Wadi Cherith

Wadi Cherith- The Prophet Elijah and Our Podcast

February 17, 2021 Fr. Alex Roche and Fr. Anthony Dill
Wadi Cherith
Wadi Cherith- The Prophet Elijah and Our Podcast
Show Notes Transcript

Why does our podcast have such a weird name?  In this episode we discuss the Prophet Elijah, including what happened at the Wadi Cherith.  Listen as we examine what Elijah can teach us about finding wisdom from unexpected sources, the dangers of creating idols for ourselves, and why it's important to sometimes journey outside of Israel to hear God's voice.

Speaker 1:

That was Ravens. You just heard not like Lamar Jackson, like the bird, which means the patron Saint of our podcast. Elijah, the prophet must be around. Join us today as we discuss the story of Elijah of the Wadi Cherith and why it is, we have taken inspiration from that part of sacred scripture. Welcome to Wadi Cherif, the podcast where you can have as much flour and oil as you could possibly want. Joining me today is father Anthony dill. And we will be talking about the story for which the podcast is named Wadi Cherith and the prophet Elijah, who is the protagonist in that story. And many others. Yeah, this is a great,

Speaker 2:

The story from the Bible. Obviously we both like it. And one of the reasons we, we named the podcast after it, so we thought it's appropriate for us to comment just a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I think Alijah is this towering figure in the old Testament, but very often as Catholics, at least we're not terribly familiar with a lot of the stories of the old Testament and there's a lot there. And especially Alijah who, as we know from the gospels looms, large in the Jewish imagination has an outsize influence for a very long time. It's helpful for us to examine the events in scripture about him and what some of the deeper messages might be.

Speaker 2:

Just an introduction into how to find Elijah in the Bible. If you haven't read it before, because there's a whole section in the old Testament called the profits. And it's just book after book named after the prophet like Isaiah and Jeremiah is EQL Daniel, but, uh, Elijah doesn't have his own book like the other prophets do. He's embedded within one of the books of the history of the Kings of Israel called first Kings and then a little bit into second Kings as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And that happens a lot with some of the earlier profits. They don't pass it down their writings per se, like the later profits do, but we hear about them in these history books, in the Bible. Also

Speaker 2:

Prophet Elijah is special in the gospels as well because his name is actually referenced. There's this expectation that Elijah will come back before the savior. And then there's this kind of hidden comparison and sometimes hidden sometimes not a little ambiguous of John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord, like, uh, the prophet Elijah did.

Speaker 1:

So to get started, maybe we could just run down quickly through the different stories in the Elijah cycle. And if you're looking where to start first Kings chapter 17 is where Elijah first comes onto the scene. So Anthony, do you want to just give us a brief rundown of everything that happens with Elijah in the Bible? Yeah. He comes in the scene.

Speaker 2:

This is Israel after it's split. So King David lived about a thousand BC. His son Solomon builds the temple and after Solomon, there is a North and a Southern kingdom and the Northern kingdom gets more involved in worshiping other gods and building sanctuaries to other gods in the Southern kingdom is where Jerusalem is in the temple. And there the King in the South and Judah is what the South has called. His name is EISA. And he reigns from this long time. And these other Kings in the North kind of keep flipping eventually a King named Ahab comes and Ahab marries a woman. Jessebelle who's part of a family that does cultic worship to a God outside of Israel. And so he starts introducing some more of the priesthood to these other gods and Caltech sacrifices to these other gods. And God raises up this prophet Elijah to say that this is inappropriate, that he's misleading his people. And so the first thing we hear Elijah do is he tells the kingdom, uh, that there won't be any rain or do that comes upon the ground until God says, and after he prophesized this horrible news, then he goes, and he takes refuge in the[inaudible] just means Creek or Brooke. So he's at this stream outside of Israel itself.

