THOUGHTS FOR KIRKRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 2009: Reflection of Liz McAlister
COMMUNITY OR EMPIRE - WHICH WILL WE HELP TO BUILD?
ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS OF BAAL - 1 Kings 16 - 19

Ahab was one of the most notorious kings in the Scriptures. Having said that, we then get a taste of the misogyny that marks too much our Sacred Scriptures and say it was all due to the influence of his wife, Jezebel - which only deepens the misogyny in that her name has become synonymous with female conniving, duplicity and cunning. I don't know what we do with any of this - acknowledge it, try to learn from it, try not to repeat it... gulp (and gulp some more).

Ahab built altars to Baal, the Canaanite fertility god, and, the text says, " committed other crimes as well " (1 Kings 16:33). To better grasp the atmosphere of Ahab's reign and the probable nature of the "other crimes," the next verse in 1 Kings 16:34 is a clue. It reads: It was in his time that Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho; he laid its foundations at the price of Abiram, his first-born; its gates he erected at the price of his youngest son Segub . . .

This is an explicit reference to what is known as foundational sacrifices . Common in Canaan of biblical times, these rituals sacrificed humans, typically children, to the patron god of the city or building being erected, and placed the bodies into or under the foundations or walls of the structure. By referring to this practice in the verse following the reference to Ahab's "other crimes," the text more than suggests that a drift toward such practices was inevitable. A later passage, (2 Kings 16:3-4) for instance, says of Ahaz that: He followed the example of the kings of Israel, even causing his son to pass through fire , copying the shameful practices of the nations which God had dispossessed for the sons of Israel. He offered sacrifices and incense on the high places, on the hills and under every spreading tree. Causing a child to " pass through fire " was a euphemism for child sacrifice in the ancient world. Since human sacrifice was the horrendous perversion that occurred at the shrines on the "high places", the term "high places" became a synonym for shrines engaged in human sacrifice.

The condemnation of Ahab in 1 Kings and by Elijah was based on the understanding that his pagan predilections would lead to human sacrifices. And, since his Syrian wife Jezebel had begun "butchering the prophets of God," a non-ritual form of human sacrifice was already occurring. The question was: with what resources - religious and moral - would Elijah respond to this abomination? Would he end these outrages - or, the thing of the thing, would the outrages he opposed be the model for his campaign to eliminate them? Fighting violence with violence!

Elijah accused Ahab of apostasy. He demanded a showdown on Mt. Carmel between himself, a true prophet of God, and the 450 prophets of Baal. Once "all Israel" was assembled on the mountain, Elijah insisted on a contest between the two, one ritual would be performed by all the prophets of Baal and the other presided over by Elijah. He and they were to build sacrificial pyres, slaughter a bull, dismember it, and lay it on the wood. Neither was to set fire to the pyre. Then the 450 prophets of Baal and the one prophet of God would engage in a ritual contest to see whose god was real. Elijah, the champion of God, undertakes to wage war against the prophets of Baal, organizing a competition to see which god can burn a sacrificed bull with fire from heaven.

Elijah said to the Baalists: " You must call on the name of your god, and I shall call on the name of mine. The god who answers with fire, is God indeed." (1 Kings 18:24) The god who answers with fire is god indeed . What a tenet of primitive religion ! In the Hebrew Scriptures, as elsewhere, fire is often a synonym for sacred violence . If fire is to come down from God, or if god is to answer with fire, the ardor of religious firebrands must first be kindled. The contest between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal is a contest to determine who can "fire up" "all Israel" with the more convincing religious zeal. The ritual showdown begins with prophets of Baal who took the bull and prepared it, and from morning to midday called on the name of Baal. "O Baal, answer us!" they cried, but there was no voice, no answer, as they performed their dance around their altar. Midday came, and Elijah mocked them. "Call louder," he said . . . So they shouted louder and gashed themselves, as was their custom, with swords and spears until blood flowed down them. Midday passed, and they ranted on . . . but there was no voice, no answer, no attention given to them . (1 K. 18:26-29)

Elijah mocks them . Mockery is a form of violence. And it is more destructive at times than physical violence. Elijah was suggesting, among other things, that perhaps Baal can't put in an appearance owing to being busy with a bowel movement. (Perhaps many of us can see the worst of ourselves in Elijah's performance here!) Elijah is using mockery as a tactic - by hurling insults at them, he injects the discordant voice that is destructive of primitive religious unanimity. His mocking catcalls were like pouring cold water on their religious frenzy and keeping the spectators from being caught up in it. The Baalists responded to Elijah's mockery with more flamboyant excesses - a virtual frenzy of ritual violence during which the prophets " gashed themselves with swords and spears until their blood flowed ." The mind enthralled in religious frenzy is a mind so excited that ritual gestures -- especially those that result in bloodshed -- can start an orgy of violence of precisely the kind that its perpetrators interpret - in retrospect - as the violence of the gods. In other words, the behavior of the prophets of Baal make perfect sense in light of their goal - conjuring into existence a convincing display of sacred violence.

