"The Last Page Isn't The End" (August 30, 2026 Sermon)

The Last Page Isn’t The End

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·August 30, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

14th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

2 Kings 25:8-12, 27-30

In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the multitude. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison; he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the other seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes. Every day of his life he dined regularly in the king’s presence. For his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion every day, as long as he lived.

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I also want to thank Travis and Dr. Bill for that beautiful anthem, which offers a heartbreaking yet hopeful testimony to the kind of storm Ed read for us — the beginning of the Babylonian exile, the single most traumatic event in the Israelites' lives in the biblical narrative. I really appreciate the text Travis sang for us: here in the shadow, where we linger in this darkness we call home, where the sighs are deep and doubtful and our aspirations groan. And especially that last line: love incarnate, hold your children till the storm of life is past.

And so Ed read for us the storm, the story of the beginning of the Babylonian exile, and we fast-forward now 37 years later in just a couple of verses.

So we have this storm, and yet the very last four verses of 2 Kings don't give us a rosy picture, but they do offer a glimmer of hope. Here are the last four verses of the book of 2 Kings, verses 27 through 30 of chapter 25.

"In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the other seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes. Every day of his life he dined regularly in the king's presence. For his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion every day, as long as he lived."

Our Little Systems

All right — do any of you remember this hymnal right here? This is the 1955 hymnal of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — although it wasn't the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1955. But this was the hymnal our denomination used back in 1955, all the way until the blue hymnal came along in, I think, 1990 or something like that. But I was introduced this week to a hymn I don't think I was familiar with at all or had ever heard before. It's number 228 in the old hymnal. It's called "Strong Son of God, Immortal Love," and it was penned by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1850. And the third verse goes like this:

Our little systems have their day;
they have their day and cease to be;
they are but broken lights of thee,
and thou, O Lord, art more than they.

So I've been dwelling on that little piece of poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson this week because I think this passage is a reminder of what it feels like to look around and see all the little systems we construct — the institutions, the ideologies, all the little systems around us — seem to be crumbling. And we can look around and see all the devastation, the violence, the destabilization, and the disorientation in the world. And we can be given to despair.

In fact, I have had so many pastoral conversations with many of you over the past several years, and they are all very similar. You all come to me and express what I and so many of us feel — this feeling of being overwhelmed, this feeling of a fire hose to the face of all that's going on in the world right now, when our little systems seem to have their day and are crumbling.

And so I just want to use that as a metaphor as we talk about the disorientation and disruption of what's known as the Babylonian exile, when King Nebuchadnezzar conquered the southern kingdom of Judah despite Josiah's reforms that we discussed last week. In this moment of national upheaval, calamity, and disorientation, Walter Brueggemann offers a helpful metaphor for how we tend to respond in times of existential crisis.

Four Ways We Cope

Walter Brueggemann says there are four kinds of coping mechanisms we tend to fall back on when everything around us seems to be going — you know — nowhere in a handbasket. These are Walter Brueggemann's false responses to crises. None of these things are bad, but I just want to lift up, before we go through them, that they are not strategies for effective social change. They're natural and understandable coping mechanisms.

And the first one is this: denial. How many of y'all have ever been in a state of denial? I know I have, right? Or, as Brueggemann says, the royal embrace, which he describes as the refusal to acknowledge that the current system is failing, unjust, or coming to an end. So sometimes we just — is it the ostriches that bury their heads in the sand? Is that — yeah. That's — we're all guilty of that from time to time, and that's okay. I'm not trying to shame any of us for feeling this way. I'm merely trying to point out that these are not strategies for effective change; they're coping mechanisms. So the first one, and the one we sometimes rely on, is denial.

The second is nostalgia. Nostalgia is a very potent drug, y'all. Or, as Walter Brueggemann calls it, the manufactured past. He says it is the aggressive over-remembering of a golden age that likely never existed. And I want to point out that he wrote these words 26 years ago. I just think that needs to be mentioned.

Number three is despair. How many of you all have ever felt despair before? I know I have. It's okay. He calls this the loss of agency. This is the paralyzing assumption that because the old way is dead, no new future is possible. Despair is okay to feel, but we can't set up camp there, because that strips us of any and all agency to build something better.

Finally — ironically — optimism. Or, as he calls it, the superficial fix, which he calls a dangerous counterpoint to despair that thrives on the fantasy that things will get better on their own.

So I invite you to be curious with me this week about which of those four you tend to default to when everything seems to be crumbling around you. And again, it's okay. It is natural to feel that way. But for the third time, I want to emphasize: these are not strategies for building something better. These are coping mechanisms.

And optimism, that fourth one, is often confused with hope. In fact, they're very different things. Optimism is kind of this belief that, oh, everything will get better on its own. Whereas hope is an orientation of the spirit that doesn't depend on the outcome or the likelihood of success.

A King Named Jehoiachin

Today we are introduced to the final character in 2 Kings, this young king named Jehoiachin. Say his name again with me: Jehoiachin. He was very young when the Babylonian captivity began. In fact, I believe Josiah, whom we discussed last week, was his grandfather.

And so, in a few verses that Ed read, we fast-forward 37 years — which means he would be about my age. I'm 38 years old. And in this moment, at the end of 2 Kings, we have this very understated story. After this time, there's a change in leadership in the Babylonian Empire, and the person who is the head honcho there decides to release Jehoiachin from prison. Not to restore his empire, not to go back to the way things were, but he puts off his prison clothes, is welcomed to dine at the table of the king of Babylon, and is given a pension, if you will, to sustain him for the rest of his days.

