On Fire and Burning Out?

1 Kings 19:(1-8)9-18

Last week we heard that we “care about” others – one another and others. And we learned that “what matters most to us” is taking care of others – one another and others. This week we delve a little deeper into what that care “looks like” and the effects that this “caring” and these “matters” are having on us. Let’s pray first …

Gracious God, when we feel afraid, exhausted, or alone, remind us that you are near.

Help us to rest in your care, listen for your gentle voice, and trust your guidance.

Strengthen our faith, renew our courage, and help us remember that we are never alone, because you are always at work. Amen.

An appropriate prayer for this week’s message because this week we dig deeper into the responses we offered to our second two questions from Pentecost “What questions do we have about life and the world?” and “How is God setting our souls on fire?”  As I read the responses to these questions – responses that felt courageous and full of conviction, I discerned an underlying sense of fear and worry, and exhaustion and aloneness. A subliminal undercurrent, as we answered these questions, that we need our faith strengthened, our courage renewed, and a reminder that we are not on this faith journey alone, in order to fully and effectively “engage” the questions we have and the fires that are burning.

The responses to our questions and concerns about the life and the world included deep concerns for the future – our own future, the future of our country, and the future of the world. We are concerned about corruption and war, the abundance of hate, the worship of false idols, chaos in our government, irregular leadership, selfishness and greed, public health, human dignity, and social accountability.

In responding to the question of “what set our souls on fire”, we included our work with children and creating new art, daily devotionals and bible reading, our commitment to love and compassion, our involvement in the life of the church, small things like “light coming through a window, kindness from a neighbor, flowers growing, a good night’s sleep, a walk with someone we love”, and big things like advocacy for minorities and ethnic groups being persecuted.

These are some of the things that we are questioning and some of the things that set our souls on fire, but just under the surface of almost all our responses were the sentiments that were right on the surface in two responses: The fire in my soul feels like a campfire, barely burning, and, right now, I feel helpless trying to change things and I’m finding it hard to feel the fire. How can I catch the spark?

I’ll note again this week how aware I am of our, of my, ability to manipulate responses like these. But, yet again, the responses we got back to these two inquiries spoke, in one way or another to me about persevering and pushing through in spite of … something – exhaustion or fear, maybe. The responses were full of “I’m not sure, but”, and “I’m trying to do this, so”. They were prefaced with “maybe”, and “If only.” And more than a few finished with “I hope.” Still strong convictions and passions, but “seated” in something that feels like wariness and weariness to me.

So, as we prepare to engage more communally and more intentionally and more actively in our time together on Sundays mornings come July, we need some encouragement, some … support. This morning we turn to our scripture and our tradition to bolster and strengthen us in our resolve to engage all that is wrong with all that is good, and just. And this morning we find that, and more, from a prophet who arose in the ninth century BCE to engage a King and his queen. The prophet was Elijah. The King was Ahab. And the queen was (anybody?) Jezebel.

So, let’s set the stage. As with the first followers of Jesus, some nine hundred years later, Elijah’s soul was on fire with the “justice love” of a God who envisioned a world where widows, orphans, and strangers were protected against the demands of a market economy gone wild. The King of his time is ravaging the most vulnerable of the people with policies and practices that enrich him, doing (according to scripture) “evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him” ^{1Kg 16:30}. More than all who were before him because, to add insult to injury, he introduced the religious cult of his new Canaanite Queen – the worship of Baal, the Canaanite god of weather – further eroding devotion to Yahweh and the call to care for the whole community.

Elijah was charged by God, in his time, to confront Ahab and Jezebel and the prophets of Baal, numbering four hundred and fifty in all, and demonstrate that there is only one true God in Israel. So, he does. In chapter eighteen of the book of first Kings, Elijah takes all the prophets of Baal (four hundred and fifty of them) into the valley of the Kishon River and “killed them there”.^{1 Kings 18:40}

This report is from the first book of Kings. Together with second Kings, these scrolls were surely a bit like the National Inquirer of our times. Filled with the “scoop” on the most recent leaders, and stories that are fantastic and hyperbolic. Listeners two thousand five
hundred years ago must have been glued to their seats as their history was told and explained. There’s a lot of juicy stuff throughout. We’ll hear of more killing in our lesson. But, for the killing of the Baal prophets, Queen Jezebel tells Elijah that she will “make his life like theirs” (dead).  And so, surely as exhausted and perplexed as we are facing the challenges of our day, Elijah gives up. He flees …

He runs about a hundred miles from Jezreel to Beer-sheba, and then flees further into the desert. There he lays down and prays for death. A messenger of God came to him, telling him to eat and drink – twice – and so, strengthened, Elijah is led to Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai – the place where Moses himself communed with God – a journey that takes him forty days and forty nights.

