This is Really Happening

This story about King Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah has a surprising resonance to what is really happening in the US today.  Read 1 Kings 19: 1-7

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Transcript

Sermons from 

Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

June 15, 2025

“This is Really Happening”

1st Kings 19: 1-7 – Common English Bible

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, how he had killed all Baal’s prophets with the sword. 2 Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this message: “May the gods do whatever they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life like the life of one of them.”

3 Elijah was terrified. He got up and ran for his life. He arrived at Beer-sheba in Judah and left his assistant there. 4 He himself went farther on into the desert a day’s journey. He finally sat down under a solitary broom bush. He longed for his own death: “It’s more than enough, Lord! Take my life because I’m no better than my ancestors.” 5 He lay down and slept under the solitary broom bush.

Then suddenly a messenger tapped him and said to him, “Get up! Eat something!” 6 Elijah opened his eyes and saw flatbread baked on glowing coals and a jar of water right by his head. He ate and drank, and then went back to sleep. 7 The Lord’s messenger returned a second time and tapped him. “Get up!” the messenger said. “Eat something, because you have a difficult road ahead of you.”

During a time marked by a succession of corrupt and inept kings—roughly six generations after the reign of great kings David and Solomon—King Omri saw religion only as useful for what it could get you.  He wasn’t the only one for whom worship wasn’t about devotion, but about control—a way to manipulate favor and manage people and reinforce power.  Spiritual sincerity held little interest to him.  When Omri died, his son Ahab inherited the throne—with the same attitude toward religion.  

Remember how King Solomon had 700 wives?  Not because he loved them all but because they were useful.  And so, Ahab did what many had done before.  He married Jezebel, a wealthy princess from Sidon, a coastal city along the Mediterranean Sea, to buy political peace through a diplomatic marriage.  

But perhaps Ahab didn’t realize what he was getting.  She was certainly smarter and more principled than Ahab.  She knew how to get things done that mattered to her, including not giving up her religious faith for her husband.  She brought with her the gods of her people and a host of priests devoted to the god Baal. And like a husband eager to please, Ahab built altars to her god.  It didn’t matter to him, so long as the alliance was strong and the palace remained calm.  And under their reign, Samaria thrived. The markets were full of cedar wine, purple cloth, and foreign spices.  Merchants prospered.  The city gleamed with imperial success.

But then came the fatal overreach, as the powerful so often do.

Ahab saw a vineyard near his palace and he wanted it for a garden.  The owner of it, Naboth, refused to sell it.  “This land is my father’s inheritance.  It belongs to my God.”

So, a scheme was devised:  cooked up false charges, mock trial, and “the guilty” Naboth was stoned to death.  Ahab took what he wanted.  But not everyone was silent.  In an era where many prophets said whatever the king wanted to hear, Elijah was unbought and unbossed.  He stood up to King Ahab and raged:  “You killed an innocent man and stole his land.  Here’s what God says to you:  In the same place where the dogs licked Naboth’s blood, they’ll lick yours too.”

Ahab actually trembled—for he realized this was a power he couldn’t bribe or silence or charm.  Elijah pronounced judgment: “As Yahweh lives, there will be no more rain, not even dew, until I say so.”

And then he disappeared into hiding while the kingdom withered.

Rain stopped falling.  And crops failed.  And rivers shriveled into dust.  And years passed while the people suffered.  Then came a whisper from God:  “It’s time.  Go back and speak again.”

As Elijah approached, Ahab fumed at the sight of him.  “You again?” he sneered. “You’re the one who’s brought on all this trouble.”

“I didn’t create your trouble,” Elijah shot back.  “You did.
You abandoned God.  You bowed to Baal.  But let’s settle this. Gather your prophets.  Bring the people.  And meet me on Mount Carmel.”

They came.  The king on his golden chariot.  The priests in fine robes.  The people in rags.

 And Elijah, wild hair twisting in the wind, raised his voice and asked the people gathered:  “How long will you limp between two opinions?  If Baal is god, follow him.  If Yahweh is God, choose Yahweh!”

The people didn’t answer.  So, Elijah proposed a contest to the priests and prophets of Baal involving a sacrifice:  Two altars.  Two bulls.  No fire.  “Let the true God answer with flame.”

The prophets of Baal went first.  They danced in circles and chanted until they were limping.  Their feet were bleeding.  They called on his name from sunrise to twilight, but the sky remained clear and blue.

“Maybe Baal’s out of town or deep in thought,” Elijah taunted.  “Or busy?  Asleep, perhaps?”

Still nothing.  Not even a lukewarm stone.  Finally, in the morning, exhausted, they gave up.

Then Elijah stepped forward.  He rebuilt the broken altar of Yahweh, stacked the wood, placed the sacrifice, and then he drenched everything with water.  Bucket after bucket, until the wood was soaked and the ground was mud.

He wasn’t just trying to make a point.  He was making it impossible.  Then he prayed:  “O God of our ancestors, let it be known today that you are God.  Turn their hearts back to you.”

And the blue sky darkened.  A wild, consuming fire fell and devoured the sacrifice.  And the wood.  And the stones—even the dust.  And for the first time in years, the people fell down in worship:  “Yahweh is God!” they cried. “Yahweh alone!”

