A pastor and writer whose name I’ve forgotten, but whose stories I remember, wrote about his experience growing up in the church and his wrestling with the call to ministry.

The pastor that served his congregation, I’ll call him Pastor John, had had polio as a child and used crutches. In worship, when it was time to lead the prayers, Pastor John extended his arms to the sides, balancing on those crutches, and fiercely prayed for the power of God to be among the people and for God’s blessing upon the many challenges of the world.

This little boy looked on with amazement at the strength and power of this pastor and thought to himself, I can’t do that.

Years went by with faithful leadership from Pastor John and as a teenager thinking about ministry, the teen considered the call but remembering Pastor John thought, I can’t do that.

As a young man thinking about seminary, being drawn in by God’s call to him, he still thought to himself, the image of Pastor John passionately displaying fervor for God, I can’t do that.

It wasn’t until many years later, serving a parish of his own, seasoned with the joys and sorrows of life, that he realized, I can’t do that, but I can do this.

You see up until that point, he was carrying around Pastor John, rather than carrying on in the tradition of ministry. Rather than focusing on the mantle, the call to ministry, the call to serve God, to be God’s hands and feet in the world, he was focused on how to be Pastor John.

As the quote I put in the bulletin’s meditation says, “seek not to walk in the footsteps of those of old, seek what they sought.”

We all have heroes in our lives, women and men who we look up to, admire, and sometimes we wish could live their lives, fight their battles, even in the case of comic book heroes, have the superpowers and strength to take on the baddies and bring about justice.

But God does not ask us to become our heroes or live out our ministries like them in the same way. Rather God asks us to follow God. Jesus asks us to come and fish for people. We do that by accepting the mantle of discipleship and wherever that leads us. I’m not called to be Desmond tutu, Madeline L’Engle, Teresa of Avila, prophets and heroes of mine. I’m called to be Karen, follower of God.

Today we continue following the lectionary text from the book of II Kings. Elijah and Elisha trek into the wilderness. Actually they seem to be taking a grand tour of the religious centers in the area: Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho. At each stop where Elijah tries to drop Elisha off, there are groups of prophets, like at Gilgal. These are those members of prophetic sects or schools that followed God’s laws and lived in communities and were also active in politics. Elijah by contrast was somewhat of a loner or free agent; of course he was also usually on the run from corrupt kings such as Ahab and his wife Jezebel as talked about last week.

So Elijah and Elisha, prophet and disciple, mentor and protégé, walk into the wilderness and Elijah tells Elisha to leave him so that he might go on alone. Elisha refuses and vows to stay with him until the very end. The vow is vehemently repeated each time and, like a Greek chorus in the background, the other prophets keep telling Elisha, “you know he’s going to leave, don’t you?” Elisha furiously tells the crowds to “be silent” or as we would say, “shut up!” He doesn’t want to hear about Elijah’s imminent departure.

Is this the case of a young man unwilling and not ready to let his mentor go?  But Elisha is ready, ready to take over as God’s prophet, ready to do the healing, prophetic and difficult work of bringing the people and kings of the land to God. He’s ready. But he doesn’t know he’s ready. Or perhaps just doesn’t want to let go. It’s a lot harder to be the prophet than the trainee.

There’s a story about a famous preacher who was a bit of a fraud, because the sermons were great but no one ever realized that in fact they’d all been written by the staff assistant. Finally the assistant’s patience ran out, and one day the preacher was speaking to thousands of expectant listeners and at the bottom of page two read the stirring words, “And this, my friends, takes us to the very heart of the book of Habakkuk, which is…” only to turn to page three and see nothing but the dreaded words, “You’re on your own now.” (Samuel Wells, Duke Divinity School Baccalaureate Address, 2009)

But there is a time for all season, a season for all things. And it is Elijah’s season to go and Elisha’s season to step up, to take on the mantle, to be own his own now.

