I grew up on a farm where summers were hot and in a house that was not air-conditioned. We had “running water” in the house, but it came from rainwater that fell on the roof and collected in a cistern under the porch. If it didn’t rain, Daddy would put a water tank on the back of the big red cattle truck and go to the pump down by the river where he could fill up the tank for fifty cents. We lived on a hill, so we had some breeze. Every night in the summer mother would open the windows and put a big fan facing out in the front door. As the fan pulled hot air out of the house, cool air would be pulled in the open windows—at least downstairs. I slept upstairs—often going out my window to sleep on the roof. Almost always, it was at least cool on the roof.
In today’s America that sounds almost like a fairy tale story, but it was simply the way things were. I knew no one as a child who had an air-conditioned house. Of course, that remains true today through much of the world. Being sufficiently warm in the winter and sufficiently cool in the summer is a luxury God does not provide to most of the world’s peoples. If God does not provide it through temperate weather, most people cope with the heat and the cold as our family did in the 1940s and 1950s. They make do.
It is easy to take being a comfortable temperature and having enough water so much for granted that it is hard to imagine the scene in today’s first reading. But, if you have been very hot, very dry, very baked by the sun in the summer, remember that experience as you respond to the story of when God sent the rain.
Three Years of Drought
The Hebrew people had gone three years without rain. Not three weeks. Not three months. Three years. Their kings had led them wrongly. They lived in a time when the concept of ONE GOD was not even understood by the Israelites. They knew the first commandment said, “I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other gods before me,” but they didn’t realize there were no other gods. Other peoples who lived around them worshiped a fertility god, Baal. Many of the Israelites saw Yahweh, their God, as a war god—a god to keep them safe. Indeed, Yahweh had brought them through battles again and again. He had proved his power from the Exodus right up to Elijah’s day. But the people wanted to make sure their fields were fertile and there was plenty to eat. So they began to worship Baal, too.
It didn’t help that they had a king, Ahab, who was married to Jezebel, who worshiped Baal and brought her priests in to offer sacrifices to Baal.
Yahweh was not pleased. The Israelites wanted to depend on Baal? Let them. Baal could do nothing. They were calling on an image of a god, not THE Living God. Let Baal send them rain.
Baal didn’t produce. There was no rain.
We’ve been hearing stories all week in the first readings about Elijah’s struggles with the drought, the king and queen, the people, and Baal.
God Sends the Rain
Today’s story follows right after yesterday’s. Elijah and the duly impressed Hebrews have killed the priests of Baal. Elijah and King Ahab now have gone up on Mt. Carmel to wait for rain. Elijah sends his servant to the top of the mountain to look out toward the sea. Is there sign of rain? No.
He sends him again. Is there sign of rain? No.
Finally, the seventh time the servant says, “There is a cloud as small as a man’s hand rising from the sea.”
That tiny wisp of a cloud was all Elijah needed to know the Lord was sending rain. “Harness up and leave the mountain before the rain stops you,” he told Ahab. As Ahab obeyed the storm came quickly.
And then, there is this most wonderful image: “But the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, who girded up his clothing and ran before Ahab as far as the approaches of Jezreel.”
How great was Elijah’s joy! Can you imagine being so happy you could run faster than horses pulling a chariot? Wow!
Remembering How Important the Rain Is to Us
I do remember our joy when a drought in summer ended. My mother would be upset because my father and I would go out and dance in the rain—sometimes not waiting until all the thunder and lightning had completely passed. We would go out and walk barefoot in the fields afterwards, supposedly to pull any big weeds, but, honestly, to feel the mud between our toes. Or we would go sit in one of the sudden streams that formed through the pastures, letting the cool water flow around us.
As farmers we depended on the rain for our crops. My parents had lived through a drought time in the 1930s when the rain didn’t come enough for several years. People lost their farms because of the drought in those days. My parents remembered and were afraid during dry times it would happen again. The rain told us we were safe enough for another year.
We have many readers whose seasons are not spring, summer, fall, and winter. Their seasons are rainy and dry. Every year they wait for the rains to begin. Perhaps some readers live in parts of the world where a dry season has gone on for years, as it did in Elijah’s day. They have not only experienced a “normal” joy when the rains come, but also the joy of the rains coming when they have been absent so long people have died from famine. They have experienced the joy of Elijah.
You may or may not have experienced the joy of the end of drought and the coming of the rains. Rain and drought may or may not be something important in your life.
Spiritual Drought
But probably most all of us have experienced times when God seems very absent. He seems to not be hearing our prayers. He certainly is not answering them as we want! Our souls are parched, thirsty, depleted. We are in spiritual drought.
I had such a season once that lasted for seven years. It was beyond awful. I remember crying out one dark, dry night, “O God, the Bible says you love everyone, so you must love me. But I feel no love. I see no love. I have no love. If you exist, if you are truly loving, if you truly care, send me something. Send me some form of rain. My soul is dried up, hardened, lifeless. Help me, O God!”
That drought for me ended more than twenty years ago, but I remember it, as I remember rains that came in summer in my childhood.
I didn’t immediately see how God answered that desperate prayer that dark, dark night. But he did. He answered it with a tiny wisp of a cloud that started as attending a workshop in another state. That workshop led to a change in some of my habits…and the gentle guidance of a person whose caring could reach me when no one else’s could. From the habits and the caring person enough “rain” could fall that I could survive through a very, very difficult time in family and faith, until finally in 1997 God and I were reconciled, reunited, and the rains of prayer and worship returned to normal.
What caused that drought? God? No, not directly. God didn’t move. I did. When I moved, I left myself open for trusting false gods, as the Hebrews trusted Baal. In those days I didn’t see myself as turning away from God. I went to church. I prayed. I did not see myself as having moved. Only in retrospect can I see what I did—as only in retrospect I recognize when God sent the wisp of a cloud of a caring person who was enough to give me hope to hang on until the spiritual rains came—several years later.
Drought of Depression
Last Sunday, speaking from last Sunday’s readings, our pastor talked about how Satan often holds us in evil circumstances through depression. The rain of hope, the rain of energy to face troubles and overcome them, the rain of dismissing thoughts that circle in the night like wolves around a wounded deer, the rain of getting up and putting one foot in front of the other—all that rain is GONE in depression. The dark, dry night covers someone like the baked heat of drought in summer.
Looking back, I can see depression was a big part of my drought in the 1990s. I had it even though I was a therapist and worked among therapists. There is rain for depression—rain of prayer and healing, rain of medication, rain of a single caring person—God sends wisps of clouds.
You might be someone’s wisp of a cloud. Or you might need one today.
Pray for rain. Pray to be rain.
Or today, you might be Elijah running with a cloudburst.
Rejoice.
Prayer:
Lord, send the rain of your love, and let us rejoice in it. Today let me receive your rain, and let me be your rain–or at least, a tiny wisp of a cloud.