If you're curious about that clay tablet you see on the screen: archaeologists were excavating a site in Babylon — which is, I believe, modern-day Iraq — in the early 1900s, and they found this Babylonian ledger that detailed, in very specific terms, the pension given to an exiled Judean king named Jehoiachin. So if you're just curious, we have archaeological records that prove this story happened.

So we have this story of hope. Now notice: it is not denial, because it starts by saying this was 37 years later. So this is already 37 years into the exile. It's not nostalgia, because it's not taking Jehoiachin back to Jerusalem. It's not despair, because there's this little "and yet" he gives us at the very end. And it's not optimism, because — you know — he's given a pension; he's not given a mansion. Those are two very different things.

And so I was reminded this week while reading David LaMotte's book, "You Are Changing the World Whether You Like It or Not." David says this — and he'll talk about it when he joins us in a few weeks — "Hope is the conscious decision to live toward the world you would like to see, but to take action to move closer to a better way, regardless of your chances of achieving your goal." He goes on to say, "Hope, it seems to me, is both an active choice and a choice to be active."

God’s Holy “And Yet”

And so, friends, I leave us with these last four verses to remind us of God's holy "and yet." Because sometimes that's all we've got when we come to worship. We just need to sing a little about God's "and yet," God's "nevertheless," and to commit together not to remain in denial, nostalgia, despair, or optimism, but to practice a hope that compels us to build something better in its place.

So again, I invite you to take stock this week of the reactions you have when everything seems to be falling apart around you, and to take one tangible step to build something better in its place. Maybe it's sticking around after worship today to put together care packages for our neighbors at the Pride Festival in a few weeks. Maybe it's volunteering for A Simple Gesture — which, by the way, needs three additional drivers for the Green Bag program next Saturday if you're available on September 12th.

So together, friends, let us remember those words from Alfred, Lord Tennyson: that our little systems have their day, they have their day and cease to be; they are but broken lights of thee, but thou, O Lord, art more than they.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.

"Lost and Found" (August 23, 2026 Sermon)

Lost and Found

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·August 23, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

13th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

2 Kings 22:1–13; 23:1–4, 24–27

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the way of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan son of Azaliah son of Meshullam, the secretary, to the house of the Lord, saying, “Go up to the high priest Hilkiah and have him add up the entire sum of the silver that has been brought into the house of the Lord that the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people; let it be given into the hand of the workers who have the oversight of the house of the Lord; let them give it to the workers who are at the house of the Lord repairing the house, that is, to the carpenters, to the builders, to the masons; and let them use it to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the house. But no accounting shall be asked from them for the silver that is delivered into their hand, for they deal honestly.”

The high priest Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” When Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, he read it. Then Shaphan the secretary came to the king and reported to the king, “Your servants have melted down the silver that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workers who have oversight of the house of the Lord.” Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “The priest Hilkiah has given me a book.” Shaphan then read it aloud to the king.

When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded the priest Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary, and the king’s servant Asaiah, saying, “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found, for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us.”

Then the king directed that all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem should be gathered to him. The king went up to the house of the Lord, and with him went all the people of Judah, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people joined in the covenant.

The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the Lord. Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

Still the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath by which his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. The Lord said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’”

All right, friends, we come to our second-to-last stop on our journey through 1 and 2 Kings. It’s been a bit different from a typical sermon series, and I hope you, like me, have learned more about these two books of the Bible. Last week we journeyed through the collapse of the northern kingdom of Israel and were reminded that there wasn’t one big, dramatic mistake that led to the downfall of the nation of Israel, but rather a long series of missed opportunities to be faithful. We found the good news in that passage: that what you and I do each and every week is a kind of counterbalance to that. It is a long, lifelong process of faith formation in which we gather to be reminded of who we are and whose we are. That’s what we journeyed through last week, and this week we turn our attention to the southern kingdom of Judah. So here are these words from 2 Kings 23, verses 1 through 4 and 24 through 27.

So, friends, as we mentioned last week, the end of 2 Kings begins in a much darker place than the beginning of 1 Kings. Last week we saw the destruction of Israel and the northern kingdom’s exile to the Assyrians, and now we see the beginning of the end of the southern kingdom of Judah, which will fall next week to the Babylonians. Last week’s events occurred around 725 to 722 BCE, and the southern kingdom hung on for another hundred years or so — it didn’t fall until about 587. But before that, we’re introduced to a king named Josiah.

A King Unlike the Others

He was one of the kings of the southern kingdom of Judah. Did anybody pay attention to how old he was when he began his reign? Eight years old. Last time I remember a king that young was King Joffrey in Game of Thrones, and that did not end very well — King Joffrey was not a very nice human being. But Josiah was. Of all the kings we hear about in 1 and 2 Kings — remember, we started off with Saul and David in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, and then we got to Solomon and Kings — all the kings had their ups, but they most certainly also had their downs. They had a lot of them. Except for Josiah. Josiah is the only king in all of 1 and 2 Kings who gets a glowing five-star review.

And that’s because when he was reigning — I don’t think this happened when he was eight, but sometime later on — they were doing some housekeeping in the temple, and a priest found this thing as he was going around. See if we’ve got one here. What was found? The Bible. The Torah. The Book of the Covenant. The law. That was the whole reason God called God’s people together. It was the whole reason the temple was built by Solomon in the first place: to protect the law of God, to honor the law of God, and to follow the heart of the law — to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly, to love God with all of our body, our mind, and our strength. And this all-important document was found where? In a closet somewhere. Dust — covered in dust. And it was found, and the priest went to Josiah and said, “Hey, look what we found. We found the holy scriptures. This is what God has been calling us to do all along.”

