Take Courage. It is I. Do Not Be Afraid.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 - 1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a

Reading 2 - Rom 9:1-5

Gospel - Mt 14:22-33

And the readings for this 19th Sunday. In ordinary time, Elijah goes up the mountain, Jesus goes up the mountain. Then they go for very different reasons. Those journeys up the mountain happened a thousand years apart. Elijah went up the mountain while he was waiting to die. He was praying that the Lord would take his life because he'd had it after 40 years, being a prophet, preaching to people that were stiff necked and hardened of heart, that would not listen, would not learn, would not repent, it would not return to covenant faithfulness.

He'd had enough. He prayed that the Lord would take his life before he was murdered by the King Ahab and his Queen Jezebel, who in the previous chapter had said, Elijah, we will follow you to the ends of the Earth, if only to silence you by taking your life. In the previous chapter in the first Book of Kings, Elijah served up a big embarrassment for the King and Queen.

They had been worshiping a pagan deity named Baal, and they'd been trying to force all the citizens of Israel to do the same. And in First Kings 18, there was a great showdown on Mount Carmel and it was 450 against one in the sight of the king and the queen. There were 450 pagan priests and magicians representing that pagan deity below.

And on the other side there was only Elijah to represent the one true God. But because there is only one God, the odds were still very much in Elijah's favor. Both sets built an altar and on it placed an animal that was slaughtered, waiting to see which God would consume the sacrifice. And the priests of Baal got to go first and they spent hours trying to conjure up bail to set a fire and consume the meat of that sacrifice.

As the day grew in tonight, nothing happened. And the first book of kings tells us why? Because no one was listening. A God who doesn't exist cannot answer your prayers or receive your sacrifice. It even got to the point where the priests of Baal were slashing themselves with swords, slashing each other with swords, hoping the shedding of blood might bring forth their battle.

And yet nothing happened. The failure of 450. And then it was Elijah's turn. And to make sure that if the sacrifice was consumed, it can only be of a heavenly origin. He told his attendants to douse that animal, the altar and the ground around it seven times in water. And yet, as soon as he clasped his hands together to pray to the one true God.

Not only was the animal consumed, the altar was consumed, and so too the stones and the land around it. And thus it was the 450 priests were slaughtered. And then it happened. Jezebel turned their sights on Elijah and said, We're coming for you. He fled for 40 days, and by the end of it, he was exhausted. Elijah didn't think he could take one more step, one more breath.

I'm going to die anyway, he thought. Better God kill me than them. But that is when the Lord stepped in and intervened and said, Go up the mountain. Go up my mountain. Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. I'll speak to you there. The Lord didn't tell him how. The Lord didn't tell him when Elijah just had to wait and trust in the Lord.

And yet, when he was on that mountaintop, there was all kinds of calamity and catastrophe. There was a windstorm. There was a wild fire. There was an earthquake. Those things represent clear and present danger on solid ground. But on mountain peaks where it's already treacherous, how much more danger Elijah was subject to, and yet he continued to trust in the Lord.

He knew the word wasn't messaging him to the wind, where the fire or the earthquake. And it was only when all of that had died down. And he continued to wait and to trust and to pray and to listen that he heard the tiniest whisper. That immense and intense God who breathes stars out of his mouth, who could simply crush Elijah's eardrums with the real sound of his voice.

He chose to shrink it down and speak to this little man through the tiniest whisper. And if Elijah had not been listening, if he had not waited and trust in the Lord, he would have missed it. And yet they were words that he desperately needed to hear that turned his despair back into hopefulness because the Lord told him, Elijah, you can retire.

Let's begin your pension. You choose Elijah to succeed you as a prophet. But he also said they're not going to kill you. You do not need to die because they have this going to repent and his kingship will come to an end. Elijah, as we know in the next book of Kings, was taken up and to heaven. He didn't even die at all.

Taken up in heaven on a chariot, riding in a whirlwind so great was his reward for his faithfulness in the midst of everything going against him. That's Elijah's trip up the mountain. And now about Jesus. It's Matthew chapter 14. It's the middle of the chapter. The chapter began with the feeding of the 5000 men. Let's add the women and children.

Tens of thousands of people that day with five loaves and two fish, all served up by the blessed hands of Jesus, who took meager offerings and turned it into enough to fill the multitude. And they didn't just get a little nibble. They were full, and there were still 12 baskets left over. Jesus dismissed the crowds. He told the apostles to get in the boat and go to the other side of the lake.

And then he went up the mountain. Why? To pray. There was only two places on earth where Jesus felt close to God. His father, the temple in Jerusalem. That was God's house. But on mountaintops, he felt the gap had been closed between heaven and earth. Because for those 33 years that Jesus walked the Earth, he wasn't homesick. He was heaven sick.

How great was his desire to return to the father's house? And he didn't want to go alone. This shepherd came to gather as many lost, wounded and wandering lambs into his arms as possible, to carry us all to the promised land. But when Jesus was done giving thanks to God and talking with them about how they were going to fulfill the plan for our salvation, he comes back down the mountain and then he wants to go and meet the apostles who are headed to the other side.

But he doesn't need a boat and he doesn't take the long way around. Instead, Jesus cuts across the lake and he doesn't get wet because he has God in for him. All things are possible. True to form, though, the Apostles, even though they had seen so many mighty deeds, they didn't think this was a good thing. They were terrified.

That's a ghost and they wanted to get away from him. Jesus speaks words of comfort to them as well. Take courage. It is. I do not be afraid. But, Peter, that rock who so often behaves like a pebble, he decides to voice his doubts. Lord, if it is you tell me to come to you on the water, or it says, Come and Peter gets out of the boat.

And notice the difference. When Peter kept his eyes fixed on Jesus. He didn't get wet. But when Peter decided to take his eyes off the prize and started looking around and say, Oh, it's dark out here, man, I bet that water is pretty deep. These waves are taller than me, and that wind's going to blow me down. When he took his eyes off Jesus, that pebble began to sink like a stone that he needed the Lord to save him.

We all need the world to save us. And He has. And he does. And he will. Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? Sometimes, like Elijah, we find ourselves unable to go on. Sometimes, like Peter, we find ourselves doubting God who owes us no proof and no explanation. He owes us nothing. But he's given us everything.

And we continue to listen and to wait on the word to keep his promises. We must listen for the tiny whisper. Even in the midst of all the noise and the distraction and the destruction of this world, all the stress and distress and anxiety. Jesus is still there, calming stormy seas, bringing us to safe harbors, telling us to live in fear instead of faithfulness.

Take courage. It is. I do not be afraid.