Return to you home and declare how much God has done for you

It was a troubled time in Israel.

As I describe the troubles, see if some of them sound familiar.

They were in the middle of a natural disaster, for them it was 3 years of a drought that wasn’t ending.

They had abundant political corruption, for them it was King Ahab who had married the ambitious and ruthless Jezebel.

There was widespread religious failure, for them it started with the king who had not only tolerated, but actually worshiped the god Baal.

All in all it was a troubled time in Israel, just a chapter earlier we are told Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.

And it was the prophet Elijah who had told Ahab of the drought that would bring such trouble to the land. After that God led Elijah into hiding, first to the East of the Jordan, and then to the home of the widow of Zaraphath.

Now Elijah was back in town and he wanted a sit-down with King Ahab, which he arranges through Obadiah, and when the King sees him coming he greets him “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”

And Elijah quickly countered with all of the sophistication of a 3rd grader on the playground: “I have not troubled Israel, but you have.”

Have not! Have to! Have not! Have to! And the blame game is off and running.

Whose fault is it?

It is a game that we continue to play as we assess the troubles of our lives and of our world, isn’t it?

Read the papers, watch the news and decide.

Is it BP’s fault? Or the President’s fault? Or the last President? Or the Arabic world? Or the automakers? Or Wall Street? Or the Tea Party people? Or the media? Or the religious conservatives? Or the religious liberals?

Where do we place the blame?

Who is that troubles our world?

I don’t have to tell you that there are economic troubles in the world, I doubt there is a family in the room who has been untouched by the economic woes of recent years: jobs have been threatened and often lost and new ones found and lost again; houses – the one sure bet in our economic lives – have dwindled in value until more was owed than the house was worth; stocks have – at best - been frozen in place; educational costs have risen in the face of this and dreams of college have been reduced or abandoned; retirements have been deferred and we have no idea what the ultimate financial impact of the oil spill in the gulf will be.

All of these changes are economic events that we did not anticipate just a decade ago.

Nor did the subjects of King Ahab anticipate a three year drought. But the King knew who to blame: Elijah the servant of God. In fact, he tried to kill him when Elijah defeated and killed the prophets of Baal.

Nor, in the NT lesson, did the pig farmers of Gerasene anticipate Jesus driving their entire herd into a river to drown. But they knew who to blame: Jesus, the word of God. In fact they asked him to please leave before the whole economy ended up in the river. So let’s blame God, because whether we like it or not if we let his people or his word into our lives, there are going to be economic implications. If you don’t want to be uncomfortable, economically, chase him away now, for Jesus is God’s own troublemaker. “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”

And I don’t have to tell you that there are political troubles in the world. Try to keep a poker face now, but be honest within yourself, how do you react when you hear the following:
Barak Obama said . . .
Sarah Palen said . . .
Chris Christie said . . .
Hillary Clinton said . . .

For most of America it seems that it doesn’t matter how any of those sentences would end, as soon as the speaker is identified we know whether we agree or disagree with whatever comes next – we have stopped listening.

We have, at least for now, abandoned the dream of statesmen who sought that which was best for all people and we have rewarded, celebrated and elected those who pander to target audiences, bringing division, polarizing our nation and our state. The art of consensus building has been abandoned and replaced with a mindless partisanship where we react with automatic negativism to any idea, based upon who said it rather than what is said.

So Ahab knew who to blame: Elijah.

And we continue the tradition of blaming the prophets, the ones who speak strongly and clearly on God’s behalf, the ones who point at Democrats and Republicans, in Trenton and in Washington and say “shame on you for your carefully constructed lies, your plausible deniability, your refusal to work together for the good of all.”

“Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”

And it is not only financial, I don’t have to tell you that there are emotional problems in the world.

The man whom Jesus dealt with, the man with what scripture calls unclean spirits, the man who is so disconnected from himself that he has no unity to his life and calls his torments “Legion”, well, we know him, don’t we? We are him, aren’t we? We have so many separate and often conflicting expectations laid upon us, don’t we? We are workers and spouses, parents and children, friends and siblings, Christians and citizens and all of these pull at us and demand our effort and attention, and they are good things, but it is so easy to lose the central, fundamental identity of our lives.

