Strangely Familiar: Self-Care (I Kings 19:4-8)
Ordinary Time
4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” 6 And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. 7 And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” 8 And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. (ESV)
An article in the Los Angeles Times
from 2019 named the fact that “self-care” had become a $10 billion industry,
including a vast array of pamper kits, chakra stones, self-care retreats, podcasts
galore, life coaches, affirmation cards, workshops, and apps for everything
from meditation to goal achievement charts.[1] There are memes and jokes and short-hands and
articles pushing the idea that when life is stressful, we need to take some
time for self-care. “Treat yo’self,”
runs one of the affirmations, and so self-care becomes a pedicure or a cup of
fancy tea or a weekend at the lake, away from it all.
The industry,
it should be noted, very rarely does anything to address what was making us so
stressed out in the first place. Why
would it? Nothing profitable in fixing
the problem that requires so many creative solutions.
Today’s text
from the first book of Kings, one of the historically-based chronicles in the
Hebrew Bible, is lifted out of a much larger story. The “he” we meet is the prophet Elijah; just
prior to this, he tangled with the court prophets of Ahab and bested them all
in a display of power showing that his God, YHWH, was over all gods and that
Baal was no match for God’s power. Ahab
and his queen, Jezebel, were furious; Jezebel threatened Elijah’s life and he
fled, running not only out of their ruling jurisdiction but even farther, out
into the desert.
The desert is
not terribly kind, but it is especially unwelcome when in a headspace like
Elijah’s. He had just pulled off a
defeat of the false gods that was worthy of being remembered forever, a
decisive victory in the name of the Lord that placed him in the line of
prophets as important as Moses himself—and now he was running, terrified for
his life, exhausted after days of traveling.
“It is
enough,” he says, flopping down under a broom tree. “O Lord, take away my life, for I am no
better than my fathers.”
Professor Sara
Koenig notes that, “The ‘ancestors’ [or ‘fathers’] have been explained in at
least two ways: one, as his dead ancestors, whom he wishes to join in death.
Second, the ‘ancestors’ are those in the prophetic vocation, specifically Moses, who
also complained in the wilderness and asked the Lord if he could die (Numbers
11:14-15).”[2]
Elijah had
succeeded—and then he had been chased out of his home, and it was too
much. Like Moses before him who led the
people out of Egypt and then had to listen to them tell him over and over how
much they wanted to go back, it was too much.
Elijah was done fighting; he was done running. He was done.
Exhausted, he fell asleep.
“It is in that
spirit of helplessness that God sends an angel to sustain Elijah,” writes Professor
Roger Nam. “And that angel ministers to
Elijah for forty days and forty nights at Horeb (interchangeable with Mt. Sinai
where Moses met God). The angel provides the basic sustenance of food and
water, but more importantly, this provision allows space for Elijah to stand
still after the frantic flight from Jezebel.”[3]
Elijah is, at
this point, incapable of self-care. No
amount of side hustles or good cups of tea or exfoliating treatments with
broom-tree bark or whatever will cure the fact that he is afraid, tired, and
feels very alone. So God sends an angel
and the angel says, “Arise and eat.”
The candy bar
Snickers used their Super Bowl commercial spot in 2010 to debut the new tagline
“You’re not you when you’re hungry.”[4] The ads involved famous actors being grouchy
in troublesome situations until a friend gave them a Snickers bar and they
transformed back into their normal, more pleasant selves.
While the
illustration was funny and has gained a lot of mileage online, there is truth
to it. We who are physical beings do
experience emotional and mental shifts when we are hungry as our blood sugar
levels drop and our bodies release stress hormones to compensate.[5] It is such an incredible thing that God, Who
at this point had not yet become human, knew that there would be no meaningful
conversation with Elijah until he had eaten something, until he had been fed.
This went on
for forty days—eating, sleeping, resting.
It was not glamorous with a meditation app and a color-coded self-care
calendar. It was not flashy and
sugar-filled like a candy bar. It was
Elijah and the angel climbing back out of deep grief and depression to the
point of suicidal thoughts, one meal and one nap at a time.
We who follow
this faith live in such a strange space; we are filled with hope by the God Who
calls us and loves us deeply, dearly, and yet we are also in a world that is
exhaustingly broken. I’ve preached
before on the difference between joy—that undercurrent of gladness at the
promise and remembrance of God’s goodness—and happiness, the temporary delight
in things going well. Both are
important, but there are times in our lives where we have neither happiness nor
joy. There are times when we have run
out into the desert when our success went belly-up and we do not know what else
to do besides sit beneath a tree and say it is over.
