Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
2 Kings 2:1-18
“Legacy”
My father did an interview a few years back as part of a series on the local television news about volunteer firemen. In it, they asked him why he became a volunteer. He said, “I wanted to get in. It was something I think I was… no it wasn’t born into me you know that, but I’d been born up with it.” The reporter went on to say, “Bill’s father was chief for 17 years so it seemed only natural to join a force with a tradition going back to the early 20s.”
“It seemed only natural to join a force with a tradition going back to the early 20s.” It is kind of like two generations are looking at me saying, “are you gonna step up or what? We have a legacy to think of.” It is not that I didn’t want to be a fireman. I considered many times being a volunteer and I considered many times trying to make it as a pro. But for about ten years I made my living playing records and cds and talking on the radio and then this pastor thing ended up winning the struggle.
Today we are going to talk about legacy. We may be helped by starting with a definition.
leg•a•cy [leg-uh-see] noun, plural -cies.
1. a gift of property, esp. personal property, by will; a bequest.
2. anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor.[1]
Most of the time, we are talking about sort of a melding of those two definition, things we hand down from the past to the present to the future. My family has a legacy of firefighters, a legacy that will likely end with my generation.
I want to throw one more definition up there, the adjective form:
–adjective
3. of or pertaining to old or outdated computer hardware, software, or data that, while still functional, does not work well with up-to-date systems.[2]
When I was in the radio business, we had some of these systems. “Legacy” was usually said with some amount of dread. I was at a group of four stations and for some reason three of them ran on these really great up to date computers that all worked together. I could record a commercial and it could play on the three radio stations. But if a salesperson sold it to run on the fourth station, this little low power AM station we had, someone had to go load it into the legacy system. It was like some form of punishment.
So you see legacy can have these differing emotions tied to it depending on what we are talking about. It can be something to celebrate and embrace, a gift given from our past. Sometimes it is a gift that we choose not to use. Or sometimes it is something that we are stuck with that we really wish would go away.
But so far we haven’t talked about the prophet Elijah or his successor Elisha, the two prophets with unfortunately similar names.
Today’s scripture picks up at the end of Elijah’s career so I want to remind us all of some of the high points of his ministry.
There’s the beginning of his ministry when Elijah convinces God to raise a child from the dead. Then there is this great story where he wins a contest against the prophets of the false god Ba’al. It is a great story where the prophet Elijah taunts all the other prophets in a manner you might not find appropriate for a Bible character. Then there’s the time he brings a drought to end by praying to God and he then outruns a horse. It is in there really. But then his shenanigans in the contest with the other prophets gets him in trouble with evil queen Jezabel. Then he has a low point in his career which finds him pouting under a broom tree wishing he might die. We all have those moments. But then he has this dramatic encounter with God in the middle of chapter 19 and his told to go anoint some kings and then anoint his prophetic successor. God says to Elijah:
You shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.
Elijah did all these important and powerful things as a prophet of God, but what is important here is that God is commanding him to appoint a successor. You see our legacy is not about our successes, it is about our successors! Our legacy is not just the gift we are handing down but who we are handing it down to.
Let me read to you real quick from 1 Kings 19:19-21. This is a great scene.
19So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. 20He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” 21He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.
Elijah called out Elisha. Jesus will do the same when he starts his ministry. Jesus will say to some fishermen, “Drop what you are doing, I have work for you.” We really need to learn to do that. We have gotten really milk-toasty about helping people hear a call to ministry. It is true that God is the one who really calls people to be in ministry, but you know God uses the rest of us to do stuff.
Why is it that we can’t say to people, you know, I think that God might be calling you to be a pastor or a missionary or God might be calling you to take a more active role in the leadership of the church? It may be that we don’t feel we have the authority to tell people what we think God has in mind for them. But I don’t think that is it. We aren’t carrying on Christian relationships at a level that enables us to speak to each other about the dreams we think God has for us.
Our legacy, the gift we will hand down and who we will hand it down to begins with relationships.
In case you don’t think this is important. Maybe you think God is taking care of all this and providing for our legacy. Think again.
Grace United Methodist Church is part of the Southwest Texas Annual Conference with churches in Austin and McAllen and Victoria and San Antonio and all points in between. Out of a total of 300 appointed members of the clergy how many do you think are under the age of 35? Ten, just three percent. 70% of the clergy persons in our conference, Elders like John, probationary elders like me, local pastors, student local pastors are over the age of 50.
But those are statistics. How about this, in the class of people who are to be ordained with me next year, if we pass all our tests and interviews, out of 15 of us, I am the third youngest. The next youngest in 42, the average age is 49. At thirty-five there are only two people younger than me. Nearly all of us are second career pastors. Nothing wrong with that, but I wonder how many are first career pastors who didn’t have the sort of relationships in which someone could have said, “Hey, you know, I think God might be calling you into ministry?”
But that’s just about clergy, and this sermon isn’t just about calling people into ordained ministry, it is about legacy, those things that we hand down from the past into the future.
19So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him.
And that leads us to where we are today.
1Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.
So matter of fact, the Lord was just about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, of course. I want you to notice that they are traveling together.
Elijah coached Elisha. He was in a relationship with him. I mentioned earlier our reticence to point out someone’s call to ministry. How many of us feel that call to coach or mentor a person through learning what it takes to be a pastor, a missionary, or a leader in the church?
