“PICKING UP THE MANTLE”
By Rev. Victor Kim
2 Kings 2:1-14
(06-26-16)
Have you ever heard the phrase, picking up the mantle, or taking up the
mantle? It means to assume a position or responsibility that belonged
to another. Did you ever wonder what a mantle was?
I always associated the word mantle with a fireplace, but that’s a
different spelling.
If you Google the correct spelling for mantle you’ll find lots of pictures
of the area just below the surface of the earth’s crust.
But the mantle we’re referring to isn't a layer of the earth or a fireplace
decoration. It’s a piece of clothing, a cloak, used to protect and keep
the wearer warm.
It also was a symbol of authority bestowed on the one who wore it.
After reading the text today from 2 Kings you now know where that
phrase, picking up the mantle, originated and what it refers to.
The text from 2 Kings is a story of succession, of Elisha picking up the
mantle of his master Elijah. One day, returning from the mountain of
the Lord where he had been given instruction from God,
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Elijah was walking by a field and found Elisha son of Shapat ploughing
with his oxen.
Elijah took his mantle and threw it over Elisha and just like that Elisha
became his apprentice. That’s quite the recruitment strategy.
One day you’re just a nobody, ploughing your field, then a prophet
comes along and throws his cloak over you when you’re not looking
and bam, you’re a prophet for life, getting to have your life regularly
threatened by kings and queens.
I guess the lesson is beware of mantle throwing prophets!
But it was God who told Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor
and that’s exactly what Elijah does.
It’s unclear just how many years Elisha served Elijah before his
succession, but the estimates are around 10-12 years.
Even with that amount of time, it must have been daunting for Elisha to
imagine succeeding Elijah. After all Elijah is the great prophet of God.
His prophetic ministry is without parallel in Israel.
He is the confronter and confounder of kings. He is the first person in
scripture to resurrect a person from the dead. He calls down fire from
heaven to burn up sacrifices, he defeats 450 prophets of Baal in a
showdown on Mount Carmel, he outruns chariots.
And history has remembered Elijah well.
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The book of Malachi prophesises Elijah’s return before the coming of
the Messiah.
In the New Testament John the Baptist is seen as a new Elijah
and Elijah appears with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration with
Jesus.
Moses represents the Law and Elijah represents the Prophets,
the two most important parts of Jewish scripture.
In the Jewish tradition Elijah’s name is invoked at the Passover Seder,
again as the harbinger of the Messiah’s arrival.
Pretty impressive.
So you can imagine the trepidation in Elisha as the day of Elijah’s
passing approaches.
Our text sets out in detail what takes place as Elisha picks up the mantle
of his master. The two of them travel from town to town and Elijah
tries to get rid of Elisha, but the younger prophet will not abandon his
master. At each town the company of prophets appear and seem to
taunt Elisha. Do you know that today the Lord will take your master
away from you? Elisha seems rather annoyed, yes, I know, please shut
up. As they approach the Jordan, just to make sure we don’t miss the
clear symbolism, Elijah rolls up his mantle and strikes the water,
parting it so that the two of them could cross on dry land.
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Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets.
Then when they had crossed and Elijah asks Elisha what he can do for
him, Elisha asks for a double share of Elijah’s spirit.
Seems a bit greedy but the context is that this is the blessing that
normally the oldest son would ask of his father as the one who will
carry on the family line.
Elijah tells him that if you see me being taken from you, then it will be
granted, if not, then not. Suddenly the chariots of fire appear and Elijah
is taken into heaven on a whirlwind.
His mantle drops and Elisha picks it up.
Now for the moment of truth.
Across the Jordan are 50 men of the company of prophets.
They are waiting to see if Elisha possesses the same authority and
power that Elijah had.
There’s a story about a famous preacher who was a bit of a fraud,
because the sermons were great but no one ever realized
that in fact they’d all been written by the staff assistant.
