Where the Surprises Are

Here is the story -- you can (and of course, you should) read it for yourself in 2 Kings 4:8-37.

This is such a vivid story -- so full of reality and wonder and fierce emotion and determination . . . and surprise. I think, if casting parts, I would still give the part of Elisha to Russel Crowe. For Gehazi, maybe Jason Statham. . .after all he would have to be able to hang with Elisha, and he would have to be someone that Elisha  (and when I say 'Elisha' in your mind's eye see Russel Crowe) would take seriously. For the Shunemite woman, maybe Sandra Bullock. She was younger than her husband, but not an airhead socialite ~ someone with strength and grit.

Elisha traveled. I think before I began writing about him -- here in this blog -- that I didn't quite realize how much. We saw (2 Kings chapter 3) Elisha down at the southern end of Judah or perhaps up into Edom. Now he is in Israel in a city called Shunem. At a rough guess-tament, Shunem is about 4 miles north of Jezreel, a bit more north than the center of the country. He comes to town and is invited to dinner by a wealthy woman who lived there. I guess he came often and I guess that they hit it off, because the woman goes to her husband and proposes that they make a guest-room just for Elisha so he can stay with them when ever he is in town. Elisha appreciated her generosity. He calls for her and asks what he can do for her to thank her. He suggests speaking to the king or a commander of an army on her behalf. She politely refuses telling him she has "a home among my own people" ~ in other words, I have family and community and I am well cared for. But Elisha is determined to bless her. He asks his aide Gehazi for a suggestion, and Gehazi gives him a great one. Gehazi notes that her husband is old, and that she has no children. Elisha calls for her and tells her, "about this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms." I find her response so interesting -- so poignant. She says, "No my lord. Don't mislead your servant." The key word is "mislead". Hope and disappointment are funny things. Sometimes it is actually frightening to face the thought of hope when you have resigned yourself and given up hope. She says don't offer me what I really want if there is even a chance you won't deliver. That would hurt too much. I can feel the terror of her angst.  But ~ wonder of wonders ~ by the next year she did indeed have a son. Time passed. He became a child, one old enough to go work with his father in the field -- what 9? 10 years old? And one day when he is working with his dad in the field he gets a headache. I guess he passed out. His dad has the servants carry him home to his mom, who holds him in her lap till noon when the boy dies. It seems she has come a long way in her relationship with Elisha and it seems she is a woman with some moxie -- gumption. I can nearly see the steel in her eyes. She DOES NOT accept this. The man of God had made her a promise -- a son. And she wasn't about to let this be the end of the story. The kind of faith she exhibits is beyond what most of us mean when we say we have faith. She isn't showing an "oh, I hope so" attitude. She is NOT going to take "no" for an answer.

No tears, no screams. She does not tell her husband that the boy died. She takes him up to Elisha's room, and puts him on Elisha's bed. She asks her husband for a mule and a servant so she can go to the man of God. When he asks what is going on and why she needs the man of God, she simply says, "It's all right." However she knows ~ she knows where Elisha is. He is at Mount Carmel. If you check a map, that is about 30 miles. On a donkey, that had to be a ride of several hours. Elisha sees her as she rides up and knows something must have happened, and he sends Gehazi to ask her if everyone is ok. She tell Gehazi the same thing she told her husband. "Everything is all right." But everything isn't all right and when she gets to Elisha she falls at his feet. I think the dam of grief and rage must have broken then. When Gahazi tries to push this woman off Elisha, Elisha won't let him. "Leave her alone, she is in bitter distress..." Then Elisha says something that is one of the most surprising things ~ for me ~ in the whole Bible. "...but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why." Now be honest ~ for most of us, definitely for me, I am always surprised when God tells me something -- and when I can hear it accurately enough that I am sure that I know that I know. Right? But Elisha is surprised that God has HIDDEN this from him. How intimate with God are you, that you live in expectation that you will always know what is going on with the people in your life?! That was Elisha. Wow!! The Shunemite woman blasts him. "Did I ask you for a son? Didn't I tell you, 'Don't raise my hopes.' " Elisha tries to send Gehazi with his staff, to put it on the boy's face. Again -- surprise for me. Elisha isn't new at miracles or power displays. It wasn't show...it wasn't a trick. He must have expected that there was real power in his staff...that it carried his anointing. Sounds like 'magic' or parlour tricks, but it wasn't. At any rate, the woman is having none of it! She says, "As surely as the Lord lives, I will not leave you." So Elisha goes back to Shunem with her.

Gahezi has gone ahead and has tried the staff, but to no avail. Elisha goes in to the boy and shuts the door. Then he prays. Now it seems a pretty natural thing to do. But if you check the stories, it rarely SAYS he prays. Usually Elisha just does crazy stuff and miracle happen. I KNOW that he prayed as a part of his life ~ he and God CLEARLY have profoundly intimate relationship. Put it notes "he prayed to the LORD." I think he is shocked ... that God hadn't warned him, that the boy has died, maybe that the staff didn't do the trick. At any rate he takes a minute and talks to God. Then he lays on the boy (Elijah had done something similar in 1 Kings 17:21) and the body of the boy  -- who has been dead for hours -- gets warm. But I guess he wasn't breathing yet because Elisha gets up, walks around the room and lays down on the boy again. The boy sneezes 7 times and opens his eyes. He calls the boy's mother and says, "Take your son."

This story tells me something about faith, about expectations. The woman's expectations -- Elisha's expectations. I identify with the Shunemite woman. I know what giving up hope feels like. That is why I understand her hesitancy, her fear, when Elisha tells her she will have a son. But I love her steely determination when her son dies. She just will NOT accept it. She didn't pretend. She didn't do any "name-it-and-claim-it" histrionics. But she was not going to accept anything but her son's resurrection. I want that kind of faith. It wasn't an "I hope so" kind of faith. It was clearly rooted in a relationship with Elisha - in years of seeing what he did, observing his relationship with God. Getting to know him, it seems, changed her. I want to have that effect on people. I want people to change ~ to gain faith ~ because they know me. Not that they see me...but that they see that a relationship with God is real and they learn faith. Then my favorite! I love that Elisha's expectation was not that sometimes he heard from God, not that he might hear from God ~ but that he always did. His surprise is the pivot point of the story for me. Wow! There it is. I do not want a 'parlour trick' 'don't-people-think-I-am-cool-cuz-I-can-give-a prophetic-word' prophetic relationship with God. I want intimacy. I do not just want to have discernment; I do not just want to get prophetic words. I want to know God ~ I would love to know Him the way Elisha did. Yeah, tall order. And...I am SO not there yet. But...I can press in to relationship with Him . . . and . . . I can hope.

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