Speaker 1:

And it's worth mentioning that if you are familiar with the name Ahab from the famous book, Moby Dick, uh, a Hab is the captain in Moby Dick. And he is explicitly named after the King Ahab of the book of Kings of Israel. Uh, and he has all sorts of reasons for using King Ahab as an allegory there. But I think it's another example of, of how a lot of the great works of literature and art movies, even music make constant reference to stories and figures from the Bible. And so knowing your scripture can help you to understand not just your religion, but many different aspects of world culture, because the references are just, non-stop

Speaker 2:

Also in Moby Dick. There's a incredible sermon about Jonah, like within the first 10th of it, uh, given to the pulpit before they go out to the sea, there's a lot of really good Christian imagery and, and Moby decks and Incredibles. The Jonah sermon is pretty intense. It's seven tenths, but not as intense as Elijah, this guy lives in intense life. So that's how his prophecy starts. Um, also just like with profits in general, when we say the word profit, it's revealing basically God's word to the people at the time. So sometimes we hear the word prophecy, we think about like, maybe like a future prophecy or a soothsayer or something like that. But generally in Judaism, when you say the word prophet, it's somebody that's being a mouthpiece for God, God is addressing something right here right now, something that's good, something that's bad and he gets to speak for God.

Speaker 1:

So you brought up this Wadi Cherith story. And since that happens right at the beginning of Elijah's ministry, and it is what our podcast is named after, it's probably going to be useful for us just to talk a little bit about why we chose that name from my mind. One of the fascinating things about the story of Elijah at Wadi Cherif is that he's fed by Ravens. And that can seem kind of like a strange thing. Like why a Raven, why not like an angel or a dove or something other than this harbinger of doom, we don't think of Ravens as this positive, positive symbol. They're scavengers, they're intimidating. They usually appear around death and destruction. Uh, even in earlier in the old Testament, uh, before Noah sends out a dove to see if the flood waters had receded, he sends out a Raven and the Raven doesn't come back. And a lot of later biblical commentators kind of associated the Raven with vice versus the dove, which symbolized virtue, um, Ravens are an unclean animal. So according to Leviticus, uh, Jewish people can't eat Ravens just like they can eat pigs or shellfish or badgers actually. Um, so it's this symbol, a Raven that sometimes can be associated with more negative things. And yet here they are in this story feeding one of God's greatest profits.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Also the location of the Wadi Cherif is outside the, the land owned by the tribes of Israel and within the kingdom itself and the Northern kingdom, there are in the Southern kingdom. Um, this concept of whatever's happening with the King and the, the Royal court,

Speaker 3:

When there's corruption. One of them, there seems to be corruption in all of them. So there is Jewish people who are in the position of being called profits. And if the King disagrees with the profit, sometimes, especially when the King starts to become corrupted, he will make it difficult for the profits. And so you see these professional profits slowly, basically just tell the King what he wants to hear. And one of the missions of Israel is, is to be this light, to all the countries around it. And to be God's presence, they have a special contract or covenant with God through Moses, and they're supposed to be God's people and they're supposed to purify themselves from everybody else and be this light shining light to the nations. And once it starts to corrupt from the inside and this Jewish mentality is we are the only ones that have a contract with God we're special, which is true. But when they start to become corrupted, it's interesting that God starts to look for help outside of Israel. And they kind of flips the way the entire Jewish nation is set up and set up the Jewish nation, bringing God's presence to other people. It is somebody leaving a Jew, leaving the Jewish nation and finding graces outside of it. So I think also when we're talking about, I completely agree with the symbolism of the Raven. And I think we've also talked about this too. We like the symbolism of gaining the word of God outside of kind of the structural and assumed place that it should always be just to look and make sure things aren't corrupt.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Because despite the fact that they kind of are the same big EWAS symbol of Ravens, we know now are some of the most intelligent animals in the world. Along with crows, they are this family called the corvids and, uh, incredibly intelligent. And I'm not talking like intelligent, like your dog. I mean, intelligent like a chimpanzee or a dolphin, like problem solving intelligence, uh, Ravens have been observed using tools to solve complex problems, uh, working on puzzles, things like that. So this story for us taking place outside of Israel, taking place with all these ambiguous symbols is highlighting the fact that we can use our intelligence and our discerning abilities to, to find the sources of wisdom outside of the expected places. So just setting that framework, we can keep talking about this story of Elijah. I'll let you continue.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, I'm just going to kind of glaze through the cycle. Um, and then we'll kind of circle back to just the same concept of, of why we chose the name. So when he is there, this Raven's bring him bread and meat every day. A lot of the spirituality, I think of Elijah is so difficult because, because he's in this situation where he's no longer in the structure of Israel and he doesn't have the support of all the things that exist with the kingdom that God created, he's constantly, it's so easy to doubt that sustenance is going to be there for him. Like if a Raven was bringing me food in a foreign land at some Brooke, when I just prophesied a drought, I would be worried everyday. Like, is the Raven going to come back? And our human instinct usually is to start securing things for ourselves. And Elijah is just left in this darkness, but also in this like constant renewal of support being provided by God himself. So I just think like maybe a little bit of a mental anguish or spiritual anguish of, I am completely by myself. I'm not gathering anything for myself. Is the Raven gonna come tomorrow or not? And eventually that the Brook dries up. Go ahead.

