The stories of Elijah and Elisha are delightful bits of folklore. These two characters have much in common with magicians or sorcerers from the legends of other cultures. Even though Israelite religion forbade witchcraft and the like, simple recontextualization places the actual power in the hands of Yahweh while the men themselves are mere subservient vessels. In 2 Kings 1-4, Elijah predicts the death of an Israelite king, kills 102 soldiers, and passes on his mantle of authentic power to Elisha before catching a ride up to Heaven in a flaming chariot. Elisha sets to work purifying water, summoning bears to eat unruly children, and performing miracles large and small. He increases apparent amounts of olive oil and bread, makes stew safe to eat, and brings a boy back from the dead -- a fairly impressive resume. One significant event is the battle between the king of Moab and the united forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom, in which Elisha proclaims that Yahweh will fill in the gaps in the planning of these three kings in order to give them victory over Moab.
These stories fall into two larger categories: stories of judgment and stories of grace. The judgment stories are obvious, but the origin of the judgment isn't always clear. Ahaziah is obviously being punished by Yahweh, but in the folktale, he doesn't die until Elijah is standing there in front of him. In the meantime, Elijah is justified in calling down fire to consume dozens of soldiers, presumably because they were in the service of a wicked king. Elisha's judgment of the jeering boys is even more clearly the prophet's own decision. The boys say something he doesn't like, so the prophet curses them (in the name of Yahweh), and bears come out of the woods and eat the boys!
Life does not work like this. Even though there are people who commit what we might consider wicked acts, we cannot expect that they will be judged and removed from the world as a result. People die. Sometimes death is a result of personal decisions, but sometimes people die for reasons completely unrelated to how they lived their lives. No matter what a person does in life, death is an eventuality, not divine punishment. Even when we choose to kill someone as a society through capital punishment or military action, these are human decisions carried out by people. While we might like to curse certain people from time to time, our curses do not actually have any power over reality, even if we curse people in the name of our favorite deity.
And let's consider that for just a moment. Elisha curses these boys in the name of his god, and as a result, bears come out of the woods and eat the boys. This is slightly different from the folktale about Elijah taming the wolf, but it still suggests that these folk heroes had influence over nature. More accurately, it suggests that the prophets had influence over Yahweh, who had power over nature. What kind of deity is this, though? When I say, "Those boys are making fun of me, God! Send some bears to eat them!" I would not expect a wise and loving deity to respond, "You got it. Two hungry bears, coming up." I would expect a wise and loving deity to respond with something more like, "They're kids. It's what they do. They'll grow into responsible members of society if you teach them to be wise instead of enforcing a brutal 'one-strike' policy. And you are getting a bit thin on top, baldy."
Obviously the ancient Israelites thought about things differently, but just because they wrote their beliefs down over two millenia ago doesn't mean that their version of divinity was in any way accurate or useful. God does not punish the wicked. The wicked punish themselves. God does not respond to curses, even if the curses are pronounced "in his name," as ridiculous as that seems. This is once again witchcraft by a different name. Even if you believe in a supreme being who watches over human beings and actively responds to prayers, there has to be some limit to your god's willingness to harm people in order for you to have meaningful participation in the world. If there existed a god who was responsive and willing to go along with our momentary emotional reactivity, humanity would no longer exist; we would have cursed one another into early graves a long time ago.
No, even if there is an external divine being trying to guide human activity, the message of our reality is that we must learn the hard lesson of seeing one another more clearly as human beings worthy of respect. Our acts of greed, violence, and oppression (and fear in all its forms) only lead to more problems. We enact our own curses on one another and ourselves by failing to manage our own fearfulness and irrational beliefs. We can lift those curses, too. It just takes commitment to doing things better. Calling down a curse is a quick solution that doesn't require any real investment of our own time and energy. Dismantling our false beliefs about ourselves and other people takes a bit more work, but the end result could be far more impressive than getting a couple of hungry bears to show up and eat our problems.
Every story in these chapters wasn't about divine retribution, though. Some of them were about divine grace. A town has bad water, and the prophet makes it potable (through magic). A widow is in danger of losing her home, and the prophet works a bit of magic and makes her olive oil jar incredibly prodigious for a short time. The prophet makes a woman conceive (we won't ask how), and when the boy dies prematurely, the prophet brings him back to life. The prophet makes poisoned food safe to eat and feeds a hundred people with a little bit of bread. He also brings prediction of God's impressive provenance for a trio of armies that rode out to battle so ill prepared that they ran out of water on the way. This was a little more tricky, and it was obviously done on God's initiative in the story, even though most of the predictions were carried out by people.
