Elijah's Depression

Elijah was one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. When Jesus appeared on the Mount of the Transfiguration, he appeared with Moses and Elijah on either side of him. Elijah was right there beside Jesus in God's presence. Isn't that where we want to end up too?

So it may come as a surprise to you that Elijah the prophet suffered from depression. I am defining depression as a feeling that is so bad or intense that it makes you want to die. Elijah just wanted to lie and down and die. He felt that bad.

Let me read off a short list of other famous people who have suffered from depression:

    John Adams, 2nd President of this country

    Queen Elizabeth II

    Abraham Lincoln

    Angelina Jolie

    JK Rowling

    Winston Churchill

    Oprah Winfrey

    

These are smart people. These are beautiful people. These are gifted people. These are people who have had everything to live for and yet, at moments in their lives, they felt like lying down and just dying. And Elijah the prophet was one of them.

    

    

Elijah had just shown up all the prophets of Baal. His offering to God was consumed in a burst of flame in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses, while their animal carcasses just sat there wet and abandoned. People were believing in God and that Elijah was his prophet. Elijah had had the prophets of Baal killed and, after an immense drought, God had brought rain down on the land. You would think that Elijah would have relished the victory, basked in his win. But often, right after a mountain top experience is when you fall the hardest. No sooner had he shown up the prophets of Baal then Jezebel the queen threatened his life. She sent him a message.

    

    "I will kill you by this time tomorrow..."

    

I would definitely categorize that as hate mail. And there is nothing like hate to make you feel bad. Elijah was afraid.  He ran far away and begged God just to let him die. He felt awful. Depression covered him like a black cloak.

    

Winston Churchill described a black dog that would consume him at times in his life.

 Abraham Lincoln had such melancholy and darkness that he once said, "I am now the most miserable man living."

    

Depression is not something that happens to bad people or weak people or even lost people. God does not love you any less if you feel like dying sometimes. It seems to be a struggle that some of us have to endure, a cross to bear. 

    

God would not let Elijah die. He gave Elijah food. Just like any of us would do to care for someone we love who is suffering and wants to die. He urged Elijah to live. And God led Elijah alone to a cave. Elijah sat there in that cave for awhile. He just let himself feel bad. And out of this period of great sadness and desperation, inside that dark cave, Elijah heard the voice of God.

    

Strange how God often speaks when we feel the worst. It is as if our moments of desperation open something up inside us, some kind of a space for God to speak. Depression can crack you wide open. Someone once told me that the valleys are fertile, where everything grows. But we all want to be on the mountaintop, to have mountaintop experiences. But nothing grows up there. No, greatness is often made in the valleys, in the challenges, and difficulties of life. 

    

And before Elijah heard God, he heard everything else. He had to hear a whole bunch of things that were not God before he heard God. He heard wind and earthquake and fire, but they were not God. And that is how it goes with solitude and prayer. If you want to listen for God, you must be willing to hear some other stuff too. You may need to wade through quite a lot of noise and nonsense and sadness and feeling like a failure and anger and regret in order to find God's voice. Most of us, when we hear the worries and the noise that crowd our minds, we just want to give up and end the attempt. But Elijah stayed in that cave and continued to listen. Until finally he heard something that was God.

    

The words for what Elijah heard in the ancient Greek are best translated as this...eloquent silence.

 

He heard God in the sound of eloquent silence.

And when Elijah emerged from this encounter, he was no longer lost. He got his purpose back. His life become clear again and he went on to be a prophet once more.

The research psychologist Anders Ericsson ran an experiment with violinists at the Music Academy in West Berlin. He had the teachers divide the violinists into three categories: the best who could make a career of it, those who were good, and those who could maybe become teachers but who did not have great talent. And then he asked them all how they practiced. He found a profound difference in the three groups. All three spent over 50 hours a week in musical activities but the great violinists spent most of their musical time practicing alone. 3.5 hours a day for the best group and 1.3 hours a day for the worst group. They spent time alone, listening to themselves play. They were not afraid to be alone.

