2 Kings 2:1-14
When I was a kid, I loved optical illusions, especially those with two different images in the same picture. The one I remember the most was a silhouette either of a young woman or an old crone.
Our text for today is similar. It is the mental and spiritual version of an optical illusion. What you see depends entirely on how you look at it.
Let’s first look at the image we expect to see. Near the end of 1 Kings, Elijah followed God’s command and anointed Elisha as his successor. Elisha did not ask for the honor; but once chosen, he followed Elijah faithfully. When our text picks up the story, Elijah knows that he is about to be taken into heaven. As they travel to the Jordan, three times he tells Elisha to wait. But each time Elisha refuses to leave. “As God lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you,” he promises. Or in more familiar words, “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
When they arrive at the Jordan, Elijah takes his mantle—the outer garment worn by prophets—and he strikes the water with it, and the water is parted on either side. Like the children of Israel twice before them, Elijah and Elisha can cross on dry land.
When Elijah says to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you,” Elisha’s answer sounds strange to our ears. He asks for a double-portion of Elijah’s spirit. You see, he knows he has some mighty big sandals to fill, and he knows he is not equal to the task. He has not brought down fire from heaven, as Elijah did. He has not met God face to face–not in the wind or earthquake or fire, and certainly not in a still small voice. He knows he cannot be Elijah’s successor—he cannot carry Elijah’s mantle—without Elijah’s spirit to go along with it.
But by asking for a double portion, he is using the language of inheritance. A double portion is what was allotted the firstborn son. So he is not only asking for part of Elijah’s spirit, but he is asking to be recognized as Elijah’s firstborn and favored son. He wants to be claimed. He wants to know he belongs.
Elijah responds, “You have asked a hard thing.” Elijah understands what Elisha has only begun to imagine–that it is a hard thing to bear. The prophet’s mantle is heavy. The responsibility is immense.
But no sooner does Elijah answer, then a flaming chariot comes between them, separating Elisha from his master, who begins ascending into heaven on a whirlwind. “Father, Father!” Elisha cries out. We can almost hear the plaintive cry of a frightened child. He grabs his garment, and he rips it in two. Out of the twenty occurrences in the Old Testament where someone tears their clothing, this is the only time we are told that someone rips it completely in two. It is an act of extreme grief, of great loss. Elisha is all alone.
Elisha picks up the mantle that had fallen from Elijah. But he questions, “Did God grant my request? Am I the firstborn child?” He walks over to the Jordan, knowing that he must test the power of the mantle, the power of his own faith. He strikes the water, probably half afraid it won’t work, and half afraid it will. And he cries out, “Where is the God of Elijah?” Not Where is my God, and not even Where is the God of Abraham, but Where is the God of Elijah–the God who worked miracles, the God who came in the still small voice,
the God who chose him for this role. And it works! The water parts. Never again does he ask, “Where is the God of Elijah?” He now knows. The God of Elijah is with him, is within him. The God of Elijah has become his God. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Assured of who he is and who God is, Elisha goes on to a career of abundance: He multiplies the widow’s meal and oil so she and her son will never go hungry; he raises a child from the dead.
This is the Elisha I see, for this is the Elisha I want and need to see. Perhaps you need to see it, too. Many of us feel at times that we’ve been called to a task beyond our ability. We know the weight of the mantle of leadership, the responsibility that accompanies a title. Or we carry the weight of a burden for social justice, and we want to work to bring about change, but the task is so big and we feel so small. Or we simply don’t know how to raise this kid we’ve been given, and this is only the beginning. And in our weak moments–or perhaps just in our honest moments–we admit that we are not up to the task.
And so we ask, Oliver-Twist-like, “Please, God, may I have some more? May I have some more of your spirit, your wisdom?” We want to know that God is with us. We fearfully cry out, “Where is God?” And the answer is: “Here. Right here. I’ve been with you all along.”
This is the Elisha I see, for it is the Elisha I need to see. I believe it is a faithful reading of the text. Certainly I’ve embellished, imagined, but the foundation is there.
