Loneliness and Fear. Emotions that we all feel at one time or another in our lives. Very often they come together, reinforcing each other, trapping us in a vicious cycle. In this evening’s readings we see the corrosive and damaging effects of loneliness and fear, but also see a way through them as God breaks through the loneliness and restores hope and courage.
We’re going to begin our exploration of how this works with a dive into the story of Elijah. To remind ourselves of the background we need to go to 1 Kings 16v29. Here we read that:
“In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel for twenty-two years. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.”
So, we are in the northern kingdom, following the division of David’s kingdom that happened following King Solomon’s death. A new king has come to throne. All the kings of the northern kingdom were bad ones, but Ahab topped the lot. He worshipped Baal, rather than Yahweh, and he led the people of the kingdom to do so as well, spurred on by his wife, Jezebel. More of her later.
In 1 Kings 17 we meet God’s messenger to Ahab, the prophet Elijah. He makes quite an entrance. The first thing we find him doing is telling Ahab that there is going to be a drought in the land. There is going to be no rain for the next few years. In a country which depended on subsistence agriculture, this was very bad news. Having delivered this devastating message, Elijah disappears. To begin with he goes to hide out in the Kerith Ravine, drinking from the stream in the ravine and eating food provided by God. Eventually the stream ran dry, as they do when there isn’t any rain, and Elijah was told by God to head out of Israel and into Sidon (ironically enough the native country of Queen Jezebel – more of her later)
When Elijah arrived in Sidon, in a village called Zaraphath, he was taken in by a widow and her son, as God miraculously provided flour and oil for them to cook with, even though the drought and associated famine was affecting that country as well.
Whilst Elijah was living there, the woman’s son died, but God responded to Elijah’s prayer for him, and restored the son to life.
Three years passed and then God sent Elijah back to Israel, with the promise of rain. By now the kingdom was in a dreadful state. Ahab was sending out servants all over the place searching out any springs or wells that might still have water. During this time Jezebel had been killing off the Lord’s prophets, apart from a few that were hidden away and kept supplied by a man called Obadiah.
That same Obadiah was one of the servants that Ahab sent out to search for water, and as he was travelling along on this search, he met Elijah returning from Sidon. Elijah told Obadiah to let Ahab know he was back and arrange a meeting. Ahab is not best pleased to see Elijah, “Is that you, troubler of Israel?”
Elijah doesn’t let Ahab get away with this, “It’s not me that’s caused this trouble – it’s you who’s caused the trouble by abandoning God’s commands and following Baal.”
Then Elijah proposes the famous showdown on Mount Carmel. He gets Ahab to gather all the people to the mountain, along with the prophets of Baal and Asherah. He proposes that they should get two bulls, build two altars and then see whose God answers with fire. The prophets of Baal go first. Four hundred and fifty of them. Dancing round, whipping themselves into a fervour, cutting themselves. From dawn to dusk they called on the name of Baal but, “there was no response, no-one answered, no-one paid attention.”
Then it was Elijah’s turn. He rebuilt the altar of the Lord, put the wood and the bull on it and then had it drenched with water. So much so that the trench around the altar was full of water. Then he prayed:
“Answer me Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, LORD, are God and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
And the fire fell.
Fire that cremated the bull, reduced the wood to ash, cracked the rocks, and boiled away that water.
Fire from heaven.
The people fell to the ground and cried out, “The LORD – he is God.”
Not one of the prophets of Baal were left alive.
There was plenty of fire, but there still wasn’t any rain. Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and prayed, repeatedly sending his servant to look towards the sea for any sign of rain. The seventh time he saw a cloud in the distance, the size of a man’s hand. Elijah knew that this small beginning was the answer to his prayers and sent a warning to Ahab that he’d better hurry back home before the rain that was coming made the roads impassible.
Ahab did as Elijah said and hurried home to Jezebel, who is furious when she hears what has happened. And this is where we pick the story up in our reading from chapter 19. Jezebel sends this threatening message to Elijah and he is afraid and runs away.
