The Mayberry Preacher

LIFE UNDER THE BROOM TREE

1 Kings 19:1-9a
Steve Lindsley
February 12, 2012

Other than Valentine’s Day – which, if I need to remind you, is this coming Tuesday – other than Valentine’s Day, I am not a fan of the month of February.  With all apologies to those who have birthdays or anniversaries, February has always seemed to me like this month that’s stuck in there only because we can’t go straight from January to March.  It’s always cold in February – this weekend being the perfect example.  And we’re left pining for sunny, warm summer days spent around the swimming pool or soaking in the sand and surf at the beach.

Of course, it’s inevitable that once those dog days of summer get here, and temperatures soar into the three digits, February starts looking pretty good!  We forget how the other extreme isn’t much better.  And it’s that “other extreme” I think of when I read today’s scripture.  The wilderness of the desert; the blazing and unforgiving sun, no shelter or shade in sight. 

Unless you consider a broom tree shade, and that’s be stretching it.  Really stretching it.  The broom tree is a large shrub that only grows in the desert.  There’s a picture of one on the cover of the bulletin this morning.  Suffice to say it’s nothing you’d want in your garden at home.  It’s made up of coarse, rough branches that reach as high as ten feet.  It’s not very attractive; all scraggly and unkempt.  And it certainly isn’t as shady as a tall oak or maple tree.

And yet that’s precisely where he was, underneath that broom tree.  For Elijah, the great prophet of God, that tree was all he had.  And to be quite honest, it was a very strange place to find him, given recent events. 

Just days before, Elijah found himself literally on top of the world at Mount Carmel.  For years he had duked it out with the Canaanite queen Jezebel as to whose God was more powerful.  So Elijah proposed a contest– one that would pit him against the prophets of Baal and Jezebel.  The rules were simple – each would be given an altar and instructed to pray, dance, do whatever to invoke their god to light that altar with fire.  The one whose altar lit would win the contest and prove their God to more powerful and worthy of devotion. 

You know the story.  The prophets of Baal danced for hours around their altar, yelling and chanting at the top of their lungs.  But their altar remained unlit.  When it was Elijah’s turn, he doused his altar with water and dug a deep moat around it, also filled with water.  Then he prayed a simple prayer and instantly the altar burst into flames.  It was a smack-down!

Now you’d think this would earn Elijah some respect; that the people would reclaim their devotion to Yahweh and Jezebel’s influence would diminish to nothing.  You would think.  Instead, Jezebel, more incensed than ever, issues a death sentence on the prophet’s head.  And Elijah is forced to flee to Judah, running for his very life.  And when he gets there, it is not within the comforts of the great palace where we find this victorious prophet.  It is not in the presence of adoring Israelites who have unanimously renewed their commitment to God.

No, we find Elijah, of all places, in the middle of a desolate and unforgiving desert, huddled underneath a broom tree.  Scared, frightened, disillusioned, depressed.  Elijah was totally vulnerable and exposed – exposed to the murderous whims of a madwoman, exposed to the heartbreaking “let-down” that always follows a pointless victory.  And perhaps most poignantly, as if to add insult to injury, exposed to the harsh elements of the desert – the wind, sun, heat and sand – because the broom tree in which he found himself under offered no protection from those sorts of things.  None.  That broom tree was more than a sorry excuse for shelter.  It was a metaphor for the depths of his misery.  Take me now, he calls out to God through chapped lips and parched throat.  I’ve had enough.  Just take me now.

You know, if we just brush over this image here, if we keep reading without taking pause, we really miss what I think is a key element of these first nine verses – and that is the utter humanity of the man.  This is a broken man here.  You and I love to take our Biblical characters and imagine them as larger-than-life figures, putting Elijah and others on a pedestal, elevating them to someone that is something more than you and me.  And while it’s true that Elijah did some pretty powerful things in his time, here he now is – huddled in the fetal position under a broom tree, of all things, at the lowest point of his life.