We like the idea of grace. If one cannot pay one's bills, unexpected money seems like a miracle from on high. When we think we have a scarcity and reality shows us our abundance, grace makes a lot of sense. In fact, whenever we are expecting bad things to happen and our expectations are shown to be overly pessimistic, it can seem that something outside of ourselves has intervened on our behalf. Grace is the opposite of a curse. But things we don't like still happen. Tragic and devastating things even. We are sometimes woefully unprepared for the challenges we face. Sometimes it's our own irresponsibility that does us it, and sometimes events are so unexpected that we are simply caught off guard. Children (and other people we love) die, often before we are really ready to let them go. This is sad, and it is reality. Medical professionals can sometimes pull off what seems like a miracle (although it's actually human skill), but sooner or later we have to face the death of someone we care about. It's comforting perhaps to think that there is a god who has the power to intervene and restore a dead person to life, like the Shunammite woman's son or Lazarus coming out of the grave. Yet, can we accept those stories without wondering why no one in our lives has ever been the recipient of such grace?
Despite the rabbit trails of "miraculous" stories that people may tell, the facts are clear on the matter, and my purpose here is not to refute miracles. In fact, judgment and grace are very real. They just aren't in the hands of a supreme being outside of ourselves. Judgment and grace are human endeavors, and we carry them out every day. We know how to punish people, sometimes subtly and sometimes very directly. It may not be fire from the sky or hungry bears, but we all have our ways of letting people know that they've done something wrong and we aren't going to let them get away with it. Curses. Divine retribution. Our international conflicts are no different; they are just symptoms of the same kind of thinking on a larger scale. We can be vessels for our own violent gods of vengeance, and we often are.
We also know about grace. We know how to forgive. We know the benefits of letting go of grudges. We know how to forget about a debt owed to us. We know how to show empathy and compassion, even when we aren't getting what we want from somebody. We know how to show grace. The question is: Do we? We cannot bring back anyone from the dead, but we can have compassion for people who grieve. We cannot stop conflict in the world or decide who will "win" any given battle, but we can put a stop to conflict in our own lives. Grace. Divine blessing. We can do these things just as easily as we curse. Spewing curses just may be more our habit. We can be vessels for our own gods of peace and compassion.
The thing is, whatever you happen to believe, our true beliefs show up in our actions. Whatever we may claim to think about the real nature of humanity and divinity, our behavior tells the truth about our beliefs -- especially when we aren't being particularly intentional. If one were to suggest that every moment is an act of worship, then one would have to admit that people are often idolatrous. We want to claim belief in one thing, but our lives reflect a completely different view of reality. Whether we assert the existence of any sort of god, life makes more sense when our actions line up with what we believe about ourselves, other people, and the world we share. We choose whether we want to be vessels of retribution and punishment or vessels of peace and compassion. I would like to suggest that grace is the preferable option.
Showing posts with label Elijah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elijah. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
1 Kings 19: The Still, Small Voice of Your Self
Obvious folklore qualities aside, 1 Kings 19 expresses a captivating spiritual idea: that truth and guidance appear in stillness more easily than in bombastic activity. The surrounding material also has a few other worthwhile points to consider.
Elijah is on the run (after he committed, or at least oversaw, the mass murder of 850 people), and long-term survival seems unlikely to him. He wants to give up. He wants to just die, but he's not really out of options. Even when things seem desperate in the moment, Elijah has choices. We will rarely be on the run after killing hundreds of people for believing something different from us, and yet there are times when we want to give up. We aren't likely to have angels come to us and provide food and encouragement, though. If we are fortunate, we may have friends stand in for Elijah's angel, but the decision to keep going is always ours to make. Elijah accomplishes quite a bit after this episode of despair. In this sense, our lives are no different. On the other side of despair, more satisfying options always await us. Even amid our desperation, our presence can still do some good in the world, even if we aren't in a position to see it.
