When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.”
Part of getting back into the grove of life after being away is listening to the Bible while I work out in the morning. As usual, I am very far behind in my reading plan and will have to listen to three or four days’ worth every morning if I’m going to finish by Advent so I can start all over again. You’ll observe what dire straights I am in when I tell you that I’m only in First Kings. I’ve got through the whole New Testament, but I have before me the long road of the Prophets. Anyway, after beating my body to make it my slave and feeling sorry for Elijah, I collapsed back on my comfortable sofa with a cafe au lait for a few minutes to peruse a book that came out this week, that’s already been deftly reviewed elsewhere. It’s Christopher and Richard Hays’ The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story. Letting my eye fall over the Introduction, I found this astonishing declaration:
The church’s inability to recognize the God it claims to worship, and to free itself from incessant bickering over sexual orientation, has become profoundly toxic. It has not only harmed individuals, but it has impeded the church’s broader mission and cast a pall over everything else that we do. This book invites us all to move on in peace and harmony.
I paused to chuckle to myself, as I hope you will do. For this is a funny thing that these two people have written down. I believe, in fact, that God has probably given me this book to cheer me up and make me laugh at the days to come, as any good Proverbs 31 Woman might.
For, of course, the “church”—whatever any of us mean by the word—has been “struggling,” which is a churchy euphemism for failure, to cope for the last fifty or so years as the disintegration of the Christian moral order approaches its dénouement. For as long as we have been enduring the lies and cruelty of the sexual revolution, Christians at least have been murmuring that marriage is between one man and one woman because of Christ and the Church and that unbridled sexual licentiousness will not produce the kingdom of God on earth. At first it was easy to say this because a lot of people remembered that this was true. But the unrelenting propaganda efforts upon our society that sex is the only path to freedom and happiness have effectively eroded the sandy ground under all our feet. So now, twenty years later, because it is embarrassing and culturally wicked not to vaunt and rejoice over my true, precious, bright, sexual self (I use myself here, of course, ironically) the great Biblical Scholar, Richard Hays is going to reverse himself and blame “the church,” one he, in fact, helped shore up back in the day.
It’s funny because none of us can really “recognize” the God we worship. Not on our own terms, not by our own power. We need help from that God. He shows himself to us in the Bible. He opens our eyes so that we may behold him. And he usually comes in ways and in words that we did not expect and often do not appreciate.
Take Ahab, for example. He was just trying to be a good king. He just wanted nice things. What’s the problem? Sure, he woke up one morning and decided the very best thing would be to entrench Baal worship in Israel which was perhaps forward-thinking at the time, and certainly what all the nations all around would have approved, but had been expressly forbidden by the God Ahab never wanted to encounter and did his best to forget the existence of. He married Jezebel, that girl-boss from Sidonia who filled all Israel with cruel idolatry.
The sad trouble is that God is real and provided for himself the Prophet Elijah who would have been happy to stay home and not cause anyone any difficulties, but God would not let him. The apostasy and ruin of Israel brought about by Ahab angered God and that anger poured down into the heart of Elijah, to whom the Lord would often speak, empowering him with signs and wonders to make his mind and will known. Elijah was able to “recognize” God.
In this scenario, who is the problem? Applying a lashing of standpoint epistemology to the Biblical Text, we may immediately discover that Elijah and God are the bad ones, for they are not on board with the people of Israel embracing their true idolatrous selves. They “incessantly bicker” as it were, always pointing out how bad Ahab and Jezebel are for leading Israel into sin. They are probably even “toxic” for when it comes down to it, Elijah will kill all the prophets of Baal, and that’s not very nice. Think of all the harm. Think of all the lack of peace and harmony. Think about the church’s broader mission. What will the Sidonians think? Benhadad, over in Syria, will probably be shocked.
Anyway, if you are an actual Christian, you should steel your spine and normalize, at least quietly in your cupboard of prayer and anxiety, becoming a Troubler. You aren’t Elijah, of course, and neither am I. But you can crack open Ye Olde Bible anytime you want and encounter, nay even recognize the God who there makes himself plain. In spite of what Dr. and Dr. Hays say, he doesn’t change his mind. He isn’t worried that you’re too “toxic” towards the things that he hates, things that destroy and corrupt you and all creation. He doesn’t want you to sin. He doesn’t want you to devote yourself to satanic idolatry that devours your soul and ruins your body. He made you to worship him and him alone. And he also wants you to share the life-giving news of his actual mercy with the whole world.
If you really recognize him and accept him for who he is at the cost of your sin and pride, you’re going to always feel like you’re in trouble with Ahab and his dear wife Jezebel. You’re going to always be accused of being the problem by people who reject God’s solution to the troubles of this life. You’ll probably want to run away and hide in a cave and moan about your sorry fate. That’s ok. God isn’t the mean one. He is always there because he himself is the greatest, most merciful Troubler.
And now I must rush along. Have a nice day!
This is SO on-point, Anne. Thank you!
Jezebel as girl-boss ... this is the kind of thing that will keep me reading you forever.
In my twenties, as a zealous and ignorant Christian, I used to revel in being a Troubler. It seemed like fun. Then in my late thirties I quieted down and become mostly winsome. I just wanted me and my family to be left alone.
Now, I am feeling myself more directly in Elijah's place ... the regretful Troubler. I Trouble as little as I feel God will let me get away with, but it has become impossible (without lying) to avoid it.
Reading this is a great antidote to self-pity and anxiety over what others think. Need to remember it’s the audience of one I need to be most concerned about. Thank you! So appreciate your humor.