In fact, in her book Quiet, Susan Cain writes that the most pivotal moments of invention, creativity and life-changing discovery happened not in groups but by individuals throughout history who were not afraid to be alone and to listen to the sound of eloquent silence.

Depression drove Elijah into a cave where silence awakened his soul. Perhaps our pain can become a gift to us if it motivates us to listen. It takes enormous courage, even desperation, to be willing to stay in the midst of your noise and listen beyond it for God. 

I urge you to find time to be silent. I urge you to listen. Everything in our lives tells us to rush and fill the quiet with noise. Turn on the radio, the TV, fill your schedule, go to sleep- anything to keep you from the silence. For it terrifies us to be quiet. We may end up realizing that we too feel great sadness or anger or depression. If that happens, remember that you are in good company. Remember Elijah and don't be afraid to continue to listen, for God can be found on the other side of all that pain and confusion. So bear it, listen to your worries and distractions and noises and look deep within. There is a well of life that runs within you. It was created at your baptism. God waits for you in the silence.

    

    

Finding a Prophet

In the midst of the financial crisis of 2008-9, a Korean businessman killed himself after loosing most of a $370 million dollar investment. His wife wrote, "When the nations's stock market index fell below 1,000, he stopped eating and went on a drinking binge for days and finally decided to kill himself." His wife could do nothing. She had never had the courage to tell him that his love of money had gotten out of hand. How could she start now? She had never told him the truth before. And he had no prophets in his life. No one told him the truth.

We all need a prophet in our lives.

Dewey Michelin wants me to tell you his story. He is very open about what happened to him. He hopes that his story will help others. 

Dewey was my Senior Warden in my very first church. Everyone loved and respected him. He told us all that he had some health issues. TIA's, Rosatia in his face. It took me six months to realize what was really going on. Dewey was drinking himself to death.

Every evening, when he returned from work, his wife would greet him at the door with a glass of scotch in her hand. And his drinking began.

Once at realized what was going on with Dewey, I convinced him to go with me to a rehabilitation center for an appointment. Dewey was convinced that he did not have a problem. It was at the rehabilitation center that we met a prophet.

First a young woman came in with a clipboard. She smiled and checked off items as Dewey answered her quiet ions. Height, weight, how much he drank, she checked it all off as if there was nothing wrong at all. When she left, Dewey looked at me as if to say, "See, this is nothing!"

Then the prophet came in. He was short with glasses. He had worked as a doctor for years in this place. He did not sit behind a desk but pulled his chair right up to Dewey and looked him in the eye.

"Mr. Michelin," he said. "Do you want to live a long life?"

"Yes, I do." 

"Then you need to know that you are poisoning your body. At this rate, you will be dead in two years. All of your physical ailments have been caused by your drinking. The alcohol is killing you. I recommend that you check yourself into this treatment facility immediately."

Dewey was furious. He stood up and walked out. But he was a good man. And he did hear the prophet. A few months later, he checked himself into rehab. He has been sober now for about fifteen years. I had the honor of renewing his marriage vows with his wife because they wanted to be married without alcohol.

In the time of the Old Testament, a prophet was a person who spoke radical truth on behalf of God. Elijah was a prophet. He told it like it was. He was not afraid to tell the truth right to people's faces. And he made a lot of people mad.

Elijah was prophet during the reign of one of the most corrupt kings of Israel. The King's name was Ahab and he was married to a woman named Jezebel. Jezebel was so sinister and so sick that her name speaks of evil to this day. She was a big fan of a kind of worship that involved killing children to sacrifice to the God Baal. Archeologists uncovered a gravesite in Megiddo in modern-day Israel just a few decades ago. At the site, there was once a temple to Ashtoreth, the consort goddess of Baal. Just a few steps from the ruins of this temple there was a cemetery where many jars were found containing remains of infants who had been sacrificed in the temple. This was bad stuff, this was evil. This was a good who loved for people to kill babies in her honor. And Jezebel loved to worship in this way. She was a woman with no conscience.

Jezebel was married to a weak man. Her husband, the King of Israel, was like a spoiled child. When he could not buy the vineyard next to his residence, he went to bed and sulked. His wife told him to get up, that she would acquire the field.

