Sunday, June 23, 2013: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a; Isaiah 65:1-9

A vengeful howl among political leaders in North Carolina has silenced God’s voice as legislators try to resume executions of those on death row. “Justice requires that we restart the death penalty and carry out these executions,” insists Senator Thom Goolsby (R., N.C.). “We have a moral obligation to ensure [that] death-row criminals . . . finally face justice.” These executions symbolize a need for revenge, a belief in justice as retribution and morality as Nietzschean ressentiment. The call for human blood as atonement for crime has nothing to do with God’s justice and everything to do with our intransigent cycles of violence.

Elijah and Jezebel found themselves caught up in this craving for retaliation. At Elijah’s request, the God of Israel ignited his sacrifice with flames from heaven, thus affirming Elijah’s divine authority and exposing the prophets of Baal as impotent. Then Elijah used his stature as the triumphant prophet to punish his enemies: “Seize the prophets of Baal,” he commanded. When the people delivered the false prophets, Elijah killed them (1 Kings 18:40).

God didn’t tell him to take up a sword and strike down his enemies. If God had wanted them dead, God could have incinerated them like the bull on the altar. Is this an instance of prophetic misconduct, of an errant prophet who abuses the power of the office in an act of vengeance? God’s command to Elijah was plain: “Go, present yourself to Ahab; I will send rain on the earth” (18:1). His task was to declare God’s end to the drought. That’s all. But Elijah’s zeal got the best of him, and he had to escape the consequences of his murders when Jezebel promised revenge. Alone in the wilderness, Elijah knew what would come next, so he prayed: “O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”