2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Pentecost +6 - Year C 

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Just awhile ago we heard that Elijah heard a silence. How would this story be different if Elijah had left in silence instead of in a whirlwind?

As it is, we might re-look at the silence story and understand that G*D was in the earthquake and storm. The problem was that Elijah was so stormy on the inside that the external storms couldn’t be seen in their fullness, only as an extension of himself. Here the “other” needed silence to be recognized.

Now, with Elijah and the reader prepared for silence, a whirlwind returns. What do you make of a G*D who doesn’t stick to one mode of interaction but is constantly tricking us (a little something picked up in a wrestle with Jacob?).

This now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t continues with Elisha. The narrator shows us a picture where Elijah is lifted away by a whirlwind, gyring him to heaven. Elisha got distracted by fiery chariots and horses and couldn’t take his eyes off of them to see the tornadic energy behind them, the whirlwind.

Of course if we have to make every part of the scriptures cohere we can simply state that there was a whirlwind of fiery chariots and horses rather than have the chariots and horses simply come between Elijah and Elisha as a veil of mystery at every time of death. We are always missing the whirlwind of spirit within another — our own is so blustery and distracting.

At any rate the mantle of Elijah has fallen from Elisha and all subsequent prophets and is awaiting your picking it up and striding through the boundaries of your life to join the continued work of prophecy — Love Prevails!