Jezebel writes letters from her husband and initiates a fast, which occurred only after a great crime was committed. Then she paid false witnesses to lie about the owner of the vineyard, claiming that he had publically defamed the king. The owner of the vineyard was taken outside and stoned to death, and his vineyard was given to the king.

This all would have transpired without repercussion if Elijah the prophet had not been alive. No one would have dared to be honest with the king. They could be killed just as the owner of the vineyard had been. But Elijah is a prophet. He hears of the crime and he speaks out against it. Elijah tells the truth about what happened. That is what a prophet does. A prophet tells the truth, no matter what the cost. Elijah says to the king, "you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord."

You have sold yourself.

You have cashed in your integrity to protect your pride. You have forgotten who you are. You have sacrificed the truth....you are sick and you will die.

Ahab does repent. He tells God he is sorry, though the Bible does not say that he returns the vineyard...and God does not punish him, at least not in his own lifetime. But if there had been no Elijah, Ahab would never have faced the truth about who he was. And if there had been no doctor, Dewey would not have faced the truth about who he was.

I don't know about you, but I need a prophet in my life. I need that faithful and brutally honest friend who will tell me if I have made the wrong choice, chased after false gods, or heaven forbid, sold my soul for success or glory. We all must have a prophet if we are to survive in this crazy world.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that we all need a critic. I am not talking about someone who incessantly speaks negatively to you. I am talking about someone who does not gossip or tell falsehoods but tells the truth to you, directly to you and only you, out of love.

Who is your prophet? The person does not have to be perfect but they have to be a truth-teller who is not afraid to give it to you straight. Someone who is not afraid to hurt your feelings. I do not think that your spouse can be your prophet or your best friend or your parents. No, a prophet must have some distance, some perspective on your life.

I am a great believer in spiritual counseling, in therapy and in coaching. Sometimes paying someone to be objective can be the healthiest thing out there. There must be someone in your life who will tell you the truth about who you are and what you are doing. It is essential.

The hardest thing to do is to be a prophet for someone else, to tell someone something hard. But you and I are called to be prophets. If you are only complimenting people and telling them what they want to hear, then you are not fully living into the call that God has for you. You should be making people mad rarely regularly. For we followers of Jesus must be prophets too. We too must follow in the steps of Elijah.

So find yourself a prophet, a prayerful person who will tell your the truth. And then seek to be a prophet for someone else. That is one of the ways that we can follow Jesus.

A Reserved Seat

Janice Brim was reading A Bridge to Terebithia to her sixth grade class at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma. Her husband, Mark, sent her a text that a twister was forming nearby. Janice had a plan. She had thought of a place to go months before.  As soon as she received the text from her husband, she led her students to a cinder block closet off the hall. The children were crying and looking at her. She told them that it was a privilege to be alive, that they had to be grateful for having been given a place on this earth. As she gripped the doorknob of the closet, all of a sudden there was a terrible noise and the roof of the building was ripped off. They stood there, dazed in light. She began to check to see if all her sixth graders were OK. All of them had survived. They had survived because she had found a place for them, a safe place.

But some children did not survive. Some were crushed, injured, killed. In waves of grief that sweep the nation, we all ask God, "How could you let this happen?"

The inevitable theological questions emerge. How could God let this happen? If God is omnipotent, why not just reroute the tornado? If God could part the Red Sea and Jesus could calm the storm, they why would God not just make the storm go another way? There is a lot of empty plain out there... Why did the twister have to hit the town? Why the elementary school? Was it God's will for children to die?

Is it God's will for people to die?

There is no way to adequately answer this question as human beings. Believe me when I say that the greatest mind and hearts have been grappling with this question for thousands of years. It is called the question of theodicy: why do people suffer? And the only answer that I have ever found is completely inadequate and it is this...

Yes, there is a God.

Yes, God is Almighty

I do not understand why God would allow this horror to happen.

I don't know.

It is a terrible answer: I don't know. It is inadequate. It leaves us dissatisfied. But it is the best that we have.