The portion of this chapter just after Elijah senses the gentle whisper obviously "foretells" historical events in a way that affirms for the Jewish audience Yahweh's control over all things, including leadership of other peoples. Elijah's detached attitude during the calling of his successor Elisha is also notable; his confidence that he doesn't need to exert control over Elisha reflects an admirable quality of leadership. Before expounding on the still, small voice, it also bears pointing out the similarities between the angel coming to feed Elijah and the temptation stories of Jesus. Likewise, Elisha's call is reflected in a brief gospel story of would-be disciples who want to return home before joining Jesus. Unlike Elijah's calm detachment, Jesus proclaims, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Perhaps Elijah was able to tell that Elisha just needed to take care of a couple of things so he wouldn't be tempted to "look back." Or maybe it's just a story.
Regarding this business about stillness, though, there have been volumes written from an abundance of different perspectives. It is a very necessary and important topic that stands in stark contrast to the way many of us go about our lives. There are those who want to see God at work in every mudslide, hurricane, and tsunami, punishing humanity for one thing or another. There are also those who, even in the twenty-first century, expect divine guidance to come in some blatant, over-the-top, undeniable package like a lightning bolt or an earthquake. Some people alive today, misinterpreting Carl Jung, encourage looking for synchronicity at work around us -- "coincidences" that are linked meaningfully to reveal some deeper truth to us if we are willing to see it. This could presumably be somewhat quieter than an earthquake or a fire, but it still amounts to looking for signs outside of ourselves for guidance.
While we might receive guidance from other people, and while some situations might offer opportunities for us to do something meaningful, there is nothing outside of ourselves guiding us into anything -- not God, not the Universe, not "Life," not our ancestors, not fairies, not aliens. The meaning that we find in circumstances comes from within ourselves. We read the meanings into the "synchronicities" of our lives. That isn't a bad thing at all; it helps us take notice of what's important to us in lives that are increasingly busy with surface-level activity. But it comes from within ourselves, not someone trying to send us secret messages. If it seems like our ideas are coming from outside of our own brains, it is possibly because we spend so little time actually listening to ourselves -- considering what makes sense to us, what we really value, who we most want to be, what we yearn for in life. This is why stillness is so important.
There are many earthquake-sized voices in our society. Everywhere we turn, we can find someone screaming about what we must do in order to protect ourselves against all sorts of things. Everywhere we turn, it seems that someone is trying to convince us of something. It's a wonder we can ever think for ourselves with all the racket we have grown to tolerate. As loud and passionate as those voices may be, however, there is often very little meaning or value in all of the noise. It is very difficult to find truth in the throes of anxiety, and our culture does not inherently promote thoughtful response that comes from an inner stillness. Instead, we are told to act quickly, to fear being left out or left behind, to be impulsive, to defend our rights (which are always somehow under direct attack by something). If we are to be thoughtful individuals who know themselves and live with integrity, we must be responsible for our own stillness.
In stillness, we can find which threads to pull to unravel our anxieties -- the lies and assumptions that hold together our irrational fears about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. In stillness, we can dig beneath our surface level activities and recognize what matters most to us. In stillness, we can acknowledge what we are doing that we absolutely hate, just because we have convinced ourselves that we must. When we realize that there has been some perceived synchronicity or message from Life or God, we can look into ourselves and discern what our subconscious is trying to bring into focus. The meaning we place on coincidences has value -- profound value, since that meaning is coming from within our own psyches. If we are perceiving something as divine guidance, some part of ourselves is trying to make that "message" important. In stillness, we can ask ourselves why.
Without stillness, we ignore the things that matter most to us in order to do the things that seem most urgent. Without stillness, we act in ways that are incongruous with the people we claim to be, and we may not even notice it. Without stillness, we react impulsively to people and situations that challenge us, with no regard for the long-term consequences. In thoughtful stillness, we can tap into ourselves and discover who we are and what we believe apart from the anxiety around us. Through making time for a bit of stillness in our lives, we can be our own best representatives in the world. We can come closer to living like our authentic selves. Stillness brings us closer to integrity, if we allow it.
So, this snippet of Jewish folklore is revealing. If we want to search for something to call divine, we won't find it in the flashy, loud, anxiety-producing racket of the world; we will find it in stillness. It's not always easy to see in other people (or in ourselves) the beauty and creativity and value and dignity that defines us as human beings. It's not always easy to see that there are things in our lives more valuable than money, more important than convincing people to think like us, more compelling and awe-inspiring than our fears. Stillness helps us see ourselves more clearly, so that we can see other people and the world around us more clearly.
