A sermon preached by

Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry United Methodist Church April 5,2015,

Easter Sunday.

Text:

Mark 16:1-8                                                                  

 

 This is no way to run a resurrection!  Fleeing in terror?  Really? 

That’s what we’re left with?  According to the oldest and most reliable

texts we have of Mark, the answer is “yes.” 

Those earliest versions of the text end right where our reading ended

today—with verse 8.  That’s why, in most

Bibles, you’ll see a flurry of notes to try to explain the “alternate” or

“longer endings” of the story.  There are

many hypotheses as to why these alternate endings were tacked on to Mark’s

story.  But the most obvious is that the

early church couldn’t stand the abrupt ending—this totally unacceptable closing

scene to such an amazing drama… “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for

terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone for they

were afraid.”  The early church evidently

agreed that this, in fact, is no way to run a resurrection.  It’s like when we’re watching the big game

and the power goes out just before the pivotal play, leaving us without the

satisfaction of seeing the outcome.  It’s

like having the credits begin to roll when you feel the movie isn’t really

over.

 

I don’t know about you, but I hate

that.  I want resolution!  Oh—let’s face it—I, for one, want a happy

ending.  In this case, I want the

assurance of a Jesus-sighting.  I want

the director’s cut from other Gospel versions of this story:  to hear Jesus speak Mary’s name, to see Jesus

making up with those who betrayed and denied him, to see him break bread with

his friends, to hear him tell us what to do next…  I want someone to explain the whole thing—to

tell the rest of the story—so that maybe we could understand why everything

didn’t get tidied up after the crucifixion and resurrection to explain why

things are the way they are:  why there

is seemingly endless violence, war, suffering, death and on and on… //  We all want resolution to the drama, we all

want to see the final play of the game, we all want answers to the questions

raised by the story, raised by our own lives. 

And yet, with Mark, we don’t get want we want.  We get unfinished business.  The story doesn’t

get tied up at the end with swelling violins and thinly fabricated

happily-ever-afters.  The reality is that

we are left with the devastating ambiguity of an empty tomb, with the empty

space between us and Jesus who (we’re told with NO scientific explanation) has

been raised and is out ahead of us calling us to follow. 

 

These days, if you

needed to get to, say, Galilee to meet up with your friend Jesus who’s texted

you to meet him, you’d likely use Google Maps. 

If you want to connect with someone, you simply put their name into

FaceBook.  Want to watch a story with a

happy ending?  Want to hear a certain

song?  Want help managing your calendar

or your stress levels or your caloric intake? 

There’s an app for that.  Well,

today, it would be nice to have an app to know what to do with the empty tomb,

with the empty space between us and Jesus who is out ahead of us.  But what if the empty space IS the “app?”  “Apps” allow us do things, hear things, find

things.  What do the empty spaces in this

Easter story allow us do or hear or find?

 

The proclamation

Christians make today is that the empty tomb allows us to have hope.  Because an empty tomb that once held the dead

body of Jesus, that One the domination system thought t

Not Responding

A sermon preached by

Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC April 3, 2015, Good Friday.

Text: Mark 15:33-39                                                              

 

----------------Silence---------------------------

 

Into silence, the uncomfortable

silence, the panicked silence, the despairing silence—in the space of

nothingness, the emptiness, the shifting and shuffling and tittering and

jeering all around only raising our anxiety and growing despair—into silence we

want a word.

 

At the bedside of a dying mother,

son, sister, father, daughter, brother, partner, spouse…in our anguish we cry

out to God—we want a word.

 

In the face of cancer, abuse, AIDS,

addiction—as we watch bodies break and bleed and drain of life—we cry out to

God…we want a word.

 

When we find ourselves shrouded by the

darkness of depression, having lost even the will to live, when we wake each

and every day to chronic pain, when we feel deep in our bones our own

helplessness and hopelessness about our lives or the lives of our loved ones or

about the life of the world…we cry out to God—we want a word.

 

What word do we want?  Maybe we want the magic word, the healing

word, the word that will reverse or erase what has happened or what is

happening.  Maybe we want the word of

comfort—“There, there…everything will be alright.”…Maybe we want any word—any

sign—that we are not alone, that we are not abandoned.

