First Baptist Church of Asheville Podcast
Sermon: A Faith Survival Guide
Queue the high drone shot, above the parched, bleak, forlorn desert, modeled with skulls and bones and sparse and fruitless shrubs, the horizon blurry with the heat from the sun, and it's punishing broad spectrum UV rays. As the view zooms from high altitude to low, we catch sight in the distance of the shape of a man, crumpled in a heap of despair underneath the only shade tree for miles. Closer still than we can see in detail a sunburned, probably, human being, tattered clothes, worn sandals, crust of dry skin speckled around his lips, his face downcast, his breast shallow, as he whispers through tears, "It's enough. Now take my life, Lord, I know better than my ancestors." Who is this discouraged, dispirited man but the prophet Elijah, a fugitive from threats on his life, a fugitive from his own ministry, a fugitive from God, maybe? The text doesn't say for sure. What most of us likely remember about Elijah are his sensational triumphs. You may recall him stretching himself out over the young son of a widow who had given him hospitality, the child had died, and he stretched himself out over this lifeless child three times. And the breath of life came back into him, and dramatically he steps down, holding the child coming down from the upper loft to a stunned and jubilant mother. Wow, that's Elijah. You may recall Elijah's witty repertoire tea with the prophets of Baal, his mocking their God for taking a bathroom break when they needed him most. It's in the Bible. His drenching the altar with water and then calling down fire from heaven and it happens and he presides over this resounding, very public victory over the empty idols of his time. It's like every preacher's dream. Can you imagine if I called fire down from heaven right now and it happened? Well, it happened for Elijah. We may recall too how Elijah didn't really die when he died. He rather, his apprentice, Elisha, is staring up at him in awe as a chariot that's on fire, guided by horses, also on fire, swoop down and scoop him up and carry him off into eternity. We don't see him again really until he shows up at the transfiguration standing beside Jesus. But today there's no glory. There are no spectacular events. Rather, Elijah is alone and despondent. I've had enough. Take my life. Then he lies down on a pallet of dust and grief and falls asleep and he's hoping that he will not wake up. And yet there will be provision. He opens his eyes through a drowsy blur. He sees a sizzling hot cake sitting next to a jar of cool water. His eyes widen and he jumps a little bit as this angel or this mystery messenger comes and wakes him. Get up and eat. He kind of looks at it and nibbles the cake and takes a sip from the jar and then he nods off again. The angel comes back again. Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you. Unlike Elijah's dramatic victories, his triumphs, this hidden far away desert encounter with this mystery messenger will not be front page news. And yet this is the encounter that saves his life. This is the encounter that revives his calling, his vocation, his partnership with God. It may also be the only thing that could have staved off an extinction of Israel's prophetic tradition. Oh, this chapter of Elijah's prophetic ministry doesn't fit well in times of unabated success. Its lessons don't resonate in times of plenty. It's not the right message to pull out for celebrating triumphs, rather this most unremarkable miracle is a demonstration of God's provision in the midst of disappointment, a sign of God's hope overcoming our hopelessness, a sign of divine revelation of God's faithfulness superseding our rational doubts. It may be wise to keep Elijah's wilderness rescue on our shelves like a faith survival God. We who follow the Lord God know that life, the life of faith is not a constant fairy tale of spectacular events. Our lives are filled most often with ordinary moments. Yes, there are spectacular days when the extraordinary happens, the birth of a child, the double rainbow settling over the mountains, the homecoming of an estranged friend. The good news after waiting to hear the prognosis, the incredible job offer, being able to turn left on Merriman Avenue. We know, but there can seem to be still more days when life overwhelms us and we have no answers, and when we feel depleted and depressed and with sadness sets in, and what we thought was certain about life, about faith, about God is no longer simply given but very much in doubt. We carry in our hearts the penetrating worry over a child, the stress of a struggling business, the feeling of loneliness in a crowd, the breakup of a message, a marriage, the death of a loved one. In there those days, some of the hardest days there are when we discover the faith we thought was built on granite, was built on sand and soft clay and now the cracks are spreading. It can be enough to make you want to go to sleep and not wake up. Did