Scripture: 2 Kings 4:42-5:19; Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56

“Only - and may the Lord forgive your servant – when my master goes to the temple of Rimmon to worship there, he leans on my arm, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon when he does; may the Lord forgive your servant this act!’   ‘Go in peace ‘ Elisha answered.”

-- 2 Kings 5: 18-19

We have seen so far that according to the prophetic tradition of the OT true prophecy begins when honest criticism comes to word and challenges the consensus of the mob (Michaiah-ben-Imlah- 1 Kings 22). We have also seen that the prophet hears the Word of God when he listens for the “still small voice” in the silence that falls after the raging of nature is stilled, and after his own self-assertion has subsided. After the wind, earthquake and fire, - symbols of the powers of paganism, - he hears the Word of God deep within his own human being (Elijah, 1 Kings 19), and it challenges the arrogance in his self-understanding. Now we come to the cycle of stories featuring Elisha and ask what they have to teach us.

Elijah and Elisha are the stars of two folkloric cycles about the earliest manifestations of prophecy in the ancient northern kingdom of Israel. They are like superheroes in an ancient comic book, doing marvelous deeds to defend the honor of the God of Israel and Judah whose name is Yahweh. Yahweh is the God of the nomadic tribes of Jacob and Joseph, which were expelled from Egypt and after forty years of wandering in the wilderness crossed the Jordan river and settled in Canaan. The transition from nomadism to settled existence strained their religious understanding as it transformed their way of life. Yahweh who had been content in desert days with a tent and a smallish box to hold two stone tablets of law, now, just like his worshipers, needed a house, and so a great temple was built. Hereditary kings replaced the inspired nomadic leaders raised up occasionally in times of crisis. Thus the people of the Bible underwent a deep cultural and religious transformation as the observances of wilderness nomads were forgotten or changed into the customs of the town. Prophets like Elisha and Elijah came upon the scene as champions of the old ways of the desert, of an older, purer Yahweh of the wilderness, and for that reason were so often at odds with the kings and priests centered on court and temple The prophets, especially these early prophets, were strident partisans for Yahweh of the wilderness.

For this reason they were bloodthirsty and bloody-minded. Someone remarked after last Sunday’s sermon that Elijah was clearly too bloodthirsty for our taste; he personally murdered the 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:40), and his instructions from the “still, small voice” within included the statement, “Anyone who escapes the sword of Hazael will be put to death by Jehu; and anyone who escapes the sword of Jehu will be put to death by Elisha (1 Kings 19:17).” Thus he appears as the superhero of a comic book history of religion, and, of course, a prototype of much that is hateful and destructive in current religion, namely fanaticism. These prophets appear as fanatics for Yahweh, ready to kill unbelievers and destroy their idols. They were and continue to be inspirations for extremists, and examples of the darkest element in religion. When a mal-educated and therefore ignorant clergy teaches an uninformed and unreflective flock that such stories are to be taken literally, they are molding people to believe that violence in defense of divine truth is not just permitted but required. They are like the people described in this passage from the Gospel of John: “…indeed the hour is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy duty for God (John 16:2).”

So how shall we read these dangerous stories? The question is too big to be dealt with in one sermon. I shall be dealing with it constantly as we go along. For our present purpose it is clear that these stories are folklore that in many places represent an out of date God. For instance we are told that when some children mocked Elisha for his baldness he cursed them and two she bears came from the forest and savaged 42 children (2Kings2: 23-25). This occurred just after he had miraculously purified the water supply of a certain town. The message of these stories is that this man has dangerous divine power so do not “mess with” him. How then might we read these old stories? Because they are in the Bible must we take them literally and emulate the behavior they recommend? The answer is, of course, “No!” because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the standard by which we judge what is true and what is false, and clearly fanatic violence, even in the Bible, is the opposite of the way of Jesus, who chose to die rather than to kill.

Indeed, we can see that the Elisha stories have in fact been re-interpreted by the Gospels. Today’s reading from Mark about the feeding of the 5000 recalls the episode in 2 Kings 4:42-44, and includes in the run up the account of the raising to life again of the synagogue president Jairus’ daughter, just as the Elisha story cycle includes the account of the raising of the child of the woman of Shunem and the miraculous feeding of a multitude. ( In Luke’s gospel we have a double reference to Jesus raising the dead in the story of the son of the widow of Nain – Luke 7:11-17). Thus we see a deliberate attempt to assimilate the figure of Jesus to the figure of Elisha and thus re-interpret Elisha in a non-violent, non-fanatical way. As Elijah cast his mantle over Elisha so the gospellers cast the mantle of Jesus over Elisha and thus transform him. For this reason we must follow the gospels and look in the Elisha story cycle for traces of Jesus, prophesies of him and his perfect way.  In saying that the stories are comparable to the comic book superhero stories of today I am already interpreting them and indicating that we might read them with a grain of salt.

The grain of salt gives us the detachment we need to see a startling trace of Christian knowledge in the famous story of Naaman and Elisha. Naaman was the chief of the armies of the king of Aram and he was a leper. He heard from a captive of Elisha’s power and went to ask him for healing. This was a considerable self- abasement for such an exalted man and when the prophet did not even come out of his house to greet him but merely sent word by his servant Gehazi that Naaman should immerse himself in the waters of the Jordan seven times, he went off in a nationalistic huff. “Do we not have better rivers in Syria?” he harrumphed. Sense prevailed however and he got over the wound to his pride, bathed in the Jordan and was cured. He returned to the prophet to offer him gifts, which were refused, and to confess his faith in Yahweh the one, true God. He asked for permission to take soil from Israel to Aram on which to build an altar to Yahweh, whom he would worship henceforth as his God. Then he asks Elisha for indulgence because as part of his job he has to accompany his boss the king to the worship of the idol Rimmon, and even bow to Rimmon when the king does. One would expect an old fanatic like Elisha to say, “Absolutely not! Quit your job and don’t go near that filthy temple of Rimmon!”  But he says, “Cool! Do what you have to do.”

Now this is the opposite of fanaticism and of everything Elisha has seemed to stand for to this point in the stories. What is going on here? Prophetic monotheism is peeping through the cracks in primitive tribal nationalism. We are beginning to understand that full faith in the one and only God takes us to a realm beyond religion and tribe, to a psychic place where we can worship the one true God even in the temple of Rimmon, or at least where we do not need to make an issue of who is top God. Whatever we need to do to keep the peace, do it!  Elisha’s actual words were not “Cool” but “Go in peace,” that is, “Keep the peace by avoiding unnecessary arguments!”

This is a glimpse beforehand of what the Apostle Paul calls maturity. Do not waste your time arguing about whose way to God is best, the Jewish way with its customs of kosher, Sabbath and circumcision or the Gentile ways. Those arguments are for the immature. The Apostle preaches that because Jesus is the truly human one, the Son of Man, the saving power of God in him is directed at our single and simple humanity. It does not matter whether we are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, in Christ the truly human being we are all one (Galatians 3:27-28). So since we know that Rimmon is nothing and that the rue God is not a sort of anti-Rimmon but rather is above the contest of religions we can say to Naaman, “Cool” or more precisely “Go in peace!”