 

And yet, so often, no word

comes.  The only message we receive: “Not

Responding.” What we need is not appearing… 

In that space of suffering and helplessness, our prayers and cries to

God are met with silence.  No word

comes.  And the silence feels so deep, so

dark, so final, that the absence seems to swallow us whole.  In that moment when our “mouth is dried up…

and [our] tongue sticks to [our] jaws” (Ps. 22:15)… Do we still cry out to God?  What do we say then?

 

“In a hospital somewhere an older

deacon went to visit a dying woman for whom the doctors could do nothing more,

and squeezing her hand he saw her starting to say something.  Too feeble to speak it out but with great

effort she moved her lips and he, in order to make it easier for her, leaned

over to get his ear above her mouth.  And

he felt her breathe upon his cheek the words, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall

not want…’  And then she stopped.  But the deacon gave words to her emotion and

continued aloud what he knew she was unable to speak, ‘He maketh me to lie down

in green pastures.  He leadeth me beside

still waters…’  And on to the end when

upon finishing he knew she had breathed her last.”

 

As Jesus hung on the cross,

betrayed, denied, abandoned—his body broken and bleeding—he cries out to

God…and for the first time in his life, his cry is met with silence, with

absence, with nothing.  What does he say

then?

 

Some who stood there at the foot of

the cross thought he cried for help from Elijah.  But the words that Jesus spoke were not his

own…they were the words of the Psalmist—Psalm 22 as we number them.  With his dying breath, he called upon these

words of lament and, if we were to place our ear near his mouth and speak the

words he never got to finish, we would find ourselves saying:

 

O my God, I cry

by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In you

A homily preached by

Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, April 2, 2015, Maundy Thursday.

Texts:  1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:12-17, 31-35                                   

 

Do a quick Google search and you

will find an impressive amount of research on what we call the “selfie.”  With the rise of social media, this practice

of self-generated self-portraits has exploded and has given psychologists and

sociologists all sorts of new fodder for exploring human personality, relationality,

and communication.  Why do people take

them?  Why do people post them?  Theories abound.  It’s a fascinating topic.  But for purposes of reflection tonight, I

simply want to point out that the fact that we collectively take so many

self-portraits means that we are looking at ourselves a lot.  And then we are putting our image out into

the world.  But what is the “self” we see? What is the “self” that

is getting shared?  The season of Lent is

a time for us to really look at ourselves, to take stock of our lives and of

our choices, to acknowledge what we have done and what we have failed to

do.  One might call the whole Lenten

enterprise a real “selfie check.”  Look

at yourself, truly and deeply.  Take

stock of what you are putting “out there” and why…

 

I’ll admit that I usually don’t share my true selfies—that is, the photos I

take of myself alone.  I’ve got plenty

stored on my camera roll.  But generally

speaking, I look awful in them.  My face

is lopsided and all the wrinkles show. 

The bags under my eyes and everything that I so carefully try to

disguise in my day-to-day life appear with a vengeance.  I don’t want people to see that stuff.  It’s hard for me to look at it myself.  And yet it is my true selfie, my true self,

that Jesus sees.  It is your true self

that Jesus sees.  Jesus sees all the

blemishes and the scars, the laugh lines and tear stains… Jesus knows all about

your accomplishments and also about your struggles and failures, about your

deepest fears and your greatest hopes. 

Jesus knows how you have hurt others and yourself and about the ways

that you have shown care and generosity and love.  Jesus knows, Jesus sees…you.

 

And Jesus saw those with whom he gathered around the table so long

ago.  He knew them and all that they had

been through.  He knew what they had given

up and what they had accomplished.  And

he knew what they had done and what they would do.  // I try to picture what image Jesus

would post of himself on this night…and I imagine that it would be one of those

selfies that communicates a deep loneliness. 

Because Jesus was alone even in the midst of his closest friends; he

alone knew what was going on.  He alone

saw the shadows that fell across the table, shadows in the form of betrayal,

denial, death on a cross. 

 

Bearing

the burden of this insight, Jesus stepped away from the table and began to give

himself away.  Kneeling at the feet of

the ones who would deny and betray him, he emptied himself, taking the form of

a servant.  He who came from the very glory

of God, stooped to wash the feet of his friends and the feet of his betrayer.  // 

 

And

he acknowledges that they don't know what he is doing.  And then he makes it plain.  “I have just given you an image, a picture of

myself, a real picture of what it means to be truly human.”…  “I have set you an example, that you also

should do as I have done to you.”  And

what is the picture?  What has he

done?  He has humbled himself and served

humanity in the most basic and menia

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli

at Foundry UMC March 29, 2015, Palm Sunday.

