Stephen
Terry, Director
Images
of Unity
Commentary
for the November 10, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to
meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, ‘Is that you, you troubler of
Israel?’”
“‘I have not made trouble for Israel,’ Elijah replied. ‘But
you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and
have followed the Baals.’” 1 Kings 18:16-18, NIV
A popular song sung at youth meetings in the 1960s and
70s was “Kumbayah.” It promoted an image of everyone blissfully sitting around
a campfire and holding hands with no one doing or saying anything to break the spell
of unity and solidarity among the believers. The “Baby Boomers” born soon after
World War II, were coming of age and this was very much a sentiment of the
times. Love was going to conquer the world. Hippies experimented with “love ins”
and communes where everyone shared work and responsibilities as well as love
for one another. The “Summer of Love” in 1967, when over a hundred thousand
converged on San Francisco, was to usher in this new age of cooperation and
unity. But the ideas of love and peace clashed with the ever escalating
conflict in Vietnam, and thanks to the draft, many of those who wanted little
more than peaceful co-existence on the planet were thrust into the steamy
jungles of Southeast Asia under orders to kill as many of those who lived there
as they could to promote peace by denying the communists the opportunity to
control Vietnam. The absurdity of this was reflected in the graffiti and
protest signs carried in anti-war marches, such as “Killing to promote peace
makes as much sense as having sex to promote virginity.”
The United States government, heavily involved in the
war effort, did not appreciate challenges to their policy in Vietnam. Even
though Vietnam was never a formally declared war of the United States, being
seen instead as a “police action,” those who opposed the war were increasingly
being referred to as communists and vilified as terrorists with little surprise
as to where that would lead. Finally the campus of Kent State was littered with
the bodies of slain, unarmed students, protesters who had been murdered by the
National Guard who had been called out and given live ammunition to deal with
the young people. The government placed such a high value on unity, they were
willing to end the lives of those who challenged it. Sadly, when a wrong course
of action is taken by powerful individuals, rather than humbly admit their
error, they vilify those who point it out as divisive troublemakers and
encourage others who would deal with the troublemakers through extreme measures.
They claim that doing so will restore lost unity and everything will once again
be great like it was before. More often than not, however, as it was with Kent
State, the extreme action is ultimately the undoing of unity and the downfall
of those who promoted it.
Examples of such failures abound in the Bible. But in spite
of these examples, wrong-headed leadership continues to pursue agendas that
bring divisiveness and send us down the path to schism. Paradoxically, they
claim the problem is not their leadership but rather the disloyalty of those
who are challenging their policies. Rather than re-examine those policies, they
instead claim that if we would only simply all work together in unity without
questioning their leadership everything would be fine. Ahab, the apostate king
of Israel, had rejected God and promoted the worship of the Baal idols of the
Sidonians. When faced with drought because those idols were not gods and could
do nothing to help him, he refused to return to God, who could actually help.
Instead, like the government at Kent State, he sought the lives of all those
who would worship the true God. He saw them as promoting disunity in his realm,
and perhaps none more so than Elijah, who continued to remain firm in his
loyalty to God even though it could mean his death. Refusing to humble himself
before God, Ahab was out trying to find sources of water for his livestock that
were suffering from the drought. Instructed by God that it was time for a showdown
between God and the Baals who were no gods, Elijah showed himself to Ahab. Ahab’s
immediate response upon seeing the rough-clad prophet was to call him a
troublemaker. But Elijah responds with the true source of the trouble. Perhaps
knowing that the proud king would never accept the reproof he gave, he challenged
the king to a showdown between the many prophets and priests of Baal and
himself as the lone prophet of the true God. Why Ahab agreed to this is not
clear. Perhaps he truly believed that the Baals could win. Maybe he or his
counselors thought this would be a way to finally destroy Elijah’s influence
and have one, unified faith in the kingdom. One can imagine the two meeting in
the countryside before the contest. Ahab would be dressed in the most splendid clothing
his money could buy. He would have had equally splendid courtiers attending him.
Raised in a palace, he would be educated in etiquette and decorum. In contrast,
Elijah is clad in the simple cloak of a prophet. Those who surrounded Ahab were
easily co-opted to his camp by their love of power or wealth. But Elijah could
not be corrupted because he did not seek such things. Only God held sway over
the prophet.
Soon they met on Mount Carmel and in the contest, the
Baal worshipers could get no response from their god. Instead the true God, the
God of Elijah, answered his prayers with a fiery display from heaven that left
little doubt which was real. Apparently acknowledging the true God, Ahab
allowed all of the prophets of Baal to be killed. Soon rain was on the way to relieve
the drought, but nonetheless, Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, vowed revenge against
Elijah and he fled from her presence. Feeling alone in his worship of God,
Elijah is reminded by God that he is far from alone. Those who are pursuing a
wrong course and pushing others to unify and support their misguided agenda
will often attempt to make it appear that the person who challenges them is all
alone in standing against the unity they are trying to promote and should therefore
be swept aside. They may seek to shame or shun the individual and accuse them
of the very divisiveness and schism that the policies of the leadership are
bringing to pass. But just as Elijah was not alone, neither are modern-day
challengers. We should never allow others to gas-light us into thinking we are.
Unity cannot be imposed from the top. Whenever an
attempt is made to do so, it should ring alarm bells. If people are not unified
behind an agenda or policy, it is usually because there is a problem with that
policy. When the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, it came after
everyone was in agreement. Scripture does not indicate that agreement was
coerced in any way. There were no compliance committees set up to root out
non-compliance. There were no informers making complaints about the brethren
over suspected doctrinal differences. No one was “called on the carpet” to be
shamed. Any such controlling behavior would likely have driven the Spirit away
and the faith that conquered the world might have sputtered and died in its
infancy. Instead we discover that the unity that existed then arose from the
loving hearts of the believers. That love is evidenced in the final verses of
Acts, chapter two, where it indicates that everyone’s needs were met and all
worshiped together as equals.
Too many want to control the work as though it were
their will alone that God must accommodate. They do not allow God the
opportunity or the right to be able to function outside the parameters their
narrow, self-serving understanding of scripture will allow. They would control
whom God may call, when they may be called and what they are allowed to say
once called. Interestingly, those limitations often fall right along the same lines
as those defined by nepotism, cronyism, and the reins of personal power held by
certain influential and wealthy individuals. Those wealthy individuals no
longer use their wealth to benefit the needy within the church as they did in
early Christianity. Instead they use it to bolster their own personal influence
and power over the rest. Those who go along with such corruption are said to be
promoting unity, while those who challenge it are called divisive. However, the
reality is that those who hold such power should never feel secure in their position,
for God is not above calling each of us to our own personal Mount Carmel to
remind us who is truly in control. In spite of expensive suits, large office suites,
and luxurious automobiles, God is more likely to be found where hearts are
humble and not surrounded by such things. His is the still, small voice that we
fail to hear because we are too busy pushing our will, thinking it is God’s.
