Together Or Alone, Still With God
2 Kings 2:1-14


2Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and
Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the Lord has
sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I
will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. 3The company of prophets who were
in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will
take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.” 4Elijah said
to him, “Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the
Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. 5The
company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you
know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered,
“Yes, I know; be silent.” 6Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me
to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave
you.” So the two of them went on. 7Fifty men of the company of prophets also went,
and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan.
8Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was
parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.
9When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I
am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”
10He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken
from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” 11As they continued walking and
talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah
ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. 12Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father,
father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him,
he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
13He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood
on the bank of the Jordan. 14He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and
struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” When he had struck
the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.

Douglas and I just got back from our trip to General Synod in Hartford, CT, which is the
national gathering of the United Church of Christ that happens every two years—I know
Kay also recently got back from Hartford as well, as he was an official delegate from the
Michigan Conference.  Now, Kay’s workload was a lot more stressful than mine—he
went to countless meetings, day in and day out, whereas I, I simply went to the events
and workshops I wanted to go to, though even then it seemed like it was one thing after
another: lots of worship, lots of speakers, most of them pretty good, including Bill
Moyers and Barack Obama, both UCC members.  But what I found most meaningful
was the chance to catch up with friends, people I’ve known for many years, and a few I’
ve only know for months, those folks from Michigan.  Douglas and I spent a lot of time
with my friends and colleagues from my last church in Houston, and it felt like old times
in many ways, catching up with folks, sharing what was happening in the lives of church
members I had left behind in Houston and Dallas, and even Oklahoma City.  And then, I
had the experience of meeting the Rev. Jack Richards, who served this church in the
late sixties, and who was actually ordained in these walls, and has since served a few
churches, but interestingly has spent a lot of his career recently serving as an interim
conference minister for various conferences in the UCC, most recently in Florida.  We
only had a brief conversation, but it was great to get to know him, if only for a moment,
and that particular meeting for me seemed to be the capstone of the whole experience.  
Just as we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the UCC, I, too, had a moment to
reflect and to think about my own past, my own journey with God and with the people I’
ve have the privilege to walk beside.  

And I think some of my personal reflections on the past also came about when I began
preparing something for the immediate future, which is the Bible study on Philippians
that we started earlier this morning.  About a week ago, I was having one of my famous
bouts of insomnia and in the midst of it I decided I was going to be productive, so I
started doing some work on Philippians, first by reading the book itself a couple of
times in different translations and paraphrases.  Something about reading these words
from Paul written while he was in prison to the church at Philippi at two AM really
connected to me—and I don’t think it was because delirious from no sleep!  Paul’s
words to this church, literally written while he is under the threat of death, are really
amazing—amazing because joy, joy just flows throughout the text, even during this
difficult time, and Paul speaks of God’s continuous and faithful presence through every
moment of his life, even that moment, where he potentially faces the end of his journey
on this side of eternity.  Sometimes in this life you just need to be reminded that God is
with you, right beside you, and sometimes you are reminded of that through texts like
Philippians and yet you are also sometimes reminded of this truth when friends from
your past re-appear in your life, at places, like, oh, say, conferences and such, people
from Houston and Dallas and Oklahoma City, and with their tears and hugs and their
time with you in those moments of re-gathering and re-membering the memories of how
and when we had journeyed with each other more closely.  I know you’ve had that
experience, of remembering with friends and family, when through that experience of
looking back you realize how faithful, how present God was with you during a particular
time in your life.  And I suspect that some of that sense of God’s faithfulness had to do
with how faithful and how present your friends and family were during that difficult time—
they too were reminders that God was there, through them, and through their
willingness to walk with you every step of the way.  

I think that struggle with remembering and being reminded again and again that God is
with us, with you, with me, is one of the things that is going on in this familiar story
about the prophet Elijah’s great sweeping up into heaven on a chariot of fire, one that
takes him into eternity.  You know, Elijah is one of the few persons in the Bible that
doesn’t actually die—think about that for a moment…I mean, even Jesus and Moses
die, but not this prophet Elijah.  He had done so many incredible things in his life, like
speaking the truth to powerful and dangerous kings, and unmasking the prophets who
were not real prophets, and exposing the false idols, and then, in the midst of all this
tearing down, he even finds the time to nurture a disciple—he builds up another truth-
teller, another prophet to follow his lead in speaking out for the poor, the widows, the
nobodies of this world.  Elisha is his name, this prophet in training, and he will walk with
his master, his teacher, until the moment the chariots come to take Elijah home, right
up until the end, which of course, is no end at all, at least not for Elijah, as he is swept
until into eternity, to that place where there is no beginning and no ending.  In the midst
of walking to Gilgal, and then to Jericho, the master keeps telling his disciple Elisha to
stay and not walk any further with him.  But the time seems right for Elisha to speak up
for himself, to refuse the command of his master Elijah, and so he says that he will go
all the way with Elijah, until the end, until Elijah’s story on this earthly shore is over with.  
And the disciple Elisha does this knowing what the other prophets are saying—that
God is soon coming to take his master away.  Endings do not scare Elisha, and
perhaps to underscore what is about to happen, and how close eternity and time will
come in the hours ahead, Elijah, the master, splits the water of the river Jordan, he
does something reminiscent of the first great prophet, the first great deliverer, Moses—
the way is open for both of them to walk on dry ground into the next amazing part of the
story.

