Elijah at Mount Carmel

Let all mortal flesh keep silent, and in fear and trembling stand, pondering nothing earthly-minded. - Liturgy of Saint James

Anyone who went to Sunday school is probably aware of the story of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. If you want to look it up in the scriptures look in First Kings. Here is the general summary.

Evil king Ahab was in, and he worshiped foreign gods instead of the god of Israel. The prophet Elijah prayed that there would be a drought, and the drought was on. (Is it ok to say it was droughting?) Elijah scheduled a big confrontation on Mount Carmel – Elijah and his god v. the foreign gods and their 450 prophets. Each prepared a sacrifice and called on his god.

The bad guys call on their gods all day while Elijah insulted them. He then poured water all over his sacrifice, prayed, and God sent down fire from heaven that burned up the sacrifice, the altar, and the ground beneath it. Elijah then led the people to kill all the other prophets.

There are lots of great details in the actual text, so don’t skip it.

Now I could be wrong, but I am going to guess that the Christians are not going to go out there and set up showdowns between us, God, and the evils of our society. The extreme extremists are not going to call everyone up to a mountaintop and say, “You gays set up a wedding over there. We’ll set up over here. And we’ll see which couple a voice from heaven marries.”

It kind of reminds me of that story when the town did not welcome Jesus, and his disciples asked him if they should call down fire from heaven and destroy it. He said no.

But at least they asked. At least they recognized that Jesus was the person who had the right to decide such things. Jesus did not kick them off of his team for asking a dumb question.

So maybe when we see big confrontations with the evils around us - not necessarily of the Mount Carmel fire from heaven type, but more of the fight to the bitter end, this is where I draw the line, muster all of our resources type – maybe we should just ask, “is this what you want me to do?” After asking a question such as that it would probably be wise to wait in silence.

Then God might say yes.

Then again he might say no.

He also might say nothing, and we would be left to spend our lives in silence, waiting.

And thus find ourselves on a useful path, one followed by many of the saints. Speaking the name of God and then being silent.