Text:

Mark 11:1-19                                                                

“Do we preach Christ crucified?” (that is) “Do you believe in a Jesus who

is dangerous enough to be arrested and killed by the state?”  That question, presented by South African

Methodist pastor Alan Storey at an MFSA event here at Foundry last fall, is the

question of the day.  In how many places

today will people walk into churches and find a Jesus who is presented—probably

unintentionally—as the Grand Marshall of the Big Parade, making his “triumphal

entry” in line with the marching band and the corporate-sponsored floats and

the children on daddy’s shoulders waving those tiny American flags?  In how many places today will people find

Jesus doing nothing more than offering an opportunity to have a party and a

cute procession with children whacking each other with palms?  In how many places today will people find a

celebration of Jesus as the one who is so familiar, so accessible, that he

almost blends into the crowd, tacitly blessing the status quo?  Lord knows I

have been part of such celebrations in my life. 

But Jesus the Grand Marshall, the party guy, the bland, Everyman, is not

dangerous enough to be arrested and killed by the state.  And that is the story we begin to tell and to

hear today:  “they kept looking for a way

to kill him, for they were afraid of him…” (Mk 11:18)

 

The procession into Jerusalem is no accident or whim or flash mob for the

sake of fun.  It is a carefully planned

demonstration, orchestrated by Jesus for maximum effect (Mk 11:2-3).  By its method, the make-up of participants,

and its content, this march puts those in power on notice that business as

usual is unacceptable. The procession calls upon symbolism from the prophet

Zechariah who speaks of a king who will come into Jerusalem “humble and riding

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  The

prophecy goes on to say that the king “will cut off…the war horse,” “shall

command peace to the nations,” and prisoners will be set free. (Zechariah

9:9-11)  Jesus organizes and leads a

non-violent freedom march in solidarity with the poor and oppressed… Can you

imagine any scenario in which that would lead to conflict, violent retaliation,

and death threats? 

 

In our day, a “404 Error” is a familiar computer message—one that appears

when something you’re looking for can’t be found.  This error message doesn’t necessarily mean

that what you’re looking for doesn’t exist, it’s just that there is a broken link

somewhere, or something in the system isn’t configured to find what you’re

after.  Jesus knows that the system he

encounters in Rome-occupied Jerusalem—the political, socio-economic, and

religious system—is not configured such that he will find what he is looking

for.  The link between reality and God’s

vision is broken.

 

Jerusalem at the time of Jesus had already served as the “center of the

sacred geography of the Jewish people for a millennium.”[i]

It was a city associated with all their best hopes and aspirations for justice

and peace.  But it was also a city that

had been captured and ruled by one foreign power after another for centuries. Under

Roman rule beginning in 63 BCE, the religious Temple became used as the center

of economic and political activity and control by the Roman Empire.  Temple leaders were likely hand-picked by

Roman rulers and came from high-ranking priestly families and from wealthy lay

fa

A sermon preached by Rev. Theresa S. Thames at Foundry UMC, March 22, 2015, the fifth Sunday in Lent.

Text: Jonah 1:1-17; 2:1, 10

It’s October 2002, to be

more exact, it’s Halloween and I’m standing in the middle of Harvard Square.

I’m at Harvard because I’m doing the divinity school tour. This week Harvard; in

two weeks Duke. I have a big decision to make, but at this moment I’m waiting

on a really important phone call. Mind you, this is 2002 when a cell phone only

did one thing - make phone calls. There were no texts, no music, no pictures,

and definitely no video. It’s October in Boston and I’m freezing, but I’m

outside because every time I enter a building, I get spotty reception. The

voice on the other end sounds muddled, static begins, and then the call drops.

 

A “dropped call” is the common term for a wireless mobile phone call that is terminated

unexpectedly before the speaking parties have finished their conversation and

before one of them have hung up. There are several reasons given for having a

dropped call:

Moving out of range into what is known

as a “dead zone”

When wireless signals are unavailable, interrupted, jammed,

too much traffic

Faulty transceiver inside the phone its self

Phone simply loses battery power

 

All of us have

experienced dropped calls. When we have moved out of range and have entered

situations and seasons in life that have felt like “dead zones.” Those places

when our very souls feel empty. The dropped calls of life are when we are not

able to connect. When we are unavailable to those we love, to God, and even

ourselves. Those moments when we have been told that we are the problem, that

the very essence of who we are is damaged, broken, faulty, no good. Dropped

calls. Or when we have simply loss power - the power to hope, to dream, to get

up and try again. Like I said, we have all experienced dropped calls.

