I enjoyed preaching the sermon. Maybe i should do it more often…
What I try to do when I have to make a speech is learn it in my head without writing it down. It seems to work better that way.
And when I’m asked to read the Bible aloud in church, I try to perform it as a story.
A story of people just like us trying to make sense of a world full of suffering and despair.
Because I find the Bible makes more sense that way.
Treat it as if it were somehow the word of God and it makes no sense at all.
After I’ve made the speech I’ll sometimes write it down, and that’s what I’m doing here.
I’ve put the story in first because otherwise no-one’ll know what I’m talking about.
I was surprised when I wrote it down today to discover that the story meant far more to me than I’d imagined.
So can’t fit it all in to the one newsletter and it’ll have to be continued…
“So this is what happened when the lord took Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind.
Elijah and his apprentice Elisha were on their way from Gilgal, when Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”
But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.”
So they went on.
And when they got to Bethel, the school of prophets there went up to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”
“Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “be quiet.”
Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.”
And Elisha replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.”
So they went on.
And when they got to Jericho, the school of prophets there went up to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”
“Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “be quiet.”
Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan river .”
And Elisha replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives I will not leave you.”
So they went on.
Fifty apprentice prophets came and stood at a distance, watching the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped by the river Jordan.
Then Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it.
The water split in two to the right and to the left, and the two of them walked across on dry ground.
When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
“Let me inherit a double share of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
“That’s a hard thing you’ve asked for,” Elijah said, “yet if you can see me when I am taken from you, then it will be yours—otherwise, not.”
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated them.
Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
Elisha saw this and cried out,
“My father! My father! The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!”
And Elisha saw him no more.
Then he took hold of his clothes and he tore them in two….”
Amazing people, these old prophets.
Imagine being at school and saying to your guidance teacher
“Please miss, I want to be a prophet”
I don’t think she’d be very encouraging.
She might say
“Are you really up for this?
You’ll have to dress funny and talk funny and people’ll probably laugh at you.
Or spit at you or throw stones at you or throw you into jail.
Because you’ll probably make some powerful enemies.
And what’ll happen if you get into a completion with 200 rival?
200 prophets of a different god?
And you have to see which one of you can call down fire from heaven to roast an ox?
It’ll be 200 to one against you and they’ll be jeering and insulting and trying to put you off
And if you can’t do it, they’ll kill you
And if they can’t do it you’ll have to kill them.
All 220 of them. Put them to the sword.
Are you really up for that?
How’s your upper body strength?
“Wouldn’t you be better in hospitality or retail?”
Of course it didn’t quite work like that.
Prophets got a call, a burning bush, a voice from the sky.
Something like that.
And they weren’t always happy about it.
Moses kept complaining. Telling God he wasn’t getting enough support.
And Jonah went on strike.
Sorry God, not going to Nineveh.. Too dangerous.
So he got on a boat going the opposite direction and got swallowed by a whale.
And ended up in Nineveh anyway.
See there’s something inescapable going on.
Something you can’t get out of.
And I know we’re none of Old Testament prophets here today - at least I don’t think we are - but we go through a very similar kind of process ourselves.
As we try to discover who we are and what we are going to do with our lives.
There’s a conscious element to all this: a decision that may involve us in a whole load of hard work as we train to join our chosen profession.
But at the same time there’s something mysterious about it.
Something going on we don’t fully understand.
And sometimes those we love don’t like it.
Sometimes we don’t like it ourselves.
My daughter’s best friend knew when she left school that she wanted to be a make-up artist.
Her mum and dad weren’t too happy with this, you can imagine, and thought she really should do something that would guarantee her a living.
So she went and did a law degree.
And at the end of it there she was with a not very good degree but the absolute knowledge she never wanted to work in law.
So she trained to be a make-up artist and now does make-up for top models in Paris fashion shoots.
As for my daughter, she’s become a writer and journalist. Which isn’t much of a mystery, because that’s what her mother did. And that’s what i do still…
Her big sister surprised us by becoming an engineer.
And where did that come from?
Thinking about it we realised that my grandad was an engineer and kept the engines working in Flowers Brewery in Stratford; and Susie’s grandad was an engineer who looked after the engine of a fishing boat in Peterhead.
As for me, I had no idea where the idea I was going to be a writer came from.
My family weren’t artistic at all, and I found myself being embarrassed by it.
My dad said I’d never make a living out of it, and I should try to enjoy it as a hobby.
And I did my best. I tried all sorts of things.
I tried to be a university lecturer and a yoga teacher and a counselling teacher and a bus conductor and a nurse.
And none of them worked. And I started writing when I had nothing else to do…
I was thirty years old. Because this doesn’t just happen when we leave school. This goes on for a lifetime.
My mother-in-law was brought up in a time when it wasn’t considered important for girls to do well at school.
So her dad just took her out of school when she was thirteen and without asking her found her a job serving in the local branch of Boots.
And she was happy enough doing shop work until the war came and she volunteered to be an Auxiliary Nurse.
And she loved it. She discovered in herself a real vocation for nursing, and wanted to do nurse training when the war was over.
Only when her man got demobbed she married him and wasn’t allowed to work as a nurse any more.
Her generation of women were taught that their role in life was to support their husbands to be the breadwinner, so she maybe didn’t complain too much.
She just got on with what she was taught she was supposed to be doing.
But then her husband died when he was coming up to be sixty and she found herself alone in the world.
We encouraged her to move down to sheltered housing in Edinburgh so she could be near us.
She went to an art class and discovered a real skill for watercolours.
Then she began painting flowers and went to a class in the Botanic Gardens and developed a passion for botanical illustration.
But her journey of discovery didn’t end there.
Because in her late eighties she had to go live in a care home and it just so happened that the residents were encouraged to put on plays.
Being in a strict Evangelical sect meant she’d always disapproved of theatre but one of the last things she did was play the good witch Glinda in the Wizard of Oz.
And there she was, having learnt her lines, and in her costume in her wheelchair and loving it….
So the process of self discovery can take a whole lifetime.
And often really surprise us by revealing gifts inside us we didn’t know we possessed.
Elisha knew he was a prophet because one day when he was ploughing his dad’s field Elijah talent spotted him and threw his cloak over him.
Maybe we all have to work at it a bit harder.
But one of the things this story is about, I guess, is Elisha beginning the process of learning how it’s going to be, being on his own and a prophet.
Just like us: and when we finally learn, amazing things can happen…..
(to be continued)
Love this ! Thankyou Jo as always for insightful and human takes on scripture.
My son's godfather signs off his emails with this quote : " the poor tell us who we are, so we hide them : the prophets tell us who we could be , so we kill them " - possibly a Dan Berrigan quote, but food for thought, Mon the poor and the prophets !!!
Jo - this is great thanks. You can come and preach for us anytime :-)
It's so true about the ongoing struggle to find your true vocation. I started training for ministry aged, 37, following a variety of jobs; some of which I hated and some of which were fine, but definitely not a vocation. I'm doing what I'm 'meant for' now, which doesn't mean it's always sweetness and light.
Did you get my fairly recent email, following up on the idea of bringing Queen Jesus to Sheffield? I have a District meeting on 16th March, and would like to be able to present this to them as a district project, if you're up for it. Come on a Saturday, and you'll have a preaching gig on the Sunday too!! :-)