I think this is a really ironic and beautiful picture, even as heartbreaking as it is — that sometimes institutions like the church forget why we were founded in the first place. Right? We’re all guilty of that from time to time. We forget that we are not called to go out and maintain buildings. That’s not in the Great Commission. That’s not what Jesus calls us to do. It’s not to go out and form committees — although committees can be really important, and we’re going to get to that in a second. But God calls us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly. That’s the core of what we’re called to do.

So Josiah finds himself reigning at a time when this really important part of the — the bylaws, you might say — is discovered, reminding the Israelites who they’re called to be. Rather than acting defensively, Josiah says, “Everybody needs to hear about this. We’ve forgotten about this. Let’s make this an opportunity to get together and remind ourselves why we exist.” So he calls everyone together and says, “Y’all, let us read this together. Let us recommit ourselves to what God has been calling us to do all along.” He brings everybody together, and they read the scroll. The people weep, recommit themselves to God, and Josiah has all the idols of Baal thrown out, burned, and destroyed. That is what Josiah is remembered for.

Doing Right, Even When It Doesn’t Change the Outcome

So there are a couple of things I was thinking about this week. One, I thought — as I already mentioned — that sometimes we all need to be reminded of why God has called us together as Guilford Park Presbyterian Church, founded in 1948, to serve our neighbors. It’s something we do really well here at Guilford Park, and we must never, ever, ever allow ourselves to forget that’s why we exist.

The other thing this text reminds me of is that sometimes it’s really important to do the right thing, even when it doesn’t change the outcome. What we’ll find next week is that the kingdom of Judah still falls after Josiah and the people find the scroll and recommit themselves — because Josiah has already heard an oracle from a prophet that Judah will fall. And yet Josiah still does the right thing and says, “You know what? Nevertheless, this is who we are, so we’re going to recommit ourselves to God’s law.” So to me, that’s a really important lesson about leadership: doing the right thing even when it doesn’t change the outcome.

Beyond the Hero Narrative

But what I really want to focus on in this brief sermon today is a reminder of what David LaMotte calls the hero narrative. I’m plugging this a bit because you all know David LaMotte is going to be joining us in about a month, and I know some of y’all have started working your way through his book, You Are Changing the World Whether You Like It or Not. One of the core premises of this book is that David pushes back on the hero narrative — this lie that you and I have been taught to believe, that social change happens when a hero shows up. Right? Think about most of the big superhero or adventure movies you go see — the plot is pretty similar. There’s some great cataclysmic threat, and a hero just sort of appears out of nowhere. Everybody claps along as the hero magically fixes everything, and then the curtain falls, and that’s that.

Well, that may make a good movie in Hollywood, but David LaMotte argues that nowhere in the history of social movements has that been how things actually happened. Heroes do not promote positive social change. Do you know what does promote positive social change? Committees. I know — Presbyterians, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for.

David LaMotte says it’s not heroes that make change, but movements that make change, and committees that keep those movements going. He talks about Rosa Parks and how we’ve been taught the story of how she bravely refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery. For most of us growing up, that was about the extent of the story we were told. Now, to be sure, that was an absolutely courageous act, and nonviolent movements like the civil rights movement need those big moments that galvanize the public. But those moments are not what sustain change. What a lot of us weren’t told is that before Rosa Parks ever refused to give up her seat, she had already been organizing nonviolently for over a dozen years. She had her big moment in the spotlight, but as soon as it happened, she got right back to organizing the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted over a year. She helped bring a lot of people together, and they essentially created Uber in the 1950s, right? They all had to work together to get people from point A to point B to keep the movement going.

Because we have figures like Josiah who are lifted up as heroes — and yes, leadership is important. I will never suggest that leadership isn’t important. But I think Josiah’s story is a reminder that sometimes we are all guilty — me too — of waiting for the next president to come and save us. The next pastor to come and save us. The right CEO, teacher, or whoever to come and save us. And David LaMotte reminds us that while individual piety like Josiah’s is important, what’s more important is that you and I realize we are all responsible for one another, that we are all part of this movement — and dare I say, we are all part of this committee called Guilford Park Presbyterian Church that has been called to love our neighbors.

So thanks be to God for the Josiahs among us — that is important. But more importantly, thanks be to God for the people who organize us to achieve long-term, positive social change. If you want to learn more about that, read this book and join us next month for our Ruth Lamb weekend.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.

"How a Kingdom Forgets" (August 16, 2026 Sermon)

How A Kingdom Forgets

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·August 16, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

12th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

2 Kings 17:1-23

In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned nine years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him. King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against him; Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria confined him and imprisoned him.

Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel and in the customs that the kings of Israel had introduced. The people of Israel did things that were not right against the Lord their God. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city; they set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree; there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger; they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law that I commanded your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” They would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their ancestors and the warnings that he had given them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did. They rejected all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; they made a sacred pole, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. They made their sons and their daughters pass through fire, used divination and augury, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone.

Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel; he punished them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had banished them from his presence.