The Jonah story is one that is very familiar in

Christian circles and even in secular children books. Jonah is a faithful

prophet of the Lord, until the Lord decides to send Jonah to the worst place

imaginable, Nineveh. Now, Jonah gets a lot of flak, but what few people realize

is that Jonah is the only prophet that is actually sent to the place that he is

prophesying against. All the other prophets sent messages and warnings via

letters, but not Jonah. And since Jonah ain’t no fool, when God sends him to

Nineveh and he finds the next ship smoking headed in the exact opposite

direction, Tarshish.

Many of us know the

story, but Jonah gets on the ship headed to Tarshish, again the opposite

direction from Nineveh, and they are sailing along, Jonah is so thankful to

skip town that he falls asleep in the bottom of the ship, but then a storm

begins. The captain and the crew figure out that Jonah is the problem, they

throw him overboard, the sea calms and Jonah is swallowed by a big fish and

camps out in the belly of the fish for 3 days.

 

It’s easy to make fun of

and judge Jonah for his foolishness in thinking that he can escape God’s plan,

but we are a lot like Jonah. We have each found ourselves in situations in life

facing what seems like the impossible. We each have encountered something or

someone that has made us run in the opposite direction of our truth, our

calling, our purpose, our higher selves.

 

It is not that Jonah

didn’t have faith.

A sermon preached by

Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, March 15, 2015, the fourth Sunday

in Lent.

Text:  Mark 3:31-35                                                               

 The photograph haunts me.  It’s a recent picture, taken by my mother, of

my dad awkwardly reclining on the sofa and me leaning over to embrace him.  If you didn’t know any better, it would look

like nothing more than a not terribly flattering shot of me and my dad in an

otherwise pleasant moment.  But that

picture breaks my heart.  Because the

moment captured in the photo was at the end of several days when me and my

siblings were faced with the reality of what dad’s Parkinson’s disease—and its

attending dementia—has done to him.  In

that moment as I leaned in for a hug, I don’t know if he knew I was there.  Perhaps you have photos like that in your

family albums, in and among the other pictures, pictures of birthday parties

and graduations, summer cookouts and Christmas gatherings and all kinds of

other occasions for connection.  For the

lucky ones among us, there are pictures that capture moments of joy, love, and

support.  There are images of family

members—a grandparent or a sister or brother or uncle—who inspire us and whose

picture makes us laugh or cry with love. 

There are pictures that point to a story—remember that time when…?   And

scattered throughout, perhaps there are pictures like that one of me and my

dad…  Every family has its challenges and

griefs, and even the most healthy and functional of families have their

dysfunction. 

 

As I was thinking about family

dynamics, the 2006 film, “Little Miss Sunshine” came to mind.  The family depicted in the movie is

complicated and messy—including a foul-mouthed drug-snorting grandpa, a

nihilistic teenaged son who’s taken a vow of silence, a suicidal gay uncle, a

dad who’s trying to sell his motivational success program (with no success),

and a mother who’s just trying to hold the family together.  They end up in a broken down VW bus on a road

trip to California to get the youngest family member, Olive, to the “Little

Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant.  At one

point on their journey, sirens and lights approach and the dad says to the

family, “Oh my God, I’m getting pulled over. 

Everyone, just…pretend to be normal.”

 

Pretend… How often do we pretend

that everything is OK when the reality is that we are struggling to just get

through the day?  Just pretend to be

normal.  Smile for the camera.  How many of our family photos reflect us

trying to be “normal”—whatever that is? 

What is hidden behind the family portrait in the LifeTouch church

directory? 

 

No photograph can capture the

disconnection and brokenness in and between members of a family.  No photograph can capture the lost hope in a

couple’s struggle with infertility, or the deep loneliness and isolation that

invade a family dealing with mental illness, or the heartbreak of seeing a

parent or child suffer.  No picture can

show the scarring effects of addiction, abuse, neglect, resentment, and

rage.  No photograph will reveal the

weight of guilt that steals freedom and hope. 

