Sunday, August 20th: "Along the Way: When You've Had Enough"

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First United Presbyterian Church

“Along the Way: When You’ve Had Enough”

Rev. Amy Morgan

August 20, 2023

1 Kings 19:1-15a

King Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid;[a] he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” 8 He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. 9 At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus.”

Parker Palmer is an influential Quaker theologian and writer. He holds a Ph.D. in addition to thirteen other honorary degrees. He’s written 10 books, which have sold millions of copies. If anyone should feel good about the good they have done in the world, it is Parker Palmer. 

But for a time in his 40’s, in the midst of great success in life and his ministry, Palmer suffered an inexplicable and debilitating depression. He slept all day, couldn’t get out of bed or work. He was consumed with self-loathing and just wanted to die. Describing this time in his life, Palmer told NPR’s On Being host, Krista Tippet, “Depression is absolutely exhausting. It’s why, day by day, for months at a time, I wanted to take my life.”

Depression is an exhausting and isolating experience. Writer Andrew Solomon describes it as “an illness of loneliness.” There is no logic to it, but many people experience it as deeply spiritual. But that spirituality often manifests as an absence. The absence of God, or our ground of being. 

While the Biblical writers may not have had a clinical understanding of depression, the description of Elijah, alone under a solitary broom tree in the wilderness, begging to die and sleeping all day, fits our modern definition pretty well. 

Elijah was an influential prophet in Israel. He had prophesied drought and famine, and miraculously provided for a widow through this catastrophe. He had raised that widow’s son from the dead. And just before the passage we read this morning, Elijah had just won a spectacular showdown against the priests of Baal and re-converted the Israelites to worshiping Yahweh. He was at the top of his game, the pinnacle of his prophetic career. If anyone should have felt good about the good they had done in the world, it was Elijah.

But now we find him sleeping, self-loathing, suicidal, and alone. He tells God he’s had enough. This word, enough, in Hebrew is an interesting word. It’s a fairly common word meaning something along the lines of many, numerous, too much, or enough. Sometimes it’s a positive thing, like the numerous offspring promised to Abraham or the massive wealth of Solomon. Other times, it’s negative, like the excessive wickedness of humanity that leads to a great flood. Here, Elijah uses this term to describe overwhelm. And I think this highlights the tricky relationship between abundance and inundation. 

Elijah has had enough, but enough of what? Enough success? Enough work and stress? Enough bloodshed? Enough danger and suffering? We don’t know, but there is too much of something that has led him to this depressive state, suffering alone in the wilderness. 

But we soon see that he is not really alone. An angel of the LORD, a messenger of God, is with him. They bake a cake, and bring him water. They wake him up and make sure he eats. This heavenly messenger doesn’t admonish Elijah for his despondency or tell him to get over it. They don’t remind Elijah how great his life is or how successful he’s been as a prophet. They don’t promise him everything will work out fine in the end. 

They simply tell him to get up and eat, to keep nourishing himself. And the only reason they give is this enigmatic phrase, which translates literally from Hebrew as, “much too much for you the journey.” That “much” is the same word Elijah uses when he tells God he’s had enough. And it’s hard to tell if the angel is talking about the journey behind or before Elijah. Most English translations render it in the future tense, with the angel preparing Elijah for his 40-day fast on the way to Mt. Horeb. And that makes sense. The next verse says he lived on the strength of that meal through those 40 days and nights. But the angel’s use of that same Hebrew word for enough, or too much also shows that there is a compassionate understanding that the journey has already been long and difficult. And that compassionate understanding can be a kind of nourishment, too. 

During Parker Palmer’s depression, he had folks coming to him, trying to be helpful. Sadly, he says, “many of them weren’t. These were the people who would say, ‘Gosh, Parker, why are you sitting in here being depressed? It’s a beautiful day outside. Go feel the sunshine and smell the flowers.’ And that, of course, leaves a depressed person even more depressed, because while you know, intellectually, that it’s sunny out and that the flowers are lovely and fragrant, you can’t really feel any of that in your body, which is dead in a sensory way. And so you’re left more depressed by this ‘good advice’ to get out and enjoy the day. And then other people would come and say something along the lines of, ‘Gosh, Parker, why are you depressed? You’re such a good person. You’ve helped so many people, you’re so successful, and you’ve written so well.’” And that would leave him feeling more depressed, because he would feel like he’d “just defrauded another person who, if they really knew what a schmuck I was, would cast me into the darkness where I already am.”

But then Palmer tells the story of one person who responded differently to his depression:

“There was this one friend who came to me, after asking permission to do so, every afternoon about 4 o’clock, sat me down in a chair in the living room, took off my shoes and socks, and massaged my feet. He hardly ever said anything; he was a Quaker elder. And yet, out of his intuitive sense, from time to time would say a very brief word like, ‘I can feel your struggle today,’ or, farther down the road, ‘I feel that you’re a little stronger at this moment, and I’m glad for that.’ But beyond that, he would say hardly anything. He would give no advice. He would simply report, from time to time, what he was intuiting about my condition…. 