When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin. The people of Israel continued in all the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had foretold through all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

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Have you ever had a moment when everything seems to fall apart, and you look back to pinpoint the exact moment it happened? My guess is that you know what that feeling is. And today, in the passage Catherine read for us — a quite lengthy, difficult, and harsh passage, not a whole lot of grace in it — I imagine the Israelites probably felt pretty similar.

A Kingdom Unravels

This is the low point in the entire span of 1st and 2nd Kings we've been journeying through over the past few months. This is the moment in 722 BCE when the nation of Israel fell to the Assyrians. You may remember that the kingdom had been split after Solomon's reign. If we rewind several hundred more years, this all began in the time of Joshua and Judges, when the Israelites came to God and said, "God, all these nations around us have kings. We want one of those for ourselves." And God said to them, "No, you don't." And they said, "No, we really, really do." And God said, "No, you really, really don't. It's going to be more trouble than you realize." And the Israelites said, "No, we want a king." And finally God said, "Okay, have it your way." And that's how we started with those first three big kings we walked through — Saul, then David, and finally Solomon. There were high points and low points along that whole journey. But then, you may remember, Solomon started worrying a little too much about national glory and his own reputation, and a little too little about whether people could eat or were fed or housed. And the people somewhat rebelled — and that's really what caused the split between the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel.

After Solomon's time ends, we get a slew of kings — some of whose reigns lasted only a couple of years — that I honestly cannot keep track of. And if you've read 2 Kings, it's hard to keep track of them, and that might be exactly the point the author of 2 Kings is trying to make: that there was no political stability at all, and that things kept getting worse and worse and worse. And to make matters worse, the Assyrians were starting to encroach on Israel's sovereignty. They wanted to control the Mediterranean, so to try to keep them at bay, Israel was paying tribute to Assyria. But we all know that only lasts for so long. Long story short: in 725 BCE, the Assyrians laid siege to Samaria, the capital of the nation of Israel, and Israel fell three years later, in 722. The passage Catherine read for us today is a very long theological indictment explaining why this happened.

And if I were to summarize what that long passage says, it's this: Israel fell because of their unfaithfulness to God. And if there's one thing I want you to remember from today's sermon, it's that this was not a sudden occurrence. That really lengthy passage Catherine read for us today was a way — it sounds harsh, but it is harsh — for God to show us the receipts, saying, "Here are the multiple times, over hundreds of years, that I sent prophets to remind you that you belong to the God who calls you to neighborliness." There were all these times, over hundreds and hundreds of years, when there was no single monumental mistake — just years and years and years in which the Israelites forgot that they belonged to God. And they forgot that they belonged to each other. And they forgot that the most important thing was not national glory, but how they treated the most vulnerable among them.

Grace Held for Later

I would love for there to be a bit of grace at the end of this passage. I would love to send us all off with a hopeful word. But unfortunately, that's not in today's passage. So I'm hoping we can sit in the discomfort for a moment. There will be grace — there will be a silver lining we'll come to in the next two weeks as we wrap up our sermon series on 2 Kings. But for now, I want us to rest in this: if it's true that this moment of calamity, trauma, and disaster came after hundreds of years of missed opportunities to course-correct, maybe we can find some comfort in the fact that our worship — the way we order our life together — is likewise a practice of long-term spiritual formation, meant to remind us, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, even for many of us, of who we are and whose we are.

The good news of this passage, if there is any, is that things didn't go wrong because of one bad Sunday, and likewise, things cannot be turned around by one good Sunday. And yet you and I get together, and week after week we remind ourselves — and I am reminded too, as a pastor — that we are called, first and foremost, to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. So though today's story is quite dismal, quite depressing, and quite harsh, it is not the end of the Israelites' story, and thanks be to God, it is not the end of our story either. For you and I will get together this week, and guess what we're going to do next week? We're going to get back together. We're going to worship the week after that, and we're going to remind ourselves what it means to be neighborly toward one another in a culture that doesn't seem to be prioritizing that right now the way it should.

How Worship Reforms Us

So I wanted to lift up, in closing, just a few examples of how worship forms us over the long term and changes us as disciples.

The first thing that came to mind was the passing of the peace. As an introvert, I must admit it’s never been my favorite part of a Reformed worship service. Yet there are days when I think it might just be the most important part of the entire Sunday morning. Over 38 years on this earth, I've been passing the peace with a lot of people I love. I've also been passing the peace with a lot of people who drive me crazy. And guess what — I'm sure other people have passed the peace with me and thought the same thing about me, that I've driven them crazy too.

Every week, we share the peace of Christ with one another across our divisions and differences. We may think it's a small thing, but trust me — over years and decades, it's not. In fact, do we have any Chicago White Sox fans here in the congregation? I bring this up because I saw it at a Chicago White Sox game last week. They passed the peace at the ballgame. Did y'all know this? Did y'all see this? They had “Pope Night” at the White Sox game because the current Pope, Leo, is a Chicago native. So everybody wore Pope hats, and then the Bishop of Chicago made a guest appearance and invited the 45,000 people in that stadium to pass the peace with one another. And that's what they did. Google it when you get home — "White Sox passing the peace" — and you'll see 45,000 people do exactly what you and I did a few minutes ago. I thought it was wonderfully beautiful.

And all the other things we do in worship make a difference, too. The songs we sing form us. The confessions we make — starting every week by admitting how we've fallen short and that God has not given up on us — make a difference. Our benediction response today, when we sing "Guide My Feet," acknowledges that this race of faith is a marathon, not a sprint. Every week we come here and ask God to guide our feet, knowing we're not going to bat a thousand — if I can stay with the baseball metaphor for a second. But we come week after week after week to remind ourselves who we are and whose we are.

