Under the Shade of a Broom Tree

by The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

This sermon is based on 1 Kings 19:4-8. An audio version is available here. 


When our children were small, we took a trip to the beach.  Our youngest child Sam had been told by his big brother and sister just how wonderful the beach was, and so he was looking forward to this first trip, at least this first conscious trip, to the beach.  So at age two, when Sam came over that large dune to see the great big wide ocean, the vast expanse of beach and the loud roar of the crashing waves, he instantly withdrew and said, “Don’t want it! Don’t need it!”  The experience was just too much for him.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, we find the great prophet Elijah crying a similar tune.  At this point Elijah has just experienced amazing success as a prophet.  If the job description for a prophet had been written out, he would have achieved every goal beyond expectation and would have had every reason to be fulfilled.  In a world that is politically ruled by Ahab and Jezebel, a world entrenched with false prophets of false gods, Elijah has boldly proclaimed the one and true God, he has been used for miracles through prayer, even raising the dead, he has called down fire from heaven and has eliminated 450 of Baal’s prophets.  But in today’s passage we see the humanity of God’s servant.  As Jezebel, who is a fanatical devotee to Baal, has vowed to kill Elijah, he runs like mad for his life. Once he reaches Beersheba, a city in Judah where Jezebel has no legal power, he flings himself down under a broom tree and cries out, “It is enough, Lord.” The NIV says, “I have had enough, Lord.” The closer Hebrew translation says simply, “Too much!” You can almost hear him saying, “Too much! Don’t want it! Don’t need it!”  

Elijah, who is running for his life, says to God, “I want to die.” He is exhausted and full of despair. Where just days before, he is at the pinnacle of his prophetic career, Elijah now has sunk to a new low.  He is not feeling up to the task of leading God’s people, and he is worried, full of fear and very possibly clinically depressed.  “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life for I am no better than my ancestors.”  He feels as though he would be better off dead than alive. So under the shade of a broom tree he escapes into the world of sleep.  Then he has a double epiphany.  An angel appears to him and says, “Get up and eat.”  So he eats the cake that has been baked on the hot stones and he drinks the jar of water.” And then…he goes back to sleep! Yes, I think he is depressed.  “The angel appears a second time, telling him to eat and drink again because otherwise the journey will be too much for him.  The Hebrew reads, “the way is too much for you.”  The ambiguity of the text allows for both his present need as well as his future need.  The heat of the day, both the physical heat of the Negev desert in which he finds himself and the emotional heat of the tempest of Jezebel’s wrath is unbearable and overwhelming for Elijah.   We see a man who has been very much in need of shelter of this broom tree.

The broom tree is a desert shrub and is one of the main shade trees for wilderness travelers. And yet, it is often pretty scrawny and sometimes barely provides enough shade for one person.  The image of a broom tree gives the impression perhaps that this shade is “just enough.”  It is  “just enough” shade so Elijah can cool off and rest, “just enough” shade so Elijah can be refreshed and take the next step in his journey, “just enough” shelter so this man can be reminded he is in the care of a God who provides and sustains.

How many of us find ourselves at times in that place of despair?  How often do we get to a point when we want to cry out to God. “Enough!” “Don’t want it. Don’t need it!”  How many of us feel sometimes that the way is too much for us, the heat of the day is literally or figuratively unbearable or overwhelming?  Perhaps we are overtaxed by our schedules, overcome by our financial situation, worried about our health or the health of someone we love.  Perhaps we struggle to make sense of senseless violence (I could make the argument that all violence is senseless), violence such as we have heard of recently at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin or at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado or even the minor scuffle at noon day lunch here at Trinity Church week before last.  The way is too much for us at times.  The heat is sometimes unbearable and overwhelming.  Sometimes we, like Elijah, need the shade of the broom tree, a place of refuge, a place of rest, a place of shelter.  

This past week we buried a long-time member of this church Peggy Brackman.  Her ashes were interred right outside the Lewis Street side of the church in our columbarium in the heat of the day.  It was indeed a very hot day and there her family and friends sat and stood for her service--- in the shade of a tree, in the shade of a tree that Peggy and her husband Brack had planted many years before in memory of her first husband.  The shade of that tree provided a cool shelter from the hot summer sun.  What this couple had planted had provided a space of “just enough” comfort for the rest of us.

Today we will baptize EricJason and Mikayla Foster.  They will be officially welcomed into Christ’s family as members of the church.  They will make promises to follow Christ and to make him known, and just as Elijah did, they will experience joy and victories and sometimes great difficulties along the way.  They will experience the heat of the day at times in their lives.  Sometimes they will want to curl up under the shade of a broom tree.  When I ask you to support them in this life in Christ, you will respond, “We will!” but what will you mean by that?  Might you provide for them a place of shade or refuge where they can be fed the spiritual nourishment that all of us need, so that they can have strength for their journey?   

Just as the angel said to Elijah, “Eat; otherwise the way is too much for you,” Can we remember that in order to have strength for our next step in life, we, too, must eat?  We, too, must take refuge and eat of the bread of Jesus, the bread that is “just enough” to get us where we need to be.

Amen.