And whenever this sort of thing happens in the Bible, whenever these larger-than-life figures are cast into the depths of the valley, it’s almost always a sign from the one telling us the story – the writer – that they want us to do more than just observe this poor soul from a distance.  They want us to see ourselves in that person, in their plight, in their suffering.  They want us to identify with them.

And so I wonder this morning, how many of you can identify with what Elijah is going through here?  In what ways have you hit rock bottom and cried out, I’ve had enough!  In what ways can you relate to that despondency and helplessness when life deals you one dose too many of bad luck, when the things you do don’t seems to make any lasting difference, when you just can’t seem to catch a break.  Like Elijah, we know the roller-coaster nature of those intoxicating highs and the hard fall that follows when the good times don’t last.  It’s a shared experience of our very humanity.

Here’s a single young woman who puts on a good face in public but can’t deny the fact that, at her core, she’s lonelier than she’d ever admit.  Here’s an elderly couple who seem to take turns as to who’s next in the hospital, which body part needs fixing now; and they know the doctors and nursing staff on a first-name basis.  Here’s a successful businessman who can’t explain why he struggles to get motivated each morning, why he hasn’t been sleeping well, and why little in life makes him happy anymore.  Here’s a long-time church member who continues coming every Sunday but can’t deny the disillusion they feel and the difficulty of trying to justify their long-held beliefs with a world that is constantly changing around them. 

That’s what life is like under the broom tree.  On the mountain, as Elijah discovered, life is good. Everything is according to plan.  There’s a clear line between right and wrong, good and evil; and good always win.  Life on the mountain is the world of the thirty-minute sitcom and the feel-good movie that suggest our problems and difficulties can always be solved and that the “right people” always come out on top.

But things are quite different under the broom tree.  Here, things don’t always go according to plan.  Things are rarely as “black and white” as we might like them to be.  Instead, we’re mired in this unfulfilling “gray” that leaves us confused and unsure.  And there’s this lingering uncertainty when it comes to ourselves and our place in this world, and perhaps even our God.  In fact, as we cower under the useless shelter of the broom tree, we may even wonder where God is. 

So perhaps, perhaps we’d be as surprised as the prophet was when he discovered that God was actually right there with him.  In the form of an angel – an angel who brought him food and water; sustenance for the journey and for life under the broom tree.  God-with-him, under that tree.  This kind of flies in the face of conventional wisdom, doesn’t it?  Because the world tends to view God as residing somewhere “up there;” apart and separate from what goes on “down here.” Salvation is seen as God coming down out of the heavens and kind of yanking us up out of our troubles, out of our broom tree lives, and pulling us to safety.  God is kind of relegated to the role of lifeguard – always watching us, but only really coming to be with us when we need God the most.

But what Elijah discovered that day, in a very dramatic way, is that God does not come from somewhere else to us.  We don’t have to wait for God to whisk us out from underneath the broom tree – because the truth of the matter is that God is right there underneath it with us.  And there’s something terribly profound about a God who is already in the midst of our difficulties; already in the messiness of life, in the brokenness and incompleteness and complexity.  God is with us, very much with us, in our time in the wilderness, when the sun is the hottest and beating down on us.  We don’t have to go searching for God.  God is already right there. 

But that’s not all, is it?  God isn’t just there.  God acts, as well.  God acts and God gives us what we need to make it through.  Nothing fancy or outlandish – just ask Elijah.  No multi-course dinner and large beverage reserves in the comfy confines of a two-story with four bedrooms and two and a half baths.  Just a broom tree, some bread and a little water.  Just what he needed to get by, to take him from one mountain-top experience to the next.   

This, too, isn’t what we always expect from God.  We're conditioned to think that a big and bold God always paints with big and bold strokes.  Waters parting, manna from heaven falling, Jericho walls crumbling, soaking wet altars consumed in a raging file. I mean, given his own experience days before on Mount Carmel, is it any wonder that Elijah might have seen the broom tree as a major letdown?  The bread and water as a little on the lame side? 