And the rest of the story—oh, the amazing things that happen!  A double share of Elijah’
s spiritual inheritance is asked for—Elijah is asking for the traditional amount offered to
every first born child in his culture, to receive double the amount given to the second
son and all the sons born afterwards.  He wants more of God, more of wisdom, as if he
was Elijah’s own son—and as the chariots take his master away, he doesn’t yell out
Elijah’s name—he calls out “Father, Father!” as if he was Elijah’s own son, and, of
course, he is just that, at least spiritually.  But when the chariots finally sweep Elijah into
the next world, when he finally loses sight of Elijah, it becomes apparent to Elisha how
alone he really is now, or at least seemingly alone, and it hits him, I think, his profound
aloneness in this world—if Elijah is his father, he is now an orphan in this world.  All that
is left of Elijah is his coat, his mantle, which had fallen off his shoulders as those
chariots of fire had come to take him home.  I can imagine Elisha standing still, the
sound and the fury of chariots dying away, and the quiet finally surrounding him, the
silence finally holding him, and Elisha picks up his coat, and he stumbles his way back
the way he came, and he finds himself at that river Jordan again, the one that was
spread apart by the same coat he know wears, the one from Elijah.  Perhaps hoping
that he is not completely alone in this world, hoping that Elijah did not also sweep God
back into his heaven as well, he takes the mantle, and he strikes the water like Elijah
had done earlier and he cries out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?”  

And the answer comes, of course, and it is this, I think: “Elisha, I’m right here beside
you, as I have always been.”  Yes, I know that is not what is written in the text, because
all it says there is that the water splits for Elisha as well, but I just think that’s the
message Elijah received from God in that moment.  Would God still be beside him even
if his spiritual father was not here beside him?  The answer comes, and it is “yes.”  
Elisha, the disciple who is now fully a prophet, a truth-teller, an advocate for the least of
these, receives his answer.  I think Elisha was scared that if he didn’t have Elijah with
him that somehow God wouldn’t be with him as well, and in that moment he found out
that wasn’t true.  Elisha had learned and experienced so much of God in and through
Elijah’s presence that he couldn’t imagine what it might mean to be in God’s presence
without his spiritual father’s being there right beside him.  “Where is God?” Elisha cries
out.  “Right here, Elisha, right here, where I have always been, right beside you,”
comes the unspoken answer, as the river Jordan parts.    

So too it is with life and the journey of faith, of following after the way of the Christ.  
Even when death, and then the ascension separates Christ from his disciples, he never
leaves them alone, he never quite walks out the room, because he remains within them,
in that Holy Spirit he leaves behind within them.  Our friends, our family, our pastors,
our co-workers, all of them are ways that God can greet and love us, and then each of
them moves on, to another place, eternity, or a different city, or even a different place
in their lives, and they are no longer with us, at least in ways that we can touch or feel.  
But what they have left behind is traces of God’s presence in our lives, and sometimes,
if we are doubly blessed, we are given more of these traces of God in more people that
we meet along the way.  And yet, to be truthful, sometimes, sometimes, that is not
always the case, sometimes we are alone, without the people that share with us their
traces of God, at least for certain parts of life’s journey.  But, of course, we are not
really ever alone…what these Elijah’s gave us, what these friends and family and
coworkers and saints along the way gave us, is what remains with us forever—God’s
presence, God’s faithful and unending and unwavering presence with us.  I miss some
of the friends I’ve walked with on this side of eternity, though most are still here on this
earth, but some have gone on.   What they have left behind is incredible glimpses of
how God really is Love itself, of how persistence God can be, even when I’ve not
wanted anyone to go with me to Gilgal or Jericho, or any such place, of how God will
not let me go, of how loved I was by these people, and thus how loved I was and am by
God.   What we find, I think, is what Elisha finds in striking the water—that the God of
the past, the God who was present in the past, is the God who will be present in this
moment, and then the next moment, and then the one after that, and all the moments to
come, right until we are all taken up in our own particular chariots of fire.  Our seeming
aloneness is a mirage, because the God who walked beside in our friends is the same
God who walks beside as we re-approach the River Jordan alone, by ourselves, the
God who will make for us a way through the waters, a way when we have been told
there is no way, a God who will go with us until the end.  May the name of God blessed
forever and ever.  Amen.