This is Trinity Sunday. The concept of the Trinity is all wrapped up in I don't know. You see, in today's gospel, we hear Jesus telling the disciples clearly that they cannot bear to know all about God. It is not that God doesn't want us to know, but somehow our brains and hearts cannot tolerate the answer. We don't know not because God does not want to tell us but because we are incapable of understanding. We simply can't bear the answer.

So Jesus gave us this concept of Trinity, of Father Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is a theologically mind-bending concept. It tells us that Almighty God has three persons, and yet God is one. And that makes no sense at all, which is precisely the point. The Trinity is our reminder that there are things about God that we will never understand in this life, things that cannot be grasped by the human mind.

Trinity also tells us a few important things that we can understand.

First, God has love and motion within the divine self.  God does not get lonely and doesn't need us as we need each other. When it says that we were made in the image of God, it means we, us together, not a single person. God is one but God is a we, God is community and when we live in community, caring for one another, we reflect the image of God.

Three is also an unstable number. If you see three people, sitting at a table, you are more likely to go and pull up a chair. If there are four, well, things seem compete. But with three, there is a place for you.

In the concept of Trinity, God is saying that there is a place for you, a place at the table with God. When you come to God, the Three will look at you with love and say, "We have been waiting for you. We have a place for you."

In that moment, when the tornado hit, Janice Brim found a place for herself and her kids. She took them somewhere safe. She had identified it earlier as a safe place to go. She took them all in that closet and told them they would be OK. But there was also a safe place for those children who did not survive. Jesus identified that safe place.

Boalsberg, Pennsylvania,1864. Two women met at a cemetery. Emma Hunter's father had died of yellow fever while treating wounded soldiers in the civil war. Elizabeth Meyers had buried her son, who died in the same war. The women decided that they would hold one day a year as belonging not only to their loved ones, but to all the soldiers who had died. The next year, they returned to the Cemetary with the entire town of Boalsberg. Flowers and flags were laid at the grave of every single soldier. The remembrance continues to this day and is now knows as Memorial day. For fallen soldier deserves a place in our lives, a place in our hearts, even if we never met them, even if we do not know their names.  We do not understand how God could allow the horrors of war, but we do know that those who lost their lives deserve a place forever reserved in our hearts. Forever. They died fighting for our country and we must make a place for them, forever.  Thus Memorial day was born.

The Trinity tells us that, although we will not understand God in this life, that God has a place for you within Gods very self. God waits for you, holds space for you, reserves a seat for you. You are the fourth, the completion, the person to fill the empty seat. The children who died have a seat. The soldiers who have given their lives for this country have a seat.

And when you get there, to your seat with the Trinity, to the place where you can see God face to face, then, and only then, will you understand.

The Blessed Ascension

On Ascension Sunday, we celebrate a holy day in the church that is largely forgotten. It takes place towards the end of the Easter season. It is called the Feast of the Ascension. It marks the fortieth day in the Easter season, when Jesus left us.

The event is recorded in the Book of Acts and in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus gathers his disciples together. He tells them power is going to come to them from on high. He blesses them. And then he is lifted bodily up into the sky. He never appears physically on earth again.

In the forty days previous to this, Jesus had popped in and out so often that the disciples got to thinking he might appear again. Wouldn't that be cool, if Jesus appeared to us in bodily form every now and again? It would be startling, but I would love to see him. I would probably be a bit more careful about how I lived my life too, if I thought he might appear at any moment.

Why did he have to leave? And why do we celebrate his departure? I find it so appropriate that the Feast of the Ascension comes right around the time of Mothers’ Day, because Jesus had to let the disciples grow up. They were dependent on him and he knew that if they were to become all that God called them to be, he must go. And he must leave physically, obviously, once and for all. His departure must be witnessed by many. It had to be made clear that he was not coming back.

When we think of a mother, mostly we think about nurture. We think of a woman holding a baby, or cooking or cleaning.  We think of a mother as holding on to her children. But one of the most important things that we can do as parents is let our children grow up and, very importantly, let them leave. I am not saying that you must never see your children again, but all parents put their children in bondage if they do not let them go.