A photo won’t show the confusion and self-destructive thinking and

behavior of a daughter or son or parent who is coming to terms with their

sexual orientation.  A snapshot won’t

show the broken trust and broken heart that results from infidelity or the

ulcers and anxiety caused by another’s controlling expectations.  No picture will capture a child’s desperate

striving for attention or approval, the painful l

A sermon preached at Foundry UMC on March 1, 2015, by guest preacher Rev. James Harnish.

Who’s

Your Carrier?

A sermon

preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, February 22, 2015,

the first Sunday of Lent.

Text:  Luke 4:1-13                                                                 

I think it is safe to say that the DC

culture in which we live is particularly “image” conscious. Much of what we see

in the media, in entertainment, and politics are people wearing masks,

projecting a carefully constructed self that has been designed to win high

approval ratings or higher salaries or higher Nielsen ratings or higher

profits.

 

But this tendency to present a false

self in order to get something we think we need is not only a reality in

politics or media or business.  It is

part of the struggle of being human.  We

learn at an early age what kind of self will get our parents’ attention and

approval and affection and love.  We

learn at an early age what kind of mask we need to wear to be accepted or

rejected by our childhood peers.  We

begin to believe that the mask, the false self is real, is better than any

other self we might be.  We begin to

believe that we are not lovable in ourselves as ourselves. We learn that we are

lovable when we do what we are told or perform in an acceptable way or have the

cool toys or meet someone’s expectations. 

Basil Pennington, the late Trappist monk and teacher of Centering

Prayer, says that it doesn’t take long for the message from the world to get

through to little ones.  He writes, “Their

value depends on what they have, what they do, what others—especially

significant providers, real or potential—think of them.  Others see them this way.  And they begin to see themselves this

way.  This is the construct of the false

self.  It is made up of what I have, what

I do, and what others think of me.”[i] 

 

We think this false self is who we

really are and the self that will keep us connected to what matters—because

what we think matters—the thing we think will get us what we need—is doing,

having, or impressing. //  It is not

uncommon these days to hear someone ask, “Who’s your carrier?”  Of course the question has to do with who

provides your phone service.  At its most

philosophical level, our carrier might be described as a conduit to

connection—with other people and with the world.  And a good carrier will provide good

reception, a strong connection.  What happens

for us human beings is that we begin to make our false self our “carrier,”

believing that it is the false self that will help us connect with others.  We begin to depend upon the false self for a

good reception in the world around us. 

And, as Pennington points out, we begin to identify with that false

self, that identity constituted by what I have, what I do, and what others

think of me. 

 

Today we find Jesus in the wilderness

being tempted to give in to the false self and be ruled by it, to buy in to the

idea that doing, having, proving is what it’s all about.  Notice that the devilish voice begins with

the words, “If you are the son of God…” 

It’s a question of identity. 

Jesus finds himself wrestling with the question that we all wrestle with

in one way or another:  Who am I?  What is my true identity?

 

The first temptation is for Jesus to

establish himself by what he can do.  “It

would be easy enough for the man who would later feed five thousand from five

loaves to create a tempting meal for himself.”[ii]  The second temptation is

Listen!

A sermon preached by

Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, February 15, 2015,

Transfiguration Sunday.

 Text:  Mark 9:2-9                                                                   

“Listen for what the Spirit is

saying…”  This is often the invitation as

we prepare to hear the words of scripture here in worship.  Listen and hear what the Spirit is saying… I

remember how this invitation struck me my first Sunday here at Foundry.  There is, it seems to me, an openness about

it, an admission that there is meaning in and around and underneath the printed

words, a message that may be for all of us and—on some occasions—something that

the Spirit might be trying to say especially to me or you—something that others

might not hear at all.  The invitation to

listen for the Spirit and to hear what the Spirit is saying also affirms that

God is involved, that (as our United Church of Christ sisters and brothers

remind us) God is still speaking.

 

I trust that we all know the

challenges involved in truly listening. 

When I have counseled folks who are preparing for marriage, we spend

time practicing “active listening” a process in which one person speaks and

then the other person reflects back to the speaker what was heard.  It doesn’t take long to realize just how much

practice it takes to really listen and to hear what the other person is

saying.  Without practice, we end up

receiving the other person’s words, but mostly hearing what we think they are going to say, or—even as they are

still speaking—we are formulating our response. 