Unfortunately, it’s not all there is. There is another way of viewing Elisha, a way that doesn’t comfort me. For this view we look at the other results of his ministry, the ways that he used his authority as a prophet. To be true to the text, we can’t look only at the miracles we like–the unending oil for the widow, the child raised from the dead. When we allow ourselves to see the rest of the story, we get another picture.
Only nine verses after Elisha picks up the mantle of Elijah (verses 23 and 24) as he is retracing his steps back to Bethel, Elisha encounters children who call him names and make fun of him for being bald. And what does he do? He curses them in the name of God and calls down bears from the mountain to maul them.
In the next chapter, the king of Israel declares war on the king of Moab but it looks like God is against them, so he seeks Elisha’s advice. Elisha tells the Israelites to enter the land and chop down the trees, stop up the springs, and throw stones into the fields to ruin the harvest. He effectively takes away the people’s sustenance, their food and water and shelter, now and in the future. Abundant oil and grace for the widow. Only death for the undeserving.
So this is the legacy Elisha leaves. Not exactly the image of the prophet I want. Granted, this is the Old Testament, and the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with stories of God’s actions on behalf of the children of Israel, even at the detriment of everyone else. Such victories were how the people perceived that God was on their side. I understand that, even though I dislike it. But this is supposed to be a prophet, not a warrior. Is the prophet’s role all about power?
If we just him by these acts, then perhaps I read the story wrong. Perhaps Elisha wasn’t so humble in his request to Elijah after all. Perhaps he saw the power that his master wielded, and he said, “I gotta’ get me some of that.” So he asks for a double portion. It isn’t enough to receive just part of Elijah’s spiritual inheritance–he wants twice what everybody else receives. Then as soon as Elijah is gone, Elisha rips his cloak in two–he won’t be needing that anymore–and he grabs the mantle. He runs to the Jordan, strikes the water, and demands, “Where is the God of Elijah?” When the water parted, he must have thought he had harnessed the power of God.
I don’t like this picture of Elisha. I don’t like this side of the optical illusion, but it is every bit as real. It reflects the other side of leadership–the temptation of power.
We have seen such abuses of power … tyrants in foreign countries who rule over their people with an iron fist, who live in luxury while the poor roam their streets, who deny their citizens basic human rights.
But if we are to be honest, we can’t look only at foreign tyrants. The same goes for our beloved country. We have done amazing things, giving humanitarian aid and rebuilding efforts all around the globe. At the same time we have done terrible things to those native to our land and to those brought on slave ships. At times we have interfered in foreign countries for our own selfish gain, or not intervened in times of evil because we had nothing to gain.
And then there is Christianity. President Obama recently got in trouble for saying this, but I believe he is right in this case. Marvelous things have been done in the name of Jesus Christ, but horrendous things have been done in the name of Christ as well—like five centuries of Crusades, the slaughter of the Jews, the KKK and Jim Crowe laws, and bigotry of all types. All of these and more have been done in the name of Jesus.
It’s easy to point fingers, but we also must look at ourselves … our own silence in the face of injustice, our unwillingness to acknowledge the privileged status to which many of us were born, our purchasing habits which contribute to the systems of poverty. We have fought over things that did not belong to us. We have stopped up the springs of living waters. We have thrown stones.
We tend to like either/or classifications—saint or sinner, angel or demon, holy or profane. And the fact is, we all are both. None of our heroes are perfect. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal; and he owned slaves. He even kept his own children as slaves. Martin Luther King Jr. lead the civil rights movement, inspired people across the country with his words, and changed the course of history; and he made some questionable moral choices in his private life. We tend to idolize or demonize our leaders, and few are deserving of either classification. Even the worst of us has some spark of the divine hidden inside, and even the best of us has an ability to do evil that would shock us to the core. The problem comes when we fail to recognize this fact. The problem comes when we wrap ourselves in the mantle to keep warm, and then are surprised when the coldness comes from within our own hearts.
We are both the young girl and the old crone in that optical illusion. We are both sides of the prophet. We have the power to multiply the oil and feed the hungry, and we have the power to call down destruction upon our enemies. The choice of which to be is up to us.