I once knew a young man whose parents had not let him go. They loved him dearly and wanted to protect him from the evils of the world. The young man was very intelligent and so his parents had home-schooled him. They did not take him to play groups or let him participate in the usual social activities of most home-schooled children. They claimed he found it hard to socialize. He went to a local college while living at home and still lived at home at age 30. His parents related to him as if he were 10 or so, and his development was stunted. Because they never were able to let him go, he remained childlike and he had a sadness about him, as if he did not know who he is.

Not only did Jesus leave visibly and purposefully, but he showed us how to do it. If you need to leave someone you love, follow Jesus' example. Before Jesus leaves, he turns to the disciples and he blesses them.

You have the power to bless your loved ones. The word in the Hebrew is barak. It literally means "to kneel before someone." It means to spiritually empower someone else, to say, “I want you to prosper in every area of your life.” To bless is the opposite of cursing or crippling someone. Just as to curse means to disable, hurt or disempower, to bless is to empower a person to thrive spiritually, socially, physically, emotionally and in every other way.

When Jesus told Peter "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven," he meant what he was saying. Peter and all of the disciples were not created to be just followers. They were created to be leaders. And Jesus needed to leave for them to realize their potential.

There is immense confusion between the words disciple and apostle.  Disciple means follower. Technically, it refers to the twelve who followed Jesus during his earthy ministry. We also want to be disciples, we want to follow Jesus. But the twelve disciples, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, became apostles when they were sent out into the world to do the work of the gospel. And there were many more apostles sent out, like Paul, Timothy and Titus. To be an apostle means to be sent and anyone who experiences the risen Christ and is sent into the world by Christ can be called an apostle.

Because of the the Ascension, you and I are being sent out. "Time's up!" Jesus says. "It's your turn to do my work. You are all grown-up. Here is my blessing. I know that you are not perfect. I know that my work in you is not complete. But you have everything you need. Go out and bless others. Use your power to make this world better. Usher in the kingdom of heaven."

Have you blessed your children, physically placed your hands on their heads and blessed them? Do you realize that you have the power to do so? Have you blessed your spouse? What about your parents? You don't have to wait for a departure to bless someone. Have you named the ailments of this world and prayed with force that we all be healed? Jesus asks this of you. He has blessed you and he sends you out. You are powerful. You are apostles. Own it.

Let me give you interesting information about two American families dating back 200 years.

Max Jukes was an atheist who married a non-believer. From him, 560 descendants were traced; 310 died paupers, 150 became criminals, seven murderers, 100 were known as drunkards and half the women were prostitutes. The descendants of Max Jukes cost the U.S. government more than 1.25 million 19^th-century dollars.

Jonathan Edwards was a contemporary of Max Jukes. He was a Christian who practiced his faith with strength. He was known to have blessed his children. From him and his wife 1,394 descendants can be traced: 295 graduated from college, of whom 13 became college presidents and 65 college professors, three were elected U.S. Senators, three state governors and others were sent as ministers to foreign countries, 30 were judges, 100 were lawyers, one dean of a law school, 56 physicians, one dean of a medical school, 75 officers in the military, 100 missionaries, preachers and prominent authors, 80 held public office of whom three were mayors of large cities, one was comptroller of the U.S. Treasury and another was Vice President of the United States.

I know, there is a lot to consider here, genetics, behavior, etc. but Jonathan Edwards blessed his children. He blessed them when they were born, when they reached puberty, when they married. Over and over again, he blessed them and he let them go.

And you are called to bless, to teach, to heal, just like Jesus. That's why he had to leave, so that you would take up the mantle of his leadership, his ministry. It is time for you to accept your God-given gifts and work to usher in the kingdom of God.

Peter

Have you ever said no to God? Have you ever pretended that you simply did not hear God? Have you talked to God incessantly and forgotten to listen? I want to talk to you about Peter.

Peter is a gift to us. He was a disciple who made every mistake in the book, but who never gave up. And Peter became one of the greatest leaders in the church, despite all of his mistakes.