The story purports to demonstrate Elijah's moral and religious superiority. Elijah's superiority, such as it was, may have consisted in his clever exploitation of the "religious" frenzy his opponents were able to whip up. It is mistake to think that the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal involves first the Baalist ritual and then the Godly one under Elijah. The ritual over which Elijah presided began the moment the ritual was set in motion by the prophets of Baal - it exerted its fascination to its onlookers. Elijah simply used their ritual as the prelude to his own. What makes Elijah's ritual so convincing is that it was preceded by the wild and violent one performed by the prophets of Baal. When their ritual ended without having coaxed the god to "answer with fire," it was Elijah's turn. It is with a sense of pride that the text notes that Elijah needed none of the crude ritual excesses in order to get his god to answer with fire. But - I and lots of others would submit - the pride is misplaced. It is not that Elijah invoked divine fire without ritual, but that he invoked it exploiting the power and cathartic potential his opponents' excesses made available.

The prophets of Baal may well have understood, as ancients often did, that the god who answers with fire was a god whose worshipers became so filled with the god's fire that they became enthusiastic instruments of it. (The word "enthusiasm" comes from the Greek en-theos and referred originally to a form of possession that typically accompanied ritual ecstasies.) Their liturgical focus was on their god and the sacrificial animal whose carcass they implored him to consume. Elijah, however, seems to have understood that the real locus of the religious violence he sought to conjure was not the pyre and the carcass but the people. He began his ritual invocation of the god who answers with fire by fanning the smoldering embers of the failed Baalist ritual. He turned to the people . "Come closer to me." And all the people came closer to him. He repaired the altar of God which had been broken down. Elijah took twelve stones, corresponding to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob . . . and built an altar in the name of God. (1 Kings 18:30-32)

"Come closer to me!" To fully appreciate the ritual significance of this phrase we have to perceive it psychologically as well as physically. Elijah rebuilds the altar of God, then soaks his bull completely, and boom! - the lightening strikes. All present fall to the ground, crying: " The Lord is the true God. " Elijah takes advantage of this unanimity to point his finger at the 450 prophets of Baal, ordering that they be seized and killed. His order is obeyed at once. It is a brutal and bloody scene.

Elijah wanted it known that he was functioning as God's representative and acting at God's command. Then the fire of God fell and consumed the holocaust and wood and licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this they fell on their faces. "God is God," they cried." Elijah said, "Seize the prophets of Baal: do not let one of them escape." They seized them, and Elijah took them down to the wadi Kishon, and he slaughtered them there. (1 Kings 18:38-40)

Elijah engaged in human sacrifice. To say that, may be a moral abomination, and it may be shocking. But it is important to see what he did and how he did it without rose colored glasses, without excuses and justificaitons. Human sacrifice, in one form or another, was common in antiquity. What makes this story unique is that Elijah's act of human sacrifice was performed in an effort to root out the cult of human sacrifice and the religious delusions that led to it.

What seems to be a story of the triumph of God is a horror. Before this scene on Carmel, Elijah was a champion fighter without problems of self-esteem or self-confidence. The contest placed God on a par with Baal, but bigger and tougher, and Elijah was his spokesman. The contest on Mt Carmel was a battle between rival shamans or witch-doctors. After the bloody interlude, which he won, Elijah sinks into a depression, and doubts the value of it all. I would submit that we are witnessing the first recorded example of PTSD - POST TRUMATIC STRESS DISORDER. Enough, O God, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers . (1 Kings 19:4)

What the author presents us with is remarkable: no praise for the champion of the Yahwist tradition, but rather the story of how Elijah learned not to identify God with all the special effects which he manipulated to such violent effect.

Elijah fled from many would call it his triumph on Mt. Carmel. He spent the night in a cave on Mt. Horeb. Why are you here, God asked. He answered: " They're after me! I'm so zealous for you! I pray in power, and I prove that you are the true God through miraculous acts. But all the others are dead! I'm all that's left, and now they want to kill me too ." Elijah waited God's answer to his complaint. Maybe he hoped for something like: "They'll never kill you. You're under my protection." But God had something else in mind: "Go and stand on the mount before God." There Elijah is presented with a strong wind, an earthquake, and then a fire. God was not in any of these powerful events. Then he hears "a faint murmur." And God speaks. Elijah repeats his complaint. He's alone, and they want to kill him. God responds to Elijah with a mission, a threefold mission: to the world - anoint Hazael as king of Syria; to God's rebellious people - anoint a new king over Israel; to the faithful - there are 7,000 who did not worship Baal. Elijah is not alone.