So I want you to remember that the title of this sermon is "How a Kingdom Forgets." If that's true, I'd also remind us that when we gather for worship every week, we might call that "How a Church Remembers."

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.

"Turning Battlefields Into Banquets" (August 9, 2026 Sermon)

Turning Battlefields Into Banquets

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·August 9, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

11th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

2 Kings 6:8-23

Once when the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he took counsel with his officers. He said, “At such and such a place shall be my camp.” But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, “Take care not to pass this place, for the Arameans are going down there.” The king of Israel sent word to the place of which the man of God spoke. More than once or twice he warned a place so that it was on the alert.

The mind of the king of Aram was greatly perturbed because of this; he called his officers and said to them, “Now tell me: Who among us is betraying us to the king of Israel?” Then one of his officers said, “No one, my lord king. It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” He said, “Go and find where he is; I will send and seize him.” He was told, “He is in Dothan.” So he sent horses and chariots there and a great army; they came by night and surrounded the city.

When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, “Alas, master! What shall we do?” He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. When the Arameans came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Strike this people, please, with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked. Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.

As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open the eyes of these men so that they may see.” The Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were inside Samaria. When the king of Israel saw them he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I strike them? Shall I strike them?” He answered, “No! Would you strike those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink, and let them go to their master.” So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.

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So, how many of you know how to play chess? I’ve played chess my entire life. I’m not that great at it, but I’ve started to pick it back up and learn more. When Hazel Grace started the Spanish immersion program at Jones Elementary School, Tricia and I both downloaded the Duolingo app so we could try to get ahead of the time when the two of them can conspire in another language. I downloaded the Duolingo app to learn Spanish, but, as it turns out, you can also learn chess with Duolingo. So that’s what I’ve been doing the past month or so — relearning chess. And I’ve found something that’s actually quite annoying: as I get better, the app keeps giving me an AI opponent that gets harder and harder. It’s quite rude. I’m getting to the point where I feel like my AI opponent knows what I’m about to do before I even do it. I have a very particular way I like to open my chess game — I try to control the center of the board immediately, getting the pawns to the center and the knights out. If I’m feeling particularly frisky, I’ll try to get my queen into the action really soon to put my opponent on the defense early. But lately, that particular opening hasn’t been working for me because my AI opponent knows I’m about to do it. It’s quite frustrating. Is it going to make me a better chess player? Yes. It’s still really annoying.

The King’s Growing Suspicion

I’m guessing that's how the king of Aram felt at the beginning of today's passage. You may remember that last week we talked about the story of an unnamed slave girl owned by a general named Naaman, who served in the Aramean army — another word for Syria, modern-day Syria. They were the primary antagonists to the Israelites at this point in 1 and 2 Kings. As Elisha’s prophetic ministry gets underway, the Israelites and the Arameans are trading hostilities. But the king of Aram — we don’t know his name, the text doesn’t tell us — is getting really annoyed that whenever he tells his troops, “We’re going to do such and such,” he finds the Israelites already know the game plan. It happens once, and he thinks, okay, that’s a coincidence. It happens twice, and he thinks, okay, maybe that’s bad luck. And then it happens seventeen times, and he goes, okay, something’s going on here.

So he gathers all his generals and reaches the only rational conclusion most people in that position would: we’ve got a spy. Someone is feeding the Israelites intelligence. He gathers his generals and says, “Okay, which one of you is spilling the beans to the Israelites?” They all look at each other sheepishly, and then one general raises his hand and says, “Actually, Mr. King, it’s not us. It’s that Elisha dude. He knows everything. By the power of the Israelites’ God, he knows what you say when you are alone, sleeping at night.”

Well, I don’t know about you all, but that’s rather disconcerting. So the king of Aram says, “Okay, bring me this guy so I can kill him.” And that’s exactly what he does — he sends the Arameans to capture Elisha. They gather intelligence and figure out that he’s in a relatively small city in northern Israel called Dothan. So the Arameans send their army to surround Dothan in the middle of the night. Early the next morning, Elisha’s servant gets up, leaves the apartment, and goes outside to grab a cup of coffee and a newspaper at the bodega around the corner. He notices that there is a whole army surrounding Dothan.

So he goes and finds his master, wakes him up, and says, “Excuse me, Mr. Elisha — we have a small, small problem. There’s an army surrounding us.” But Elisha isn’t too concerned. He’s still kind of sleepy — acting kind of like Jesus does in that boat story you all know from the Gospels. Elisha says to his servant, “It’s fine. We outnumber them.” The servant’s like, “What are you smoking?” But Elisha says, “No, trust me — go out and look again.” And the servant goes out and sees something different this time. He sees the whole army, but around the Arameans’ army, he sees a heavenly, angelic army with horses and chariots of fire. The authors of 1 and 2 Kings really like chariots, and they really like them on fire — I don’t know why, but it’s pretty catchy. In this moment, Elisha’s servant recognizes that they’re not alone. Elisha finally wakes up, goes out, joins him, and says, “Hey, watch this.” And he calls on God to strike the Arameans blind.

