The Elevator Pitch

Scripture — 1 Kings 19:4-15a (NRSV)

But [Elijah] himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” [Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”] He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 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.”

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 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.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus.”

Devotion

Long ago, as I’ve talked about here before, my college choir was required to join in weekly Monday night rehearsals of an oratorio—Messiah in the winter, always, and some other great choral work in the spring. (For those of you who were not music majors or musicians, an oratorio is a long vocal work usually performed by a large choir plus soloists—it’s a little like an opera in its style, but nobody wears costumes and everybody stands still.) The spring of my senior year, we performed Elijah by Felix Mendelssohn, which tells the story of the famous Old Testament prophet.

If you spend some time with the story of Elijah, you’ll soon see that it has a couple of major highlights. The first one—which forms the incredibly dramatic climax of the first half of Elijah the oratorio—is when Elijah defeats the priests of Baal who are under the command of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, the rulers of Israel. (Jezebel, from Sidon, was a follower of Baal and had brought many priests and prophets of Baal and Asherah to Israel when she married Ahab.) After a three-year drought which the Lord sent and Elijah announced, Elijah ultimately meets the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. There he shows them up as fakes who cannot light their sacrifice, and he successfully prays to end the drought.

Good has triumphed and evil is vanquished, right? Not so fast. Good has triumphed, but evil is still in control of earthly power, and so Jezebel puts Elijah under a death sentence, which is where we pick up the story in the excerpt from 1 Kings 19 above. He flees from her into the wilderness, depressed and footsore, and here’s where the second climax of the story takes place. But it’s very different from the first one. Rather than a crowd of prophets, a bunch of onlookers, and the royal family of Israel, there’s just Elijah in a cave. And then, suddenly, after a great wind and earthquake and fire passes by, there is Elijah in a cave with God, amid the sound of sheer silence.

Amazingly (and amusingly), the best thing Elijah can come up with in this situation is his three-second elevator speech about how put-upon he is. (Seriously – 1 Kings 19:10 and 19:14 are the exact same verse. And one of these days I’d love to know exactly who Elijah is talking to in 1 Kings 19:10…the clearest interpretation of the sentence tells us that he is talking to “the word of God.” Hmm.) The lectionary cuts off the end of God’s speech (19:15b-18), where the Lord tells Elijah to anoint a new king (Jehu) and a new prophet to succeed Elijah (Elisha), and reassures Elijah that there are still seven thousand people left in Israel who do not worship Baal. But even from what’s here, you get the point. It’s not actually over yet, Elijah. There is still hope.

I think maybe you’ve been there. I think maybe we all have—individually, as a church, as a people, as a nation, as a world. So much fought and vanquished; so much left to fight. How—whatever our particular trouble may be—can we take the next step? Remember who it is that comes in power and comes in silence, who walks beside us and goes ahead of us. If you can, cease your elevator pitch and listen to what the Lord has to say.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Can You Say Who’s Calling?.