Strength in the Silence

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.