Elijah is on the run (after he committed, or at least oversaw, the mass murder of 850 people), and long-term survival seems unlikely to him. He wants to give up. He wants to just die, but he's not really out of options. Even when things seem desperate in the moment, Elijah has choices. We will rarely be on the run after killing hundreds of people for believing something different from us, and yet there are times when we want to give up. We aren't likely to have angels come to us and provide food and encouragement, though. If we are fortunate, we may have friends stand in for Elijah's angel, but the decision to keep going is always ours to make. Elijah accomplishes quite a bit after this episode of despair. In this sense, our lives are no different. On the other side of despair, more satisfying options always await us. Even amid our desperation, our presence can still do some good in the world, even if we aren't in a position to see it.
The portion of this chapter just after Elijah senses the gentle whisper obviously "foretells" historical events in a way that affirms for the Jewish audience Yahweh's control over all things, including leadership of other peoples. Elijah's detached attitude during the calling of his successor Elisha is also notable; his confidence that he doesn't need to exert control over Elisha reflects an admirable quality of leadership. Before expounding on the still, small voice, it also bears pointing out the similarities between the angel coming to feed Elijah and the temptation stories of Jesus. Likewise, Elisha's call is reflected in a brief gospel story of would-be disciples who want to return home before joining Jesus. Unlike Elijah's calm detachment, Jesus proclaims, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." Perhaps Elijah was able to tell that Elisha just needed to take care of a couple of things so he wouldn't be tempted to "look back." Or maybe it's just a story.
Regarding this business about stillness, though, there have been volumes written from an abundance of different perspectives. It is a very necessary and important topic that stands in stark contrast to the way many of us go about our lives. There are those who want to see God at work in every mudslide, hurricane, and tsunami, punishing humanity for one thing or another. There are also those who, even in the twenty-first century, expect divine guidance to come in some blatant, over-the-top, undeniable package like a lightning bolt or an earthquake. Some people alive today, misinterpreting Carl Jung, encourage looking for synchronicity at work around us -- "coincidences" that are linked meaningfully to reveal some deeper truth to us if we are willing to see it. This could presumably be somewhat quieter than an earthquake or a fire, but it still amounts to looking for signs outside of ourselves for guidance.
While we might receive guidance from other people, and while some situations might offer opportunities for us to do something meaningful, there is nothing outside of ourselves guiding us into anything -- not God, not the Universe, not "Life," not our ancestors, not fairies, not aliens. The meaning that we find in circumstances comes from within ourselves. We read the meanings into the "synchronicities" of our lives. That isn't a bad thing at all; it helps us take notice of what's important to us in lives that are increasingly busy with surface-level activity. But it comes from within ourselves, not someone trying to send us secret messages. If it seems like our ideas are coming from outside of our own brains, it is possibly because we spend so little time actually listening to ourselves -- considering what makes sense to us, what we really value, who we most want to be, what we yearn for in life. This is why stillness is so important.
There are many earthquake-sized voices in our society. Everywhere we turn, we can find someone screaming about what we must do in order to protect ourselves against all sorts of things. Everywhere we turn, it seems that someone is trying to convince us of something. It's a wonder we can ever think for ourselves with all the racket we have grown to tolerate. As loud and passionate as those voices may be, however, there is often very little meaning or value in all of the noise. It is very difficult to find truth in the throes of anxiety, and our culture does not inherently promote thoughtful response that comes from an inner stillness. Instead, we are told to act quickly, to fear being left out or left behind, to be impulsive, to defend our rights (which are always somehow under direct attack by something). If we are to be thoughtful individuals who know themselves and live with integrity, we must be responsible for our own stillness.
In stillness, we can find which threads to pull to unravel our anxieties -- the lies and assumptions that hold together our irrational fears about ourselves, other people, and the world around us. In stillness, we can dig beneath our surface level activities and recognize what matters most to us. In stillness, we can acknowledge what we are doing that we absolutely hate, just because we have convinced ourselves that we must. When we realize that there has been some perceived synchronicity or message from Life or God, we can look into ourselves and discern what our subconscious is trying to bring into focus. The meaning we place on coincidences has value -- profound value, since that meaning is coming from within our own psyches. If we are perceiving something as divine guidance, some part of ourselves is trying to make that "message" important. In stillness, we can ask ourselves why.
Without stillness, we ignore the things that matter most to us in order to do the things that seem most urgent. Without stillness, we act in ways that are incongruous with the people we claim to be, and we may not even notice it. Without stillness, we react impulsively to people and situations that challenge us, with no regard for the long-term consequences. In thoughtful stillness, we can tap into ourselves and discover who we are and what we believe apart from the anxiety around us. Through making time for a bit of stillness in our lives, we can be our own best representatives in the world. We can come closer to living like our authentic selves. Stillness brings us closer to integrity, if we allow it.