I bought an icon for my husband a few years ago. It is an icon of Peter. I had never seen one like it. I love the image because Peter is so strong. He has grey hair and lots of it. His beard looks unkempt. His face is weathered and brown. He looks like a big man who spent all his time outside and never once looked in a mirror. Though his hands are not depicted, I can just picture them: callused and brown from years of hauling in nets. I always pictured Peter as a large man, strong and worn by rough living. Peter was a man who could not be ignored. He took up some serious space.

I love how Peter develops. To watch Peter change and grow is to see how one man's life can be transformed by knowing the resurrected Christ. You see, before the resurrection, Peter thought he knew how to be a disciple. After all, he hit the nail on the head by recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah. But he messed up so much! He refused to believe that Jesus should suffer at all. Jesus actually says to him, "Get behind me, Satan!"

Being reprimanded like that by Jesus would have sent me running with my tail between my legs. But not Peter. He does not run. Peter sticks it out.

When Jesus transfigured before him and turned dazzling white, Peter spoils the moment. Instead of listening and just experiencing the moment, Peter decided that it was time to make three booths and he is so distracted by his project that God has to reprimand him. He won't stop talking! I think Peter must have been an extreme extrovert. Almighty God has to speak to Peter from out of the cloud and tell him to listen!

Peter is sure that he would never deny his Lord. But when the rubber hits the road and Jesus is captured, Peter denies him three times, lying and saying that he does not know his own teacher. Peter gives in to fear and denies that he even knows Jesus.

After all of those mistakes, I would have run away, but Peter does not run. He mourns and returns to the tomb and witnesses the resurrection. And when Peter realizes that Jesus is truly alive, he begins to do things differently.

Peter begins to live his life not according to his agenda, but according to God's agenda. Instead of just deciding what he thinks ought to be done next, Peter prays and asks for guidance. When he goes to a new city, he heals people and tells them about Jesus. It is as if he steps out of the way and lets Christ take control of his life. And he becomes so much more powerful. The bumbling disciple becomes a true leader.
He teaches people about Jesus, he heals people and he prays constantly.


But even as a leader, Peter still remains a bit stubborn. When Paul begins to preach the gospel to Gentiles, Peter does not listen and he does not agree. He believes that Jesus came to save the Jews only. And he will not hear otherwise. So God presents Peter with a vision. God shows Peter a sheet on which there are many animals that he has never touched, let alone eaten. And God says, "Get up and eat." Even now, Peter is so stubborn that he refuses God three times! He says NO to Almighty God! I can't decide if I admire him or just think he is stupid. But God does not seem to take no for an answer. When Peter opens his eyes, there are three Gentiles knocking on his door. They invite him to the home of a Roman soldier named Cornelius. This is a man who imprisoned Jews, a source of oppression and violence. This was a man whom Peter should have feared. But Peter realizes that God is doing something new. He goes home with the Gentiles, to the home of a centurion named Cornelius. He eats with them and tells them about Jesus. When they believe, he says the most wonderful sentence. Peter says, "Who was I that I could hinder God?"

"Who was I that I could hinder God?"

It is only after this final vision that Peter truly follows God's will. All of his life, he stumbled and hindered what God was trying to do. But with this final vision, Peter realizes that God has a plan beyond his own fathoming. And he puts his trust in that.

How often do you and I hinder God? We hinder God by not listening, by sticking to life as we know it and being unwilling to try new things. We hinder God by judging others and being unwilling to share with them who we are.

We live in a crazy age, in which many faiths mingle and there is great violence. But we should not let fear make us hard-hearted. Jesus still asks us to tell the world about him but he may be asking us to do this in new ways. We must be willing to knock on the doors of strangers who look and think very differently from the way that we do. We must be willing to reach out and get to know the stranger even though he frightens us. Peter was willing to be led to the home of people whom he previously considered less than human and to tell them about his love for Jesus. Are you willing to take the same risk?

Discipleship has always been a bit scary because it means letting God run your life. And God does not take the easy road. God wants us serving and sharing the love of Christ every day. And one more thing, and this is perhaps the scariest part of all, you never know what God will do next.