What he mainly did for me, of course, was to be willing to be present to me in my suffering. He just hung in with me in this very quiet, very simple, very tactile way...And it became, for me, a metaphor of the kind of community we need to extend to people who are suffering in this way, which is a community that is neither invasive of the mystery nor evasive of the suffering, but is willing to hold people in a space, a sacred space of relationship, where somehow this person who is on the dark side of the moon can get a little confidence that they can come around to the other side.”

This is what the angel of God does for Elijah, and it is what God does for Elijah later in the story. When Elijah repeats his depressive refrain in response to God’s question about how he’s doing, God doesn’t tell him to go outside and appreciate the beauty of creation or reflect upon what a great prophet he is. God says, “I’m here with you.”

And here’s where it really gets interesting. There’s a mighty wind, and an earthquake, and a fire. And God isn’t in any of those elements. And what’s interesting about that is that those are exactly the elements where the ancient Israelites would expect God to show up. God led the Israelites through the wilderness in a pillar of wind by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Psalmist speaks of God quaking the earth. These violent acts of nature were seen as displays of God’s power and might. So it should strike us as strange that God was not in the places God was expected to be. 

And then there’s this odd and difficult-to-translate sound. The King James Version renders it “that still, small, voice,” and the version we heard today calls it “the sound of sheer silence.” The Hebrew words are the word for “sound,” and then a word that means the calming of a wind, and then a word that means “thin,” “fine,” or “soft.” However you translate it, God is present to Elijah in quietness, gentleness, simplicity, a soft touch. God was neither “invasive of the mystery or evasive of the suffering,” but held space, the sacred space of relationship. 

But this space, this relationship, this gentle presence of God in his suffering, does not make Elijah all better. When God repeats the question, “what are you up to, Elijah?” the answer is the exact same as it was before God showed up. 

This is the most important part of this passage for me. It may be one of the most critical and most overlooked moments in all of scripture. God shows up, God is tangibly present to Elijah, and he is still suffering, he is still depressed. And still, God does not chastise him, God does not give up on him, God does not give him advice. Instead, God gives him a job. God sends him back the way he came, to anoint his successor and a couple of new kings. And if we keep reading, we find out Elijah doesn’t really even complete this task. These things sort of happen, later on, in kind of the ordinary course of events. Elijah more or less muddles through the remainder of his ministry until he’s magically whisked off to heaven in a chariot of fire. 

It's a weird ending to this story. 

But here’s what it shows us: that mental illness does not disqualify us for ministry. That even if we’re not able to do what God asks of us, God will get the job done and be happy we tried our best. I know it’s a huge problem for a lot of pastors who feel they need to hide their mental illness or emotional struggles, but I’m not just talking about pastors. We believe in the priesthood of all believers here, and God has work for all of us to do. And many of us have or do or will struggle with mental illness and emotional challenges at some point in our lives. And God has something for you to do, right in that place, even in that suffering. 

I’ve shared with you all before that I was treated for anxiety in the past, and I have been struggling with all kinds of things through the last year. There are days when it is too much, when I’ve had enough. And even when I feel God’s presence, when I know God is with me in my suffering, it doesn’t make it all better. But I know God has work for me to do. And so, to the best of my ability week to week, I get up and do it. I walk that road to Damascus. I try to equip others for ministry. I speak the words that are given to me. I do the thing that is mine to do. I don’t always do it well, or completely. But I still feel called to do it. And I still love to do it. And there is healing in doing the work God has given me to do. And there is peace in knowing that God can get the job done even if I can’t. 

Parker Palmer’s therapist once said to him, “Parker, you seem to look upon depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Do you think you could see it instead as the hand of a friend pressing you down onto ground on which it is safe to stand?”

Elijah fled to the wilderness, at least partially because his life was in danger. The depression he experienced there led him to a place where he could experience God’s presence, come down off the highs of his prophetic success, and find ground on which it was safe for him to stand. I’m not sure that safety cured his depression. But it did allow him to go the way God invited him to go, to put one foot in front of another, to get up off the ground, to come out of the cave, and to go find someone who could help. And that was enough. 

Friends, if you find yourself in a place where you have had enough, where the overwhelm of life, of suffering, of stress, is too much, I hope you will know that this is a safe space. A safe space for relationship. A safe space to fall apart. A safe space to find your footing. People here understand the messiness of life. People here understand the absurdity of depression. People here do not stigmatize mental illness, and we affirm your giftedness even in the midst of your suffering. So if you are suffering, I pray you will not suffer alone, but will allow us to be present with you, even as God is already present with you. 

God may not show up where you expect. And that quiet, gentle presence of God may not change anything about your condition. 

But God still has work for each of us to do. Whatever our capacity to do it. There’s no shame in stumbling along, going through the motions, and missing a day here or there to rest. This is exhausting work sometimes, especially for those experiencing depression. We’ve got to eat, drink, and rest, and encourage one another to do the same. 

Parker Palmer talks about this as “incarnational theology,” which for him means that God “journeyed to Earth to be among us compassionately; to suffer with us; to share the journey.” God came to Elijah to share the journey. God comes to us to share the journey. And we gather together with each other to share the journey. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.