When I think about how I became a pastor, it would be missing something to just talk about seminary, and the ordination process and personal prayer and discernment. I would be leaving out the relationships. My pastors who helped me clarify my call to ministry, the members of my Disciple Bible Study class who affirmed my calling. Then Susan my lay guide who worked with me for six months as I began to answer the call, and Larry my first clergy mentor who still checks up on me to make sure I am doing all right, and Richard who made it his business to be sure I knew what I was getting into, and Tina who I called every time I was sure I didn’t really want to be a pastor and Hong Rae who helped me through seminary by barely speaking English so I had to make sure I went to class so I could type my notes for him. And I still have coaches today, Lynn my appointed clergy mentor and Charles my theological tutor and numbers of others who unofficially coach me.
Relationships.
How many of us feel that call to coach or mentor a person through just learning what it means to be a Christian?
I mentioned in my pastor’s column in the last newsletter, most major decisions in life are made between the ages of 21 and 35. Looking back, I sure would have liked to have been in a relationship with someone who really knew the gospel back when I was making all the decisions that I live with today.
Our legacy is built on relationships and it is based on the journey, but we have to ask ourselves, are we really willing to journey with the next generation of Christians?
I want to share some scary numbers. Of the World War Two Generation, those born in the early 1900s through the 1920s, what percentage of them would you say were churched, in other words part of a faith community? 80%. Baby boomers, those born in the 40s through the sixties, what percentage do you think is part of a faith community? 50%. Let’s talk about today’s young adults, those 18-34, what percentage of those do you think have a relationship with a faith community? 30%. Now we have gotten pretty good at statistical forecasting. Unless something changes, what percentage of their children do you think will have a relationship with a faith community? 10%. And most of them will not be members of mainline churches like the United Methodist Church but of non-denominational churches.
Statistics are useless. You know that means? When I am John’s age, I will be preaching in a nearly empty church. What will our legacy be?
But back to our text.
9When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.”
What a great question. All of us know that one day, we won’t be here. Depending on where we are in life some of us have longer than others. But knowing that one day, our Christian tradition, all that we have worked so hard for will be in the hands of others, what can we do for them before we go?
It really contains a bigger question. For Elijah is it more important for him to be remembered for what he did or for what he did to continue. The question for us, how important is it for us to leave the legacy of our faith for the next generation of Christians? It is important enough to ask, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.”
You see the next generation of Christians might not answer how we would like them to answer. We might like them to say, just leave everything the way it is. “Elijah, tell me how to defeat the prophets of Ba’al just like you did and make it rain just like you did.” We want the next generation to sing the same songs and pray the same prayers and use the same buildings as though that is what is the most important part of our faith.
But our legacy isn’t about keeping the past alive, it is about passing the gift of our faith to a new generation. Our legacy isn’t about buildings and systems and words, it is about our faith in Christ and the world and life changing possibilities that enables.
“Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” If we really ask, the next generation might say “We want our faith, but we can’t do things the way you did them.” My Dad and I both work to make the world a little better, just in different ways. The next generation might worship different, communicate different pray different. People make the mistake of saying the next generation just isn’t interested in faith. But they are, they are interested in God, in Jesus, in the Gospel, not just always in a way that we like.
I am not going to have time today to really cover this whole piece of scripture, but I want to end at the end.
After Elijah had been swept away up to heaven:
15When the company of prophets who were at Jericho saw him at a distance, they declared, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” They came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. 16They said to him, “See now, we have fifty strong men among your servants; please let them go and seek your master; it may be that the spirit of the Lord has caught him up and thrown him down on some mountain or into some valley.” He responded, “No, do not send them.” 17But when they urged him until he was ashamed, he said, “Send them.” So they sent fifty men who searched for three days but did not find him. 18When they came back to him (he had remained at Jericho), he said to them, “Did I not say to you, Do not go?”
Our legacy shapes the future. Our faith is rooted in the past, it lives in the present, but our legacy is about the future. After Elisha inherited the promise, the spirit, the responsibility from Elijah, what is the first thing his followers wanted to do? Look backward. Let’s go find Elijah.
In the hallway outside my office are the photographs of every senior pastor Grace has ever had. I love those photos because they remind me of who came before and worked so hard that we could continue spreading the Gospel here at Grace. Harold Goodenough, James Platt, etc. You know what is missing? The future. There are churches now who are creating walls of pictures of every person who has ever been called into ministry from their church, pastors, missionaries, Christian educators, their legacy. They show people they helped God to call out, people they built relationships with, people they journeyed with, people the commissioned to carry on the tradition, to carry forward the Gospel.
Your homework this week: You get a choice of two things:
Encourage someone to listen to God’s call on their life. I bet there is someone is your life who needs to take that next step in their Christian journey and you might know what that next step is. Maybe they need to take a more active leadership role, or start really studying the Bible, or help out in the youth or children’s department, or go on a Walk to Emmaus.
Or if you can’t think of anyone, start a Christian relationship. Find someone you can get to know on a deeper level around praying and scripture reading, someone you can get to know on a level that when that time comes you can encourage them or they can encourage you.
What bonus points. Do one of those two things with someone under thirty-five.
What will you legacy be?
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[1] “legacy” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). (Random House, Inc.), http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/legacy (accessed: July 09, 2007).
[2] Ibid.