One pastor wondered if perhaps Elijah is the one unwilling to let go. Is he testing Elisha-- stay here while I go on--to see if Elisha will follow to the bitter end? Does Elijah fear being alone in his last moments and is testing Elisha--do you really love me? Unlike the disciples in the garden who fall asleep and abandon Jesus, Elisha passes the test and follows Elijah to the ends of the earth, across the Jordon, leaving everyone behind.

The whirlwind comes. The chariot of fire and horses of fire appear and Elijah is swept up in the whirlwind until he disappears altogether. Elisha is alone.

Well, not totally alone. Elijah’s mantle has fallen to the ground.

Elisha picks it up, and walking to the Jordon, strikes the river, it parts and he goes across, back to the waiting ministry, death threats, administrative headaches and more that comes with being the new prophet in the land. He is ready to be God’s prophet. He is ready to take on the mantle of ministry.

Are we? To what ministries might we be called?

In the eleventh century, King Henry III of Bavaria grew tired of court life and the pressures of being a monarch. He made application to Prior Richard at a local monastery, asking to be accepted as a contemplative and spend the rest of his life in the monastery. "Your Majesty," said Prior Richard, "do you understand that the pledge here is one of obedience? That will be hard because you have been a king."

"I understand," said Henry. "The rest of my life I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you."

"Then I will tell you what to do," said Prior Richard. "Go back to your throne and serve faithfully in the place where God has put you." (sermonillustrations.org)

The story of Elijah and Elisha is the story of our faith, writ large.  The church is handed down to us from our parents, our forebears, apostles, saints, martyrs, heretics, apostles, back to the disciples, and Jesus and the roots of our Jewish heritage beyond.

We are not asked to be Elijah, to carry him around. We are asked to take up the mantle and walk with our God. And to pass the mantle on. To cross over the Jordan into the wilderness and back again into the pressing crowds and needs. Comparing ourselves to those who went before only highlights what we are not rather than living into who we are and who God calls us to be.

I’ve enjoyed reading this book, Here if You Need Me by Kate Braestrup (Back Bay Books, 2007). Her husband Drew was a police officer whose plan to enter the ministry ended when he died in a tragic car crash.

Braestrup writes: “Few knew that Drew had been actively considering a second career as an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister. Within a year of his death, I matriculated at the Bangor Theological Seminary. I planned to be ordained and serve Drew’s brothers- and sisters-in-arms as a law enforcement chaplain.

“Mine is a sweet little story…When newspapers run pieces about me they inevitably… tell the tale of a plucky widow taking up her husband’s standard and bravely soldiering on. It is the same tale I would tell on those not-infrequent occasions when seminary professors would inquire about the nature and occasion of their students’ callings.

“My less romantic advisors worried that, like a Hindu widow….I was sacrificing my living self for the departed dead. Or, less dramatically, that I was merely rearranging stones on the grave instead of getting on with my life.”

Much like Elijah and Elisha, Braestrup had been a partner with her husband in the seeking of this call. “When we discussed his plan for the future, we had actually been discussing our plan. And I would admit…I was a mere understudy for this God Gig—were it not for an almost guilty self-awareness: I studied for the ministry because I wanted to be a minister.”

Braestrup finds her mantle as she graduates she is asked to become the new chaplain to the Maine Warden Service. She wondered, as many other folks did, “what did the chaplain do, bless the moose?” But no, the chaplain served “wardens and their families and assisted victims and families during search and rescue missions.” To be present during the long, long wait of finding the lost. To listen during the hours of wondering would a person be found dead or alive. To minister in those desperate and deeply human and tragic times.

Braestrup concludes, not in these exact words, that she is serving in ministry not to carry around her husband Drew and his ministerial aspirations, but to pick up the mantle of ministry and seek where God was calling her.

We are not called to be Elijah or Elisha. We are called to follow the God that called them, the God who is calling us. To pick up the mantle, to part the waters, and to walk bravely into all that lies ahead. 

Amen.