All the commotion around Mt Horeb (aka Mt. Sinai) - the next major scene - is presented as something rather like a de-construction of the sacred scenario we remember from Moses' encounter there with God. With Elijah, God is present in the still small voice, rather than in any kind of imposing majesty - It's as if God were to say: "Let's abandon the theatrics!" Furthermore, rather than even respond to the zeal which Elijah bleats about, God gives the prophet some modest tasks -- instructions for passing on command to others. Elijah, as the prophet of Israel, is finished, done for. Where Elijah, thinking himself something of a heroic martyr, tells God that he's the only one who has remained loyal, God tells him that he has seven thousand up his sleeve who haven't bent the knee before Baal. It is a humbled Elijah who sets off to carry out his appointed tasks.

This scene offers us a valuable witness to God's self-revelation which is at work in the Hebrew scriptures. At the beginning we have a sacred Yahweh-ism, which can shine alongside another sacred religion, but whose sacrifices are more efficacious, whose God is more powerful, and whose capacity to unite people for a sacred war is greater. Then we have all that undone. The still small voice says much more than it seems to: it says that God is not a rival to Baal, that God is not to be found in the appearances of sacred violence. Elijah, when he entered into rivalry with the prophets of Baal became one of them, because God is not to be found in such circuses, nor in the murders which go along with them. In the end, Elijah is more Godly, more atheist, less of a shaman, less of a sacrificer, because God is not like other gods, not even to show himself superior to them. So we are face to face with a demolition of personal structures and ways of speaking about God. This collapse is the crucible in which theological development is wrought....

Why was Elijah so unaware of all who had been the faithful in Israel? Maybe he was so busy with his own mission that he couldn't see what else was going on. It is easy to be so distracted by our Mt. Carmel experiences that we lose sight of our mission and of God's people. We need to go, stand on the mountain, and listen and recognize that we are part of God's people. We are not alone. It is not all up to us. It's on the mountain that we can learn to listen and do we ever need to learn to listen - to one another, to the work and concerns of other good people, and to God.

The wind, earthquake and fire announce God's presence even though the author tells us that God was not in them. What is NOT said is that God is to be found in silence. Since Elijah experienced the word of God, how was the word of God that came to him in verses 9 and 11 different from the still small voice in verse 12-13? Does the author distinguish between the still small voice and a voice that comes in verse 13 and says, “What are you doing here Elijah?” What is Elijah to learn? What are we to learn? The idea of remnant is key here. Elijah proclaims, “I alone am left.” However, God had a plan and in addition to the 100 saved by Obadiah, God promises another 7000 who have not kissed the feet of Baal. Elijah is to anoint others to carry on the ministry. Was not the promise of the remnant to relieve any fear that the word of God will fail?

Did Elijah go wrong? - YES! He forgot reverence, submission and obedience. He forgot reflection; he reacted to circumstances.” His desire to die is a careless and natural expression of his moodiness.” He ran away - he moaned - in disappointment. His efforts were in vain. Baal is victorious after all. God asks: “What are you doing here?” That question more than suggests that Elijah made a wrong decision. His journey was not on God's agenda. The Negeb was no place for this man of God.

To focus on the still small voice in this passage - which many do, as if to say that that is where God is found - is to focus on the wrong element in the story. God can manifest Godself in myriad ways, each an integral part of the revelation God wishes to communicate. So what is God, speaking in this still small voice, communicating about God.. The voice of God speaking to the conscience, illuminating the mind and stirring resolve in individual or nation may precede, accompany or follow and is often preferable to the loud roaring and thunder or it may be the small voice. .

Anyway, the Word of God will not be silenced. The word of God is the force that produces the remnant , protects the remnant, empowers the remnant. Elijah is not alone and he must prepare the way for all 7000 who are loyal and who share the responsibility for God's work. Here I would hold up our brother Daniel who throughout his life and ministry has been about this work of building the remnant, of building, sustaining and nurturing community as he has done with all of us all these years in this holy space.

Our choice, if it is to be faithful, includes every human being … because only when there is peace with justice everywhere, can there be peace with justice anywhere. Our future is NOT America as empire —functioning unilaterally, disdaining the international community. The future we claim is a world where we try—day after day—to build community and to build each other up .
Elijah is not alone. God makes that very clear. His ministry will not be in vain. Elijah will discover that it is out of the Word of God that God's people are formed, that they are a “creature of the divine word.” The mission of the word will continue in the person of Elisha, and the unrighteous Kings Hazael and Jehu will make sure that God's judgment will fall upon all who disobey God and follow Baal.

We make so much of Elijah! The scriptures make so much of Elijah! Why? As we study all of this, I think we must ask: WHY?

I think of his boldness, his willingness, his creativity, his repentance, his SPIRIT. (A member of the circle added his prayerfulness, his faith...) I think God loved him. I think God loved these qualities in him. Maybe it is to teach us that this kind of spirit counts with God.

To quote a beloved author (Annie Dillard): "I don't know. I don't know beans about God!"