Speaker 1:

No, I was just going to say it's a unique situation because it's not just that he by accident finds himself in this difficult place. In some ways he places himself there. So Elijah doesn't just prophesied that there'll be a drought. He prays for a drought. He thinks that this drought is, is going to be something that will ultimately draw Israel and the King back to God. And I just wanted to mention here quickly, cause I always think these numbers are fascinating. Uh, it says the drought lasted for three and a half years. Um, so if you're familiar with, you know, the book of revelation, you know, that numbers are always significant and, uh, three and a half in biblical numerology would represent a very short period of time. So seven is, is like the fullness completion. So half of seven, three and a half would be the opposite would be a very short period of time. So while you might initially think that's kind of strange, Elijah's praying for a drought. Um, but I think it's also important to remember that this very limited drought for a short period of time, three and a half years to draw people back. And, and he obviously experiences a lot of this suffering and anguish and uncertainty along with the people of Israel in this moment.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I think he's kind of bringing to light like Israel should be filling this. They should Christian and Jewish spirituality is you can't have false idols. You need to wait on God and for God's timing and try to get into his Providence, um, and, and be satisfied with not feeling him all the time or having some emptiness. Whereas with these false gods, they're worshiping, they are having idols where they can basically take the idol and these places of worship. And basically they have in their head, they're forcing God to do something whenever they want him to do it. And so Elijah's life and waiting for all these things and being uncertain is I think kind of a hyperbole of the lack of uncertainty that exists in the Jewish faith when they should have a little more uncertainty, because God is all powerful and God has got so after eventually the Ravens stopped coming and, uh, the Brook dries up and Elijah has to wait for the nest instruction. He ends up going to a town called Zerephath, where there is a woman collecting sticks. And Elijah knows he supposed to ask her for bread and, um, tells her to go bring him some bread. And she starts to panic because she's experiencing the drought some too. If the sheriff just drew, uh, dried up and she says, sir, as I live me and my son, all we have is a little bit of oil and a little bit of flour. And I was going to make that into one little cake of bread and eat it. And then we were going to die and Elijah says, why don't you bring it to me and I'll eat it, but I tell you, you won't run out of bread.

Speaker 1:

And so that was the reference I made earlier on, uh, to flour and oil that, that never run out. It's also important to note here that the widow is in Zarephath, which is also the place that jazz Ebell is from. And she is the wife of the King and, uh, Elijah's main enemy. So from this town where his enemy or originated, he also finds this woman who offers him sustenance in a difficult moment. So there's a neat parallel there, uh, where he gets both the, the, the most harmful and most helpful person in his life from the same place.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I think that's a great point, Alex. Especially sometimes we vilify females in the Bible of like absolute wickedness Jezza dolls names sometimes gets associated in culture of the King. Ahab would have been fine if this evil woman didn't marry him. But when we talk about marrying, it's more like a Hab disobeyed God, by marrying into a family that had false worship. And it wasn't like just this woman is evil. And so I like that you pointed out that counterbalance, that there's also this woman from Sarah fat, who is a willing to be open to God's will. Now, once this happens, once he's in Sarah fath, he, uh, she starts making him these bread cakes. And there's a relationship between the Alijah and this widow and her son. And after like this trust starts to be developed and they're amazed by this miracle, her son starts to get sick and is dying. And she screams in Elijah, what have you to do with me, man of God? Why did you bring my sins before me? She has this realization, which again happens. I talked to him in one of the other episodes about compunction. Once we start to grow closer to God, there's like a sense of guilt of imperfect things we've done in our life. And funny. Cause you think like when you're sometimes from the outside, you'd be growing in holiness, or if you becoming a better, a better Christian or in this case, a better Jew, like life would be happier. Like it would be easier talking about like a prosperity gospel. If I'm praying to God, everything should be happy in my life. That's not the case in the Bible for any character who grows in holiness. And so this woman feels like her son is dying because of whatever sin she committed in her past. I think a lot of, a lot of people experienced the same thing. Anytime something bad happens, especially when something happens to one of your kids, uh, people rack their brains of what did I do? Why has God punishing me like this? And in this particular case, um, uh, Elijah kind of cries out to God as well. And then, uh, performs a miracle and heals the son illustrating that, um, yes, he is the presence of God in her house. And she understands that she's not worthy of that, but also that, that God is loving and that she opened herself up to God. It's not a punishment that, that she's growing in this holiness in this way, once they're done in Zara fath, then Elijah goes back to Israel. You want to talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So Elijah comes back, uh, it's time for him to encounter King Ahab again. And after this drought to let him know that this idolatry is still happening and that it's time for Israel to turn back to God and to set aside this worship of this false God ball. Um, so there's this showdown that ends up occurring between Alijah alone and all the prophets and priests of the false God ball on Mount Carmel. And ultimately, as we can imagine, Elijah is victorious God intervenes in this spectacular way, sending down fire to consume the sacrifice, laid on the alter for him. And it begins to rain again. So Elijah in this moment is really proving the, the fidelity and the importance of the one, true God of Israel, uh, against this idolatrous God that had been introduced by the King and his wife. I think this is an important moment because I know we had a professor who taught us the synoptic gospels and one of his big snap gospels being Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And one of his big points was that the central sin in the entire old Testament, the thing that the old Testament is obsessed with and that if you can take one message away, this is what you should take away from. It is idolatry. And this really comes out here that the sin, the root of all sins is placing other gods before God. And we can often think about this in terms of like worshiping a false God like ball. Um, but in reality, we know that in today's world, we're more likely to worship false gods in, in the form of things like money or fame or power or nationalism, or just other kinds of ideals. And that's something that is really highlighted as a very destructive practice here in the story of Elijah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Uh, on Mount Carmel, when this happens, it's like a super dramatic scene of, of making a sacrifice of a bowl. And then Elijah actually purifies Israel of all these false profits by killing them all. So it gets a little violent after this happens in the drought resumed, you think like everything might return to harmony, but Jessebelle swears that what Elijah did to her profits, she's going to do to him. And this is an interesting thing after this like huge constellation, uh, Elijah seems to be a super successful profit. Everything went the way. He, he did this incredible miracle of having this sacrifice light on fire without touching a match to it. After it was Dallas with water to show that God could do anything. And it looks like he proved everyone wrong and purified Israel. And then decibel basically makes a death threat to him and he wanders off and begs God to die and says, he's not done anything. He's not worth anything he's not better than anybody else. And it's, it's a really dark reflection. And, um, I think surprising again that this person has done nothing but follow God and, and suffered for God and performed great miracles goes through them.

Speaker 1:

And, and this is also a great insight for us in ministry as priests, but not just as priests as any of us that sometimes we assume if we lay out all of the facts, if we just show people, then they'll automatically fall in line and agree with us and turn to God. But in reality, that's not how it works for Jessebelle. And for any of us emotions work in very complicated ways. And to assume that people just need to be kind of argued into believing in God and following God is this false assumption that if, if we pinned too many of our hopes on just being able to convince people, then like Elijah, we're often going to be led to disappointment because in fact, we have to understand that sometimes bringing people to God or even coming to God ourselves is, is not just an exercise of the rational mind of seeing the evidence it's bringing in the will and our emotion and our past, and ultimately relying on grace that comes from God alone. And so I think this story of Elijah's interior struggles as a prophet is something that most of us can probably identify with at some point in our life.

