June 23, 2013
1
Kings 19:1-15
1Ahab told Jezebel
all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the
sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So
may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life
of one of them by this time tomorrow." 3Then he was afraid; he
got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah;
he left his servant there.
4But he himself
went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a
solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O
LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." 5Then
he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him
and said to him, "Get up and eat." 6He looked, and there
at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and
drank, and lay down again. 7The angel of the LORD came a second
time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will
be too much for you." 8He got up, and ate and drank; then he
went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the
mount of God. 9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night
there.
Then
the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "What are you doing here,
Elijah?" 10He answered, "I have been very zealous for the
LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown
down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and
they are seeking my life, to take it away."
11He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before
the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind,
so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before
the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake,
but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a
fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer
silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle
and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to
him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14He
answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for
the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed
your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to
take it away." 15Then the LORD said to him, "Go, return on
your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint
Hazael as king over Aram.
Sermon:
“Strength in the Silence”
They say hindsight is 20/20. It certainly was for me. But right in the
middle of it all, I never realized my mistakes. I not only crossed the line, y’all, I
catapulted over it. But, I’m getting
ahead of myself, here. Let’s begin with
my name: it’s Elijah, but you can call me Eli.
I was a prophet in the time of an evil king of Judah
named Jeroboam. I was a small-town boy
from Tishbe in Gilead, but then I put up a video of myself performing a
miracle up on YouTube and bam! Instant fame.
Okay, it didn’t exactly work that way back then. But I did predict a great drought, help a
widow produce an abundant supply of oil and food to eat and raise her son from
death. Celebrity comes with its own
challenges, though, and about then I started acting like a bit of a show off.
I challenged the prophets of Baal, nearly 500 of
them, to a show-down, campfire-style (I believe your pastor told you this story
a few weeks ago), and while those prophets couldn’t even get a spark on their
fire from their so-called god, I called down fire from Yahweh and engulfed a
whole sopping wet altar in flames. My E!
True Hollywood story would say this was the beginning of my downfall.
You see, I really became a diva then. In fact, I’m ashamed to say, I had all of the
prophets of Baal killed after my little victory, which in our violent times
back then, was our way of saying, “Na na na na-na!” I hope that this is not how y’all show power
today. The chip on my shoulder at this
point weighed as much as Mount Horeb.
But life has a way of taking you down a few notches
when you get up on your high horse, y’all.
That celebrity status evaporated just as quickly as it had arrived,
through a letter from none other than Queen Jezebel. She was not a wordy woman, but managed to get
to the point rather quickly, “See what you’ve just done to my prophets? Tomorrow, that’s your fate.”
So, I did what any man would do. I ran for my life! I fled into the wilderness. Exhausted and thirsty, I reached my lowest
point. I sat down under a pathetically
lonely tree and said, “It is enough, Lord, take my life.”
In my language it was a more intense statement: I
was saying “Too much, God!” It’s all too
much: this sudden fame, this sudden fear, the feeling that I had reached my
peak and my life was coming to a rapid end, all mingled with physical
exhaustion and spiritual emptiness. It
was all too much. So I gave up. God
didn’t.
Like a pesky alarm clock that you can’t turn off, an
angel from God woke me two times to eat and drink. And I survived. If I’m honest with you, after many days (I
believe it was 40 or so) I even started liking that wilderness place. There was no angry Queen there, no false
prophets, in fact no one to prophesy for at all, except maybe some locusts, but
they didn’t really care for my prophecies.
It was like an early retirement from the spotlight,
in my own little rustic desert camp. But
just when I started thinking that I could pitch my Out of Africa tent and sip
champagne from my Waterford crystal without having to interact with anyone else
for the rest of my days, God came. And
God asked that uncomfortable question that refused to let me keep things the
way they were: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
I could have, of course, lied. “Oh hello, Yahweh, how ya been? My, you’re looking extra radiant this
evening. I’m just, er, enjoying this
here lovely locust in the wilderness and pondering how you made it. It really is beautiful, well done, you!”
But I knew the real answer to that question, and so
did God. I was hiding. Oh I called it “being zealous for the Lord”
like I was Sister Maria venturing into the Swiss alps to yodel with the
Divine. But the truth was, I was retreating
within myself and my faith to keep separate from the world, and thus avoid its
pain and danger.
But our faith isn’t some sort of
get-out-of-hurt-free card that allows us to escape life’s troubles. And a relationship with God that’s completely
isolated from a relationship with others, even with those who mean us harm,
well, that’s no relationship at all.
And so God spoke.
I have to say, after a taste of the ol’ Hollywood prophet scene, I was
expecting something pretty grand. You
know, like God coming in Raiders of the Lost Ark with lightning and flame. Or perhaps, a little burning bush action with
God’s voice echoing out of the nearest shrub, like God did with Moses. I would have loved for God to show up like
Morgan Freeman immaculately decked out (pun intended) in a nice suit, with that
calming, deep voice.
But silence?
That I did not expect. How do you
even describe a voice that sounds like silence?
I suppose that might be the point; that God’s voice is beyond our
categories or expectations. Though I
don’t have the words to describe that voice, I heard it all the same. Do you know how I know it was God speaking,
even in that empty quiet void?
The question.
It was the same one, a second time.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
My reply was the same as well, "I’ve done a lot for
you, God. More than most. But I’m the
only one left. What do you expect me to
do?”
And that calming voice-beneath-the-storm answered
me with a call: “Go.” “Go, back into
that terrifying place of political maneuvering and violent retaliations. Go and do what it is a prophet is meant to
do: prophesy.”
And so I did.
There were blessings to discover once I left the wilderness: calling
people back to God, selecting Elisha (gosh, that name sounds familiar) to be my
protégé, and even being sent up into heaven in a whirlwind. There were plenty of hardships, too: violent
overthrows, idolatry and sleepless nights spent worrying about God’s people.
But I never regretted leaving the wilderness when
God called. Because God had taught me
something profound in that wilderness place, something I needed to take to
others, even to you today. Here it is:
God doesn’t need the stage lighting or a deep booming sound system to speak, like
I as a prophet needed fame. God doesn’t
even need me to speak. God can speak
anytime, anywhere, in anyway God chooses.
And, if we allow ourselves to become quiet without letting our anxiety
or restlessness take over, we will hear the voice that has been speaking to us
all along.
I know what you’re thinking (I’m a prophet,
remember?). You’re thinking “But how do
we know it’s God’s voice?” The honest
answer is, sometimes we don’t. God’s
voice comes in many different forms, in those around us, in a whisper within
our minds, in golden sunlight through evening trees, even in hard-to-hear
criticism.
But we know God is speaking because there is
always that question, that annoyingly-spot-on query that God asked me twice:
“What are you doing here?” God’s voice
will always call us to re-evaluate our lives, questioning whether we are living
them in a secluded wilderness serving ourselves, or in a chaotic world, serving
others with words of hope and acts of courage.
Allow this weary old prophet one more prophecy:
if you choose to listen to that voice of God, and if you indeed go into this
messy world to proclaim that God is still working through your own hands and
feet, you will never go alone. Even the
echoing silence is teeming with the words of God, words of resilience and hope,
giving you the strength to not only find your own voice, but the even greater
strength to really listen to the voice of another.
God is speaking.
And perhaps, like me, God speaks to you in a way you do not expect. Don’t miss that voice. It just may lead you on your greatest
adventure yet. It just may lead you to
become who you were always made to be.
It just may lead you home again.
Amen.
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