Today’s Sacred Story comes from 1 Kings 18: 17-39 where the Prophet Elijah meets on Mt. Carmel with all the Israelite people to remind them that God is faithful over all other gods, including Ba’al.

Grace and Peace to you, from the God of all the Saints with us, beside us, and gone before us. Amen.

Today is All Saints Sunday - a time set apart in the Church Year to reflect on the lives and memories of those who have died and to honor specifically those who have died in the last 12 months. In the Lutheran tradition, we believe that Saints are people who are made holy by baptism and by life in the body of Christ. There’s no lengthy application process or verification of a wholly just and pure life needed to enter the sainthood of all believers. We simply acknowledge that God loves and claims ALL members of the body of Christ exactly as they are while we hold tight to the knowledge that we are all simul justus et peccator - simultaneously saint and sinner.

And so today, we celebrate the lives of all those who have gone before us, and dwelling with all the other saints like Elijah and Moses in the Kin-dom of God. There are a great number of saints we could venerate and celebrate today, but the scripture for today has us reflect in particular on Elijah, a prophet from the northern kingdom of Israel in 9th century BCE.

We know that Prophets have a way of being in the world that is often much bolder and brasher than the people around them would like, and the prophet Elijah was no different. Elijah was sent by God to turn the people of Israel away from their worship of the Canaanite god, Ba’al, and back to the Lord their God, the God of Israel.

King Ahab, the ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel, rejected Elijah’s proclamation and grew angry when Elijah called down a drought over the land in the name of the Lord - Elijah’s life was threatened, but under the care of the LORD, he fled and was provided for during the drought.

When we encounter Elijah in today’s story, he has returned back to King Ahab and his people, with word from the LORD that the drought would be ended...but before that can happen Elijah tells King Ahab to assemble ALL the Israelite people and ALL the other prophets on Mt. Caramel.

It is while Elijah has this assembly of all the Israelites and prophets that we see both the saint and sinner side of the great Prophet Elijah. Elijah came near to the people and talked earnestly with them, the way that you talk to someone you really care about - someone you’re in deep relationship with. He proclaimed the sovereignty and goodness of the LORD our God to these people who have strayed away from the covenants they promised to uphold during the time of Moses, and implores them to leave the worship of these false gods behind.

When they remain unconvinced, he offers a contest of sorts to help further demonstrate these peoples’ need for a return to the true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In this contest, Elijah is relentlessly sarcastic and cruel to the Israelite people who are praying and crying out to Ba’al, the god they have worshipped and prayed to and made sacrifices for.

He sees and knows that Ba’al will not respond because Ba’al is not the true god, but instead of quietly waiting for their prayers and demonstrations to be over, Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”

This is not a great moment for Elijah the prophet for the LORD our God, but is a demonstration early on that even the most saintly people can also lean into relationship damaging cruelty, and we know that God holds that complexity and tension in care - not justifying that behavior, but responding in love and faithfulness as God does even in our moments of sin.

When the people grew weary and exhausted and it was clear that no voice, no answer, no response was going to come from Ba’al, Elijah drew the people close to him once again. He drew these people close who were frustrated and angry. They were divided and torn over what they should have done, and anxious about what their future would hold. Maybe some regretted what had already been done and the way that they had turned away from God in favor of another god who was promised to be more and better than the God of Israel. Maybe some were still unsure that the God Elijah was proclaiming was the true God...the right God for them. Maybe some were just ready to get out of that mountain and forget the whole thing altogether.

With all of these different emotions and perspectives and beliefs about the best way forward, the people gathered together near to the one who said, “come closer to me,” and listened to what he had to say.

They watched carefully as Elijah repaired the altar; placing each of the 12 stones exactly where they needed to be, gathering the logs and placing them just so, and finally gathering the bull meant for the sacrifice. They watched as Elijah faithfully prepared the space for which these people would encounter the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they listened as he called upon the name of the LORD “Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” They watched and listened and when God sent fire down to consume the offering , they proclaimed “indeed the LORD is God, indeed the LORD is God!”

It wasn’t the miraculous fire raining down from heaven though that turned the hearts of the Israelites and the prophets back from God though because the real matter at stake in all of these events was not who was more powerful - God or Ba’al - but rather who the people could trust with their petitions. They didn’t need to know who was stronger, they needed to know who was receiving their prayers and responding to their cries. They needed to know who cared about the troubles they were going through and would hold of their complex sinner and saintness, and love them even when they went astray.

What Elijah did in carefully preparing the altar and faithfully calling upon the name of the LORD was not just a demonstration of superiority, but a testimony to the people of Israel that the LORD could be trusted.

In the simple methodical way he approached the preparation of the altar and the prayer, Elijah demonstrated the deep trust and relationship he had in the LORD and in the promises the LORD God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Elijah calls on the long lasting, well established relationship between God and God’s people, and faithfully proclaims the good news that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also the God of these people, even in the depths of their sin and waywardness.

In the same way, when we prepare our places of prayer, our altars, our worship spaces, we call upon the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, trusting in the old, old promise of God’s faithfulness in and through all things. In the times of our lives when we are in a drought and famine stricken land, calling on the LORD our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, can be our sure and certain refuge. When we call upon the name of the LORD we are calling on the same name that our ancestors and dearly departed called on in their times of struggle and strife. We know that our questions, our uncertainties aren’t ones we navigate alone, but things we navigate with the ever faithful God and the communion of saints journeying along side us. We breathe deeply as we rest in the certainty that “...indeed the LORD is God. Indeed the LORD is God.”

The God of our ancestors, our sure and certain hope.