So — God strikes the Aramean army with blindness, and Elisha captures the very army that was sent to capture him. Very ironic! Elisha takes the army captive and says, “Okay, follow me,” and they have no choice but to follow him. Elisha leads the army into Samaria, the capital of Israel. Elisha knocks on the door of the king of Israel and says, “Hey, look what I found.” The king of Israel says, “That’s awesome! Thank you — let’s kill them all,” because, you know, we’re in a time of war, and that makes sense when your enemy wanders helplessly into your arms. But then, as you heard Bob read for us, Elisha does a remarkable thing. Elisha says, “No — these are not your captives; these are my captives. I don’t want us to fight them. I want us to feed them.” And that’s exactly what happens. The blindness lifts from the Aramean army. They look around in panic, as any of us would, but that panic is short-lived, because shortly after, the Israelites set a table in the presence of their enemies. Have you ever heard that line before? After they’ve had their fill, Elisha and the Israelites send the Arameans home unharmed. It’s a remarkable story.

From Battlefield to Banquet

It’s remarkable because you and I are living in a very pugilistic culture right now. I know that’s a big word — does anybody know what a pugilist is? It’s an old term for a boxer. We are taught, in all corners of our culture, it feels, never to turn the other cheek but instead to fight, fight, fight. And yet in this story, Elisha says, no — now is the time to feed, feed, feed. So I invite us all to be curious together about what it might look like — what the world might look like — where we no longer bomb our enemies but feed them.

A Pastoral and Prophetic Balance

Now, whenever I have a sermon where I critique our country’s obsession with military violence, I think it’s very important to acknowledge that we can critique our culture’s obsession with military violence while not disparaging our men and women of the armed forces. I did three funerals this week — two here at Guilford Park, one down at Forbis and Dick — and two of those three folks I helped sing to heaven were servicemen, combat veterans. So whenever I preach sermons like this, I always admit that I’m not in the military, I don’t come from a military family, I don’t know what that sacrifice takes. And I think it’s really important that we hold that balance together.

One of my favorite preaching heroes was Harry Emerson Fosdick, the founding preacher of Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He was a noted pacifist who frequently criticized the military-industrial complex from that pulpit. But every week, when he learned there were servicemen and women in worship at Riverside, he took time out of his busy schedule to write each of them a handwritten note of gratitude for their service. I love that pastoral-prophetic balance, and I want us to have the same vibe here together today as we express wonder at this inexplicable story about feeding our enemies instead of bombing them.

And it’s fitting that I mention Harry Emerson Fosdick, because I believe our closing hymn today is “God of Grace and God of Glory,” in which Fosdick famously wrote, “Cure thy children’s warring madness.” So together, I invite us all to wonder what it might look like if we fed our enemies instead of bombing them. And I mention our courageous servicemen and women because I believe they would be the first among us to long for a world in which all battlefields become banquets.

So I don’t have all the answers. I’m not the president of the United States or the commander of the military — I don’t know what it’s like to make those calls, and I’ll freely admit that. But you and I are stewards of a radical story like this one, which compels us not to accept warfare as the only option. Elisha’s servant looked out and thought warfare was the inevitable option. The king of Aram looked out and thought warfare was the only option. The king of Israel looked out and thought warfare was the only option. But the God whom you and I dare to call the Prince of Peace called a prophet named Elisha to expand the moral imagination of the Israelites — and of all of us — to reimagine the battlefield as a banquet.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.

"There Was a Girl..." (August 2, 2026 Sermon)

There Was a Girl

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·August 2, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

10th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

2 Kings 5:1-4, 9-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

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Our passage today begins with a name; a name of a man who was healed of his leprosy by dipping himself in the Jordan seven times. His name, in Hebrew, meant “pleasant,” “delightful,” or “gracious.” Those monikers stand in stark contrast to the brutality with which he and his band of raiders pillaged and plundered the countryside and those who inhabited the lands of Israel, the northern kingdom that had split off from the southern kingdom of Judah. He was a commander in the army of the Arameans, a Semitic people whose nation bordered Israel to the east and the north. The text tells us that he was a “mighty warrior,” a “great man,” who was held in “high favor.” He had the credentials. He had the glory. He had the victories.

An Unnamed Girl

But womanist scholar Dr. Wilda Gafney, in a sermon I watched last week, challenges the use of the term “victory.” Because “victory” is the language of the conquerer, and never the conquered. What the conquerer calls “victory,” she preaches, the conquered call “slaughter.” And if we peel back the layers of this text that would have us give our undivided attention to him, we might adjust our gaze upon an unnamed character who was the collateral damage of his conquests. You and I aren’t privy to her name, as the text doesn’t deem her significant enough to be given such dignity. She was a slave-girl who had been abducted from her home in Israel, taken from her family, and forced to a life of servitude to the wife of the man with the “pleasant” and “gracious” name that begins this story.

I wonder if you and I could use our sanctified imagination to step into her shoes for a moment. Because there have been plenty of sermons that focus on the man she was forced to call “Master.” There are plenty of sermons, such as the one I gave last week, that focus on Elisha, whose healing authority the man sought to rid him of his disease. But there are precious few sermons by comparison that focus on the girl whose suggestion of Elisha’s prophetic power led the man to seek his counsel in the first place.

Rev. Dr. Jaqui Lewis once said, “There is always a girl.” Dr. Gafney says the following: “And while the scriptures speak most often to men, in the voices of men, there are still all of these girls. All of these girls who will not go away. They may be edited out of lectionary readings, cut out of the genealogies of the children to whom they give birth, erased from the stories that take place in their own homes, deprived of the dignity of names, silenced while text after text legislates their body and who has access to it…On the page, between the lines, behind the story; there is always a girl.”