This courageous man, who has faced down the king, delivered God’s message of judgement, prayed for resurrection, depending on God for food and shelter in a foreign land, has defeated hundreds of enemies, who has called out the whole of a nation, this faithful and courageous servant of God has come to the end of himself and is afraid and alone and runs into the desert. He has had enough. He can’t go any further. He wants to die. He is lonely and afraid.
This reminds me a bit of the warning message they put on advertisements for investments and savings accounts. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Sometimes those who seem the strongest and most capable can find themselves in a bad place.
How does God deal with Elijah?
The first word that comes to mind is the word “Gently” He lets him sleep. Then he sends an angel to encourage him to eat and drink and lets him sleep again. Then he sends the angel back again with the message, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” More food and drink, and a journey of forty days and forty nights – some solitude leading Elijah to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Only then do God and Elijah have a conversation. “Why are you here, Elijah?”
“I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
Lonely and afraid.
God tells Elijah to go to the entrance of the cave he’s in, as the presence of God is going to pass by.
As Elijah stands there, looking out over the mountain there is a powerful wind, an earthquake, fire, but the Lord is not in any of those. Then, then,
“After the fire came a gentle whisper”.
Then Elijah went out and God asked him the same question.
“Why are you here?”
Elijah gives the same answer.
“I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
God doesn’t address this directly, but sends Elijah on his way to anoint other leaders who will join Elijah in the battle, and assures him that there are those who remain faithful to God.
In summary God says to Elijah, “You are not alone, and you don’t have to be afraid because I am putting people alongside you.”
God meets Elijah in his loneliness and fear with gentleness and compassion, giving him the simple things of life to rebuild his strength, meeting him in the quiet place to assure him that he is not alone and that he doesn’t have to fear.
In the end Elijah outlives Ahab and Jezebel, who both come to sticky ends, and is taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire, having fulfilled the ministry that God entrusted to him.
And so we leave Elijah, restored in God’s gentle strength, and jump forward several centuries to the ministry of Jesus who is about to have an encounter that is shot through with loneliness and fear, but in a slightly more complex way, that will take a little bit of thought to untangle.
Let’s take it a verse at a time and see where loneliness and fear appear. Let’s keep asking ourselves. Who is lonely? Who is afraid? Why?
Jesus and his friends arrive on the far shore of Galilee and step out of the boat. Immediately they are met by this naked man, who lived in the local graveyard. I suspect that Jesus’ friends might have been quite perturbed, if not afraid, but we aren’t told explicitly. It also seems likely to me that the man would have been lonely. He was isolated from his community, an outcast.
Seeing Jesus the man fell at Jesus feet and shouted, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you don’t torture me.”
There is real fear here, a fear of being hurt, of being tortured. But where has this fear come from, why would he think that Jesus was going to torture him?
The next verse tells us. It wasn’t the man that was afraid of Jesus, it was the evil spirits that possessed him. They recognised Jesus, and his authority as he told them to leave the man alone, and they resisted it.
As we read on about the impact these demons on the man’s life he discover more fear and loneliness. The fact that he had been chained up and put under guard suggests that people were afraid of him. It’s possible that they were afraid for him, but either way, they knew that there were forces at work in him that were beyond their control and they feared them. And so the man ended up in this solitary place, lonely and surrounded by fear.
As we read on, this strange conversation between Jesus and the evil spirits continues until finally he gives them permission to go into a nearby herd of pigs, which run into the lake and drown.
The swineherds run off into the surrounding area, telling people what has happened, and they all come out to see. And what is it that they see?
“the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind.”
No longer isolated, no longer alone, no longer lonely, no longer afraid, the man is in Jesus’ company, healed and whole. More than that, he is sitting at Jesus feet. This doesn’t just describe his physical position in relation to Jesus.
There is a difference between the “falling at Jesus feet” in v28 – which is a posture and attitude of begging, of imploring, and the “sitting at Jesus feet” of v35. To sit at a Rabbi’s feet was to learn from that Rabbi, to listen to them, to engage with them. It is still a position in which the person accepts the authority of the one whose feet they are, but it is a qualitatively different relationship.
