The Whiner

I have a collection of characters which I have created to entertain my youngest son. Among them is "The Whiner." He, as you can imagine, is able to find something to complain about whatever the situation, and he is the eternal victim, grieving his maltreatment at the hands of everyone. 

The Whiner serves a purpose, he is a parable about the destructive forces at work in each of us. The message is--don't be a whiner. He is totally unappealing.

Unlike our hagiography, the Bible does not refrain from illustrating characters in all their good and bad. Too often, the saints were portrayed as heroes, their minor flaws generating great humility, and they were as otherworldly as comic book superheroes. The expression "I'm not a saint" was a declaration that no-one should expect much from us, we are ordinary. So, hagiography fails to inspire us, it only discourages us with figures too great to be understood.

Elijah the prophet had long stood against the corruption of King Ahab and his foreign wife, Queen Jezebel, who intensified the worship of Ba'al in Israel. Elijah and Ahab traded insults and accusations (it is almost comical at times), each blaming the other for the nation's troubles. Finally, during a horrible drought,  there is a showdown between Elijah and over eight hundred pagan priests. Elijah mocks their efforts to call down fire from the sky and ridicules their gods. Then Elijah calls on YHWH to bring flame upon his water drenched altar. YHWH consumes the wood and the area around the altar. THe  people of Israel, duly impressed, reconfirm their faith in God, and Elijah commands them to slaughter all the pagan priests. Immediately after, Elijah tells the king, the drought will end.

When Ahab returns home, he tells Jezebel what had happened and she vows revenge. Elijah, after these demonstrations of divine power, inexplicably flees. Like Moses before him, he prays for death. "It is enough, Lord..." Instead, God provides bread and water which sustains him during a forty day fast as he travels to Mount Horeb (Sinai) where Moses saw the bush, and later communed with God when he got the commandments.

God asks him, "What are you doing here?"

Many believe the question is intended negatively. Elijah makes his complaint, though much of the information is incorrect. The Israelites had not rejected God and Ahab & Jezebel was slaying the prophets, although we know six hundred had been hidden. Elijah is whining.

When YHWH commands him to stand in the presence of the Lord, we understand what the cave is. It is the place where Moses stood when the Lord "passed by" during the Exodus. Elijah will receive the same visitation, or will he?

The theophany--wind, fire, earthquake--associated with the Exodus story is repeated, but here we learn God is not in their destructive power. Instead, there is "a sound of silence," the word is used in another place to describe the quiet after a storm. I have sat high on a mountain in Spain where I heard this sound of silence. The scriptures would have us know that it is in silence that our Lord speaks.

God repeats His question, "Why are you here?" and Elijah whines again. Life is hard, things go poorly, I am all alone. God gives his answer, the men who will end the current monarchy, and the promise of 7,000 faithful in Israel, no doubt a symbolic number.

The great Elijah is portrayed as just another whiner. His lack of trust on full display. 

What are you doing here, Elijah?

It is easy, friends, to forget God has won the victory. It is easy to see ourselves, as victims, abused, battered, betrayed and left all alone. It is easy to seek God's voice in power and majesty, forgetting that in Jesus we learn God is found in the still silence.

Soon after this, Elijah will be caught up into heaven in chariots of fire. Jews believe he will prepare us for the Day of the Lord. He is, despite his flaws, God's man.

There is hope here. There is hope for us flawed, weak, imperfect humans--people who run away, afraid and depressed. When God asks you, "what are you doing here?" do not whine. Do not twist the truth to paint yourself a victim. Do not claim "I'm the only good one left." 

Rather listen in the silence. Trust God will deliver you, will deliver us. Grasp the faith and trust His power to deliver us, trust His desire to make us whole.

We aren't perfect, but neither were the saints of old. And that's okay, because God is perfect and He is on our side.