This Advent, we’re going to be investigating “The Xmas Files” together: we’ll be taking on the role of detectives: digging into the scripture that informs our understanding of that first Christmas Day over 2000 years ago, and examining how those events still echo in our lives today. Although undoubtedly a worthwhile endeavor for the weeks leading up to Christmas, this task won’t be easy because, if we’re being honest, we’re pretty far from objective as investigators go. These stories have personal meaning to us, and we’ve heard them so many times (usually in the exact same context and manner) that our understanding of them has calcified over the years into something easy and comfortable. While this generally suits us fine in an otherwise festive time of year, if I had to pick any two words that absolutely do NOT describe God’s kindom, I’d probably choose “easy” and “comfortable”. So, as members of a denomination that traditionally places a high value on intellectual curiosity, we’re going to let go of what we think we know, put on our detective hats, and trust God’s Word enough to subject it to questioning – starting this week with the question of WHO?
As you all know, I had a minor medical procedure on Friday, which is temporarily impacting my voice. I’m so grateful to for the help of our currently serving leadership so that I don’t have to talk for an hour straight this morning, but I still felt it was important to preach the sermon myself. Since most of my weekend has been taken up by the procedure and recovery, I’d originally planned to recycle a sermon on Hosea that I wrote four years ago. But apparently, as is so often the case, the Holy Spirit had other plans.
Today’s scripture reading may be a new story to some of you, but regardless of how well you know it, we can all tell right away that we’re supposed to take a side here. The obvious choice, of course, is Elijah, right? He’s depicted as such a cool guy, the paradigm of a self-assured protagonist: sassing back to King Ahab, calling out the people on their indecisiveness, taking on 450 of Baal’s prophets singlehandedly, then making fun of them when they’re unsuccessful…you start to understand why he’s such a big deal, scripturally speaking, even without a book of prophesy named after him. He’s a wise-cracking, no-nonsense biblical superhero!