How do the people react when they see this? They were afraid. Let’s stop and ponder that for a moment. The people see the man restored to his right mind, so much so that he has taken up a position as a disciple of a Rabbi. They were afraid of him before, or at least of the powers that drove him. Why are they afraid now? He is no longer a threat to them. Perhaps they are still afraid of a power that they don’t understand, but now it’s Jesus power that makes them afraid. In a way it makes sense. If they were afraid of the power of the evil spirits, how much more would they be afraid of the one who has power over those evil spirits – he’s obviously more powerful, with a power they don’t understand, so why wouldn’t they be afraid?
They were so afraid that they asked Jesus to leave the area. And he does.
Here we see a worked example of how fear can lead to isolation. The people were afraid of Jesus and his power, and so they asked him to leave. They cut themselves off from his power and his presence. I wonder if we are ever afraid of what God is doing, or might do, and ask God to leave us alone rather than face the reality of God’s power at work?
And so Jesus leaves, but he doesn’t actually leave the people of that region alone.
In verse 38 we find another strange conversation. The man who Jesus has freed, not surprisingly, wants to go with Jesus. He’s had enough of loneliness, he wants to continue his life in the company of the one who has delivered him from his captivity. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. But Jesus says no. There are three things that Jesus is asked for in this story. The demons ask him not to send them to abyss, and he allows them to go into the pigs. The people of the area ask him to leave, and he does. The man asks if he can go with Jesus and he says no.
In all three cases, I would probably have done the opposite to what Jesus actually did. What about you? I wonder if this has anything to say to us about how we view prayer and quotes “answered” prayer. Jesus said yes to the first two prayers and no to the third. Which prayers received a positive response from Jesus had no link with how good the person asking’s relationship with Jesus was, or how blessed they were. God answers prayer in a way that is often mysterious to us, in line with his own will, purposes, and knowledge. It seems to me that we should be careful about drawing too many conclusions about what it means that prayers are answered positively or negatively, or not at all.
Jesus tells the man that he can’t come with him, and instead gives him a task, sends him on mission. He sends him back home and tells him to share what God has done for him. Jesus doesn’t leave him alone, but sends him back to his home – to a place that can be home for him again. He leaves, but he doesn’t leave the people of the area alone – he leaves this man with them.
This might be reading a bit much into it, but I wonder if the instruction to tell others what God has done for him has two purposes. The obvious one is to share the good news of the Kingdom, of Jesus’ power and authority, with others – hopefully reducing their fear by explaining the source of Jesus’ power. The second, perhaps less obvious, is that in retelling his story, the man himself will be reminded of it and kept connected to Jesus in his memory – his gratitude will be kept fresh and so he will remain close to Jesus in spirit.
In the last verse we are told that the man went away and told all over the town how much Jesus had done for him.
I wonder how Luke knew this. Remember that this account of Jesus’ life and ministry was written by Luke, a historian who gathered together evidence from a number of sources. He wasn’t actually there himself, he depended on the recollections of those who were. But Jesus and all his disciples had got into the boat and disappeared back over the lake. So who told Luke that the man did what Jesus commissioned him to do?
The only answer I can think of is that someone, maybe Jesus, maybe the disciples at a later date, maybe Luke himself must have gone back there and discovered that people in the town knew the story, that they had heard it from the man himself. He had gone from been lonely, outcast, afraid, to being free and confident to share the good news of what God had done for him in such a compelling way that it became common knowledge amongst the people of the area.
I wonder where Jesus might be sending us to tell of the great things that God has done for us? For some of us it might be back home. For others it might be further afield. Wherever it is we can be assured that we are never alone. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus fulfils his promise to be with us always, even to the very end of the age. Like Elijah we might discover that we have unexpected allies, if we keep our eyes out for them. Because God is with us, we do not have to be afraid, we can instead be confident and hopeful as we fulfil the commission that he gives us all, to be agents of his kingdom and to tell of all that God has done for us.