In other words, often when we think we are listening to someone else,

we’re mostly hearing ourselves.  Bede

Griffiths, the late English Benedictine monk who founded an ashram in India,

once said that he didn’t think “Western Christianity has the power to lead

people to God anymore.  All they keep

doing is meeting themselves and calling it God.”[i]  Though I think this is an exaggeration and that

people in both East and West can fall into this trap, Griffith’s point

certainly resonates.  What he experienced

in India were folks with the willingness to get themselves out of the way so

that God could enter in.

 

Six days prior to the extraordinary

events we read about today in our Gospel, Jesus told his disciples what was

going to happen to him—that he would suffer, be rejected, killed, and then

after three days rise again.  Peter

didn’t want to hear it.  And Jesus’

response was, “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human

things.” (Mk. 8:31ff.)  Jesus goes on to speak

to the disciples and the larger crowds about what a “divine thing” would look

like:  deny self, take up your cross,

lose your life for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the gospel, because that

is the only way to truly have or save or keep your life.  And six days after Jesus shares these words,

he takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray.  And in the midst of wondrous and fearful

visions, difficult to explain, there comes one very clear message for everyone

present:  “This is my Beloved child.  LISTEN to him.”  Listen.

 

One would think that such an

amazing experience coupled with this clear message would have an impact on

those present.  But it seems that

listening was just as hard for the first disciples as it is for us.  Because Jesus has to keep repeating himself; the

same scenario that happened before the trip up the mountain happens

again—twice!  Jesus speaks of his

suffering, death, and resurrection.  The

di

The Sound of

Silence

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E.

Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, February 8, 2015.

Text:  1 Kings 19:9-12                                                           

The headlines in Elijah’s day would sound painfully

familiar to us these days.  In fact the

news recorded in the books of First and Second Kings—a record spanning 400

years and the reigns of forty kings and one queen—chronicles coups,

assassinations, civil wars, scheming to consolidate power, a division into

north and south, and idolatry, lots and lots of idolatry.  The writer of 1-2 Kings describes all but two

kings (Hezekiah

in 2 Kings 18:3 and Josiah in 2 Kings 22) as doing “evil in the sight

of the Lord.”[i]  Even with all the glory of Solomon (the

architect of empire for better or worse), when taken together, the history

portrayed in these books is pretty bleak and always undergirded by the ominous

foreboding of the exile that is to come. 

 

The particular context for our text today is a holy

war between the rulers of Israel, Ahab, Jezebel, and their Phoenician Ba’al worship

and the prophets of Israel who were faithful to the God of Israel.  It is in the midst of this conflict that

Elijah emerges as a prophet of God.  Just

prior to today’s reading, we find the story of one of the greatest showdowns in

all of scripture:  Elijah, standing

alone, challenges the 450 prophets of Ba’al to put their god into the ring with

the God of Israel.  Both parties will

place a sacrifice upon their altar and call upon their god to accept the

offering.  Elijah says, “The god who

answers by fire is indeed God.”  The

crowds love the spectacle—and to make it even more dramatic, Elijah makes a

point of pouring water on the wood and on the offering of his altar.  Elijah triumphs in grand fashion that day on

Mount Carmel; while the prayers of Ba’al’s prophets yield nothing, at Elijah’s

word, “the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the

stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench.” (1

Kgs. 18:38)  And the gathered crowds proclaim

that the God of Israel has won the title: 

“The Lord is indeed God.” (1 Kgs. 18:39)

And then, in the name of the God of Israel,

Elijah orders the people to seize all the 450 prophets of Ba’al and kill them.

//  This is the way things go, again and

again.  The headlines are always the

same.  And sometimes I wish I could give

myself permission to follow Thomas Jefferson’s lead and simply cut out of the

Bible the parts that I don’t like.  I

know that Elijah is a faithful prophet of the God whom we worship and is

revered within our Judeo-Christian tradition.  So there must be some rational explanation for

the portrayal of our God and the prophets of God as agents of mass murder.  I can point to the larger prophetic tradition

that speaks to Yahweh’s vision of justice, kindness, and care for all

peoples.  I could argue that Elijah in

this instance was courageously facing down the corrupt and murderous political

powers of his day on behalf of the powerless and vulnerable—and that, in context,

violence is simply the way the game is played. 

I can argue that these stories simply represent one historical

perspective within our tradition in what is a continuing evolution of our

understanding of the nature of God.  And,

as a follower of Jesus, I turn to the sermon on the mount and Jesus’ own

non-violent practices and self-giving love as the lens through which I try to

read every other text in the Bible.