2 Kings 2:1-14; February 11, 2024; Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Did you all see the Grammy’s the other night? Yeah, I didn’t either. But I did watch some of the highlights on Twitter (I refuse to call it X). And as I was scrolling through who won what and who sang what, a familiar face caught my eye and I did a double take. I thought… wait… is that… Tracy Chapman?? And is she on stage with some country bumpkin? Just what is going on here!?
Diving in, I discovered that it was indeed the elusive Ms. Chapman, and that she had in fact performed onstage with some guy named Luke Crumbs, or something. But more, that she had performed Fast Car – her huge hit from the late 80’s — a song that I first heard those many years ago, and which despite my wife’s greatest protests, has remained on my top shuffle list ever since.
Now if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about; if you don’t know the song, or Tracy Chapman for that matter, well, just what are you doing with your life!? But really, Fast Car is a special tune, and one well worth your time and attention. It’s got a guitar hook that won’t easily leave you. And though it’s all pretty straight forward and simple, it features some profound story telling married to a beautiful, soulful voice; belonging to a woman who had to overcome poverty and hardship to chase after a dream.
The song itself is multi-layered in theme, but for me I hear in it a person who ultimately balks at a chance to get away. To chase after a life once dreamt. And who by staying back, and holding on, ends up watching life then leave them behind. It’s moving, it’s real, and timelessly relevant. And when she sings, “we gotta make a decision: leave tonight or live and die this way…” your heart just hangs there in the balance. Or at least, so does mine.
We gotta make a decision: leave tonight or live and die this way. I imagine that for many of us, we’ve faced similar forks in the road in our own lives. Coming up to intersections where what we chose for ourselves ended up defining us from that point forward. And so, really then, it’s no wonder why so many of us have turned out to be nervous nellies and fearful creatures! Living every day with the anxiety, or regret, about what we did or did not choose for ourselves.
And I say all this as someone who is riddled with both. With great regrets and at least some anxiety. Over what I did and did not do; if I chose convenient decisions over right decisions, or if I suffered altogether from decision paralysis. Just like we talked about a couple weeks ago, with change being hard… making a crucial decision, especially one where we need to let go of something and move on from it, can be just as hard. But sometimes, my friends, we just gotta. Sometimes, we gotta take that leap. To get in that car, heading in whatever direction it’s going, and just move the hell on. …Easier said than done of course. Easier said than done.
Some years ago, someone told me this parable, and then later, I turned it around and told it to others. I think it still works and is relevant to the point of our theme today, so here it is. It goes like this:
Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. And so she stood there, looking very cross and impatient. And she was scolding her attendants, ordering them about to help her this way and that. But they had nowhere to place the packages that they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle that she was going on about.
Well, the younger monk of the two noticed all this, but said nothing, and walked by. But the older monk quickly picked the woman up and put her on his back, and transported her across the water, and put her down safely, and dryly, on the other side. The woman though didn’t thank this older monk, instead she just shoved him out of the way and departed.
And so, as the two monks continued on their way, the young one started brooding. And after several hours, unable to hold his silence any longer, he spoke out, saying: “You know, that woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! And then she didn’t even thank you! Well, to this accusation, the older monk simply replied: “I set that woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?” — by Jon J. Muth from his book: “Zen Shorts.”
Pretty good right? This parable, just like Chapman’s song, works on many levels. And yet, I think the illusion we are often fed, even perhaps in this wonderful little story, is that as we age, and become older and “wiser” we also become more calculating and pragmatic, more reasonable and measured, and thus, less impulsive and less brooding and emotional, such that the things that used to get to us when we were younger simply don’t anymore. That, somehow, as if by magic, as we get older, it all just becomes easier to swallow — it all becomes easier to just let go and move on, and especially from the small things, like a women’s rudeness from atop a sedan chair, or perhaps more recognizably, like a man’s middle finger from the window of fast-swerving BMW. And while that ought to be true – that these small things no longer bother us/stay with us — moving on from them isn’t always that easy, even for those of us here who are quite old indeed.
For as older people, as adults, we are also filled with just so much more baggage than when we were just starting out. We have been aged so resolutely by the routines of time that releasing ourselves from old habits and bad influences can be like a new language we simply cannot learn. For with added experience has also come added bias, and a stubbornness to be swayed from our opinions, no matter their illness, no matter their error.
Moreover, as we age, we seem to take less risks, don’t we? And we come up with more logical excuses as to why we shouldn’t do this or do that. Even for the best pragmatists here among us, who after calculating for say, X and Y, such that the solutions to our lives couldn’t be any more obvious, we often still decide that it’s just not worth the hassle to solve those problems. For the answers, such as like leaving someone behind who sucks, who makes our life miserable, is just not worth the trial of letting go and starting over again. And so, we don’t. And do nothing.
And, just like Fast Car then, though our spirits urge us to take that risk…to jump in and get out, we end up doing the “safe” thing and hang around, and then watch as life leaves us behind.
Our Old Testament text this morning navigates through all of this tension and does so on a very human and relatable level. In fact, this scripture lesson is one of my all-time favorites, because it’s just so darn real in its drama. And it’s both beautiful and painful at once. Just as it should be. For here we have Elisha, following every motion, every footstep, every movement of his mentor Elijah. Wherever Elijah goes, Elisha follows, even when he is explicitly told not to and to stay behind somewhere else. But Elisha simply cannot let go, even though the very prophet of the Most High – whom he addresses as “Father, Father” — is commanding him to do just that!
But unlike the song, Elisha doesn’t stay back. No, he shows how desperate he is to take the risks necessary to achieve what he wants, namely following after Elijah. And he does this even at his own expense and the derision of the company of prophets, who tell him, buddy… don’t you know what’s going on… can’t you see what’s happening here…Elijah is leaving you… to which Elisha desperately and meekly replies, please stop… please, don’t tell me that, be silent, be silent…I can’t handle it… Oh it’s heartbreaking stuff, my friends. Especially because what Elisha wants is simply unattainable, for his dream is to be with someone who just can’t take him with him. Ah, have you ever felt that before? Brutal. Brutal stuff.
Verses 2-6 here are perhaps the most critical. For here the narrative is replicated and repeated twice over. And it’s precisely through that repetition, in Elisha saying over and again “but I will not leave you!” that the point of our story is hammered home: that letting go is hard! Three separate times Elisha doesn’t follow orders: “stay here.” And each time, Elisha is like, yeah, but I can’t.
It is only when the choice is taken out of his hands, when the chariots of fire descend and Elijah is whisked away in a whirlwind, that Elisha is forced to release his grip. Thus, it is only when he is made to let go that he is finally able to do so; to pick up the mantle, to cross over the water, and encounter the life that God had wanted for him: to become Elijah’s successor and leader of the people.
And that he does… for in the end, Elisha bravely chooses to not sit in the corner staring up at the clouds hopefully, waiting around forever. No, with the decision now taken from him, with Elijah now gone, Elisha decides for himself that he doesn’t want to end up living and dying that way, and so he makes a choice to finally let go and move on. …Powerful stuff.
Now, unfortunately for most of us, we won’t have a whirlwind come and do all that hard work for us. No, for most of us, it’s going to require us to make the difficult decision ourselves to take that difficult first step forward. To pick up the mantle, to get in that car sitting outside with the engine running, and drive away from whoever and whatever is holding us back. …It is a leap of faith, my friends… but the good news is that even though it’s scary, we can trust that sometime later, even if it’s 10,000 years later at that, we will be okay. For we have been blessed with some amazing grace, such we can believe that even if no one else is, that God is always with us, through every danger, toil, and snare, and even in the great unknown of what lies ahead.
Amen.