The Girl Speaks

And in today’s story, there is a girl, a caged bird who sings of a God whose power is channeled through a prophet named Elisha. The girl wisely placed herself within earshot of her master’s complaining. A subtle but subversive observation in this text is that this man, lauded as a fierce and powerful soldier, a warrior of great strength and cunning, is helpless to help himself! Instead, he is so desperate to rid himself of this scandalous condition that he is forced to rely on the wisdom of the very girl he has claimed as property for his wife’s every need.

And this girl is given one line and one line only in this story: “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.” It’s almost casual in tone: “if only my lord were with the prophet…”. It’s the kind of line you feed to someone who you know will want to know more once you tease them with hope. She has something, a knowledge, a trust in the God whose power the prophet proclaims, that she knows is something that her master can’t win in battle or negotiate in the king’s court. She knows of where he can find relief, and she makes herself useful.

And making oneself useful is not simply something to be commended in this text; it is instead something that needs to be named as a survival tactic by a little girl whose body didn’t belong to herself. Making oneself useful is a technique of subversive power wielded by the oppressed to reclaim agency in an agency-denying power dynamic. It was the same tactic employed by Esther, as she used her status in the king’s court to manipulate her husband, Ahasuerus, and his Gestapo advisor, Mordecai. It’s the same playbook as Rahab, the woman in Jericho who cleverly used her position to negotiate safety for her household before the city’s collapse. It’s the same game plan as Shiprah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives in the Book of Exodus who deny Pharaoh his murderous campaign to make Egypt great again by slaughtering all those Hebrew boys.

And so, we may not know the name of the little girl in today’s passage, but she’s in good company! Esther, Rahab, Shiprah, and Puah all knew the complexities of being a woman in a man’s world, and they knew a thing or two about how to exploit the powers of patriarchy to provide safety and security for the vulnerable around them. And their “good trouble” lives on in this unnamed girl who navigates her enslavement to express trust in the power of her God over and above the power of her enslavers.

As the father of two young girls, I want to lift up these stories so that they, and other girls like them, may come to know that their stories matter. That their agency matters. That their bodies matter. That their safety matters. That their dignity matters. The name of the girl in this story may be lost to history, but it is not lost to the God whose authority parted the very river whose waters cleansed the man of his leprosy. And lest we think that focusing on such marginalized characters in the Biblical narrative is a waste of time, consider this: the girls among us are listening. There are girls in our churches who are listening to how the men around them speak of them. There are girls in our world who wonder if their worth is nothing more than whatever makes the men around them happy or satiated or comfortable. There are girls in our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces, who are listening to how their fathers speak of them, how their pastors speak of them, how their President speaks of them, who deserve to know that they are more than simply a plot device meant to steer our attention to the men who get the privilege of being the center of attention.

What the Margins Reveal

Because if we do that work of lifting back the layers of the text to see where God is working in the margins, other revelations are sure to follow. For example, the girl who told her enslaver where to find help is not alone in this text — just verses later, it's his own servants (who may very well have been girls or women themselves) doing the same thing, in the same posture, and getting the same result: he listens to someone he outranks, and it saves him.

He arrives at Elisha’s house; he is offended that the prophet doesn’t even meet him, but instead sends a message that he is to dip himself seven times in the waters of the Jordan. His ego is bruised. He wanted the fanfare, the pomp and circumstance befitting a man of his stature, but instead he gets a sticky note with instructions to jump into muddy water. Yet it is his servants who compel him to set aside his ego and do what the prophet said. Once again, the man who is ostensibly all-powerful is dependent on the wisdom of those around him whom he is subjugating.

So he goes down to a muddy, unremarkable river he'd already insulted as inferior to the waters back home. Six times, nothing happens. By the seventh dip, soaked and humiliated in front of the very servants who talked him into this, I imagine something in him has already given way — because this healing was never going to happen to him from a distance. It only happens because a commander, a “great” man, a man in high favor, is willing to keep lowering himself into the water on the word of people he outranks. And perhaps that’s the true miracle of the story. Not the cleansing itself, but what it cost him to get there: he had to let a slave girl and his own servants be right and him be wrong, in front of everyone.

And so, let us give thanks for the unnamed women and girls in today’s text. Let us give thanks to the God whose authority and power were channeled not through a mighty warrior like the man whose name opens today’s text, but through those whose value he recognized only insofar as they served him. And let us give thanks to Jesus Christ, whose Spirit draws our attention to the margins of scripture, where we are far more likely to find God than in the centers of power we erect for ourselves.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.

"The Mantle and the Question" (July 26, 2026 Sermon)

The Mantle and the Question

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·July 26, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

9th Sunday in Lent (Year A)

2 Kings 2:1–15

Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”

Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”

Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the company of prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and the two of them crossed on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” He responded, “You have asked a hard thing, yet if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water. He said, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Where is he?” He struck the water again, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha crossed over.

When the company of prophets who were at Jericho saw him at a distance, they declared, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” They came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.

The last time we were together, we were near the end of 1 Kings. Elijah — not to be confused with Elisha today — had just had that epic showdown with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, and then fled the scene because King Ahab and Jezebel were none too pleased about it. Then came that moment when God found Elijah: the whirlwind, but God wasn’t in the whirlwind; the fire, but God wasn’t in the fire. God came to Elijah in the silence and said, in effect, “Elijah, take a nap, get a snack, go back to work — and call another prophet, Elisha, to take over once your ministry has concluded.” That’s where we pick up today, in the book of 2 Kings.

