I think we have to admit that the Old Testament, at times, can be pretty brutal. And today’s first reading is an example of that. Mind you, I love this story because it contains touches of humor and has a wonderful message about our faith, but it’s still brutal.
The humor comes from Elijah’s cajoling of the prophets of Baal. Obviously, we know they weren’t getting an answer from Baal because there is no Baal. Elijah says to them:
“Call louder, for he is a god and may be meditating,
or may have retired, or may be on a journey.
Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”
Some scholars claim that “meditating” should really be translated “using the bathroom,” so it shows you just how much Elijah thinks of these so-called prophets and their so-called god.
But, brutality and humor aside, the spiritual meaning of the reading is important. God had told the Israelites that, when they came into the land he was giving them, they were to slaughter everyone in the land: men, women, children, livestock—all of it. The idea is that anyone or anything left alive would ultimately tempt them to false worship of the Baals, which is exactly what happened.
But God isn’t really about a blood bath—that wouldn’t be a God we would care to worship, I would guess. What he is telling them, and us, here is that everything that stands in the way of true worship and real relationship with the only God who longs to save our souls has to be blotted out and not left standing.
So the reflection today is this: what is it that we have allowed to stay alive when we really ought to put it to death? What habits, or desires, or relationships, or whatever—what is in the way of a deeper relationship with the God who loves us more than anything. We need to identify those obstacles and obliterate them from the face of the earth. Anything else is unworthy of our relationship with God.
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