2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Proper 8 (13) - Year C
Just awhile ago we heard that Elijah heard a silence. How would this story be different if Elijah had left in silence instead of in a whirlwind?
As it is, we might re-look at the silence story and understand that G*D was in the earthquake and storm. The problem was that Elijah was so stormy on the inside that the external storms couldn’t be seen in their fullness, only as an extension of himself. Here the “other” needed silence to be recognized.
Now, with Elijah and the reader prepared for silence, a whirlwind returns. What do you make of a G*D who doesn’t stick to one mode of interaction but is constantly tricking us (a little something picked up in a wrestle with Jacob?).
This now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t continues with Elisha. The narrator shows us a picture where Elijah is lifted away by a whirlwind, gyring him to heaven. Elisha got distracted by fiery chariots and horses and couldn’t take his eyes off of them to see the tornadic energy behind them, the whirlwind.
Of course if we have to make every part of the scriptures cohere we can simply state that there was a whirlwind of fiery chariots and horses rather than have the chariots and horses simply come between Elijah and Elisha as a veil of mystery at every time of death. We are always missing the whirlwind of spirit within another — our own is so blustery and distracting.
At any rate the mantle of Elijah has fallen from Elisha and all subsequent prophets and is awaiting your picking it up and striding through the boundaries of your life to join the continued work of prophecy — Love Prevails!
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/06/2-kings-21-2-6-14.html
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 or 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
What mantle, large overgarment, do you play with these days. Under what aegis do you find yourself protected and authorized to act?
I still operate under a vision of Roy Scott, camp director, where I first heard that I would always be cared for. This has given me permission to enter into the prophetic world because, what could I lose, I would be cared for even if particular folks objected.
I still operate under the title of pastor clarifying the choices of life such as which field to graze and which not. In choosing comes the strengthening of living in fullness.
Titles and visions and mantles all lead to burning our oxen behind us that we might stretch out to touch the barriers before us and part them, throwing up "either" on one side and "or" on the other in order to wholly walk through the middle.
The time has come to pick up a mantle and employ it. It is time to chose life, and be persistent in that choice. In so doing we will choose against war, choose against the idolatry of economy or market forces, and choose against passivity. In so doing we will choose for the hungry and the diseased.
What mantle has seemingly chosen you, what mantle are you living under, what mantle will you pass on?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 or 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
A mantle of power (covering term is "spirit") is very attractive and addictive. It is an equivalent of a ring in Tolkien's major work.
Of course the implication is that Elisha would use a mantle of power for good, while Golem would use a ring of power for ill.
The first use Elisha makes of the mantle he "earned" by keeping his eye on it, is to ease his own travel, to make a way where there wasn't a way, to have dominion over the waters. In so doing he effectively tests whether the power is a residual one (left-over G*D, unused by Elijah) or has become his that can be used without the mantle (can Dumbo fly without his feather).
Like it or not we all have more power (whether vested in mantle, ring, money, position, or whatever) than we like to acknowledge. A key question is what are we doing with the power we have, even before a potential of doubling it?
- - -
tricks and techniques
are still an order of the day
to implement
to demonstrate
to accumulate
power and more powerslogans and mantras
motivational posters
focus our attention
blocking out questions
transforming everything
into a tool my tool
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
Was Elijah testing Elisha with a command to "sit and stay" at Bethel and Jericho? Was Elisha faithful or disobedient when he went to fetch a "double" portion?
Did Elisha see Elijah taken away? Do fiery horses and a heavenly whirlwind count as seeing or an imaginative approximation of an experience?
How is this scene different than Jacob getting a double portion with a birthright or Ruth receiving a first-born blessing from Boaz?
Why would Elisha think he would need a double portion? Fear of what he was going to face as a leader of Prophets? Simple greed? Does it go back to his call and knowing the need for being yoked, and simply express his desire to continue being yoked with Elijah?
Ever wonder about the 50 extra prophets? Were they spiritual Peeping Tom's, inquisitive? Were they protecting the Elijah/Elisha transition from interruption? Were they getting a better perspective on Elijah's leaving so they could claim leadership (with or without doubling)? This entry point raises a question about a Spirituality of Distance or a Spirituality of Presence - Can one be too close or too far from a Thin Place and miss it? It is this question that I think will stick with me over these next days
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/06/2-kings-21-14.html