But before we get going, I want to invite you into a brief exercise. Think of someone you loved dearly who is no longer with us — someone who, as Mr. Rogers would say, “loved you into being.” Someone who taught you a great deal, someone whose advice you wish you could still ask for. Let’s spend thirty seconds in silence together, thinking of who that person is for you. And then I asked several of you to share, in a single word, what you were feeling: peaceful, sad, grateful, light, appreciative, proud, happy. Quite a range of emotions — and I expected that, because I wanted us to sit for a moment in what Elisha might have been feeling as he prepared to say goodbye to his mentor, Elijah.

A Farewell Journey

Elisha knew the time was coming. He and Elijah set out on something of a farewell journey, and all along the way, companies of prophets kept trailing alongside them. We don’t know their names, but they keep approaching Elisha and asking, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master from you?” And Elisha says, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.” That’s the “Stephen Fearing paraphrase” of the passage — but you can hear the sadness in it. He’s essentially saying, “Yes, yes, I know it’s time to say goodbye, but I’m not ready yet.” I think we all know that feeling, when we know a goodbye is coming and we don’t want it to.

Eventually Elijah and Elisha come to the banks of the Jordan River, and I think Elisha knows this goodbye cannot be put off any longer. Elijah says to Elisha, “What is it you want from me?” — not unlike what God once asked Solomon back in 1 Kings. And Elisha says, “I want a double portion of your ruach — your breath, your spirit.” It’s the same word used for the Spirit of God that hovered over the waters of creation. Elisha is essentially saying to Elijah: “Whatever measure of God’s presence you carry, I want that — and then I want even more of it.” It’s a bold ask, but a wise one, not unlike what Solomon asked God for: not wealth or long life, but a lev shomea — a listening heart.

Crossing the Jordan

Elijah doesn’t give an easy yes. His answer amounts to: “That’s a good thing to ask for, but it isn’t exactly mine to give — it’s God’s. If you see me as I am taken from you, though, I think it will be granted.” And then Elijah takes off his mantle and, on the banks of the Jordan, strikes the water with it — the way a toddler might slap a pool noodle against the surface of a pool. And the water parts, and the two of them walk across on dry ground — calling to mind, of course, another story of parted waters: the Red Sea.

Once they’ve crossed, Elijah is taken up, and his mantle falls. Now — what took Elijah up into heaven? A chariot? Not quite. If you read the text carefully, it doesn’t actually say Elijah rode in the chariot. Sorry to ruin that for everybody. What it says is that Elijah was taken up into heaven, and that a chariot of fire came between him and Elisha. Does that distinction really matter? Either way, Elijah receives an extraordinary send-off, more dramatic even than the one Moses received! And as the chariot disappears, and Elijah disappears with it, Elisha cries out, “Father! Father!” The text isn’t entirely clear whether he’s calling out to God or to Elijah as a father figure, but either way, it’s clear that in this moment of transition, Elisha is mourning the departure of someone who meant everything to him.

And then — silence. We know that silence. The silence after we say goodbye to someone we love, a mentor, a guide. And then comes that “okay, now what?” moment. Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle, which he realizes now belongs to him.

The Second Strike

Here’s a detail I think I’ve overlooked in past times I’ve preached this text: Elisha is now on the opposite side of the Jordan from where he needs to be, and the water has closed back up behind him. He has to part it again himself. So he takes the mantle that is now his, strikes the water — and nothing happens. Nothing. If you read carefully, he has to try twice. The first time, he strikes the water, and it stays as it was.

How many of us know that moment — when the mantle has been passed to us, and we step into the work we’ve been trained for, and it just... doesn’t work? I recently got back from a hymn-writing conference in Princeton, New Jersey, and I found myself thinking about a mentor of mine, an Elijah of sorts — Michael Morgan, who taught me how to write hymns, and who died three or four years ago. This past week, I went back through the hymns I’ve written over the last ten years, separating the “wheat” from the “chaff.” Some are good. Some are genuinely terrible, and will never see the light of day — which is probably for the best. But we all know what it feels like to realize, “okay, this is mine to carry now,” and have it fail the first time.

So Elisha strikes the water, and nothing happens. And then — in that moment of frustration, maybe even failure, though I’m not sure it was — he asks, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And he strikes the water again. And this time, it parts, and he walks back across.

Where Is God?

What I want to leave us with today is that question. Because when someone who taught us so much about the love of God, about justice and kindness, has departed, it’s tempting to ask, “Where are they now?” It’s good to remember the people who loved us into being — that’s why I began this sermon the way I did. But notice: Elisha doesn’t ask, “Where is Elijah?” That’s a question that looks backward. Instead, he asks, “Where is God?” Where is God now? Where is God leading me now? I think that’s the answer Elijah, from heaven, would give if he could: Don’t ask where I am. Ask where God is.

This church is in a season of transition. We’ve said goodbye to some remarkable pillars of this congregation. And individually, I know many of you are in your own liminal moments, having said goodbye to people you’ve loved deeply. So what I want to lift up today is this: it is okay to be sad. It is okay to grieve. It is okay to feel gratitude for those who have gone before us. And those people — whoever they are for you — are cheering us on from heaven, saying: ask the right question. Don’t ask about us. Ask how God is moving here and now.

So together, as the mantle is passed to all of us, may we ask that question continually — in our grief and in our gratitude: Where is God? Because, friends, God is on both sides of the Jordan as we cross it again.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.