Dealing with Setbacks
We’re beginning a new sermon series this week on Elijah, an Old Testament prophet from the first half of the ninth century BC. The series is called “Just Like Us.” I like this title. Sometimes we think that the people of the Bible were superheroes - supernaturally gifted men and women who had special access to God. We think they were somehow different than we are.
However, James 5:17 says, “Elijah was a human being like us.” The men and women of the Bible dealt with the same things we do today, including depression, fear, failure, greed and lust. They had relational and family messes. They had seasons of great faith and seasons of doubt – just like us. Sometimes they were pure and holy and sometimes they were unbelievably sinful.
Elijah truly was a man just like us. He lived in a time after there had been nineteen consecutive evil kings over a span of 200 years. King Ahab, the king under whom Elijah lived was the worst king of all. King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, was known for her evil ways and her devotion to the Phoenician god Baal. Elijah often felt very alone and that he was the only Godly person left alive. Elijah often wavered between great faith and crippling fear. He once battled depression so badly that he prayed that God would just let him die. Elijah experienced all the ups and downs that you and I do today. He experienced setbacks just like you and me.
In our Scripture reading today, God raises up Elijah, one man, to take a stand. Elijah brings God’s judgment to Ahab stating “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” In this rural economy, no rain would have shut down everything. It would have been a disaster. And with God leading Elijah in what to say and do, one would think that everything would go well for Elijah - but that’s not what happens. Instead God takes Elijah into a season of setbacks.
I have friends who are dealing with family members who have chemical addictions, mental health problems, eating disorders – these have been major setbacks in these families. And while I haven’t had to deal with these kind of setbacks, I would venture to guess that into every life - certainly into mine – come moments of doubt and despair, loss and uncertainty, and even self-reproach – for failure, for life choices gone horribly awry. Perhaps you have a version of this. Take it away, God. Don’t make me face this. Let it end, God. Don’t make me feel this. Heal me, God. I can’t stand this. Hold me up, God. I’m losing my grip. Protect me, God. I’m afraid. Take care of my loved one, God. I don’t know what else to do. Fix it, God. Fix it. Many of us have suffered hardship, unfairness, indignity, pain, and sorrow – some of these setbacks seem almost insurmountable. And when we look at the history of our country, some of the setbacks our ancestors endured must have also seemed almost insurmountable.
Last year I attended a couple Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with a friend. This friend no longer suffers from his chemical addiction with the delusion that he is invulnerable. He has fallen, he’s been broken and has reached out a hand to this group to help him stand and keep going. He knows he has a breaking point. I have come more slowly and with less awareness than him that I have one. We’re all endangered people. We all suffer setbacks in life and need help.
In verse two, God tells Elijah to hide in the Wadi Cherith. A Wadi is stream or stream bed with seasonal water flow. In this case it would have been like a ravine. A ravine can be a metaphor for a setback. As I look at Elijah, I see three lessons Elijah learned.
The first was total dependence on God. Elijah travels to the wadi or ravine and has absolutely nothing. He has no food, no family, no friends, no plan, nothing - nothing but a promise that God is going to provide. And miraculously God brings these ravens that provide bread and meat and he has this brook that never dries up even though there’s a famine and a drought. God provided for Elijah. God is dependable and provides for Elijah in miraculous ways. Elijah shows us that sometimes the only way to discover that God is enough - is when God is all you have.
The first lesson Elijah learned is total dependence on God. The second lesson Elijah learned is that God provided enough for the day. One day this brook from which Elijah drank dries up. God tells him to go to Zerephath, in a different region. God said he would find a widow and her son and they would provide him for life. So Elijah finds this widow and her son, but when he arrives, all this woman has is enough flour and enough oil to make one more loaf of bread for one day. And there was enough food every day. Just enough for the day. Elijah had faith that God would provide. Why? Because he had been in the ravine and God had provided for him there. How many of us have had enough up until this day? If God has given us enough up until this day, what makes us think that we won’t have enough for every day after this?
The third lesson Elijah learned is that God can raise dead things. Tragedy strikes this widow’s household. Her son dies mysteriously. She turns to Elijah and says, “Is this what I get? Did you come to my home to bring judgment on me.” But because of Elijah’s faith, he pleads with God and God brings the son back to life. God is still in the business of raising dead things – raising dead careers, dead marriages, dead faith, dead hearts, dead hopes. God still raises dead things. The darkest three days the world has ever known happened not in a ravine, but on a hill. All hope was lost. But God performed an amazing and unexpected miracle. Jesus was raised from the dead.
When we’re in a ravine, it’s difficult to see that God is with us. Frederick Buechner, a wonderful, creative commentator on biblical stories says about despair that “God reserves his deepest silence for his saints…Maybe only the saints can survive such doubt as that.” Doubt, despair, and sainthood are an interesting linkage. Buechner doesn’t link sainthood with certainty. He links sainthood with not knowing. In the story of Elijah, which will unfold over the next three weeks, he does survive his doubt and despair. Through the despair, through the not knowing, he reencounters the sacred. He rediscovers God.
In Elijah’s story, perhaps his most serious error was in not recognizing that even though he had no visible supporters at times, he was not alone. At one point Elijah sat despairingly saying “I am alone!” – he was not. In our Scripture reading today, the apostle Paul assures us that nothing can separate us from God’s love. God will be there with us. We will be loved. We will be upheld. And we will be safe.
My friend Mike suffered from a degenerative brain tumor that slowly isolated him by loss of speech and some inability to control movements. Mike had been an extremely active man and had enjoyed a very successful career. Life and experiences were a joy to be shared and savored to the fullest for Mike. But his disease was robbing him of most of the connections that had meant so much to him. It was slowly but surely isolating him.
Mike and I had been in a men’s Bible study together. Until the point of Mike’s diagnosis, our Bible study had been more of an academic exercise for Mike. As the disease progressed, reading Scripture to him became a source of strength and comfort. Mike and I resorted to trial and error in our communication. Mostly he’d try and I’d make errors, trying to decipher what he was trying to say. Mike loved the Twenty-third Psalm and we’d read it together as best we could.
I’d like you to pull out your pew Bibles and turn to page 464, Psalm 23. Let’s read this together.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
As I said, Mike loved this psalm and we’d recite it together as best we could. He’d shout words out with gusto as I got to them in our recitation. So Mike’s version of the psalm, condensed to its critical component features, became: “My shepherd! Green pastures! No evil! With me! Anoint! Cup! Mercy!”
As the months passed and the disease worsened, the psalm was eventually reduced by Mike to just two words:“With me!” “With me” meant something very sacred, very precious to him – they reminded him of the very presence of God in what was the setback of his life.
As Christians we assert this same comforting insight about the Incarnation – that God finds astounding ways to be with us.We are not alone. That is the basis of faith, a comfort in time of isolation or setback or doubt. God’s love for us is that strong. Love so powerful that we shall never be let go from it – even at death. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! AMEN