Elijah won.  He made his point.  And if only it had ended there.  But even prophets of justice are not free from vengeance.  Elijah ordered all the prophets of Baal to be killed—450 of them.

When Queen Jezebel heard, she was livid.  She sent a message with no subtlety:  “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be dead.”

Elijah fled into the wilderness.  He ran and ran until he collapsed under a broom tree and prayed:  “It’s enough, God. Take my life.  I’m no better than those before me.”

Just then, God sent an angel.  Not a vision.  Not a pep talk.  Just an angel with, get this, some fresh bread and cold water.  “Get up and eat.  The journey is too much for you.”  Not “pull yourself together.”   Just, “stay hydrated and get some rest.”

So, Elijah ate and rested.  Then the angel came again.  “Here.  Have some more,” adding, “You’re not done yet.”  And then, with that strength, he walked forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb.  He entered a cave and God asked,  “What are you doing here?”  God didn’t know?  Perhaps Elijah didn’t know.  And next week, we’ll hear what happens next.

 But today, consider this:  After the spectacle—even after the thrill of winning the showdown and the fire, Elijah felt defeated, depressed, and said, “I’ve had enough, God.”  And God said, “I understand.  Have some bread.” 

Some of us understand that.  We might even be under a broom tree right now, saying, “God, it’s too much.  I’m done.”  It’s OK.  The trauma we’ve been feeling is real.  

And good news, Elijah’s story doesn’t skip that part.  God doesn’t shame his despair and didn’t say, “Get up, stop whining.”  God sent some bread.  A little water.  Encouragement.  And when he was ready, “Now get going again because you’re not done.”  When Elijah reached the cave, God showed up not again in the spectacle of fire, as you will hear next week, not in a violent wind, not in an earthquake.  God showed up in the tenderness of a whisper.

How are you feeling today?  The fear is heavy.  The rage is exhausting.  We are not imagining what’s happening in this country.  In Los Angeles.
 It is real.
 It is escalating.
 It is coordinated.
 And it is dangerous.

Tear gas.  Riot shields.
 Deployed not against threats—but against the people crying out for justice.  Or going about their business, walking through a church parking lot.

On Wednesday, The Rev. Tanya Lopez, a Disciples of Christ pastor – our sister denomination – was in her office in Downey, outside of LA, when three black SUVs with tinted windows pulled up to her church.  She watched five men jump out, some wearing badges and tan bulletproof vests that said “POLICE.”  They detained a man in front of the church.  Rev. Lopez ran outside and asked the men to identify which agency they worked for.  They wouldn’t.  As they forced the man into their vehicle, Rev. Lopez shouted instructions to the man about his rights in Spanish.  As she did, an agent drew a rifle at the pastor’s head.  The men laughed at her.  Another pastor saw this happening and ran out the parking lot and said, “this is church property and we don’t want you here.”  The men laughed.  “The whole country is our property.”[1]  This is really happening.

On Thursday night, those of us going on our Civil Rights Pilgrimage in September discussed the movie Selma.  After watching it, here’s what was so striking—but not surprising:  We’ve seen this before.  Not in this exact form.  But in spirit.

This week we saw farm workers out in green fields picking our vegetables and produce and watched as agents chased them down the rows.  It was too reminiscent of the news clips from Selma of officers on horses racing through tear-gas-soaked-air toward protesters with billy clubs wrapped with barbed wire.  Tackling leaders who spoke out – who are speaking out.  Passing punishing laws for the protection of privilege – so much of it done in the name of religion – the kind of religious observance of King Ahab who saw it as useful for control and power, not a source of devotion and spiritual sincerity.

 And the realization of it all becomes too clear:  This isn’t just the work of one man.  This is the unfinished work of those who never accepted defeat after the Civil War, never made peace with the rights gained in the Civil Rights Movement, never accepted the ideal of women, people with brown and black skin, queer people, or people with disabilities as equals.

And if all of this has been making you feel sick—Good.
 It doesn't mean you're weak.
 It means you're awake.  You have heart.  It means Jesus matters to you.

It means your spirit is still tender in a hardened world.
 Even Elijah curled up beneath a broom tree and begged to quit.

There will be more days when you feel as helpless as Elijah did.

Well, you are not disqualified by your exhaustion or dismissed for your despair because God calls the weary.
 
 

God finds the ones out of breath,
 feeds them with fire-baked bread,

and in the stillness, with a breeze on your neck,
 speaks with a voice just loud enough to hear:
 “You are not alone.
 And you are not done.”

Yes, you are not done.  You are exactly the one God is calling.

So rise, weary prophet.
 Not because you want to, but because the world needs you.
 Because despair cannot be the final word and silence is not an option.

The God of justice isn’t done.
 Not with us.  Not with you.  Not with this country—or any nation.
 And certainly not with the cause of freedom and the full equality of us all.  

And in the meantime, remember, all day and all night, God surrounds us with angels with fresh bread and water in hand.  In fact, is perhaps that your calling?  To be an angel of God encouraging people to stay hydrated.  Get some rest.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/la-protests-ice-raids-church-arrest.html?searchResultPosition=4