We are fragmented so terribly by our calendars and obligations and debts and dreams, we are legion, we are legion.

Yet we are one. There is a me, and a you, that God created and nurtured and it is there behind and beneath all of the roles that we play. In the many wonderful stories of Coach John Wooden that followed his death, someone wrote that he accepted the reality that sands shift through the years but there was always bedrock underneath. Changes come and go, but our core, sacredly created identity is the bedrock.

We all have our roles to play, in our families, at out jobs, in our communities and nation and world. But we can’t do justice to any of those roles if we don’t first know and understand who we are, what our bedrock is. When we lose touch with the bedrock, then we find ourselves acting and speaking the way others wanted rather than following God’s lead.

And when I have done that, I know exactly who to blame: me and me alone. Not only could be my fault, but is my fault. I find it interesting that the man with the demons didn’t ask Jesus to heal him. This is one of the few times that Jesus aggressively went after someone and the man even tried to reject him: “Do not torment me!” he said.

Been there, done that.

We become so comfortable with our demons that we don’t want to be cured. We don’t want to be rid of our racism, our greed, our egos, we don’t want to know what God wants us to surrender, we don’t want to know what God wants us to take on. That true me, that true you, that bedrock image of God that sits at the core of our souls, that is a troubler of our lives and we don’t want to be troubled.

“Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”

You see, in a sin-sick world such as ours when the purity of God arrives, the status quo will always be troubled. The root of the Hebrew word for troubled is “stirred up” and it is a necessary process, because if the waters of our lives are not stirred up they become stagnant and unhealthy.

Now let me just address a few words to the fathers, on this Fathers’ Day and the rest of you can listen in.

Go back to the man whose torments were legion, it doesn’t say anywhere that he was a father, but I like to think that he was and that he was separated from his family, by all that tormented him. He had been living among the dead, near the tombs and he was continually agitated and distressed, but when the townspeople came out to see what had happened to him, they found him seated at the feet of Jesus.

That is where our troubles should lead us, to a place of learning and growing and serving.

God will always send someone to stir things up, to trouble our complacency and our self-righteousness but most uncomfortably of all, God will awaken us to a greater sense of responsibility.

And, notice, when Jesus got ready to leave, the man wanted to go with him and he begged Jesus to allow him to go with him. And Jesus, as he did with so many people, as he does with us, said to him “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

Guys, let me tell you, on this Father’s Day that’s what we need to be doing.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

There are children who need to hear that, they think you do it all yourself, you know better and you need to tell them.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

There are wives who need to hear that, they know how much they depend upon God and they want you to share that with them and you need it as well.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

There are friends and neighbors and coworkers who wander in and out of your home and your life who need to hear that, they are scared and lost and don’t how you manage to hold it all together; and neither do you but when you say it, you realize that God has gotten you through it so far, and God has no intention of quitting on you!

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

And there is a God who needs to hear that, for when you offer prayers of gratitude God will open new doors and window and worlds to you.

And as I try to remind you and try to remember myself, this fathering thing doesn’t end with a child graduating or getting married or becoming a parent, it never ends, it never ends.

It starts on that day in the hospital, and I love the commercial that defines today’s fathers as making the transformation from “dude to dad”, but it never ends as long as you and I draw breath.

I learned this week about the death of Dave Moyle, another HS friend of mine, a good guy back then, 4 months younger than I, an athlete who kept himself in great shape, and went on to be the Athletic Director at that mythical HS of mine in Pumpkin Lakes, and I read the tributes online and I was delighted – but not surprised - to learn that he had gone from being a good guy to being a great guy, not only professionally but more importantly as a father and grandfather and all of the other personal roles that he filled. And I was so very glad that he had retired three years ago and was able to give his children and his grandchildren the only gifts that really matter in life: his time, his attention and his affection.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

That is our job as Dads, to remind our children and our grandchildren – and ourselves – over and over again that the troubles are always temporary, the blame is always shared but the blessings are forever and that victory is always ours.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”