An incredibly
important thing I want us to notice in this short piece of Elijah’s journey is
that the angel does not rebuke him. The
angel shows up and doesn’t say anything about how Elijah shouldn’t doubt, or
should have more faith, or should smile and then everything will get better, or
should get a haircut, or should learn a language, or should take Zumba and get
active. The angel says arise and eat,
and then lets him sleep because that is enough, and then they repeat it. For forty days.
One of the
terrible side effects of self-care culture, that $10 billion industry, is the
rise of a thing called “toxic positivity.”
Positivity is nice, sure, but toxic positivity never allows for anything
even resembling negativity. Toxic
positivity says, “Just get over it!” and “Never give up!” It insists on “good vibes only!” and “you’ll get
through this!” It squashes those moments
when, whether from biology or whatever else, we are just angry and sad and in
need of quite a bit more than a quick bite of a Snickers to recalibrate. I want to point out the angel’s response to
Elijah because there was nothing of toxic positivity; there was only “arise and
eat.”
We here in the
21st century may want to tell ourselves that we are in a much
different place than Elijah, but we too are watching battles between God and
the things and people who set themselves up to be gods. We, too, face wondrous achievements that are
often followed by crushing defeats we did not see coming. We, too, may find ourselves running so far
that we run out, collapsing in exhaustion, unable to keep going.
This is okay.
More than
okay, this is human. This is what
it is to live as a person: not every day
is positive. It is not a failure to come
to the end of our tether and realize that no podcast will fix how tired we
feel, or how sad we feel, or how disappointed we feel, or how lost we
feel. Sometimes, it is indeed too much
and it is time to seek professional help, and that, too, is okay. But sometimes, it is about looking for the
angel saying nothing more than, “Arise, and eat.”
Take a deep
breath. Feel the way your lungs inflate,
your chest rises, your ribs expand. Who
is the angel in your life saying arise, and eat? Where are you so hungry that you cannot focus
on anything else just yet? It may well
be actual food—having a nap and a snack works just as well for adults as it
does for toddlers, given that we are the same species with the same biological
imperatives. It may be time—time to sit
down and breathe, just breathe without expectation of what comes next. It may be people—finding the person who makes
you feel safe and loved and spending time with them until you feel full again
and ready to face the people who make you feel unsafe or unloved.
Whatever it
is, arise, and eat.
The next part
of this story in 1 Kings is quite famous:
it is the still, small voice after the rushing wind and the swirling
fire. It’s a beautiful image in our
Scriptures, a theophany—moment of God’s presence—that is in paintings and poems
and calligraphy pieces but it is a moment that Elijah could not do when he
first sat under the broom tree.
Professor Nam writes that “with forty days of forced rest and
retrospection, Elijah is now ready to encounter God.”[6]
The journey
was too great, before; Elijah could not have withstood the wind and the
flame. But after eating, after resting,
after self-care that was not from himself because he was not capable of it and
God recognized it and did not think it sinful, Elijah is strong enough. Now he can be fully present at Horeb, the
mount of God—the same mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
We gather here
today to celebrate communion, that sacrament modeled after what we call the
Last Supper when Jesus sat with friend and betrayer and said “take, and eat.” The disciples were not yet as weary as they
would become on that long weekend from death to resurrection, but they knew of
power that chased and threatened, of success that quickly turned into
disappointment. “Take, and eat,” said
Jesus, giving them food enough to be full, giving them hope enough to be
filled.
This is one of
two sacraments in The United Methodist Church and every time we celebrate this
meal, even when it is over an electronic communication or when the bread is a
wafer in plastic packaging, it is remembrance.
It is remembrance of the Christ Who invited in all whom the world threw
out; it is remembrance of the Spirit Who guides us when we do not know what to
do beyond sitting beneath a broom tree; it is remembrance of the God Who
provided an angel who said, “Arise, and eat.”
As we eat
together today, let us remember. Let us
remember the God Who provides, YHWH-jireh,[7] Who never finds fault in
us for being as human as we are. Let us
remember that care is important, is necessary, is God-blessed, for all the
moments when we are not yet strong enough to go to the mountain.
May we have
the strength to admit when we are worn out; the grace to accept God’s angels
who seek to aid us; and the love to see when we are asked to be angel to
another, patiently expecting nothing more than that they arise, and eat, for
the journey is so great. Amen.
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