Sermon Preached at New Life Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Ne

June 30, 2013

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

I found a story on the Internet this week about a famous preacher who was a bit of a fraud, because the sermons were great but no one ever realized that in fact they’d all been written by the staff assistant. Finally the assistant’s patience ran out, and one day the preacher was speaking to thousands of expectant listeners and at the bottom of page two read the stirring words, “And this, my friends, takes us to the very heart of the book of Habakkuk, which is…” only to turn to page three and see nothing but the dreaded words, “You’re on your own now.”

Those are dreaded words, aren’t they?  You are on your own now.  I am getting to a stage in my life when more and more I notice that I am on my own now.   In the four plus years since I lost my mother, I have thought of countless times when I have wanted to tell her something or ask her advice about something.  But, I am on my own now.

In the past month I have attended the funerals of two men, both World War II vets, both in their nineties.  One was my mother’s cousin’s husband, the other, Rev. Howard Svoboda, a member of this Presbytery, his daughter Beth, a member of Benson Church is a very dear friend of mine and has been for many years, since we were both teenagers.  More and more as the people who were my adults pass away; I realize we are the adults now.  We are on our own now.

That’s how Elisha must have felt when he realized that Elijah was about to leave him.   When Elijah the prophet fled for his life from the murderous Queen Jezebel, he went to the Horeb, also called Sinai, the mountain of God, the mountain where Moses encountered God and received the law of God.  There, Elijah received his marching orders, to anoint two new kings, one for Syria and one for Israel and also, to anoint his own successor, Elisha.

Elijah found Elisha working in his parent’s field, plowing with twelve oxen.  Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha.   Elisha ran after Elijah and said, “Before we go, let me kiss my mother and father goodbye!”   Elijah replied, “If you’re coming, let’s go, If not, goodbye yourself.”  So Elisha made an over the top gesture to show that he was breaking off from his old life completely to show that he was following Elijah.   He slaughtered the twelve oxen, cooked them and gave the flesh to the people who happened to be around and they ate it.  Then he followed Elijah.   Presumably, this all took more time than it would have for Elisha to say goodbye to his parents, but it was an over the top gesture that proved the new disciple’s devotion to his master.   It becomes clear that Elisha is all about the over the top gesture.

Elisha displays another over the top gesture in our reading today.   The master, Elijah, asks his disciple and successor, Elisha, if there is one last thing that he can do for him.  Elisha makes a request, let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.  One commentator I read wrote that, “Elisha assumes that he is half the man Elijah is and that he will need twice his master’s spirit just to break even.” Endquote.   Elijah tells Elisha that he is asking for a hard thing, but if Elisha sees Elisha taken up, it will be granted.  The time comes and Elijah is bodily assumed from the earth by a whirlwind, in a chariot of fire.   And Elisha cried out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”    He had seen, he would inherit a double portion of his master’s spirit.  Then he tore his clothes with grief.

But, there was much work now ahead for Elisha.   He picked up Elijah’s mantle where it had fallen and he used it, just has Elijah had to part a river so he could cross, cross back to the path that he had been called to by God.

I mentioned earlier that I had recently attended the memorial service for Howard Svoboda.   It was a service that was very fitting for someone who had served God’s church so long and so faithfully.   The Presbytery was well represented; everyone from the retired pastors to the active pastors, including Dwight Williams, your session moderator.   The service was led by the honorably retired Keith Cook, for many years pastor of Church of the Master.   Keith is a genuine character and also presided at my mother’s memorial service at her request.  Actually her command, she said to Keith one day, “You know you are doing my funeral!”  Mom was a bit of a character too.

Keith had meant to bring his robe to wear at the service, but he had forgotten it.  But Howard’s family had brought his robe to be displayed along with pictures and other items from Howard’s life.  So it was agreed, Keith should wear Howard’s robe at the service.

I thought of that this week when I read about Elisha taking up Elijah’s mantle.   In a way, it is our job to take of the mantle of the previous generation, to wear the robes that are left to us.  

Howard, like my parents and maybe your parents or grandparents or maybe you yourself was a member of what we now call the greatest generation.  They struggled through the Great Depression, they fought and won World War II and then went on to see the expansion of the American dream through economic prosperity and the Civil Rights movement, the women’s movement and even the advancement of rights for gay and lesbian people.    I often fear that our generation has not inherited a double portion of their spirit.

My father was drafted into the army in 1942.  He and my mother had just had their first baby, my brother Tom.    Pop never made it overseas, he served only 90 days in the Army.   He caught influenza and it was discovered that he had a heart murmur that made him unfit for service, so he received a medical discharge.  He spent the remainder of the war, working in the bomber plant in Lincoln.

I asked Pop towards the end of his life what it was like.  He hadn’t been married that long, he had a new baby; he didn’t know that he wouldn’t have to go overseas.   What did he think?  How did he feel?  Pop just shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Everybody was in the same boat.”

If there is one attitude that is lacking in our world today, it is that we are all in the same boat.  We live in time that is far too divisive.   In America today, we are far more likely to think of our society as us and them.  We know what this has led to:  political gridlock and a society where the advancement of civil rights for one group is seen as an affront to another group.  Please believe me, I do not intend to sugar coat that greatest generation, they also lived with segregation, sexism and other ills that we would not tolerate today.  But yet, we need to come to the realization that we are all in the same boat.  I don’t want us to go through another Great Depression or fight another World War to realize it.

Paul wrote to the church in Galatia that they should avoid the works of the flesh.  Fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. He didn’t write this to the Galatians because everything was going well there.  He wrote this to them because they were fighting.  In fact, he warns them to be careful of biting at each other, lest they devour each other.  The church at Galatia was made up of both Jews, who had been circumcised and Gentiles who had not been circumcised.   Some of the Jews thought than when the Gentiles joined the church, they should be circumcised.   But Paul points out that in Christ, circumcision does not matter.  Paul writes, “The only thing that matters is faith working through love.” 

Paul goes on to write, what the fruits of the Spirit are.  And it is all good:  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.   This is what the Galatians and we are to strive for, the good things of faith working through love.  We are to realize that no matter where we come from, what color our skin is, what shape our families take, we are all in the same boat.

The thing about taking up a mantle is that we have to know what to take up and what to leave behind.   Leave behind the works of the flesh, the things that concentrate only on me and mine.  Go forward with the works of the Spirit.  Go out into the world with the mantle of service and love. 

Amen.