So, this snippet of Jewish folklore is revealing. If we want to search for something to call divine, we won't find it in the flashy, loud, anxiety-producing racket of the world; we will find it in stillness. It's not always easy to see in other people (or in ourselves) the beauty and creativity and value and dignity that defines us as human beings. It's not always easy to see that there are things in our lives more valuable than money, more important than convincing people to think like us, more compelling and awe-inspiring than our fears. Stillness helps us see ourselves more clearly, so that we can see other people and the world around us more clearly.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
1 Kings 17-18: Seeing Beyond Caricatures to an End of Religious Arrogance
There were probably many Elijah stories floating around in ancient Israel, only a handful of which made it into canonical biblical texts. The character of Elijah makes frequent appearances in Jewish rabbinic literature and folklore as well. While the tales are blatantly legendary, many of these Elijah myths are instructive. The prophet's first appearance in the Old Testament is 1 Kings 17-18, where Elijah appears as a holy foil to the evil King Ahab and his foreign, Jew-hating wife Jezebel. These chapters relate the tale of a fallen Jewish people who have abandoned their religion and adopted the worship of foreign deities, for which they suffer a devastating drought. Elijah humiliates and kills the prophets of the other faith and convinces the Israelites to return to the worship of their own deity. Most likely written in the years following the Babylonian Exile, this story offered hope that there could be restoration after a period of perceived punishment.
Several interesting characteristics about the prophet are present in this story. First, Elijah claims power over the drought (although he does express fealty to the god of Israel). His time with the widow at Zarephath seems strikingly similar to (and thus was possibly a model for) a miracle story attributed to Jesus regarding making a little bit of food go a long way. Elijah has the power to effectively restore life to people who have died, and he has no problem killing people who promote a different religion from his own. Stories about Elijah fit typical patterns of hero myths from the ancient world, and the basic theme of "our god is better than your god" is an effective message of hope for a people who have been immersed in a foreign culture for decades.
The story is also a striking commentary about the Israelite people (or perhaps all ancient peoples). They are perfectly happy to go along with the most impressive magician of the moment and call it faith, and they are willing to slaughter 850 people at the word of one charismatic fellow with a convincing stage act. They don't seem to mind the implication that Yahweh will do what Elijah tells him to do, while their other faithful Jewish prophets have been holed up in a cave for three years, presumably unable to make any spectacular requests of the god they serve. Either God is only willing to work through one special person, or none of the hundred other prophets were tuned into God's plan. Whichever the case, it paints a tenuous and unsettling picture of a nation's relationship with the divine. What would they do if Elijah didn't happen to be around? How could they trust any of their priests and prophets to effectively guide them once they return to their ancestral religion?
Hero myths never presume to answer such questions, though. People necessarily become caricatures in folktales, and after all, the story isn't intended as an actual report of historical events; it's about the Israelites rebuilding their sense of religious connection after a time of exile, which they interpreted as divine discipline. There was a message of hope and redemption imbedded in this story featuring a well-known folk hero. What then shall we derive from this tale, we who do not thirst for a sense of post-Exilic restoration?
It isn't that we should expect miracles. There are no recent reputable reports of miraculous occurrences like the dead being raised by a fervent prayer or a water-logged altar being consumed by divine fire. In other words, we have no counterpart for these miracles in contemporary society, and thus we must consider the miracles to be symbolic elements in a story and not replicable historical events. We should not even expect that God will do what we want if we pray fervently enough. Certainly, if we pray for rain long enough (such as the three years that Elijah waits in the story), it will eventually rain. That doesn't mean that our prayer was actively, intelligently answered. It simply means that what we desired eventually lined up with reality.
There is also no real value in turning this story or others like it into a popularity contest between religions. There were no real good guys and bad guys here; Baal and Asherah are as fictional as Yahweh. The hero of this sort of tale is determined by who is telling the story. If anything, we might recognize the disconnect between our present age of scientific knowledge and the time of our ancestors, who believed that unseen supernatural forces were in control of the weather and used it to reward or punish human beings. The idea seems preposterous to most people today, although even in the twenty-first century there are those who hold prayer rallies to pray for rain (ineffectual though such rallies turn out to be). We know more about the world than people once did, and we should live our lives based on that very real, testable knowledge.
