Scrapbooking Our Faith: Passing the Mantle

Galatians 5:1, 13-25; 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

June 26, 2022

Elisha, understudy of Elijah the well-known prophet of God, was nervous. The first verse of 2 Kings 2 tells us that Elijah was about to be taken away to heaven, and Elisha seems to know that his time to be with his teacher is drawing to a close. Elijah tries three times to get Elisha to stay behind as Elijah follows God’s call, but Elisha refuses. I wonder if he thought he could keep his teacher from leaving if he stayed close by.

Every step along the way, Elisha is met by the town’s prophets. They tell him, “Elisha, your teacher is about to be taken away.” Imagine how unsettling this must have been for Elisha. Soon, Elijah would be taken away and Elisha would be expected to pick up the mantle and continue his work. 

Elijah would leave big shoes to fill. He was despised by King Ahab and feared by the prophets of Baal. He didn’t mince words and he showed forth God’s power. Remember when Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a battle. Both of them would ask their deity to burn up the offering they gave. Baal’s prophets were humiliated when no fire appeared to burn up the offering. Elijah, on the other hand, decided that the challenge wasn’t tough enough for God. He soaked his offering with water and then asked God to burn it up. God burned up the water, the offering, and the wood. Elijah was a bit of a showboat. This is who Elisha would be called to follow–no small task, and I think Elisha didn’t think he was up to the job.

As Elisha and Elijah walk along the way, Elijah touches the river with the prophet’s mantle–or cloak–and the river parted, an action that is reminiscent of when Moses parted the Red Sea by lifting his arms. Elijah knows he is leaving Elisha behind, so he offers to do something for his young protege. He says, “Tell me what I may do for you before I am taken from you.” Elisha responds, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” Does this mean Elisha wanted twice the power of Elijah? Was Elisha feeling bold, or was he feeling insecure in his ability to continue in Elijah’s footsteps? While I don’t know the answer for certain, I believe it’s what comes next that is more important than the request itself.

Elijah says Elisha’s request will be granted if Elisha is able to see Elijah be taken up into heaven. The two continued walking together and then it happened: a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them, and Elijah was taken up into a whirlwind. Elisha saw his teacher being taken away and he called, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” He had seen Elijah taken away, which means his request for a double share of Elijah’s spirit should have been granted, right? 

Elisha picks up his teacher’s mantle. Elisha is the prophet now. He walked back to the Jordan river and tried to part it the way his teacher had done. He touched the water and said, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And the water parted, just like the water parted for Joshua and the people of Israel after Moses. 

Today we are continuing our series “Scrapbooking the Faith.” Just like a scrapbook is a collection of newspaper clippings, pictures, and memories, this sermon series is an invitation to look at the stories of our faith and remind ourselves of our history and how God has been with us. Last week, Jeff talked about the story of Elijah and the silence, the still small voice of God. He talked about images like a quiet sanctuary, or other place where you’ve experienced God’s calling and God’s presence, and he used the image of a rest in a piece of music to remind us of the role of silence in our journeys with God. 

If we were to make a scrapbook page about the story of Elijah being taken up into heaven, we might use pictures like a chariot and horses of fire. Or maybe we would try to capture a whirlwind in a picture. We might select a picture of the parting of the Jordan river, or of the prophet’s mantle being passed from one prophet to the next, similar to the picture on the front of the bulletin this week. But, if we were to get a little more abstract with it, we might use the picture of a height chart drawn on a door frame, or a picture of someone holding the door open for the person behind them. 

When my kids were tiny, every time we would go to see the grandparents on Jeff’s side of the family, we would have to mark how tall our kids were on a height chart on the wall. It was fun to see from one year to the next how much they had grown, to compare how tall they were compared to their siblings and their other cousins, and to wonder about how tall they would be the next time we were in town for a visit. These height charts were a celebration of their growth. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had something similar to mark the growth we’ve experienced in the rest of our lives? It’s not quite that simple though, is it? 

In the story of Elijah and Elisha, Elijah knows when it is time for him to be taken away and for Elisha to step into a new role. He offers to give Elisha whatever he thinks he needs as he grows and enters a new phase of his life, and then Elijah gets out of the way. He holds the door open for the next prophet to pass through. He equips Elisha and then empowers Elisha to live into his calling. This is our calling as well. This is our journey of faith: to learn, to grow, to follow after our teacher and Lord Jesus, and then to equip others to do the same. We are called to raise our children to love God and love their neighbors, to care for the vulnerable, to take care of the earth, to be light and salt in the world. And then, when it is their time to step into new roles of leadership, it’s our job to empower them and get out of their way. We are called to open the gate so that others can become who they were meant to be.

