THE MORNING AFTER -- COMING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP

1 Kings 19:8-15

 


1 Kings 19:14-15 (NRSV)

14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.


There’s always a morning-after – when the guests have gone home, when we have come down off of our mountain tops, when the great crisis is over.  The morning-after is when we return to the business of our everyday lives.  The ordinary, the normalcy and the demands of our lives return.

Despite what happened in the day or days before, housework homework, lawn care, and the responsibilities of making a living have waited patiently, undone, for us. Our problems and challenges are still there – unsolved and unresolved.  

But the most important things that happens on the morning after is the choice we make.  We can either choose to allow what happened the day or days before to affect how our re-entry back into our regular lives, integratingrating positive changes into our lives, or we can leave them behind at the dawn of the new morning and continue with the same-old-same-old.

For me, this is the morning after the United Methodist Women’s Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky.  Seven thousand sisters in Christ of the tribe we call the United Methodist from all over the world in the name of Christ for the purposes of God.


 
Exiting – yes!  God was in the house!  Women of all
ages, all stages --worshipping, praying and learning 
together.  Above are some of the incredible young 
women who led workshops, shared their culture with
us, and talked about their experiences of being agents
of God's justice and mercy.


God meets us on those mountain tops, but it is not all “clap your hands and shout to God in a voice of praise.”  Mountain tops, as the Prophet Elijah learned, are also where God humbles us, gets in our faces, transforms us and then sends us down the mountain to get on with God’s business.  

Elijah was a prophet during the reign of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.  Ahab was very savvy as a militaryleader and when it came to foreign affairs and diplomacy.  His downfall was that he had accepted and promoted the pagan religion of Jezebel.  I Kings 16:30 tells us Ahab did more evil in the sight of the Lord than any other king before him. 

Queen Jezebel had ordered the execution of all the prophets of God.  One hundred escaped and were in hiding.  Only Elijah remained to openly oppose them, and he felt isolated, discouraged and defeated, overwhelmed by those who opposed God.

“I’ve been working my heart out for God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, because the people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed your places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me.”  I Kings 19:14 (The Message)

I went to Assembly to re-connect with the work of our church in the global mission field.  I soon was overwhelmed as I was confronted with the reality of the presence and impact of evil* and the need for justice and mercy.

  • Human trafficking and the existence of forms of slavery in the United States and in other areas of the world.
  • Political and economic exploitation and oppression for the benefit and material comfort of others.
  • Economic disparity.
  • Environmental destruction driven by poverty, hunger and war.
  • The lack of education and adequate medical care that result in the death of women and children.
  
It would be so easy for me to gloss over everything I learned in the workshops I attended if I could just reduce it all down to numbers brightly illustrated as statistics on bar graphs and pie charts, but I can’t.  I can’t because these are real, living, breathing, suffering human beings.  

According to Jesus, they are my neighbors, our neighbors – people who need our help, my help and our compassion.  Compassion involves us in their lives:  understanding their needs, allowing our hearts to break for them, walking with them as we share from the abundance God has blessed us with.

From the time God called Abram, God has told God’s people that we are blessed to be a blessing to others.  Micah 6:8 tells us that what God requires of us is to do justice: live it out in our lives by being aware of how others are impacted by the choices we make.  It means to advocate for those voices are ignored and to be agents of change.  

We are also required to love mercy.  In some versions of the Bible,, it’s translated as “kindness,” but since it’s paired with justice, I prefer mercy.  Loving mercy is being passionate about, finding our joy in choosing to use the power we have been blessed with to make a difference in the lives of others, especially the least among us.

So, on one hand, I felt like Elijah:  alone, discouraged and defeated, overwhelmed by all those needs.  On the other hand, I saw the power of God at work as God's people came together in ministry and mission.  Through the stories that were shared, we heard the good news – God’s love and goodness defeats evil.  The darkness cannot overcome the light of Christ that we, together, have been called to carry to those who lack the basic needs of life (adequate medical care, education, food, housing, and clean water) and to those who are alone, lost, exploited and oppressed.

After listening to Elijah, God told him to leave the mountain top and return to being God’s voice to the people of God.  Elijah was still God’s prophet, a man with a mission.

As God’s people, we are called to be the prophetic voice of hope and justice in this world.  No matter how overwhelming it may seem, we are people on a mission.  God calls God’s people down from the mountain tops, to open the doors of our churches and our hearts, and to go forth to transform the world by carrying out the ministry of Christ and the mission of God – healing, reconciling, liberating and making disciples.

Not alone, as isolated individuls, but united in Christ in community, we can make this happen -- if we choose to live transformationally into the morning- after and beyond.



* Evil – rebellion against God.  The devil is the personification of evil, but evil is also our human personal actions, institutions and systems that work in opposition to God’s law of love, the Ten Commandments, summarized by Luke 10:27-28.  Evil results in separation from God and in the dehumanization of others by the dishonoring of the image of God all humans are created in.  I just thought you’d like to know where I’m coming from.

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