"The God Who Shows Up" (June 21, 2026 Sermon)
/The God Who Shows Up
1 Kings 18:20–40
So Ahab sent to all the Israelites and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. Elijah then came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.” The people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets number four hundred fifty. Let two bulls be given to us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood but put no fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God.” All the people answered, “Well spoken!” Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many; then call on the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” Then they cried aloud, and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them. As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.
Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come closer to me,” and all the people came closer to him. First he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down; Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name”; with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time. Again he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time, so that the water ran all around the altar and filled the trench also with water.
At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” Then they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon and killed them there.
Rain, Drought, and Divided Allegiance
Glory, glory, hallelujah! It rained a few days ago! I don’t know about y’all, but my poor yard is about as parched as the Sahara at the moment. Our region of North Carolina is in a severe drought, one that I’m told would require approximately 15 inches of rain over the span of a month to end! So when it finally rained a substantial amount at our house last Thursday evening, Winnie got scared of the thunder while she was trying to sleep. I invited her to join me on the front porch of our home, where we have half a dozen rocking chairs. Together, we sat and listened to the rain, watched the lightning, and marveled at the thunder, as I tried to show Winnie that such a storm is a beautiful thing our world needs for our plants and trees to grow and flourish.
Though our drought has only been going on for a few months, the drought in today’s passage had gone on for more than three years! The text gives us a clear reason for it, too: the Israelites, under the leadership of King Ahab, began to worship a pagan idol named Baal. As a reminder, last week we observed the split of Israel into two kingdoms, with Solomon’s son Rehoboam arrogantly ostracizing his constituents to the point of rebellion. Jeroboam and ten of the tribes of Israel seceded from the monarchy and became “Israel” in the northern territories, while Rehoboam and the remainder of the people became “Judah” in the southern territories. Today’s story concerns the events in the northern nation of Israel since last week’s passage.
Jeroboam’s reign lasted 22 years and was followed by a series of rather unremarkable, short-lived reigns. Fast-forward to 869 BCE, and the worst of them arrives, a man named Ahab. Scripture doesn’t hold back its disdain for his leadership. 1 Kings 16:33 says unceremoniously: “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel that were before him.” This was largely because Ahab took for himself a wife named Jezebel, who was the daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians. The Sidonians worshiped a pagan idol named Baal, the god of fertility. And, unsurprisingly, Jezebel brought with her the religion of her home, and King Ahab led the Israelites away from worshiping God and instead turned their devotion to Baal.
Needless to say, God did not take kindly to this turn of events. The first commandment is pretty clear, and the Israelites (not for the first time, mind you!) seemed to have forgotten it. So God brought forth a prophet to set the record straight and return the Israelites to faithfulness. His name was Elijah, a Tishbite. His first face-to-face encounter with Ahab is one I’ve always found humorous. Elijah runs into Ahab while Ahab is literally walking around looking for water for his people, because things have gotten that desperate. It’s an absurd notion that when a drought gets so bad, the king himself has no better idea than to wander around looking for water. Apparently, Elijah’s reputation preceded him, because the first thing King Ahab says to him is, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” Here, I want to pause to acknowledge this thing called “projection.” Projection is a psychological term for the phenomenon of one person accusing another of something they themselves are guilty of. For example, a corrupt politician might accuse someone else of corruption as a way to detract from…their own corruption! Ahab calling Elijah a “troubler of Israel” is ironic, as the text is very clear that the drought and resulting famine are a divine indictment of Ahab’s sinfulness, not of Elijah. Elijah, however, will have none of it and simply replies to Ahab, “I have not troubled Israel; you have troubled Israel.” This is, of course, the very first Biblical record of that famous comeback, ‘I know you are, but what am I?’
The Contest on Mount Carmel
And so begins one of the most famous showdowns in all of scripture. Elijah challenges Ahab to a contest at a place called Mt. Carmel. The rules are simple. Ahab is to bring his prophets of Baal, and Elijah will represent God, and we’ll see which god wins. And so they do just that. On one side of the duel is Ahab with 450 “prophets” of Baal. And on the other side, all by himself, is Elijah representing “Team Yahweh.” Two altars are built, one for each team. Each altar has a slaughtered bull on top, and each team takes turns asking their god to send fire from the heavens to ignite the altar. Elijah graciously offers Ahab and his Baal friends the first turn. But before the contest formally begins, Elijah invites the Israelites to abandon their worship of Baal before things get nasty. “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?” he says. “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” Basically, Elijah tells them to stop trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They are trying to worship whichever god benefits them in any given moment, and he prophetically reminds them that that’s not how this works. God is a jealous God and does not take kindly to the Israelites playing both sides of the fence. Yes, indeed, friends, there is a time for compromise! But Elijah reminds us that there is also a time to take sides, a time to let our “yes” be “yes” and our “no” be “no.”
And it is worth pausing here to note that Joshua said something very similar long before Elijah ever showed up at Mount Carmel. “Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord,” Joshua told the Israelites, “choose this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Friends, the limping of divided allegiance is as old as the people of God themselves. Every generation has had to reckon with the same question: when it comes to whom we actually serve, where does our loyalty finally land?