you know there's a survival guide for keeping the faith? It's not a best-selling paperback, chock-full of proverbs and insights. It isn't a 300-page tone filled with technical language, graphs, and lists of how-to's and you better nots. In fact, it isn't even a pimp boy. Our faith survival guide could fit on a post-it note on one of those little pieces of paper you pull out of a fortune cookie. We unroll it and it says, "Get up and eat." Years ago I was hiking with some of my closest friends up Mount Old Rag in Virginia. We had brought provisions, but we were not prepared. One wisely, we departed the trailhead at dusk with our cans of Vienna sausages and water bottles and as we gained altitude and the sun set and it became dark, we ran into snow and then deeper snow and then snow drifts and as the wind howled around us, there seemed to be no wise way to backtrack to safety. One of my friends was wearing his dad's old army backpack from Vietnam and it was cutting into his shoulders. Another friend had no gloves and his hands were pink. Another friend was wearing new balanced tennis shoes and two feet of snow. We trudged on looking for shelter, anything. After some scary moments of doubt and dismay, we finally spotted a roof. As we approached, we found it was an open shelter with three walls faced against the wind, blocking it. We walked inside and found that there was a fireplace and by the grace of God there in the corner was a stack of firewood and kindling. We warmed our cold bones. We got up and ate and to the extreme surprise of the experienced hikers that we met on the way down in the morning, we survived the night, exhausted and humbled to be sure but wiser. Don't go camping with me, by the way, just don't. If God can make provision for the foolish errands of college freshmen, how much more will God provide for the faithful for you? Things of faith often thrust us into deserts. Faith means there will be times of vulnerability where it becomes clear that our only means of provision was always God alone. How often we've known times of plenty but also times of crisis, not only as individuals but as a church, how surely we've known vulnerability, not only in our daily lives but in the long history of our congregation, our recent work of community development was a demonstration of faith. Everybody named Project Aspire, this nearly seven year effort and investment both energized us and taxed us. I want to spend a few minutes just putting this all to rest. It was often inspiring, sometimes daunting. We had to be thoughtful and take risk and be uncomfortable and vulnerable to ourselves and others, unfortunately our good work fell through, deprived of oxygen by some strange filibuster. So Project Aspire has ended the concept of a new neighborhood built around and according to the specific concerns of Asheville citizens will not happen as we planned or as we hoped. We should honor the grief though. We should honor the grief and the anger of those in our congregation and our partners and our city whose hearts are broken. To speak plainly that this failed the way it did should be a concern to all of us who live in Asheville even if you were against Aspire, something you really believe in could be next. It is disheartening that an effort so inspired and lovingly coordinated will not materialize, an effort with broad support across lines of class and race and creed, but we can be grateful to have been part of such a dream. Aspire is over but God's dream is not, God's aspirations are not. I'm proud of our church, both you who supported the effort and you who didn't. We should all be proud of our community partners, the YMCA and the Furman Company. We should all be hopeful about our new friendships throughout our city and about the potential for new friendships with our neighbors in the East End. We should be proud that our efforts have raised our profile across Asheville as a church that cares deeply about our city and we should be proud that interested people across the country were inspired by our work. Now it's time to put this dream to rest and dream anew about what God is going to do with faithful people. Let the disappointed lift up your eyes to these hills. Let the weary take heart. Let the dreamers dream again of the ways that we will bless our community. Whatever provision lies ahead, let us share with our community, channeling that same spirit of goodwill that gave rise to aspire in the first place. For just as God found a way to feed Elijah and his despair so God prepares a table for everyone the Lord gets into good trouble. Cue the high drone shot over 5 Oak Street. See the beauty of the earth, the glory of the skies, for the love from our birth over and around us lies, through the cupola we descend to feel the angels touch. Look, you who are faithful, you who are being saved, there is a plate of bread and a picture of life prepared for you, get up and eat and drink and the journey will not be too much for you. [BLANK_AUDIO]