NOVEMBER 19th, 2023 PASTOR DON PIEPER
The Days Of Elijah 2 Kings 2:1-8, 9-18
“WHERE DO YOU TURN?”
We're chin deep in our series, 'The Days of Elijah'... We've covered most of the well-known stories connected with this amazing Old Testament prophet, but what do you do with this one? It's not exactly a family friendly story, is it? I mean, “Fire came down from heaven and killed them all!” (2 Kings 1:10) ? Yikes!
As Christian comedian, Tim Hawkins, observes: “There's a reason such stories don't appear in the Precious Moments Bible – they're not very family friendly!” He notes how strange it is that we paint pictures of Noah and the flood, for example, in our children's room or church nursery walls.
'What cha doing, daddy?' “Oh, I'm painting Noah's Ark on your wall, honey. It's one of my favorites. You know the one - where God sends a worldwide flood to wipe out every living thing? It's awesome! You wanna help? Just grab a brush there and paint some screaming people on a rock...!
Have you been in the baby's room? I painted a picture of Elijah where God incinerates the king's soldiers! You're gonna love it! Isn't that precious?”
So, what do you do with that? As one of my seminary professors used to say, it's perplexing!
So, in pursuit of clarity let's Consider the context. To start with, you should know that 2 Kings is not a sequel. The Bible has plenty of sequels. My favorite is Acts, Luke's sequel to his gospel; but in this case, it's more like, The Book of Kings, Part 2. It was originally one very long and heavy scroll. By separating it into two, it cut down the time people waited for a rabbi or priest to find a text in the scroll in question and saved many an elderly priest from throwing out his back! It was practical...!
Even more significant are some of the literary devices we find here, such as the use of repetition. Perhaps you've noticed...how often things happen in threes....:
Three times the people dance around their altar to the pagan god, Baal... Three times Elijah has them saturate his bull with water. Three events precede God speaking to Elijah in a whisper – first a windstorm, than an earthquake, and third a fire. And now we're told that three separate battalions of soldiers are sent to haul the prophet in. The repetition is a literary device to help people remember the story, and to encourage the retelling of it. We still use this device in retelling a story, specifically in the jokes we tell. It's called, 'trebling.' There was a priest, a rabbi and a pastor... Three nuns walk into a bar... Dick Van Dyke says to his bald friend: "Can I get you anything? Cup of coffee? Doughnut? Toupee?"
Trebling is used in 2 Kings 1 for similar effect, and the three sent battalions are not the only use of this literary device. More significantly we find it utilized in Elijah's convicting message, said first by Elijah to the king's soldiers, second by the soldiers to the king, and last by Elijah to the king: “This is what the Lord says: Why did you send messengers to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether you will recover? Is there no God in Israel to answer your question? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on; you will surely die!” (2 Kings 1:3-4, 6, 16)
All this trebling reveals the threefold purpose of this story: One, it was meant to be retold; Two, it was retold to instruct; and Three, it instructed thru amusement, that is, with humorous intent. Perhaps you concur with the first two, but that third purpose may surprise you. But to be sure, as shocking as the story may sound to our modern ears, it incorporates multiple humorous elements. That doesn't mean the story is not historical, or to be taken seriously, but the tellers of it it meant it to also tickle the listener's funny bone, no doubt as another way of helping them remember it, and retell it.
-2-
Consider how the story begins: “One day Israel's new king, Ahaziah, fell through the lattice-work of the upper room at his palace in Samaria...” (2 Kings 1:2)
It's an image reminiscent of comedy's classic devices of contrast and slapstick. Here we have a powerful king, standing in the upper room of his glorious palace, elevated above his minions. Only the rich and famous had 'upper rooms'. It reflects his elevated position and mindset. Latticework was used on balconies. It partially shielded one from the sun and gave a hidden vista of one's surroundings. His falling through it is like that classic Pink Panther scene when Lt Clouseau spins a globe and while pontificating about his clever skills as a detective, he leans on the spinning glove, only to fall flat...!
This is how our author opens this story. It's a bit of slapstick, or physical humor. It tickles the funny bone to see the high and mighty brought low. Next, we're told, “he sent messengers to the temple of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether he would recover.” (2 Kings 1:2)
Now the name, 'Baal-zebub', not only sounds funny, but is an ancient, Hebrew play on words. As we've seen, Ahaziel's father and mother, Ahab and Jezebel, had wickedly influenced their nation by erecting altars and shrines to the worship of the pagan god, Baal. Ekron, was the northern most city of Israel's pagan neighbors, the Philistines, the same people King David defeated long ago when he took down their giant and belligerent, defiantly anti-God hero, Goliath. Ekron had become the Mecca sight for worshipping a variety of the pagan gods, which were derivatives of Baal.
The Hebrews later identified one of these gods, “Baal-zebub”, to mock this idol worshipping religion. Baal means Husband or Lord. Zebub means flies. So King Ahaziel, we're told, is seeking insight from the pagan god, “Lord of the Flies”. From that title comes that dark book and movie of the same name, the title the boys on the island give the evil beast they fear, reflecting the evil they exhibit...
The humor here is that the king seeks consolation from a garbage god, a lord of the flies, suggesting a god that is nothing more than a pile of excrement attracting flies. The Pharisees would later accuse Jesus of being aligned with this god, showing their contempt for him, but here in 2 Kings, it's a humorous reference. A king does a prat fall and then seeks advice from Baal-ze-poop! It reflects Elijah's earlier taunt...: “You'll have to shout louder! Perhaps your god is relieving himself!” (1 Kings 18:27)
Elijah's follow up question builds on that humor: “Is there no God in Israel? Why are you going to Baal-ze(poop)?” The question basically asks, What did you do with our God, the real God? The mighty King of Israel is seen first to be a clutz and now an absent-minded professor!