But Ahab doesn’t heed Elijah’s final warning, and so the contest begins. For hours, the prophets of Baal try to get Baal to show up. They “limp” around the altar in a comical pagan dance, hoping to lure Baal into bringing down the fire they need as proof of Baal’s superiority. But the “limping” doesn’t do the trick. In desperation, the prophets draw their swords and begin cutting themselves, hoping that spilled blood will prompt their idol to act. But, lo and behold, nothing seems to work. And then Elijah decides to rub salt in their wounded pride by taunting them with a little bit of potty humor. Elijah mocks them with the following statement: “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” Now, one of those phrases is a Hebrew euphemism for what someone would say when they had to step away and “relieve” themselves. So Elijah feels pretty confident that God will win this contest.
In fact, he is so confident that he instructs the Israelites to douse his altar with water first. And if that wasn’t enough, he tells them to do it a second time, and even a third; he wants to make sure that what is about to happen cannot be mistaken for a trick or an illusion. Finally, Elijah lifts his hands to the heavens and asks Yahweh to establish his divine authority and to prove to the Israelites, once again, that the first commandment is the first commandment for a reason. And sure enough, fire immediately rains down from heaven, swallowing the whole altar and even licking up every ounce of water that had been poured upon it!
The conclusion of the contest is, at the same time, predictable, bloody, and swift. The Israelites, unsurprisingly, have a change of heart. Elijah orders the slaughter of the 450 prophets of Baal. King Ahab flees to his wife, Jezebel, and the three-year drought immediately ends. The fire from the heavens has been replaced by water that had been divinely withheld for such a dangerously long time.
Where Does Our Loyalty Land?
But at a deeper level, this dramatic scene reminds me of what remains true to this day: we all tend to “play the field” and — both knowingly and unknowingly — split our allegiance among different gods. We do this all the time:
We say “blessed are the peacemakers,” but fund the largest military apparatus in human history without blinking.
We pray “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” while participating in an economy that is designed to keep people in endless cycles of debt.
We confess that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, but treat creation as a resource to be extracted rather than a gift to be tended.
We affirm that every person is made in the image of God, but we build systems that sort people by their economic usefulness.
We baptize our children into a community that transcends borders, but let nationalism determine who we think deserves dignity.
We call Jesus “Lord,” but reserve our deepest loyalty for whichever party or politician promises to protect what we already have or bring back what we’ve lost.
You see, the Hebrew word for ‘limping’ is pesach (פָָסַח), and it really means the inability to walk straight and upright. Before I go any further with that image, though, I want to pause and say something clearly: if you are someone who walks with a limp, lives with a disability, or whose body simply moves through the world differently than others, Elijah is not talking about you. Not even a little bit. In fact, look at what the prophets of Baal are actually doing in this scene — they are choosing to limp. They are performing it theatrically as a kind of desperate religious theater, mimicking a posture of vulnerability to curry favor with a god who cannot hear them. Elijah isn’t condemning disability. He’s condemning its cynical performance in the service of a lie. The ‘limping’ he mentions is a limping of the soul, a divided loyalty of the heart — and it is chosen, not given. So when I use the word ‘limping’ this morning, I am using it the way Elijah does: as a metaphor for the condition of people who know exactly who God is yet still can’t quite bring themselves to act like it.
Thus, today’s passage invites us to reflect on the places in our lives where we are metaphorically “limping.” We “limp” whenever we say one thing and do another. We “limp” whenever we pay lip service to one god but then turn around and give our money, our trust, or our vote to another. We “limp” when predominantly white institutions post on social media, celebrating Juneteenth while failing to actively dismantle policies and procedures that perpetuate racist systems. There are many ways we can fall into these postures, some we understand and others we may be blissfully unaware of.
God Is Faithful; Droughts Come to an End
But there is good news in this text. And that good news is this: if the Israelites’ “limping” serves as a metaphor for their unfaithfulness, then we likewise affirm that God is always faithful. In the whole Old Testament, that verb is used only to describe human behavior, never God’s. God is faithful; full stop. God is faithful to neighborliness. God is faithful to the poor and the downtrodden. God is faithful to the immigrant, the stranger, the gay kid, the broke single mother of two trying to make ends meet, and the farmer who works so hard to feed others that they can barely feed their own family. God is faithful amid the droughts and crises of our own making, and amid the violence of our patterns of complicity. Through all of it, God is faithful.
Friends, there is a time to compromise. There is a time to “meet in the middle.” But there is also a time to make a choice, a time to acknowledge that our capacity for allegiance is a finite resource and that “limping” around has deadly consequences.
And so here is the other piece of good news in this text: droughts come to an end. Last Thursday, as I sat on our front porch with my youngest daughter watching the rain come down and the thunder shake the very ground, I was reminded that droughts come to an end. They come to an end when we collectively choose to stop “limping” between allegiances and strive to live out our faith in ways that serve both God and neighbor — when we dare, as the prophet Amos dreamed it, to let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.