I know I’ve told this story before, but bear with me.  Imagine a man and a huge flood that ravages his town.  Everyone’s in a panic, except this man – he sits comfortably on the porch of his house, convinced that whatever happens, God will take care of him.

The water starts to back up in the streets and a large pickup truck sloshes by.  The driver stops and offers a lift.  But the man responds, “No thanks, God will save me!”  The rain continues to fall in buckets, and soon the water rises to the top of his porch.  A neighbor paddles by in a boat and pleads with him to come.  But the man is adamant.  “Everything’s okay – God will save me!” 

The storm gets worse, and soon the waters cover the entire house with only the peak of the roof visible.  And there the man sits.  Suddenly a FEMA helicopter appears overhead and drops down a rope ladder.  Through the loudspeaker the pilot cries out, “Sir, you must come with us.  If you don’t, you will die!” But the man just waves and smiles, “I don’t need your helicopter; I don’t need your ladder.  I’ll be fine because God will save me!”

The waters keep rising, and rising, and rising; and sadly the man drowns.  And so it is a very perplexed soul who walks through the gates of heaven that same day.  There is only one question on his mind as he meets the Almighty: why in the world did God let him die?  Why didn’t God help him?  To which God replies, “What are you talking about? “I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter – what more did you want?!”

You and I expect God to do big things.  And that is a reasonable expectation, because God certainly can and God certainly does.  But sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.  There's a certain "turning point" that takes place in our walk of faith where we begin to see not God’s absence but God's presence.  Not that God does so little, but that God does just enough.

And that's life under the broom tree.  It is, as members of our Bob Chilton Bible study this past week surmised, about God being with us.  About gratitude and grace.  About focusing not on what God isn’t providing, but what God is.  About getting over ourselves.

It’s about a scraggly overgrown bush in the hot harsh desert sun, and some bread and some water, when we are at our lowest, when we feel God is far away, when we don’t think it’s enough – and suddenly realizing that God is there, has always been there, and always will be there.  And that is all we need.  It’s all we’ll ever need.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

IN THE WILDERNESS - BROOM TREES AND WEEPING WILLOWS

1 Kings 19: 1-9, Psalm 137: 1-9
Steve Lindsley
March 15, 2009

You've no doubt heard the expression before: A picture is worth a thousand words.  There are some images that are familiar enough to us that words aren't really all that necessary in describing them; images that evoke deep emotions and thought and reflection.  I've got a few of these images for you this morning. Check these out:

   

    Here's one – remember this?  John Kennedy Jr. saluting at the funeral procession of his father.

   
   

   

    Another classic – the cover of the Beatles' album Abbey Road

   

    We all remember this like it was yesterday....

 

    Here's a face we'll never forget....

       

       

        .....or this one!

   

    

  

Here's the infamous picture of the “Loch-ness monster” - except it     really wasn't a monster.  The guy put a six-inch stick in the water     and snapped a photo, and the world fell for it.  Proof positive that     you see what you want to see!

   
   
   

These images conjure something from within us – sorrow at the sight of little Johnny saluting, pride in watching the US flag raised over the ruins of 9-11.  We see the cover of Abbey Road and we can almost hear the opening bass riff of “Come Together.”  We see the face of perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century, sticking his tongue out like a gradeschool kid.  These pictures summon thoughts and feelings within us that go far beyond words.

So let me share with you another image, one that's probably not easily recognized:

   

It's what's called a “broom tree,” and it grows in  desert climates, particularly in the Middle East.  There's not a whole lot to them – some scraggly branches that intertwine and grow in and around itself.  Some greenery may occasionally grow on them, but not much.  Suffice to say that planting a bunch of these in your front yard would not yield recognition from the Mount Airy Appearance Commission!

