“Giving and Receiving a Mantle”
The Reverend Tom Steffen
27 June 2010

Readings: Psalm 77:1-2,11-20

2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14

Luke 9:51-62

Leighton Ford, well-known preacher, the father of Kevin Ford, who authored one of the books the Strategic Planning Team studied, tells the story that just before Leighton’s 50th birthday, his eldest son, Sandy, died during surgery at Duke Medical Center. After his death, in one of his notebooks Leighton found in the boy’s room, he found an unfinished poem, one he had been writing to give Leighton for that birthday, but wasn’t well enough to finish it. Here are a couple of lines that he did finish: “What a golden honor it would be to don your mantle, to inherit twice times your spirit. For then you would be me and I would continue to be you.” Sandy did not live long enough to “don his father’s mantle.” But his father believes that Sandy passed on his own mantle to him, and to his family, and to hundreds of young leaders around the world that have been aided by the Sandy Ford Scholarship Fund as they train for ministry.

The image in Sandy’s unfinished poem no doubt comes from this story about Elijah and Elisha. It is a powerful story that speaks of the strong bond between an older man and a younger, but we know from the story of Ruth and Naomi that it could be an older woman and a younger woman. Elisha refuses to stay behind without Elijah and is determined to go with him to Bethel, and on to Jericho, and finally down to the Jordan river. And at the river, we hear final and rather grave words, exchanged after they have crossed over, no less: “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you,” the wise old man says. And the young protégé responds, “Please let me inherit a double-portion of your spirit.”

A double portion? Interesting request. Was he asking to be twice as famous? To do twice the miracles? To have twice the following? One wonders. At the time, a double portion was the part of an inheritance left to the oldest son. So, it is likely that what Elisha wanted was to be his spiritual son. He wanted to have Elijah’s spirit and blessing, wanted his mantle to be conferred on him. “You have asked for a hard thing,” Elijah tells Elisha, shaking his head; one of the world’s great understatements, I think. A “hard thing” indeed, this passing on of a mantle, and not just the passing on, but hard, as well, to take it up. Hard indeed, but more satisfying than just about anything, I suspect.

And on the other side of the Jordan, it happens. I’ll confess it is hard to know what to make of the chariot of fire and horses of fire and the whirlwind that takes him into the heavens. But there is no mistaking what Elisha does. He stretches out his hand and picks up his mentor’s cloak, the prophet’s mantle that has fallen to the ground. And then he turns and immediately begins where Elijah left off. Elisha returns to the river, strikes the water and says: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

And the waters part, and Elisha receives a wonderful answer: “God is here, young man. God is with you.” And we are told that the people, who had been following Elijah, see all this at a distance and say to one another: “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.”

You may recognize the name Giacomo Puccini, the great composer of the operas La boheme, Tosca, Madam Butterfly, among others. There’s a wonderful story told about the first time Puccini’s opera Turandot was performed. Puccini died of cancer in 1924 while he was still writing it. Arturo Toscanini was selected to conduct it in La Scala in 1926. And supposedly, when Toscanini got to the middle of Act 3, he stopped and laid down his baton. He turned to the audience and announced: “Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died,” and Toscanini walked off the stage. And although Toscanini supposedly never conducted that opera again, the disciples of Puccini finished the maestro’s work. An ending was written, and Turandot is performed to this very day.

The maestro died, yes he did. But his disciples finished what their master started. Will we?

I’m grateful to Reva Allington, friend and member of St. Peter’s UMC, who edits my sermons.