Under the Broom Tree

Scripture Lessons: Ephesians 4: 25 – 5: 2 and 1st Kings 19: 1-18 Sermon Title: Under the Broom Tree Preached on August 12, 2018 My Junior or Senior Year of High School I was on the Marietta High School baseball team. That’s not to say that I played baseball. I was on the team, but I didn’t play a whole lot. My Dad went to most all of the games anyway, and one game I got to play a lot. I was three for three. I got a hit every at bat and drove in three or four runs. There was a short write up in the paper because I hit a single that drove in two runs which gave us the lead. I was so proud of that newspaper clipping that appeared in the Marietta Daily Journal that I only just recently stopped caring it around in my wallet. After the game my Dad wanted to celebrate by taking me out to a steak dinner, and since it was an evening game, the only place still open and serving steak by the time the game ended was the Waffle House. So, we went, and he bought me a T-bone, and I’ll never forget it. It was a victory feast – and I’ll never forget it because not every meal is like that. We were once invited to what was meant to be a campaign victory party. A friend was running for public office, and we arrived at the venue as the results were just starting to come in, only the numbers were going in the wrong direction. This friend who was expected to win in a landslide ended up losing the election, and when he finally showed up, we could tell he didn’t want to be there. No one felt like eating any of the food. No toasts were given. We drank some, but it wasn’t Champaign, because the character of the party wasn’t victory but defeat. When I compare these two memories – my victory dinner at the Waffle House and the campaign party that occurred after my friends defeat, I realize, that it’s not just the presence of food that inspires our appetite. It’s whether or not we feel like we deserve to eat what’s been prepared. A victory feast is one thing. The kind of meal we’ve just read about in our 2nd Scripture Lesson is another. This meal occurs right in the middle of major events you may know about. Queen Jezebel had brought priests from her homeland into the Nation of Israel – they were called the Priests of Baal, and after watching his brothers and sisters adopt this pagan religion, the Prophet Elijah stood up and challenged the Priests of Baal to a great contest – two bulls on two alters – the Priests of Baal called on their god to rain down fire on the alter and Elijah did the same. The god who answered by fire would be named the true god of Israel. It's hard when you get punished for doing the right thing, but that’s pretty much what happened. While Elijah was faithful, and while the fire of the Lord fell on his sacrifice, burning it up and turning back the hearts of those in Israel who saw, Queen Jezebel wasn’t giving up that easy. Rather than repent like the others, Queen Jezebel wanted Elijah dead, so fleeing from her wrath the prophet ran. That’s the background for our 2nd Scripture Lesson. Finally exhausted he sat down under a solitary broom tree and asked that he might die saying: “It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” On the one hand, knowing what’s just happened, it doesn’t make any sense for him to say something like that. For generations and generations, we’ve been telling the story of the Prophet Elijah who called down the Lord’s fire from heaven to defeat the prophets of Baal. Problem is, from what we’ve read this morning you can tell that from Elijah’s point of view nothing really changed. When Elijah says – “It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors,” he means that while he was on the winning side of one contest, he’s lost the war. While he was faithful, he still considers himself a failure, for Queen Jezebel is still in power. She still commands the soldiers who are hunting him down. And if she is still in power with such authority, then while he fought the good fight, while he ran his race, there’s nothing to keep her from doubling the number of Baal’s prophets and erasing this one victory from the pages of Israel’s history. Do you know what that feels like? To have given your very best, and to have come out feeling like it was all for nothing. To have done the right thing – stood with integrity – only to be silenced. To have exercised more and eaten less, but when you get up on the scale you’re two pounds more than you were before. We tell our kids to try out for the team, but to do so they have to risk something – gather up the courage to put themselves out there – and still they may go to the bulletin board to see that their name’s not on the list. Should that happen, and they’re brave enough to tell you, you better be ready to take them out to ice cream. But remember - it’s hard to enjoy the party if you lost the election. It’s even hard to know what to do as people gather around to say, “You gave it your best. We’re still proud,” because if you’ve given it your all and still came up wanting, what you really want to do is lay down under a broom tree and die. I remember a friend in college. He was a great basketball player, so his team passed him the ball as the time ran out on the clock. They were down by one – if he made the shot they’d win the game, so he took the shot and missed it. After the game, while he was walking off the court, his girlfriend walked up with a glass of water and he knocked it out of her hand. Why? Because love is a hard thing to accept if you don’t feel like you are worthy of it. “It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” That’s what he said. That’s how he felt – and I’ve been under that broom tree too. You know I’m the one who usually writes the Prayer of Confession in your bulletin. Other members of the church staff fix the grammar and polish it up; but I can write these things week after week without too much trouble because getting in touch with my sin is so easy – it’s ever before me - all I have to do is write it down. You know what’s harder for me to do? Accept the words from the Assurance of Forgiveness. I have a good friend who told me that the Assurance of Forgiveness is the hardest part of the worship service for him to believe – and think of that in relation to all the other claims we make in here: That God created the heavens and the earth – for him that’s no problem. That He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary – done. That the third day He rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven – got it. But that despite all the wars I’ve fought and been defeated. That despite the races I’ve run and lost. That even as God knows my inmost parts – the secrets I can’t tell – and the regrets I can’t help but remember – how could God love me still? Thinking those kind of thoughts, Elijah lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat,” though don’t you know Elijah wanted to knock that jar of water out of the angel’s hand. But instead, he ate and drank, because God doesn’t care about winning or losing so much as he cares about feeding his children. There’s a preacher up in New York City named Tim Keller and the great Libba Schell sent me a quote of his last Thursday: To be loved but not known is comforting, but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” At the end of her email Libba also reminded me how in trivia the other night I thought the longest book in the Bible was Numbers and not Psalms – but that proves the point, right? What is love but to know, that win or lose, I’m still loved? There’s a hymn that says it this way: No more a stranger, or a guest, but like a child at home. And when God came to earth in human form, Scripture tells us that God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, not that the world would be condemned by him but that all might have life in his name – so he didn’t go around wagging his finger and adding to our shame. No! He called a bunch of sinners to his table and he washed their feet and fed them. Did they deserve it? Did they feel like they belonged? Was it a steak dinner at the Waffle House victory feast? No – it was a “I’m your father and you’re my son and I am thankful to sit down at any table with you any time, whether you’re on Cloud 9 or walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” That’s the story of God as told in Scripture. That’s the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But that’s not always easy to accept, nor is it what we always hear. Back in Tennessee there was a church with a billboard out front. Every year, about this time, when it was so hot you couldn’t go outside they’d put out on that billboard: “Sinner, you think it’s hot now?” The problem with that kind of message is that while it’s meant to scare you into the church, it just convinces a whole bunch of people that they don’t belong and that they never will. So, the admonition from Ephesians is this: “Be imitators of God.” Go out into the world and show those who think that their worth hangs in the balance, that they’re beautiful. Go and tell the frustrated, that they’re enough. Go and tell that mother who’s just barely holding it together that everything is going to be OK – and maybe she won’t want to hear it but tell her anyway. This morning my sermon wouldn’t print. You know that feeling? You get up from your desk and walk over to look at the printer. That didn’t do anything, so I had to take my laptop into the sanctuary and put it right on the pulpit. I felt so stupid. But you know what helped? Looking in my wallet at the two little notes that replaced my old newspaper clipping. Hearing the Assurance of Forgiveness spoken by Rev. Lisa Majores. Being greeted with the Peace of Christ by Errol and Beth and Cal. And when Katherine Harrison walked out of the Sanctuary at the end of the service, she winked at me. Be imitators of the God of grace, by giving the grace that he has given you. And thank you for giving that grace to me. Amen.