Claiming our Vocations

A sermon preached at All Hallows by Marilyn McCord Adams on 1 July 2007
(Lesbian and Gay Liberation Sunday)

• Audio (listen to this sermon online)

Readings:

1 Kings 19:15—21
Galatians 5:1,13—25
Luke 9:51—end

You have a prophet inside!

In the bible story, Elijah is never otherwise than ‘out of the closet.’ His very name means ‘YHWH is God’, advertizes him as YHWH’s man. Elijah said ‘yes’ to full-strength Holy-Spirit-possession, to living as much as possible by YHWH’s life, to going wherever YHWH wants him to go, to doing and saying whatever YHWH wants him to say or do. Herald and channeler of out-of-bounds power, Elijah was a disturber of Israel’s peace. Elijah’s coming meant death to idolatry, Divine judgment on social injustice, but life on the margins, vitality to remnant YHWH worshippers through whom YHWH’s regime would prevail. Then as now, now as then, prophets like Elijah get dismissed as mad. Certainly, they are unconventional — we might say, downright queer!

By contrast, we meet Elisha at his plow, comfortably fitted into the niche of dutiful son of prosperous farmers. Evidently, Elisha expected his future to be like the past. Suddenly, Elijah walks by, reclothes him in Elijah’s mantle. Elisha does not miss the ritual’s meaning. Elijah has just ‘outed’ Elisha to himself with the startling pronouncement: ‘You have a prophet inside! Now’s the time, are you going to, when are you going to come out?’ Elisha first moves for delay: ‘Let me kiss my father and mother, and then I will follow you!’ Elijah refuses to let him off the hook. Elisha is created, called and predestined for Elijah-style prophecy, for full-strength Holy-Spirit-possession. Elisha has a prophet inside. But prophecy doesn’t shove the human person aside for some alien spirit to take over the body, ventriloquist-style. Prophecy is lived collaboration between the human person and the Holy Spirit. Elisha has to decide for himself, whether and when to come out.

Forced to choose, Elisha makes bold, takes the first step, performs another ritual. Elisha slaughters all twelve yokes of oxen, offers up his past self to God as a communion sacrifice, a farewell feast for the people with whom he has shared life. Then Elisha enters the novitiate, becomes Elijah’s apprentice. Like Harry Potter at Hogwarts, like other sons of prophets, Elisha learns prophetic arts by stages. Coming out of the closet, living into one’s true self is a process that takes some time.

Foreknowledge is one of the more elementary courses. Like other sons of prophets, Elisha knows in advance of Elijah’s impending departure. The mentor’s exodus creates a leadership vacuum. So Elisha is not surprized when his own time of testing returns. ‘Tarry here, for the LORD has sent me to Bethel... to Jericho... to Jordan!’ ‘You have a prophet inside, but you can still suppress him if you want to!’ Elijah offers. ‘As the Lord lives, as you yourself live, I will not leave you!’ Elisha vows, the ritually significant three times.

Elijah and Elisha, full-strength prophet and son of a prophet, reach the verge of Jordan. To cross, would be to enter liminal space, to risk a rite of passage, a point of no return. Elijah rolls up his mantle, strikes and parts the water, so that they walk over on dry land. Elijah asks, ‘what do you want me to do for you before I am taken from you?’ Elisha solemn-vows, ‘Give me full-strength Holy Spirit!’ No more playing at prophecy! No more leaving the responsibility to the grown-ups! Elisha pledges, ‘Let me live everywhere and always by God-life! Let me embody living collaboration with Holy Spirit! Let me be a full-strength prophet, too!’

Deep down, we really want to be the prophet inside us, because we want to be our true selves. We want to bring the most that we can be to light. We blurt out our hope, on occasion even ‘act out’ our wish, but then shrink back into equivocation. Elijah understands this. Elijah knows, the costs are sky high! Elijah looks at Elisha squarely: ‘You have asked a hard thing.’ One more test: if Elisha pays attention, sees Elijah taken from him in fiery chariots, then Elisha will get his wish; otherwise not. Elisha watches Elijah ascend, catches the fallen mantle, strikes the water with it, shouting, ‘Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah!’ Elisha strides back across the Jordan, fully out of the closet now, no turning back!

Outing the prophet within is scary for everyone because it requires us to let go of the conventional roles by which we would be clearly defined. Religious conservatives fear that transgressing the rules about sex and gender will lead to moral chaos. If women can speak in public or supervise men, if choices reach beyond celibacy-or-heterosexual-monogamy, why, all hell could break loose! Anything goes! We know by experience, whatever patterns may appear looking back on it, when we’re in the middle of it, coming out feels confusing, like being lost at sea without a compass, tossing violently in a storm.

Certainly, these fears are understandable. They aren’t entirely unreasonable. ‘Who do we think we are to contradict Scripture and tradition? Are we wiser than our elders or erstwhile mentors?’ Nevertheless, our story shows us: because we all have a prophet inside us, these fears should be overcome. What makes us prophets is Holy-Spirit possession. Outing the prophet within is a matter of giving ourselves over as much as possible to living collaboration with the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is the One Who hovered over chaos in the beginning, Who moved over the face of the deep to order creation. When — like Elisha — we offer up our misfitting conventional identities to God, the better to come out as prophets, we are rolling up our sleeves to work with Holy Spirit to discover new patterns of holy living, to explore and develop their potential for fresh revelations of Who God is and how God loves.