Next we're provided another humorous contrast. When God's message is delivered, the king asks
for a description of the man who provided it: “'What sort of guy was he? What did he look like?' They replied, 'He was a hairy (dude), wearing a leather (smelly) belt around his waist.'” (2 Kings 1:7-8)
The King knows him. His father had labeled him a trouble-maker. Instead of dressing like a respectable fellow, he wears an untailored skin of an animal. He's that hillbilly: “Elijah from Tishbe!' (2 Kings 1:8)
These two guys are a study in contrasts. One is an elevated, exalted ruler of men. The other is a crude and simple, servant of God. But that's odd, the elevated man has fallen thru the roof and the humble, hairy dude is on the top of a hill. So what does the fallen, comical, tragic king do? He tries to bring God's servant down to size. ‘He sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. (50? - 3x) They found him sitting on a hill: 'Man of God, the king has commanded you to come down with us.' (2 Kings 1:9)
(Translation: He doesn't like you up there looking down on him!)
-3-
Three times they're sent – in classic comic trebling, both to tickle our funny bone and to help us remember this historic happening. We read it with modern eyes and think, “God, how could you?”
But perhaps we're asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, “Oh God! How could you?”, the story, in its original contexts asks, “Oh king, how could you? How could you think so high of yourself and so little of those who serve you to put them repeatedly at risk? How could someone turn to lifeless idols and fake, fly-infested gods when our God is alive and well among us?”
The story is cleverly told so that we'll remember it, particularly at those times when hardship comes our way, when we fall from grace or suffer a loss. It forces the question: In such a time, where will you turn? There's a subtle word play involved when the king's messengers first encounter the Lord's messenger, Elijah, on that hill. The king asks them, “Why have you returned so soon?” (2 Kings 1:5)
The verb, 'return', here is the same Hebrew word used elsewhere for repent. They have done a quick turnabout, and seen through Elijah's words, the futility of going to the god of flies, Baal-zepoop. They see that their king, should return to their God for help. The story is to be retold over and over and again, so each generation, moved by humor & pathos, will ask the question that this story cries out to be asked: When you fall from grace, or suffer a loss, will you turn on God or return to Him?
In a radio broadcast Phillip Yancey gave in the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech, Yancey said this: “In moments like this, of loss and grief, we tend to ask, 'why'. We want a decisive, concrete, satisfying answer and when we find it elusive, we get stuck in backward looking, accusatory questions. As one person put it, 'I don't doubt that God is good, I just wonder what is God good for?'
Sometimes we hurt so bad we want to hurt back. As author, Frederick Buechner, put it: 'I am not the Almighty God, but if I were, maybe I would in mercy either heal the unutterable pain of the world or in mercy kick the world to pieces in its pain.' But God did neither. Rather, God sent Jesus, joining in on our pain in order to set in motion a solution that crucially involves us, that beckons us to participate in God's plan to redeem our pain, to offer something substantial in place of our substitutes.' (Phillip Yancey)
In Aretha Franklin's final performance at Radio City Music Hall in NY, she enraptured her audience with an encore featuring the gospel song, “One Night with the King”. Spending time in the true King's courts could change your course forever, she sang, and then paused to let the words sink in. With renewed vigor she belted out the promise that a night, or even a moment, in the presence of The King can change everything. Such an encounter changes everything – and everyone!
Six thousand fans, New Yorkers mind you, rose to their feet applauding wildly and yelling for more. Aretha had tapped into a deep longing in all of us, the desire for change, the belief that somehow God can wrest permanent good out of this flawed planet and its flawed individuals. (Phillip Yancey)
Friends actor, Matthew Perry, whose sudden death has shocked and grieved his fans worldwide, gave witness to the truth Aretha sang in his published memoirs. After hitting rock bottom, he describes reaching out to God in desperation: “'God, please help me,’ I whispered. ‘Show me that you are here. God, please help me.’ As I kneeled, this Light slowly began to get bigger and bigger until it was so big that it encompassed the entire room. What was happening, and why was I starting to feel better?
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I started to cry. I mean, I really started to cry - that shoulder-shaking kind of uncontrollable weeping. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because for the first time in my life, I felt OK. I felt safe, taken care of. Decades of struggling with God, and wrestling with life and sadness, all was being washed away, like a river of pain gone into oblivion. I had been in the presence of God. I was certain of it - and this time I had prayed for the right thing: help.
God had shown me a sliver of what life could be. He saved me that day, and for all days to come, no matter what. He'd turned me into a seeker, not only of sobriety, and truth, but also of Him.” (Matthew Perry)
Matthew's experience echoes the truth of our 2 Kings story, a truth that Elijah sought to awaken among God's people. There is only one to whom you can turn in times of loss & grief who can redeem your pain, for God is there in the midst of it - sharing it, loving you in it, to one day redeem it!
There's a deep longing in all of us, the desire for change, the belief that somehow God can wrest permanent good out of this flawed planet and its flawed individuals. God offers to show you a sliver of what life could be, saved for all days, the good and the bad, turning you into a seeker.... of Him.
After all, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and (we) have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!” (John 6:68)