Speaker 2:

And just to focus on what you're talking about, idol worship, just to hammer that home a little bit more, they, the idols again, are ways that we can Sue them ourselves or make us feel like we're in control or something we do to comfort ourselves when we feel uncomfortable, instead of waiting on God and giving God that control. And one more time when Elijah's sitting there depressed contemplating and begging God to take his life, we just see another extreme emptiness and Elijah shows us being emptied and filled so much in these again, because they're contracting I dollar trust Israel. They're never waiting to be empty. And the drought itself as a symbol of this as well, it's dried from rain. It needs to be emptied, so it can feel the rain and the rain makes a difference and they appreciate the rain.

Speaker 1:

And one of the things that, that a lot of the, the early church fathers and the apostles, uh, and a lot of these great saints from the early days of our faith and even people in Israel recognized was that idols don't always come from the outside. We can fashion idols right within our own faith. And in fact, we had a professor, one of his big illustrations was the fact that there are four gospels, four separate accounts of the life of Christ, four different announcements of what Christ offers. And they don't always match up perfectly. And his reflection was that that's very intentional because if there were just one book, just one image of Christ that we followed, we could very easily turn that book itself into an idol that even though it seemed to be drawing us towards God was in fact falsely soothing us. And so you see this in, in even good religious practices. Sometimes we make the rules themselves, our God. And so there's just too much certainty and a kind of reliance there on these things that are connected to God, but not in themselves. God. And we have to be careful to make sure we're always leaving room for that uncertainty, for that mystery, for the grace of God, to work in us in ways that we didn't expect it to beforehand, there even an analogy in

Speaker 2:

Just our human relationships too. We're actually just kind of talking about this in Groundhog's day, a little bit with, uh, bill Murray's attachment to Rita and trying to manipulate her and like memorize all the things about her so that he could kind of control her love for him. And it, that is, uh, such a good platform for exactly what we're talking about with the dollar tree. And God, we want to kind of take these rules that he's revealed to us sometimes, and they're good rules and they're helpful. And like, if you love somebody, you should know about them, but you can't turn that knowledge into something that you can manipulate the other person into something other than being another.

Speaker 1:

And this is so powerfully represented in what comes next. So, uh, Elijah, as we heard is depressed, he's uncertain about what he's supposed to do now. And so he treks 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Horeb, which is another word for Sinai, where Moses received the 10 commandments. And he says to God, just end it. Now what's the point of even going

Speaker 2:

On from here.

Speaker 1:

And so God tells him he will appear to him. And what happens is he stands in the mountain before the Lord. And first there's this mighty wind, but it says God was not in the wind. And then there's an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. And then there's a fire, but God was not in the fire, but God speaks to Alijah. In the end, in the sound of still silence is the literal translation. So it's not in these big audacious signs that God reassures and is present for Elijah. It's in the silence, in the whisper. And there's real power in that. And in fact, this is a, a passage that we use a lot when talking to people about discerning, possibly a vocation to the priesthood or religious life, uh, is learning to listen for God and the silence, not in these big gaudy signs that sometimes we can expect.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is such a good image of God. And it's a good one to meditate on after he has this experience. There's another kind of tragedy that exists. I in Israel. So a have also doesn't seem to have repented yet along with decibel. And we see that they have wants to extend his property and the person who lives next to him, won't sell him his vineyard. His name is named Boff and neighbor doesn't sell his vineyard because actually when the Jews came into the promised land, after at the exile, each tribe was giving a certain patch of land. And then within that, each family was given certain land and there's actually rules within Judaism where some of that land is given back. And it's, it's important that the different tribes and different families maintain a portion of the land. So it's a really big deal to be asking him to sell this land. He really doesn't think he has the right to, um, that it's, it's, God's all that he's supposed to have this land and not give it to the King King. Ahab is, is like throwing a little tantrum sulking in his room that Naboth, won't sell him this vineyard. And Jess about sees this happening. And Isabelle is not about to leave, had him show weakness or not go through with this plan because of some peasant isn't acquiescing to his will. So he develops this whole plan and, uh, uh, bear falls away. And it's against the neighbor break, the eighth commandment, which is, uh, he has these people claim that knob off blasphemed against God, so that he'll be killed. And then he can just take his land and you see the level of corruption kind of keep increasing. They're actually using the Jewish law for something bad to have. When we see this at the end of the book, in the book of Daniel as well of this idea of the reason you can't be a false witnesses, because it's really important that if you're going to use the law to punish somebody, that they actually broke the law, because it's about God and not about people when you're perverting that and using the law to give the King more power and not to give God space, then, uh, we have, uh, an even more severe level of corruption. And that's what happens. And a of that pronounces God's sentence to Ahab for what he does. He says, I know what you did to get this vineyard. And an amazing thing here is we actually see a hamper pent for what he did and God shows a mercy. So I have done these things where he's persecuted the good profits. He's been trying to kill a lot. Gotcha. Uh, he is been threatening Elijah, the entire book. He just kind of man killed so that he could get a piece of property. And he shows a little bit of repentance and God allows him to live. And he lives another couple years, uh, before a military campaign where ends up not listening to profits again and dying. But when we're talking about the success of profits, it's so hard to like, judge, what is successful like he's successful. And he has power. He stops water for three and a half years. He's successful in that he has this miraculous sacrifice happen successful in that. Uh, he actually gets a hat tip to propend for a couple of years. Um, and it also might say unsuccessful because he's constantly alone and he constantly is kind of an outlaw against the center of it, Judaism and I have only, and it depends for a couple of years and ends up failing again, decibel never repents. So the overall success of Elijah is, is difficult to judge from a non faithful perspective.

Speaker 1:

So, uh, as Elijah's ministry is coming to an end, he finds his replacement, the next prophet, uh, which is a man named a lie HSA. Now that gets really confusing when you're, uh, doing the readings at mass. I usually say Alicia, just so that people know it's not a lie, it's a lie Shaw, but his next prophet and the scene where he's called is kind of a fascinating one because a lie HSA is out working the fields and Alijah comes to ask them to follow him. And Alicia, I'm just going to say Alicia, so it's simpler. I like to do that too says, okay, can I just go say goodbye to my family? And Elijah says more or less? No. So Alicia says, okay, he slaughters the oxygen on the spot and then goes along with Alijah. Um, so eventually at the end of the story, Alicia is asked by Elijah what gift he would like. And he asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit, which is a pretty, uh, I think audacious gift to ask for, but he receives it and a chariot comes and whisks Elijah off to the heavens. So, uh, uh, Elijah is one of only two figures in the old Testament, uh, Enoch in the book of Genesis being the other who does not die, but it's instead taken directly into heaven. And that is where the story of Elijah in the book of Kings. And so

Speaker 3:

Including the Elijah cycle, I just want to circle back a little bit to the reason we chose this name. I hope you got a little bit of insight into that as we've been going through it because we liked the theology of Elijah,

Speaker 1:

But we really

Speaker 3:

Like this concept that the grace of God can flow from outside kind of the religious controlled center. And it's actually really healthy for the faith to allow prophecy, to work both ways, both from the center of the religion itself and also from outside sources of knowledge.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And, and one of the ways that the, the fathers of the church talk about this is they have this term called a logo Spermonte coy, which translates a seeds of the word. And this means that there are signs of God's goodness in every corner of creation and in every example of human genius. So this is taken up in the second Vatican council and the document Gaudium had spares, but essentially what it means is that you can find sources of inspiration in for instance, other world religions in the natural sciences, in movies and literature and history and music. And when we limit ourselves to only, you know, novenas and movies about the saints, we are limiting the ways that God can speak to us and teach us about himself. So the goal of Wadi Cherith is to just like Elijah, go outside of Israel a little bit and see if there aren't some Ravens who can bring us some sustenance and some wisdom. So I hope that gives a little bit of insight into the whole project that we have here at Wadi. Cherith what we hope to do and what we hope that many Catholics and Christians will do finding sources of God's wisdom, wherever he offers it. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.