But so often, we are gate closers instead of openers. Imagine if Elijah had said, “You know, God, I don’t think Elisha is quite ready for this task. Maybe I can have a few more years?” Elisha probably would’ve been grateful at first because he seemed pretty reluctant to step into the role of the prophet, but he also wouldn’t have been able to speak the truth to people in authority, to do the miracles or the deeds of power God had prepared for him to do. When we get in the way of who God is calling, we are losing out on their gifts and on what God has for them to do, all because we aren’t ready to get out of the way. We will make the people God is calling feel resentful or frustrated as we continue getting in their way. And the church and the world will be poorer because the gifts of these folks will go unused.

We are surrounded by messages that urge us to be selfish. We hear things like “You do you,” which might be OK if it is in reference to what kind of pizza toppings you like (pineapple on pizza forever!), but becomes problematic when it is used to put ourselves above other people, or to make choices at the expense of others. We are told, “Just do what’s good for you,” or “Don’t worry about who it hurts.” We talk about “speaking the truth in love,” which often looks more like leveling our opinions at other people even if it harms them or severs our relationships. We are constantly pressured to live a “me first” kind of life, with little or no regard for what our choices do to others or to the world we live in. 

In a time of division like the one we are living in, you would hope that Christians would stand apart. That people would see the way we love one another and the way we reach out beyond ourselves and think to themselves, “I want that for me, too.” Instead, many people find that the climate inside the church and among the people of the church is just like that of people with no religious faith, and sometimes even worse. We are losing an entire generation of people because we look so much like the rest of the world that they don’t see Jesus when they look at us. We aren’t losing them because we don’t have contemporary music, or because we don’t have smoke machines or hip people on our staff. It’s because people want to see Jesus in us, and too often, they don’t.

Our reading from Galatians 5 says this in verse 13: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” This is all of it right here. And if we’re missing this part, what’s left? What gospel are we proclaiming to others? The last thing the world needs is another group of people preaching “me first.” We are called to something radically different. We are called to be “you first” people. To love our neighbors. To pray for them. To be there for them when they are in need. And to mourn with them when they are mourning, even if we don’t totally understand why they are mourning. 

Elisha studied under Elijah, learned his ways, and trained. We are students of Jesus. And, as much as it hurts and as much as I wish it wasn’t so, Jesus had to be taken back up into heaven before any of us would’ve found the courage to continue his work. Like Elisha, we doubt our abilities. We ask, “Can I have some of your spirit? Some of your power? Otherwise I have no idea how this is going to work.” And Jesus sends us the Spirit and gives us his peace. Jesus passed the mantle to us, and now it is our calling to preach the good news on this earth. It’s our job to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Galatians 5 continues that “the works of the flesh are obvious.” They are things like fornication and impurity, licentiousness and idolatry, sorcery and enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and other things like these. That sounds about like right now, doesn’t it? Strife–struggles for power. Anger, violence, division. Factions. There are so many factions. Paul calls these the “works of the flesh” because they are the way we behave in our sinful nature. These are ways that bring death and pain and brokenness. These are not what God wants for us.

Instead, we are to live out the fruit of the Spirit. You’ve probably heard this list a million times, but I think it does us good to be reminded. I don’t know if you’re like me, but sometimes I forget, and I need to be reminded that God wants so much better for us than the ways of this world. Paul writes, “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”

Today as we make a new scrapbook page for this story of our faith, let’s take a moment and think about how much we’ve grown, and let’s celebrate it. And then let’s look around us, at the people God has entrusted to us to help raise up and empower. How are they growing? Are we celebrating who they are becoming as people of faith? How can we empower them and let them become who God has called them to be? What mantle have we passed on to them? Is it one that looks like Jesus, or one that looks more like the world around us?

Let’s take some time to evaluate the fruit in our lives. Which list does it look more like–the works of the flesh, or the fruit of the Spirit? And then let’s ask God to mold and shape us so that we look more and more like Jesus. Sometimes things feel hopeless in this world, don’t they? We read the news and see the headlines, and we might think things are about as bad as they can get. But, God isn’t finished with us yet. Just like it says in Isaiah and elsewhere, God is doing a new thing and it is springing forth all around us. Do we see it?

Let’s become people who cultivate the new things God is doing. Let’s become people who empower others, who lift each other up, and who are raising up the next generation to be people marked by the love of Jesus. It won’t be easy, but I know we will never be alone along the way. Amen.