Finally the assistant’s patience ran out, and one day the preacher was
speaking to thousands of expectant listeners and at the bottom of page
two read the stirring words, “And this, my friends, takes us to the very
heart of the book of Habakkuk, which is…”
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only to turn to page three and see nothing but the dreaded words,
“You’re on your own now.” You’re on your own now.
Its probably what millions of Britons are thinking today
after their curious exercise in self inflicted punishment.
Elisha is on his own and the question of the moment is this,
“Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?”
Is the God of Elijah also the God of Elisha?
I think that the church today feels a lot like Elisha felt that day on the
banks of the Jordan. There’s still a lot of us left who have lived through
the hey day of the church.
Some of you remember when the church was full, when evangelism
was a matter of if you build it they will come.
Some of you remember a nation that was Christian in character and in
identity, where the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments were
commonly recited and the only stores open on Sundays were the local
7-11 or the corner grocery.
At my previous church in Calgary, the congregation reached its peak
membership in the 1950’s and the Senior Minister of that time
is reputed to have preached hundreds of sermons in one particular
year.
The church exerted significant influence over our culture in those days,
sometimes even Prime Ministers would consult with Moderators
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around important social issues.
We might call them the Elijah years of the church.
But those days are long past, and now they’re only a distant memory.
At the recently concluded General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
in Canada, the Assembly passed a motion that would see 50% of all
proceeds from the sale of dissolved congregations go to shoring up the
solvency of the Pension Plan, up to a maximum of 2 million dollars,
with the remainder being returned to the Presbytery for mission work.
It used to be that all monies from the sale of dissolved churches, if
there were any, went straight into the mission work of the church,
with a significant portion saved specifically for new church
development.
Today’s church it seems is more interested in paying for retired clergy
than new church development.
It seems a bit backwards to me, that if you want a sustainable church,
including money for pensions, you should focus on church growth,
that a growing church would be able to support pensions and so much
more. Its no longer if you build it they will come, in fact, we rarely build
anything at all.
It seems that we’re on our own now. Its no secret that the church is
facing precarious times, we’ve been talking about it for decades now.
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Many of us have grown up in the church of Elijah but now we feel like
we’re in the church of Elisha, standing there on the banks of the Jordan.
The glory of the former years has dissipated, the saints of the past, like
Elijah, have been whisked into heaven.
The question for the church today is, will we pick up the mantle,
will we believe that the God of the church yesterday is still the God of
the church today and tomorrow?
Last weekend members of the Session, the Board and the Action Team
leads met for a day long retreat at the Vancouver School of Theology.
We met to do two specific things.
We wanted to imagine what Richmond Presbyterian Church could be 5
years from now and we also wanted to identify key values that would
shape our ministries as we take the steps to move from the church we
are today to the church we believe God calls us to be.
We have a new church building but a curious thing is that on the sign
with the cross at the top, there is nothing that tells people who we are.
As much as that might be seen as a negative thing, that no one knows
who we are, it can also be seen as an opportunity, since if no one
knows who we are,
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then no one has been able to stereotype us or label us and we have the
opportunity to determine who we want to be, who we believe God is
calling us to be.
I can report that it was a very productive retreat.
The leadership of RPC came to envision a church that would be defined
as a teaching church, with a strong public reputation for ministry that
shapes Christian formation for today.
We envision a church that will team up with the resources available to
us from places like our theological colleges and engage our community
in opportunities to talk about difficult, timely and relevant issues in a
way that welcomes all.
We agreed that we want to be a church that truly welcomes all people
into a worship experience of a loving God.
That means that by 5 years from now we will have multiple worship
services, not just by splitting up our Sunday morning worship into two
services, but that we would offer worship during different times of the
week, with different emphases on worship style, with diverse
leadership and perhaps in different places.
You can’t be a church that says everyone’s welcome when you expect
them to all come only when you want to worship and only in the way
you are comfortable worshipping.
