Resources»

Sermon Archive

Sunday , June 20, 2010

On the Edge

1 Kings 19:9-14; Luke 9:18-24

Richard E. Allen, Jr.

Take an imaginary journey with me.   Let’s go the Hommocks Pool some morning and watch the youngest kids learning to swim – say those still in kindergarten.  Watch how they arrive:  The boys especially want to seem both brave and strong.  But notice how they are when they think no one is looking.  They test the water with their feet, or they get down on their knees or their tummies and they reach down to the water.  They wonder:  “Is it cold?”  And then they shiver.

But then, almost as one, the boys run to the edge and jump in.  All except for one.  He holds back.  Laughing at the others.  Then they turn, and laugh at him.  Finally he goes in.  Do you understand the boy who hesitates?  I do.  That mental image came from my memory, about 55 years ago.  But we all understand the hesitation.  We really understand.  We also like to test the waters, and more so, much more so, now that we’re adults, and we’ve experienced a failure or two.  It’s never an easy thing to jump right in over your head.

In today’s lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, Elijah the prophet – some say the “best” prophet, and he’s certainly one of the first prophets – Elijah is in over his head with Ahab and Jezebel, the king and the queen.  So, Elijah is running away.  He’s not jumping in, but he’s retreating, as far and as fast as he can go.  He is on the run for his life, and he sits in the entrance to a cave.

We overhear him, sitting there, out of breath from his long run out of harm’s way.  He’s in a bad mood, and out of sorts with God.  We hear the rumble of the mountain, maybe.  And if we are very quiet, we can hear, with Elijah, the very small sound that the wind makes among the rocks, and moving the sparse vegetation.  Maybe we even hear the crackle of a fire dancing in front of him, as he tries to collect himself and his own courage.  Then we hear nothing.  Nothing at all.  It’s all silence, a silence that can only happen in a desert – literally, a deserted place.

Then, in the stillness, we think we hear, as Elijah thinks he hears, a sound.  It’s the sound of the wind or maybe it’s a voice, a very quiet voice.  A low murmur, perhaps.  One version, the “Good News Bible” translates the Hebrew verse as “the soft whisper of a voice.”

And the voice says, simply, but with a challenging tone, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  What are you doing here, people of faith?  What are you doing?  Here?  Now?  With the life I gave you – with what is left, of the life I gave you?

In effect, God asks Elijah, “Why are you here, sitting on the bench?  I put you in the game.  Why are you here?”

Another scene from my own life:  I recall my last high school basketball game.  Tall, I had started as our team’s center.  But, this first and only time in my rather dull basketball career, I fouled out of the game.  My coach could hardly believe it.  We were off, that night, all of us.  The team fell apart on the floor, and our chances of going to a tournament evaporated, though we were the regular-season conference champions.  It was painful.  And in his disbelief at months of hope evaporating before his eyes, my coach shook his head, looked down the bench, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

Having heard that question asked of me, I know something like the sinking feeling Elijah must have felt when the Lord asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The same God who called and equipped Elijah put him into the game of life.  God called Elijah to confront the king and queen, to remind Ahab and Jezebel of their purpose as holy leaders.  And, God had called Elijah to remind the people of Israel in his time that God was still God, and they were still expected to be faithful.

To follow God in Elijah’s time or our own time is, we believe, to give ourselves to the task of being faithful disciples who both love God with heart and soul and mind and strength and who love our neighbors deeply and sincerely.  To follow God as disciples who are Methodist is to commit ourselves every day to be faithful members by giving our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness. To follow God faithfully any time, is to remember and to live our promise to stay in the game that we call the life of faith.  Not just because it feels good, but because we promised that we would do it.

One last personal memory:  Decades ago I stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon one January morning with friends of mine, and then I fought back my fear of height and of failure, and walked down below the rim.  I walked with a group down to Phantom Ranch, ten miles away.  And a few days later, I walked back up to that same rim.  It turned out that the heights weren’t that scary, even though the trail was covered with ice and we had to wear cleats on our boots for the first hour or so.  It turned out that I was more prepared than I thought.  It turned out that the journey was as beautiful as it was challenging – and more so.  It turned out well. The memories of that trip sustain me still.

But I wouldn’t have made those memories if I had given in to my fears that first morning.  I was tempted to sit there, except that I knew one of my friends would have come back to find me, and said, “What are you doing here?”

When I got back to the South Rim a few days later, a group at the motel overlooking the edge of the canyon turned from gawking at the view to gawking at me.  I told them where I had come from that day, and they looked amazed.  “Ten miles out,” I said.  “And one mile up.”  Some said they wished they could do that.  I wanted to ask them, “You can do it, but you have to make the effort, prepare for the journey, and take the plunge.”  They could have done it.  At least some of them could.  I wanted to ask them what God asked Elijah:  “What are you doing here?”

God may be asking us all this morning, that simple and challenging little question:  “What are you doing here?”

What are YOU doing here?

What are you DOING here?

What are you doing, HERE?

Friends, listen to your life.  And if you find yourself wondering some night about what life means, about what’s really important in your life, about where to invest, not just your money, but your time, your life, your heart and your soul, it may be God whispering the challenge that could change your life. 

What are you doing here?

It’s a great question.  It gave Elijah renewed direction, a fresh burst of hope.

Maybe God is asking us, too.  If we just listen.

And then, respond.

Amen.

Go to Top

© Copyright 2005 Mamaroneck United Methodist Church

546 East Boston Post Road, Mamaroneck,  New York 10543, (914) 698 4343