Here is something worth noting: If we want to light a fire, we should get matches. Or a butane lighter of some kind perhaps. If we want to arrive someplace safely, we should be cautious and patient drivers. There are other factors, of course, but we have a great deal of control over creating what we want. If we take time for introspection, we will learn that we have the answers to a great many dilemmas in life; we are simply not accustomed to listening to ourselves. We are so unaccustomed to paying attention to our deepest and most noble selves, in fact, that it can seem like the action of some supernatural force outside of ourselves when we perceive a clear and direct sense of who we most want to be and what we most want to be doing. Even decisions like what subject to choose as a major in college, which job to accept, which route to take across town -- these decisions ultimately come from within ourselves, and we are often quite insightful when we give ourselves a chance. Prayer puts the focus on an imaginary force outside of ourselves; time for quiet, focused introspection can yield the same exact result without the unnecessary baggage of religious dogma.
The only reason the Israelites were willing participants in the worship of Jezebel's gods is that religion made sense to them as a way to address the issues of their lives. It doesn't actually matter what Jezebel thought about the Phoenician gods, we know enough to say that people of the ancient world imagined a supernatural underpinning to their perceivable reality. If something doesn't make sense to us today, we are capable of considering we simply don't understand without resorting to supernatural explanations. Moreover, if we are less hasty to attribute the things we don't understand to the supernatural, our curiosity can drive us to discoveries about ourselves and the world around us we might never have made otherwise. We can realistically create meaningful and connected societies on the basis of actual data and honest exploration rather than on what we imagine a supernatural being might want of us or accomplish for us.
Religion teaches us to undervalue ourselves on the one hand, by robbing us of our personal capability and responsibility and pinning it to an imaginary supernatural entity. On the other hand, religion imbues us with a sense of superiority, assuming our version of an imaginary supernatural entity is better than anyone else's. Religion gives us compelling parameters by which we can effectively judge other people who disagree with our confabulation and draw lines of separation between ourselves and people who look, behave, or think differently from us. Some may say that human beings will do this with or without religion, but removing the unfounded and irrational justification of religious dogma from the mix takes the teeth out of a great many lines of division in our world. Without religious justification, we are forced to admit that by and large, most of our assertions about other people are only opinions, however strong those opinions may be.
There is still suffering in the world in the twenty-first century, and the answer is not to round up and execute a bunch of heretics. We have to learn to see other people not as caricatures and stereotypes, but as human beings with inherent worth. We share this planet, this reality, with an awful lot of people who think and live differently from us, and the answer is not to eradicate or dehumanize everyone that is "Other." By growing ourselves to allow the whole of humanity within our sphere of acceptability, we build what is called the "kingdom of God" by the writer of the gospel of Matthew. Our world has outgrown the prescriptions of religion that separate people into worthy and worthless, if such delineations were ever truly needed. No supernatural entity is going to do the work for us, but we are capable of phenomenal acts of creation when we are willing. The value and dignity of every person is where that creative act begins.
Several interesting characteristics about the prophet are present in this story. First, Elijah claims power over the drought (although he does express fealty to the god of Israel). His time with the widow at Zarephath seems strikingly similar to (and thus was possibly a model for) a miracle story attributed to Jesus regarding making a little bit of food go a long way. Elijah has the power to effectively restore life to people who have died, and he has no problem killing people who promote a different religion from his own. Stories about Elijah fit typical patterns of hero myths from the ancient world, and the basic theme of "our god is better than your god" is an effective message of hope for a people who have been immersed in a foreign culture for decades.
The story is also a striking commentary about the Israelite people (or perhaps all ancient peoples). They are perfectly happy to go along with the most impressive magician of the moment and call it faith, and they are willing to slaughter 850 people at the word of one charismatic fellow with a convincing stage act. They don't seem to mind the implication that Yahweh will do what Elijah tells him to do, while their other faithful Jewish prophets have been holed up in a cave for three years, presumably unable to make any spectacular requests of the god they serve. Either God is only willing to work through one special person, or none of the hundred other prophets were tuned into God's plan. Whichever the case, it paints a tenuous and unsettling picture of a nation's relationship with the divine. What would they do if Elijah didn't happen to be around? How could they trust any of their priests and prophets to effectively guide them once they return to their ancestral religion?
