, to the place where God once spoke face to face with Moses.

Elijah arrives and finds a cave where he spends the night. But he seems unwilling to come out of his cave. When Yahweh speaks to him Elijah recites his litany of woe and hopelessness. So God tells Elijah to go outside on the mountain, for Yahweh is about to pass by. The Hebrew translated “pass by” is the same word spoken to Moses when he asks to see God’s glory. In that story, God places Moses in a cleft in the rock, and covers him, allowing Moses only a glimpse after passing by. Here God seems to offer Elijah an experience of divine presence greater than Moses had. But Elijah will not even leave his cave.

This story of Elijah and God on Mt. Horeb is a famous one, but the exact meaning of these events is not entirely clear. For that matter, neither is how to translate it. Many of us learned this story with a “still small voice” that finally drew Elijah out of his cave, and it is conventional to speak of the quiet voice of God making an impact after great and powerful events normally associated with God do nothing.

But our reading today speaks of a “sound of sheer silence” rather than a voice. Understood this way, what Elijah hears may be nothing more than the quiet after all the earth splitting events that came before, the calm after the storm if you will. But regardless of how you translate it, none of these events, the grandiose or the small and quiet, make any difference. Elijah repeats his previous litany of woe and hopelessness word for word. Nothing God has done or said has shaken Elijah from his depressed stupor.

It is common for people to conclude that because God was not in the wind, or the earthquake or the fire, that God must be in the silence or the small voice, but the story does not say that. And while God is not in the wind, quake, or fire, she is surely associated with them. These are classic biblical theophanies, clear signs that God is near. But a light show bigger than anything Moses ever saw is not enough to move Elijah.

None of the events on the mountain change Elijah’s disposition or the trajectory of the story at all. And having failed to wow Elijah out of  his depression, God stops trying. Instead, Yahweh simple calls Elijah once more, commissioning him to new prophetic tasks. “Go… you shall anoint Hazael… you shall anoint Jehu… you shall anoint Elisha.” 

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In those moments in my faith life and ministry when I have felt that my efforts were futile, when I have grown despondent or depressed, I have often longed for a more vivid sense of God’s presence, some dramatic assurance that God is there with me.

I think that most of us want to draw near to God, to touch holiness and experience God’s presence. But for Elijah at least, even the most dramatic experience of God is not enough to get things back on track. That only happens when he rediscovers what God is calling him to do.

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Our congregation is doing remarkably well by comparison, but the church in America is struggling, and many are worried, even depressed about its future. Even as vital and successful as this congregation is, some of you have expressed worries about children who have drifted away or the need to connect with more young adults. The church’s struggles have spawned all sorts of attempts to fix things. Not only is there an entire industry of organizations and consultants to help revitalize congregations, but there is an unprecedented level of experimentation and innovation going in in congregations all over the country.

Many see signs of hope in some of this, as do I. Still, I wonder if what America’s churches need most isn’t an Elijah moment.  I’m not talking about a spectacular encounter with God. I’m talking about a renewed sense of call and commission where God says, “Go and do.”

One of the core understandings of our faith is that Jesus calls each and every one of us, not simply to be believers, but to be disciples, followers. Every single one of us is given gifts and resources so we can answer Jesus’ call and play our part in making Christ present to the world. And every single one of us is given the Holy Spirit so that we can do much, much more than those gifts and resources alone would seem to allow. And so the question is not “What are we able to do?” but rather, “What are we called to do?”

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When Diane does the benediction, she often uses a charge that many of you have said you greatly appreciate. “As followers of Christ, we are sent into the world to serve. So as you leave this place, wherever you go this week, consider that God is sending you there. Wherever you find yourself this week, consider that God is placing you there, so that the love of Christ, which dwells in your hearts, can reach out through you, to the world around you.”

I would like to encourage you to embrace that charge, not only in the individual moments of your daily living, but also in a bigger and grander sense. How are the larger circumstances of your life placing you somewhere that God seeks to use you? What are the events and needs you see around you that are things God is calling you to do something about? And in an even larger sense, how are the circumstances of this congregation’s life calling all of us to some special purpose from God? What are the events and needs and hungers we see around us that are things God is calling us to do something about?

What is God calling you to go and do? What is God calling us as a congregation to go and do? Because when we hear and understand that, everything else tends to fall into place.