Not many people are named Elijah. This article is about two of the only three Elijahs I have heard of, but they were two men with a similar defining characteristic: they spoke truth to power.
Remembering
Prophet Elijah (9th Century BCE)
The Old Testament prophet
Elijah has long been one of my favorite biblical characters. I remember
studying hard to learn more about Elijah and then leading a Bible study about him
65 years ago—yes, in the summer of 1956 when I was a college student.
Elijah was a prophet during the reign of the wicked King Ahab, the seventh king of Israel, and his infamous wife Jezebel, who was, well, a jezebel (= “an impudent, shameless, or morally unrestrained woman”; Merriam-Webster).
According to 1 Kings 18:17 in the Old Testament, “When Ahab
saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, ‘Is it you, you troubler of Israel?’ Elijah was a
“troubler” because he spoke out in criticism of the evil king and his notorious
wife.
Jonathan Sacks, the noted British Rabbi who died last November, published an article titled “Elijah and the prophetic truth of the ‘still, small voice’.” He stated, “Elijah was one of the greatest of the prophets, a man of justice unafraid to confront kings, condemn corruption and speak truth to power.”
That’s what the Old
Testament prophets did. It was only the false prophets who cozied up to kings.
A century before
Elijah, the prophet Nathan stood before powerful King David, guilty of adultery
and instigating murder, and declared, “Thou art the man” (2 Samuel 12:7, KJV).
That Old Testament
story is the basis of journalist Maina Mwaura’s January 9th piece titled, “At the Capitol, evangelicals’ ‘Thou
art the man’ moment.”
Remembering Representative Elijah Cummings (1951~2019)
Martin Luther King,
Jr., was born 92 years ago today, but as I have posted blog articles about him
previously (first on Jan. 11, 2010), I am writing now about an outstanding
African American man who was born three days after King’s 22nd
birthday.
Following his birth
on January 18, 1951, Robert and Ruth Cummings named their new son Elijah, after
the Old Testament prophet.
The Baltimore
Magazine unsurprisingly told in a 2014 article how Cummings remembered “running home from
church on Sundays to listen to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches” on the radio.
From age 45 on, Cummings served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 23 years until his death in October 2019. Monday would have been his 70th birthday.
On the day of his
death, Phil Murphy, the governor of Maryland, tweeted, “A model of
dignity and strength, Elijah Cummings' upbringing in a segregated Baltimore led
him on a lifelong mission to promote justice, to always speak truth to power,
and to ensure a fair shake for every American.”
In February 2020, the
House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s hearing room in the Rayburn Office
Building in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Elijah E. Cummings Room in honor
of the late Baltimore congressman.
At that dedication
ceremony, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black
Caucus, said Cummings “used his gavel to speak truth to power for our nation.”
If last week’s tragic
events had happened two years ago, Rep. Elijah would most likely have been a
key politician speaking truth to power—and the misuse of power by the President.
Cummings would, no
doubt, have joined with Rep. Jamie Raskin, who wrote the resolution calling on
VP Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove DJT from office.
(Raskin, b. 1962,
currently is the U.S. Representative from Maryland’s 8th District, where
both of my sons live; Cummings served that state’s 7th District.)
In 2018, the year
before he died, Cummings said, “I’m going to try and make people realize
that in order to live the life they are living, they need to have democracy,
and it’s being threatened.”
Little did he know then how much U.S. democracy was going to
be threatened on January 6, 2021.
How important it was/is for people like him and the Old
Testament prophet Elijah—and all of us in our own place of influence—to speak
truth to power!
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