By the time he arrives on the Mount, he has exhibited all the signs of burnout, manifesting all the signs of depression: He is worn out. He’s been sleeping a lot, complaining and suicidal. He needs to be told to eat. His view of reality is distorted. He is quick to blame others for his situation. And he feels all alone. When he gets to Mount Horeb, he sleeps the night in a cave.  And that’s where we pick up our reading this morning.

Read 1 Kings 19:9-18. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

More juicy bits from the National Inquirer of ancient Israel. But what are we to learn from this story?

The fire in Elijah surely feels even smaller than a campfire, barely burning. He, too, feels helpless trying to change things and is finding it hard to feel the fire. How can he even catch a spark, again? He’s “not sure”, and “he’s trying to do something, but …”, thinking “maybe”, and “if only.” And finishing what few thoughts he’s able to make sense of with “I can only hope.” With memories of past convictions and passions for God’s “justice love”, he is wary and weary, unsure how to go on. Elijah, like us, needs to have his faith strengthened, his courage renewed, and to be reminded that he is not on his faith journey alone.

I read and studied some fascinating things in preparation for the message this morning, but none more provocative than this for our time: When we read this passage from first Kings, we “general focus on the wrong element of this story, on the still small voice in contrast to the natural manifestations of wind, earthquake and fire.” That’s the part we all remember from this story, in poems and songs – “the still small voice”. We rarely, if ever, have considered the set up or the reason that the wind, earthquake, fire and sound of silence are happening. Elijah’s experience on Mount Horeb is then read as a statement about the nature of revelation. “God is not revealed in the fireworks of nature, but in a quiet word.”

There’s a time and place for that, but in our time and place – this morning, these days, these years – it is a misreading of the narrative. The story, for us this morning and this summer, is not about God’s revealing Godself. It is about Elijah’s attempt to relinquish his role – his prophetic office – and it’s about God’s quiet insistence that he continue. Elijah’s exhaustion and his mission – you and I and our mission – is the focus of this lesson.

And, I think in our time, in our particular moment of history with “our own future, the future of our country, and the future of the world” on our minds; with our concerns about corruption and war, the abundance of hate, the worship of false idols, chaos in our government, selfishness and greed, public health, human dignity, and social accountability, with all of that swirling around us, the very thing we must consider, the very first question we must ask, at least (if not answer), is the one asked twice of the prophet in our reading: What are you doing here, Elijah?

What are you doing here Tommy? What are you doing here Sue? What are you doing here choir? What are you doing here Regina, Richard, Rick and Clare?

Right? What are we doing here?

We respond as Elijah does in verses ten and fourteen, as we’ve been conditioned to do in this room: “We have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, all our lives; but the type of Christianity making all the headlines has forsaken your love-justice, thrown down the peaceful Way of Jesus’, and is killing those who try to reach out to all people with your message of grace and acceptance by calling us meek and misguided. We alone are left, and they are seeking our life, too, to take it away.” Yada, yada, this and that …

We’re here “hoping,” “not sure”, “trying to do something, but …”, and “maybe, if only”-ing. Campfires seeking a spark. On fire, but burning out. Just like the prophet of old who ranks with Moses in saving the religion of Yahweh.

Given this attitude, we might well expect a rebuke. I know Elijah must have been expecting it, a “divine reproach”. But he doesn’t get one. Does he?

And neither will we.

In a way, some sort of reprimand might feel better to us. “Get angry, God, so we can fight back.” But, the “God” in this story – a God who is more a “how” than a “who” – doesn’t yell and scream like a rock-splitting wind or an land-shaking earthquake. Rather, our response comes to us in the “sound of sheer silence”, a silence that makes it profoundly clear that we are not alone, and that whatever is with is knows we’re tired. We’re told that there are thousands of others like us, tired too, who have not yet “abandoned the covenant” of Love – a mystical seven thousand, we read. We are reminded that we are part of a mystical community who, when all else is said and done, keep working together toward the Kin-dom of God on earth because … well, because that’s not simply something we “do.” It’s who we are.

Life overwhelms us and we lose perspective. So, we gather on Sunday morning for worship as a time to gather with others on the same path, practicing Sabbath and listening for the voice that reminds us of the “project of life” we are constructing together.

What are we doing here? We’re listening, we’re dreaming, we’re hoping and we’re praying. So that we may continue believing and accomplishing and working and transforming our lives and our world. The “how” of our God will prevail. We are not alone.

Listen … (silence) … It’s here, and so are we. It’s also in the world. So, we must be there, too – with all others who believe that only Love, unbridled-unmeasured-uninhibited Love, will save. In the month ahead we will reanimate ourselves in this space. We may be small campfires, burning down. But there is a spark and there is the Spirit of Pentecost burning in our souls. Maybe we can turn the title of our sermon around and change the conjunction this morning: Burning out but on Fire. May the fires of the Spirit grow again in our lives and in our world. Listen …

            Amen.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / June 28, 2026