We know, we are fallible. We know, we have made and will continue to make mistakes. But being a full-strength prophet doesn’t mean getting it right every time or having all the answers. Holiness of life means a chosen willingness to let the Holy Spirit take the lead, a readiness to learn, humility to keep turning to God for guidance and correction.

Social systems have transmogrified before. Think of the seismic shifts it took to get from Abraham’s polygamous bedouin clans to Hellenistic house churches where bishops should be husbands of only one wife. If 19th century missionaries were revolted by polygamy, 1700 BCE Abraham would find modern heterosexual monogamy just as bizarre. The bible itself shows how the Holy Spirit has already inhabited and worked within, transformed and subverted human cultures of many kinds. The Holy Spirit is living and active and working still. Social systems are in flux worldwide. Coming out as the prophet within, converts us into pioneers and heralds of a new world order.

Our bible story shows, outing the prophet within is alienating. Elisha leaves mother and father, offers up the yokes of oxen. Because God’s ways are higher than our ways, because our assignments become caught up in Holy Spirit’s inventions, because the old is passing away but the new has not yet settled down or become clear, who we are and what we do will seem unintelligible to many (as western LGBT lifestyles do to many Southern Cone Anglican bishops). We muddy our testimony whenever we take misfitting as a sure sign that there is something wrong with us. No, holy misfitting is our vocation! Alienation is not a sure sign but in many circumstances it is a symptom — sometimes, even a necessary condition — of faithfulness, even success. Put otherwise, the more we live in the Spirit like Elijah and Elisha, the more many will find us more than a little bit queer!

Why, then, would we, should we do it? The Elijah and Elisha stories answer, nothing else could make this present life more worthwhile. First and foremost, living collaboration with Holy Spirit is what we’re made for. The be-all-and-end-all of human existence is life together with God. Outing the prophet within turns us into our own true selves, the ones we most deeply desire, the ones collaboration with the Holy Spirit will discover ourselves to be.

Moreover, living collaboration with Holy Spirit is life-provoking for others. Elisha turned into an embodiment of out-of-bounds power, channeled it to cleanse lepers, miraculously multiply barley loaves, to pray down miraculous births, and raise the dead. The story goes that Elisha’s life became so infested with Holy Spirit that touching his buried bones revived corpses thrown into his grave.

Saying ‘yes’ to full-strength Holy Spirit turns us — like Elijah and Elisha — into walk-by reminders, bearers to others of the startling announcement, ‘You have a prophet inside! Now’s the time, are you going to, when are you going to come out?’ Our spiritual experience of coming out of the closet puts us in a position to befriend beginners, when invited, to accompany their transitions, to share what we have learned about what Holy Spirit is or is not apt to do. Our tolerance for alienation can wash away the social stigma: ‘We’re not lepers! We are clad in Elijah’s mantle!’ Banding together around miraculous bread and wine, we welcome that mighty rush of holy imagination, that fire of recreative life!

The Reverend Canon Marilyn McCord Adams
Christ Church, Oxford

Copyright © 2007 Marilyn McCord Adams

Audio

This sermon was recorded. If you wish, you can listen to the sermon online. Just click on the appropriate link below:

*Notes on the audio formats

• MP4 format
  MP4 format is a multimedia container format standard. Audio MP4 files can combine high compression with very high quality. Many media players can play MP4 files, including RealPlayer, QuickTime, iTunes, and recent versions of Windows Media Player (you may need to download a codec from www.free-codecs.com/download/3ivx.htm).
• Windows Media Player format
  Windows Media Audio is the native format of Windows Media Player, which is installed as part of Windows. If you have an earlier version, you can download version 9 (for Windows 98SE, Millennium and 2000) or version 11 or later (for Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7) from www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx?displang=en&qstechnology. These are quite large downloads [~ 10 MB or larger], so if you have a dial-up connection you may prefer to ask Phil for a copy of the installation program on CD.
• MP3 format
  MP3 is a commonly used audio format using lossy compression. Most media players can play MP3 files, including RealPlayer, QuickTime, iTunes, Windows Media Player and many others.
• RealAudio format
  RealAudio requires RealPlayer (or the older RealOne Player) to be installed. A free version of RealPlayer can be downloaded from http://uk.real.com/player/ (choose the free player on the left of the page) — but again it’s a large download [~ 13 MB], so if you have a dial-up connection you may prefer to ask Phil for a copy of the installation program on CD.
  
  Alternatively, you can install Real Alternative, which will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer/RealOne Player. Real Alternative is free, and works well with all major browsers; it is also a much smaller download (5.7 MB). Get it from http://www.free-codecs.com/Real_Alternative_download.htm.

This page was last updated on Monday, 2 July 2007

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