Now I want to further this image a bit; add something to it. I want you to picture this broom tree, but now I want you to imagine a man sitting underneath it.  He is in his mid-60's, perhaps, but he looks much older.  He is bent over, hunched down on the ground.  He has his head in his hands so you can't see his face – but if you could, you'd see that his eyes are closed and his features are void of spirit.  He is sitting underneath this broom tree because he has retreated into this desert – this wilderness – to save his life.  There are people looking for him – people who want to cash in on the bounty on his head.  If they find him, they will take his life.  So he is there underneath this broom tree, because it is the only thing that will provide him any comfort, any relief from the merciless sun above.  This.  He is in agony, emotionally and spiritually. 

The man's name is Elijah, and right now the last place he should be is in the desert under this pitiful broom tree.  He should be on Cloud 9 – the toast of the town, the man of honor in the lead float of the victory parade.  There had been a contest between him and the other prophets to see who was superior – Yahweh or the god of the Canaanites.  His win could not have been more convincing.  And yet all it did was anger the queen more; and she put a bounty on his head, leaving him with no choice but to run away and hide.

So instead of basking in the glory, he's baking in the sun.  Instead of being vindicated, he's now a hunted man.  Instead of knowing his mission in life, he is consumed by uncertainty.  And instead of finding solace from the mid-day sun, he can only muster the “shade” of a broom tree. 

Quite an image, isn't it?  Let me describe another imagine for you; another kind of tree.  This one is a willow tree – a willow tree just a stone's throw from a river in the land of Babylon.   The willow tree grows quickly with long, flowing branches and tiny leaves that hang down, almost like a canopy of sorts.     

But there's something else besides leaves in those branches.  There are musical instruments hanging in the branches; small harps and a few lyres as well.  They were put there by the people lying underneath them, whose body language looks eeriengly similar to Elijah's.  One has her head in her hands.  The other is hunched over his lap so you can't see his face.  And the third is leaning up against the second; their arm draped on his back.

They are the Hebrew people, and they are the owners of the harps and lyres.  They've hung their instruments in the trees because they can't play them anymore.  They haven't forgotten how to play them, they just don't have the heart to play them.  They are emotionally and spiritually bankrupt; the musical muse has left town.  Actually, they are the ones who have left town – ripped from their beloved Jerusalem, their homeland; now exiles in a strange and foreign land.  They have made the journey from familiar surroundings into the unfamiliar wilderness.  They are there underneath the willow tree by the waters of Babylon, but all they can think of is where they are not.  And even though their captors mockingly ask them to “sing a song of Zion,” they can't.  They could make themselves hold the instruments and press flesh on metal strings and strum, but the sound would not be like it used to be.  The song has left them.  And they wonder: how will they ever sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

These images are images of the wilderness.  They are different than the ones we've encountered in the first two weeks of our Lenten journey; images of a people freed from Egyptian tyranny or images of water gushing from a rock.  This sermon today is not about those moments of salvation or redemption or homecomings.  They're not about those things because the truth of the matter is that the wilderness is not always about the happy ending.  It's not always about a future of promise and hope, or where the novelty of the journey begins to wear off.

Now, at this place in the wilderness, we find ourselves at wits end.  We're beyond simple novelty.  The wilderness is not a place we go to intentionally or willingly.  It's one that we are dragged to, forced to; uprooted from our homes or fleeing for our very life.    And we take into that wilderness all our anguish, all our desperation, all our hopelessness, and even our anger.  And we just sit there with it.  We try to find shade from the merciless sun, but all we can muster is a pathetic little broom tree.  We try to sing the songs of old – hymns that infuse our spirit and remind us of better times.  But we can't even pluck the strings.  We can't sing the notes.  All we can do is hang them in the tree branches where they painfully remind us of what we can do no longer. 

