000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

246 Proper 8 [13]/Year C
these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). The
God of relational love is affected by our behaviors; they matter to God.
In spite of the promise of judgment, God will not destroy God’s people
who are likened to “wine . . . in the cluster” of which “they say, ‘Do
not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it’” (v. 8). God’s chosen will inherit
Judea and God’s servants “shall settle there” (v. 9). Like the Gerasene
demoniac (Luke 8:26–39), also unclean, the Judeans will return to their
home and declare how much God has done for them (Luke 8:39).
Proper 8 [13]/Year C
2 Kings 2:1–2, 3–5, 6–14+ (Semicontinuous)
Note: Because this reading largely overlaps with that for the Last Sunday
after the Epiphany, Transfiguration Sunday/Year B (2 Kings 2:1–12), we
comment here on 2:1–14.
This passage has to do with the transition of prophetic leadership from
Elijah to Elisha. Unlike Second Isaiah, who said “The LORD called me
before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me” (Isa.
49:1), our passage tells a careful story of inheritance from one prophet to
another. God is the primary actor, ever since God instructed Elijah to
“appoint Elisha . . . as prophet in your place” (1 Kings 17:16). The lectionary
stops this reading with verse 14, but it culminates in verse 15,
where the “company of prophets who were at Jericho . . . declared, ‘The
spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.’” It is this which our passage wants to make
clear to its readers.
Verses 1–6 are a travel narrative by which Elijah and Elisha arrive at
Jericho. At each stop along the way, Elijah says to Elisha: “Stay here; for
the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel,” then Jericho, then the Jordan
(vv. 2, 4, 6). Each time Elisha responds by taking an oath on the Lord and
says: “I will not leave you” (vv. 2, 4, 6). Elisha is determinedly faithful to
Elijah and repeatedly resists the older prophet’s command to “stay here.”
His loyalty to Elijah speaks to the character of Elisha.
They arrive at the Jordan where it flows by Jericho, and Elijah takes his
mantle, rolls it up, and strikes the river, with the result that the waters part
and they walk across “on dry ground” (v. 8). Later, after Elijah’s ascent into
“heaven,” a term that pious Jews used as a roundabout way of referring to
God, whose name they increasingly hallowed by not pronouncing it,
Elisha takes up Elijah’s mantle and again strikes the water, which parts
once more, so that Elisha can cross on dry ground (v. 14).