1 Kings 21.1-22

This past Thursday, my wife Ruth asked me, "What are you preaching on this Sunday?"  Because I had just glanced at the lessons assigned today and nothing had really grabbed me from them, my reply was very short: "I really don't know."  And she said to me, "Sunday is Father's Day."

Ruth's comment sent me back to the lessons with a different set of eyes: what could I say from them that would somehow connect with Father's Day?  First, I looked at the Gospel from Luke 7, the story of a sinful woman who anoints Jesus' feet right in the middle of a big dinner.  This is one of Luke's beautiful stories, which emphasizes the forgiveness that Jesus offers to anyone who comes to him.  But I couldn't find a connection with Father's Day in it.  Next, I looked at the reading from Galatians 2, where the apostle Paul writes these memorable words: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."  Now I have preached several sermons on these words, which are the central theme for the whole letter.  But I couldn't find a connection with Father's Day in them either.

Finally, in desperation, I looked at the long reading from 1 Kings 21, the story of how Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, has a man named Naboth killed so that the king can get hold of the property he covets for his own use.  This sordid story, one of many in the Bible about this royal couple, has a message which is all too familiar: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  I was ready to give up!  But as I  came to the end of that story, I found my Father's Day connection: "Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession.  You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?'  You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up you blood'" (1Kings 21.17-19).

Now here is a story for all the red-blooded men in the congregation, the ones who like hunting and NFL football and the movie Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis.  When the prophet Elijah marches up to King Ahab, looks him in the face, and tells him where to go in the name of the Lord, well, this is a prime testosterone moment right there in the Bible.  It's the kind of thing I have only dreamed of doing to someone who has abused power and hurt others.  But Elijah didn't just dream about, he did it because he was a man of courage and action, a man whose faith in the Lord made him strong in the face of evil and corruption and danger.  Today I would like to lift up Elijah as a role model for all of us men here at St. Dunstan's Church, and all men throughout the Episcopal Church.  In a denomination where women outnumber men almost two-to-one on a Sunday morning, we need to spend more time looking at godly men such as the prophet Elijah.

A MAN OF PRAYER

First, Elijah was a man of prayer.  1 Kings 21.17 says, "Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite..."  There are six Old Testament stories about Elijah, and five of them begin with similar words.  Clearly, Elijah was someone who both listened to and spoke for God.  At its most basic level, prayer is a conversation with God in which we both speak our thoughts and then listen to his words (usually in our minds, but once in a while in an audible voice).  The New Testament writer James singled out Elijah as a great example of prayer in chapter five of his letter: "Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest."  One of the lies that Satan has perpetrated in churches today is that prayer is women's work.  Elijah shows us that real men pray too.

Two Sundays ago I worshiped in a Free Methodist Church near Rochester, New York.  At the end of the service, an elderly man came up to me and asked, "Are you Lloyd Montzingo's grandson?"  When I answered, "Yes," he said, "Your grandfather was my pastor when I was a boy in Smithville, New York.  He was a wonderful man."  He was a wonderful man, although it took me years to realize this.  One of the vivid memories I have of him was the month he stayed with us after my grandmother died, while I was in high school.  We shared a room together, and every morning he arose at 5:00 a.m. to study his Bible and pray out loud.  He was a man of prayer like Elijah, a strong and godly man, who pastored small churches during the Depression, and worked as a barber on the side to make ends meet.  I remember him today, and am proud to be his grandson.

A MAN OF COURAGE

Second, Elijah was a man of courage.  1 Kings 21.19 says, "Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood."  Now this is not the kind of thing you normally say to the king---not if you want to live!  But as you read the Elijah stories in 1 and 2 Kings, you discover that he was not afraid to take on King Ahab or Queen Jezebel.  He tells the king there will be a drought until further notice.  He challenges the 450 prophets of Baal to a duel of sacrifices on Mt. Carmel.  And in today's lesson he speaks God's judgment on Ahab for his murder of Naboth.  This is gutsy stuff, even for an Old Testament prophet.  It takes great courage.

Several weeks ago someone on the Vestry gave me a very interesting book: Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow.  If you want to know the answers, get the book and read it.  In one of the chapters, "Men Are Afraid...Very Afraid," the author describes what men fear and why those fears keep them from church.  One of the things we men are afraid of is showing that we are afraid!  But we do have our fears, and these fears can prevent us from taking action.  Whenever I am afraid, I remember these words spoken by a courageous bishop of our church: "Courage is fear that has said its prayers."  That was the secret of Elijah's courage: because he was a man of prayer he could also be a man of courage, standing up to and challenging evil and injustice at the very highest level of the nation.

A MAN OF ACTION

Elijah was a man of action.  1 Kings 21.20 says, "Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?'  He answered, ‘I have found you.  Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord.'"  Elijah's prayer resulted in courage, and his courage resulted in action.  He was a man of great deeds, not great words like the writing prophets who came after him (e.g. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel).  He did what the Lord asked him to do, he obeyed when it was difficult, he rose to the challenge wherever it took him. 

One of the movies that came out this year is Amazing Grace, the story of how the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire.  It begins with John Newton, a slave trader who became a Christian and later a priest in the Church of England.  Newton had great spiritual influence on a member of Parliament named William Wilberforce, who began the fight against slavery in 1788 because of his Christian faith.  In 1807, after nineteen years, Pariliament abolished the slave trade by a vote of 283 to16 because of his work.  He continued the movement until slavery was abolished throughout the whole British Empire in 1833, shortly before his death.  He was a man of prayer like Elijah, and because he prayed he became a man of courage like Elijah, and because he was a man of courage he became a man of action like Elijah.  God, how we need men like this today in our churches!

So, my message for you men today on this Father's Day is very simple: be a man like Elijah.  Be a man of prayer, who both listens to God and speaks for God.  Be a man of courage, who dares to do great things for God.  And be a man of action, who makes a difference in his family and his community and the world.  Be a man like Elijah.