Earth, Wind, & Fire

1 Kings 19:1-15
2nd Sunday of Pentecost 

If you are going to need to come talk to me anytime soon, don’t come to my office.  Do not come to my office.  It’s still a little dangerous in there.  My office looks like a vacation Bible school exploded in it; and it wasn’t that tidy before.  

No, if you want to come spend time with me, maybe we can go get a cup of coffee with me.  Or better yet: come sit with me on my porch.  My porch is one of my favorite places.  It’s well-shaded, it’s got comfy chairs, and a beautiful view of the flowers my wife has cultivated in our front yard.  And in addition to all of that: it’s quiet.  Quiet is good for a healthy conversation; it helps us to listen.  

I’ve spent a lot of time with God out there.  There have been times that I have not been so quiet.  I have raged, I have shouted, and I have wept.  God is a good listener.  But I have also heard from God on that porch.  Not an audible voice, of course, but in the silence.  Turns out that, even in the terrifying noise of the world, God still seeks to meet us in the Stillness.  

In today's reading from First Kings, we meet a man who has nothing left. Elijah is worn out!  He can go no further.  He is exhausted, persecuted and depressed.  This is a man at the end of his rope!  

He had fought the good fight—and that fight is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.  Elijah had just finished battling against the false prophets in the court of Ahab the King.  He had spoken against the idolatry brought by Queen Jezebel. He did his job and lived up to his calling… and as a result, he was condemned to die for all that hard work.   

You might remember the amazing thing that happened right before all this: Elijah had a sacrificing competition with 450 of the prophets for the idol Baal.  They all prepared sacrifices, they all prayed to their gods to send fire to consume the sacrifices, but only the Lord showed up.  Only God provided a consuming fire for Elijah’s offering (which burnt up even the stones of the altar).  For a moment, the people of God were reminded of who God was, but they soon became distracted and Queen Jezebel was back to issuing threats against Elijah.  

And so Elijah fled into the wilderness—alone, afraid, feeling sorry for himself—and lays down under a miserable old broom tree (a bush barely able to give shade to bird, much less a man) and begins to tell God that he’s ready to die.

Elijah’s life had hit rock bottom.  In a way, that’s kind of comforting.  It tells me that anyone’s life can seem, at times, not worth living.  Even the great prophet Elijah got so overwhelmed and depressed that he no longer saw the point of life.  Of course, Elijah did something in his sad state that we sometimes forget to do at first: he talked to God about it.  He sat down under that pathetic tree and told God to take his life.  

I have prayed that prayer.  Maybe you have too.  When we’re that low, we don’t really see things quite clearly.  Somehow we really think that God will answer that prayer; we really think that God will see our valid argument and have us fall asleep so we can die.  To my knowledge, God never has  granted that request.  But God did answer Elijah’s prayer.  

We were talking at choir on Wednesday about what we’d be doing musically in that space before the sermon.  We didn’t have an anthem and I hadn’t picked a hymn so Sonja suggested I sing something because I haven’t in a while.  And by the way, since I haven’t played in front of anyone for a while, I also haven’t practiced playing guitar for a while.  I don’t know if you’ve ever played a stringed instrument, particularly one with metal strings, at first it hurts.  With practice, you build up handy callouses on the tips of your fingers and the pain gets less and less, but my fingers are a little ouchie right now.  

Sometimes—probably not every time—but sometimes I think God’s “no” to our prayers are a little like that.  It hurts.  Sometimes it hurts a lot, but maybe we come away with it a little stronger; maybe we come away with it a little more prepared to do what God is calling us to do.  

Elijah told God that he was ready to die and then he lay down to sleep… presumably for the last time.  But instead of letting him sleep forever, an angel woke him up with a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. Elijah ate and drank and lay down again.  And again the angel woke him and he ate and drank. 

Notice that the angel who ministers to him does not do 'spiritual' stuff, he does not say to Elijah, "pray about it, you'll feel better." No the angel feeds him and makes him rest, telling him that if he does not eat, the journey will be too much for him. Sometimes we just need time away and someone to support us. We really need to pause to eat and drink, so that we can continue the journey we are on. Only then are we ready for prayer, only then can we be ready to be spiritually restored.  

The story continues with Elijah continuing on into the wilderness until he comes to Mt. Horeb, to the Mountain of God, to the place where God revealed himself to Moses and to Israel in cloud and in fire: and there God speaks to him and tells him that he is about to pass by him.  God is about to be revealed to Elijah in a new way.

Elijah goes out to the mouth of the cave where he has spent the night and looks for God in the strong wind that comes upon the mountain, and then in the earthquake that shakes it, and in the fire that follows, but God is not found in any of it.

They say that there is vastly more space between the molecules all around us than the molecules themselves.  Something like: if you were to put a tennis ball in the middle of a football stadium, the tennis ball would be the molecule and the stadium would be the space between.  I don’t know if that’s true; it certainly doesn’t seem true.  But if it is true, I like to think that God works in the space between; in the stillness that is always there but that we can’t perceive.  

There is a great, rock splitting wind; then there is an earthquake; then a fire; but finally there comes a still small voice.  Some translations call it a sheer silence, your pew Bibles describe it as a gentle whisper.  And in this gentle whisper—in this deep silence—God visits with Elijah.

Picture it: I imagine the wind, earthquake, and fire were a bit distracting; terrifying, in fact.  Yet God is not in them; they merely proceed God’s actual presence.  Sometimes it seems like God is hard to find—like God isn’t paying attention to our fervent prayers—but we’ve been looking in the wrong places.  In the midst of all the busyness and commotion in our lives, all the hurry and activities, all the trying to cope, all the work we do to make a good life, maybe those are the only things we can see.  Maybe all that’s loud in our lives gets in the way of seeing what we need to see, and hearing what we need to hear.

Perhaps sometimes we need to just stop and wait on the stillness: to listen to the silence, to look for God in the calm, instead of in the turmoil. That is what Elijah was led to do. Elijah, in his exhaustion, in his fear, just needed some time off. He got away for a while, even from what God had called him to do.  So in his fear and his pain, his loneliness and hunger, he called out sought God's presence. And God was present with him… in the silence.  And in that, Elijah was once again prepared to go out and do those things that God called him to do.  In that whisper, he was commissioned and assured by God that he was not alone—that many faithful persons were yet with him.

Sometimes that is all we need.  We need to time away, to get in touch with God, to listen for the silence, and see past the chaos that can be so distracting. We need to pause and to listen so that we might have the strength and the guidance we need to do what we are called to do.

Think of the number of times that Jesus took time apart; how he would send the disciples on ahead of him while he paused to pray on a mountainside; how he would prepare himself for his next round of activity by first going away by himself to pray, by first going away to listen to the silence.

And so should we.  Let us not become so caught up in the winds, earthquakes, and fires of our lives that we cannot hear the silent peace that comes from God.  Let us not wait until our hearts are filled with fear and despair before we turn to God’s calming presence.  Let us seek and take advantage of those times of solitude and quiet; and may the gentle whisper of our ever-present God remind us that we are not alone and strengthen us for our life’s long journey.