From Jim Jordan’s “Elijah’s War with Baal”
In the third year — the year of judgment and resurrection — God told Elijah to show himself to Ahab. So, Elijah set out from Zarapheth in Sidon (he’d been hiding in Jezebel’s home territory!) and came toward Samaria.
He met Obadiah, Ahab’s Prime Minister, and told him to find Ahab. Here is how the conversation might have gone:
Elijah: “Well, behold the compromiser! Hey, puppy, tell your master I want to see him.”
Obadiah: “Listen, you fanatic! Because of you a lot of good people have been tortured and killed. Don’t call me a compromiser; I managed to keep a hundred of your fellow prophets alive after you left town! It’s extremists like you who make it harder for all the rest of us.”
Elijah: “Look, if all you softies would come out on the front lines and be counted, maybe we could accomplish something. But no, not you! You’ve got a cushy job with Jezebel. You want that nice retirement. As long as people like you stay in your liberal churches and try to `work in the system,’ we’re never going to get anywhere. Naked confrontation is the only way.”
Obadiah: “Oh, yeah? Well, let me just tell you something, Mr. Hero. Last month Ahab was about to put to death about five hundred of your people, and I talked him out of it. These people were under suspicion because of you and your activities. It was I who saved them. You’re needlessly stirring things up.”
Wait, wait! That’s not how it went, is it? Sadly, though, I imagine if a modern Elijah and a modern Obadiah met, that is probably how it would go.
You see, Elijah knew that he was only part of the solution, and so did Obadiah. God needed both the insider and the outsider. He needed both the prophet and the chamberlain. Is there something here for us, today?
As I’ve struggled over the last 6 years with working for a nominally Christian, very liberal, ELCA-sponsored social service agency, my friend Jane has reminded me a time or two about Obadiah. Part of me actually wants an Elijah to come along and tell me I must be off my rocker and I ought to get out of there pronto. Alas, it hasn’t happened, so I stay and endure only my inner Elijah’s whuppin’ up on me over what a cowardly compromiser I am.
But here’s the question: was Obadiah necessarily a compromiser? Is it possible he could have worked for Ahab without compromise? I don’t know enough about what chamberlains do to be able to answer that. I’m not even sure whether I’ve compromised in any serious way or whether it’s just my hyperactive conscience at it again.
But I do also yell at my friends in liberal denominations (“yell at” meaning “gently, rationally and unnastily plead with”), urging them at least not to contribute any money that will go to the denominational level. I was in the PCUSA during the Reimagining years. Of course I had no idea it was going on, but it makes me sick to think that even a fraction of a penny of my money was used to support that abominable, goddess-worshiping mess.
All that’s to say that I think that an amicable Elijah-Obadiah meeting could happen. Stranger things have!
I don’t think Obadiah was a compromiser. Maybe he was but nothing indicates that.