Hero myths never presume to answer such questions, though. People necessarily become caricatures in folktales, and after all, the story isn't intended as an actual report of historical events; it's about the Israelites rebuilding their sense of religious connection after a time of exile, which they interpreted as divine discipline. There was a message of hope and redemption imbedded in this story featuring a well-known folk hero. What then shall we derive from this tale, we who do not thirst for a sense of post-Exilic restoration?
It isn't that we should expect miracles. There are no recent reputable reports of miraculous occurrences like the dead being raised by a fervent prayer or a water-logged altar being consumed by divine fire. In other words, we have no counterpart for these miracles in contemporary society, and thus we must consider the miracles to be symbolic elements in a story and not replicable historical events. We should not even expect that God will do what we want if we pray fervently enough. Certainly, if we pray for rain long enough (such as the three years that Elijah waits in the story), it will eventually rain. That doesn't mean that our prayer was actively, intelligently answered. It simply means that what we desired eventually lined up with reality.
There is also no real value in turning this story or others like it into a popularity contest between religions. There were no real good guys and bad guys here; Baal and Asherah are as fictional as Yahweh. The hero of this sort of tale is determined by who is telling the story. If anything, we might recognize the disconnect between our present age of scientific knowledge and the time of our ancestors, who believed that unseen supernatural forces were in control of the weather and used it to reward or punish human beings. The idea seems preposterous to most people today, although even in the twenty-first century there are those who hold prayer rallies to pray for rain (ineffectual though such rallies turn out to be). We know more about the world than people once did, and we should live our lives based on that very real, testable knowledge.
Here is something worth noting: If we want to light a fire, we should get matches. Or a butane lighter of some kind perhaps. If we want to arrive someplace safely, we should be cautious and patient drivers. There are other factors, of course, but we have a great deal of control over creating what we want. If we take time for introspection, we will learn that we have the answers to a great many dilemmas in life; we are simply not accustomed to listening to ourselves. We are so unaccustomed to paying attention to our deepest and most noble selves, in fact, that it can seem like the action of some supernatural force outside of ourselves when we perceive a clear and direct sense of who we most want to be and what we most want to be doing. Even decisions like what subject to choose as a major in college, which job to accept, which route to take across town -- these decisions ultimately come from within ourselves, and we are often quite insightful when we give ourselves a chance. Prayer puts the focus on an imaginary force outside of ourselves; time for quiet, focused introspection can yield the same exact result without the unnecessary baggage of religious dogma.
The only reason the Israelites were willing participants in the worship of Jezebel's gods is that religion made sense to them as a way to address the issues of their lives. It doesn't actually matter what Jezebel thought about the Phoenician gods, we know enough to say that people of the ancient world imagined a supernatural underpinning to their perceivable reality. If something doesn't make sense to us today, we are capable of considering we simply don't understand without resorting to supernatural explanations. Moreover, if we are less hasty to attribute the things we don't understand to the supernatural, our curiosity can drive us to discoveries about ourselves and the world around us we might never have made otherwise. We can realistically create meaningful and connected societies on the basis of actual data and honest exploration rather than on what we imagine a supernatural being might want of us or accomplish for us.
Religion teaches us to undervalue ourselves on the one hand, by robbing us of our personal capability and responsibility and pinning it to an imaginary supernatural entity. On the other hand, religion imbues us with a sense of superiority, assuming our version of an imaginary supernatural entity is better than anyone else's. Religion gives us compelling parameters by which we can effectively judge other people who disagree with our confabulation and draw lines of separation between ourselves and people who look, behave, or think differently from us. Some may say that human beings will do this with or without religion, but removing the unfounded and irrational justification of religious dogma from the mix takes the teeth out of a great many lines of division in our world. Without religious justification, we are forced to admit that by and large, most of our assertions about other people are only opinions, however strong those opinions may be.
There is still suffering in the world in the twenty-first century, and the answer is not to round up and execute a bunch of heretics. We have to learn to see other people not as caricatures and stereotypes, but as human beings with inherent worth. We share this planet, this reality, with an awful lot of people who think and live differently from us, and the answer is not to eradicate or dehumanize everyone that is "Other." By growing ourselves to allow the whole of humanity within our sphere of acceptability, we build what is called the "kingdom of God" by the writer of the gospel of Matthew. Our world has outgrown the prescriptions of religion that separate people into worthy and worthless, if such delineations were ever truly needed. No supernatural entity is going to do the work for us, but we are capable of phenomenal acts of creation when we are willing. The value and dignity of every person is where that creative act begins.
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