This is the nature of the wilderness sometimes.  And it is also the nature of our Lenten journey, and the journey of our faith.  We don't like it, but it is what it is.  There are times where we come face-to-face with Elijah's anguish and despair, where we feel that nothing we do matters anymore.  There are times when we encounter the same bitter ambivalence and anger that the Israelites felt by the waters of Babylon. 

Our instinct, of course, is to want to avoid this part of the journey; to sidestep it, to take a detour around it.  But as much as we'd like otherwise, we can't choose where the journey takes us.  Some parts of the journey cannot be avoided.  Some parts of the journey have to happen, whether we like it or not.  I think of the Footprints In The Sand poem – you know, where the man has a dream that he's walking on a beach with God as scenes of his life flash before him?  You remember.  He notices that during the good scenes of his life there are two sets of footprints in the sand – him and God, journeying together.  But during the bad scenes there is only one set of footprints.  And he assumes that it's his, and that God has abandoned him.  Just like Elijah under the broom tree, and the Israelites by the waters of Babylon. 

We know how that feels don't we?  We've been there before – maybe it's been a while, maybe more recently.  Maybe right now.  And we know the anguish of the wilderness is only a temporary state and that, like the ravens that brought Elijah cakes and waters, God will one day come to our aid.  Like the people who eventually returned home to Jerusalem, God hasn't forgotten about us.  Like the man in the dream who discovered that the one set of footprints belonged to God, and it was God carrying him, like that man we know God will see us through whatever life can dish out.  We know our sojourn into the depths of the wilderness won't last forever.

But sometimes what we know in our heads is not at all what we feel in our hearts.  Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is too far away for us to see.   It was that way for Jesus too, as he encountered a tree of sorts in his own wilderness, hung on a cross.  And in the midst of his agony that was physical, emotional and spiritual, he cried out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  It was a psalm he was quoting – the first verse of the 22nd psalm.  It goes on to say this:

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Sometimes the wilderness is like that.  It's like the 22nd psalm, which goes on for 31 verses, waffling back and forth between bold proclamations of faith and complaints of a world crashing around them; and a God who seems to have wandered off somewhere.

Sometimes the wilderness is like that.  It's where we feel God's absence.  But in a strange sort of way, a way we can't understand, a way that goes beyond words, it is also where we feel God's presence too.  Maybe not in the way we're used to.  Maybe not in the way we want to.  But God is there – somewhere in the midst of our wilderness.

Which brings me to one last image to describe to you.  Imagine with me a group of me on a boat.  They are fisherman – more specifically, they are disciples of Jesus tending to their day job.  A storm suddenly descends upon them, and the calm and cool waters turn vicious and angry in a matter of minutes.  The boat careens back and forth; and the men realize that if they lose they boat they will lose their lives as well.  They are in the depths of their journey into the wilderness.

And then quite unexpectedly, through the storm and the surge and the waves, a man comes walking to them.  It is Jesus.  He comes to them in the midst of their storm, in the midst of their time of greatest need, when they thought all was lost.  Jesus comes to them, right where they are.

   

We've been talking about how the wilderness stories of the Bible are stories of a people caught between promise and fulfillment.  If that's the case, then perhaps sometimes the wilderness is where God's people encounter both God's painful absence as well as God's most acute presence.  When our spirit has been emptied, when we are left trying to find shade underneath a broom tree or hanging our instruments in the willows' branches – when we feel we can go no lower, God comes to us.  Maybe not emphatically; maybe not in a way we may easily recognize.  But God comes to us. 

God comes to us in the hand we feel on our shoulder at the funeral home.  God comes to us in the smile from across the room.  God comes to us in familiar routines amidst unfamiliar circumstances.  God comes to us in the new morning sunlight that follows a sleepless night.  God comes to us in a single set of footprints in the sand, or through the threatening storm surge.  God comes to us in broom trees and weeping willows, both reminding us of what we've lost and reminding us of all we still have.

God comes.  And that, my friends, that is an image that needs no words.  That is an image will stick with us for a long, long time.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.