UCC Church of Charlotte

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Inheritance
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

We have an inherited faith.

We each come to understand our relationship with God individually and
personally.  But we inherited our faith from generations who have
brought forward the covenant and the Gospel.

In the United Church of Christ, we inherit the Congregationalist ideal
of the local church being the basic unit of the church, not investing
our authority and power in the hierarchy of the church.  We inherit
the emphasis on education from those who founded some of our nation’s
oldest colleges and seminaries.

We inherit from our Christian church forebears the frontier spirit of
simplicity of faith and the right of individual conscience.

From our German Evangelical and Reformed forebears we have inherited a
love of worship, a piety that connects our personal spirituality with
our collective lives as a community, both of which draw us toward
service to others.  From all our predecessors we have received the
imperative for each generation to claim the faith and make their own
confessions for themselves, not unlike what we heard during our
confirmation Sundays.

From our Reformation roots, we inherit the primacy of scripture for
the life of the church.  We inherit the priesthood of all believers.
As the pastor, my job is to help teach and equip the ministers of the
faith.  That would be all of us!

We also inherit the Protestant Principle: only God is God.  No
substitutions.  Anything else, be it a tradition, a style of worship
or music, a denomination, an agenda, an argument over the color of the
carpet, or the fact that “we’ve always done it this way,” does not get
to take the place of God in importance or in our trust.

One of the things I inherited from my days in my home church and my
days as a student pastor is examples of ministers who did funerals
well.  I would go to funerals officiated by certain pastors, whether
or not I knew the family or the deceased.  I wanted what they had; I
wanted to be able to do what they did.

I can understand Elisha speaking to Elijah.  It is not a deathbed
talk, but it might as well be.  Elijah is going away.  Elisha, his
colleague, his student, his apprentice, does not ask for Elijah’s
books, or his home, or his stuff.

    When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Ask what I shall
do for you,
    before I am taken from you." And Elisha said, "I pray you, let me
inherit a
    double share of your spirit."

Is this not the prayer of every sincere student, every apprentice?  I
don’t know if Elisha was greedy in wanting a double portion, or if he
saw himself as not living up to the example of his mentor and so wants
a double portion to make up for his own failings.
    
For Elisha’s request, Elijah doesn’t know if it will happen.  It is
not up to him.  Teachers can teach.  Preachers can preach.  Prophets
can prophesy.  Mentors can mentor.  Parents can model for their
children the behaviors they want the children to have.  But finally it
is up to the hearer of the word to become a doer of the word.  I
wanted to do funerals like Boyd and Joe and Cliff.  They offered a
time of reverent worship and a time of remembrance filled both with
laughter and tears.  But they could not bottle what they did and hand
it to me. It doesn’t work that way.

(Maybe this is why Paul says that we each work out our salvation with
fear and trembling.  It isn’t something that can be simply handed to
us.)

Somewhere along the way, hopefully, we find ourselves in a moment and
we realize that we have indeed received some measure of that grace,
that character, that spirit that we longed for.  Perhaps our moment is
not as obvious as Elisha taking the mantle of Elijah (that’s where the
phrase comes from, by the way), and striking the water with it as
Elijah did, and the waters parting for Elisha as they did for Elijah.
Maybe it is more subtle, only recognized after the fact.  Or maybe it
comes in a more frightening way, such as when I open my mouth and I
hear the words and tone of voice of my father come out.

In our inherited faith we find strength to meet the day.  We hear in
our psalm the stubborn refusal to accept a situation of pain or
injustice or oppression without crying out to the Lord for healing and
justice and release.  We inherit a stubborn refusal to accept less
than the fullness of life in the covenant with God.  We inherit a
trust in God along with a relationship that cries out to God and is
willing to hold God accountable.  We inherit a refusal to forget the
works of God from our past, and the works of God coming to be in this
moment right now.

Let our prayer be to inherit a double portion of the faith and spirit
of our forebears.  Not because they were perfect.  Some opposed
slavery, but not all.  Some practiced the Gospel’s wide compassion and
welcome, but not all.  Some lived lives of service to others, but not
all.

Let it be our prayer to inherit a double measure of that spirit of
faithfulness and serving one another.

Let us also pray to inherit a double portion of trust in our
relationship with God that lets us yell at God when we need to,
knowing that God is big – God can take it; lets us lean on God when we
need to; lets us face the day knowing that God walks with us through
the difficulties we face, as God has done for our forebears as well.

And let us give thanks for all of the people who have helped shape our
lives and our faith by some portion of their spirit.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.