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Next, by 5 years from now RPC will be a church with a vibrant children’s
and youth ministry, which are essential for any healthy church.
But these things happen only as we become intentional
about the distribution of resources and the creation of welcoming
space that reflects our priorities.
It means that we can’t just talk a good game, but that we will create
space that is intentionally inviting to children, youth and their families.
And we said that RPC’s reputation will be that of a church that is
connected to the needs of our community.
This will take into consideration the needs of our growing seniors
population and also the reality of our immigration patterns and
demographics. In five years, we will look more like the community in
which God has planted us.
In seeking to achieve these goals, RPC will hold the values of radical
hospitality, where all people are welcomed to participate in our
ministries, and collaborative mission, where all ministries of RPC will
have a public component, inviting the public to participate or to serve
the public through existing partnerships.
We will make sure that all ministries of RPC will foster growth in
Christian discipleship, meaning that what the church does will help us
to grow in faith and in Christ centered service. Finally, we hold the
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value that all we do will help us in evangelism, in sharing the unique
gospel of God’s love for all in Jesus Christ.
Evangelism is no longer a matter of if you build it they will come,
no, evangelism means that we need to take on a missional attitude
of being sent into the world as Jesus was sent into the world by the
Father, to live out the invitation of God’s transforming love.
In all these things we are building on what has gone before.
Many of you remember a church here near the corner of Granville and
No. 2 that was full of people from the neighbourhood, that had a
vibrant children’s and youth ministry, that taught Christian formation
well and did many other good things.
But the days are different now, the culture has changed and is
changing, its no longer the church of Elijah, those days are gone,
and I’m not sure that we want to go back to those days either.
For the church today to pick up the mantle means that we have to face
new realities, that we can teach Christian formation
but it will take different skills to do so, that we might reach out to
children and youth and their families, but it will take innovative and
imaginary programs to do so, that we can relate to our neighbours,
but our neighbours don’t look anything like the neighbours of the past
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and therefore will need the church to adapt and risk and be open to
newness.
The central question, however, in all of this newness and vision
is the same old question that faced Elisha those many years ago.
Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?
Is the God of Elijah, the God of Elisha?
With the eyes of the company of prophets all on him, Elisha picks up
the mantle and strikes the water and the water parted to one side and
the other, and Elisha crossed over.
Elisha’s prophetic ministry also proved to be remarkable, including a
resurrection miracle of his own, the healing of Naaman, the
commander of the armies of Syria and a strange tale that even after his
death contact with his bones could revive the dead.
We don’t need to worry about the details, what is evident is that
indeed the God of Elijah was now the God of Elisha, in fact God had
always been with Elisha.
The God of the church in its hey day, in its zenith, is also the God of the
church today, God has always been and will always be.
What we have to do is what Elisha did.
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We have to pray for a strength of Spirit, for a double portion of the
Spirit.
We have to pick up the mantle that has been passed on to us
by those who have faithfully gone before us, knowing that the context
is different but the God who loves the church is the same and is
faithful.
And like Elisha, we have to trust God enough to reach out and strike the
water, to reach out in faith and do the work of the church.
In a world where the powers and principalities of this world seem to
rule, we know that God is still the one in charge.
When it comes down to it, unlike the stranded preacher, we aren’t on
our own now, we’ve never been and will never be.
God has always been with us and still invites us to God’s prophetic
ministry in the world.
Joan Chittister, a modern prophet writes, “Prophets are those who take
life as it is and expand it. They refuse to shrink a vision of tomorrow to
the boundaries of yesterday.”
My friends, God calls us to be prophets for today and tomorrow,
to cast a broad and courageous vision for the church, for RPC and for
the world that God loves. May we pick up the mantle and trust that the
God of Elijah and Elisha, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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is the God who will always be with the church, who will always be with
us.
Thanks be to God, Amen.
Written by Rev. Victor Kim
Preached on June 26, 2016
at Richmond Presbyterian Church.