One
of the most positive interpretations of our Old Testament lesson came back to
me in the form of a Facebook post I made last year. We were deep in the
pandemic lockdown, wondering when life would get back to normal. The quote went
something like this:
This is your gentle reminder
that one time in the Bible Elijah was like, “God, I’m so mad I want to die.” So
God said, “Here’s some food. Why don’t you have a nap? So Elijah slept, ate,
and decided that things weren’t so bad. Never underestimate the spiritual power
of a nap and a snack. (Joy Clackson @joynessthebrave on Twitter.com)
Of
course, it’s not really that simple, this story of Elijah storming off into the
desert. Elijah is coming off of a series of what many see as great victories –
raising the dead, calling down the fire, overthrowing the prophets of Baal,
proclaiming drought, but ultimately standing alone. He is weary, driven more by
fear than by love and dedication to God. Ultimately, he begs for death. But God
was not finished with him yet.
In
her book, The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris chronicles her draw to the
monastic life of prayer, liturgy, and silence. "What are you doing
here?" She kept hearing that question in her head as she spent her first
week of retreat at a Cistercian Monastery. Why does a non-Catholic female
middle-aged married minister hang out at a monastery? All week she seemed to
want some sort of a message - to talk to somebody, to have a reality check
about where she saw God working in her life, but what could have just as easily
perceived as being a little bit odd. All week, monks were seeking out other
guests for conversation, and there she was, trotting silently between the guest
house and the church, pretty much unnoticed.[i]
Then
one morning at worship, a tall, young, bearded monk read this passage from I
Kings 19 - and she noticed something different right away. It wasn’t the
translation she was used to, proclaiming God’s word in a “still, small voice.” Instead,
God’s word can be in the “sound of sheer silence.” And she felt a little
relief, that God could be speaking to her in the silence that she was
experiencing. And she prayed a little prayer, “Lord, help me to understand. I
am all alone.” And in the silence, she suddenly knew, hearing deep within, ‘You
are not alone.’ The silence bore fruit.
Translators
have had a hard time with the "still small voice." Other translations
read “Gentle whisper, soft whisper of a voice, gentle little breeze, gentle
blowing, low murmuring sound, the sound of a gentle breeze.” But the translators
of the NRSV understood that it wasn’t so simple that God would speak very
quietly. Instead, as hard as it is to understand, sometimes God’s voice comes
in the sheer silence, a loud, crushing weight that sits on our shoulders, and
which we often avoid at all costs.
Elijah’s
complaints are often the same as ours – twice he proclaims himself alone in
verses 10 and 14. But God speaking in the silence is a reminder that Elijah is
never alone. God’s plans did not rest solely on his shoulders, and the same is
true today. We may be unable to bring God’s kingdom into our reality by
ourselves, but there is a future, and alliances exist that we do not yet know.
Think about it: Elijah still feels alone after being fed by an angel - TWICE!
Sometimes, depression and despair can blind us to miracles in our midst.[ii]
Have
you ever felt uncomfortable in the silence of worship? We often have rubrics
for silence built into the service, but we glide over them for reasons too
numerous to list. In the end, I think it’s that we don’t like the silence. It
makes us feel alone. At home or in the car, we listen to the radio or podcasts
- we turn on the TV for company. Some of us even talk to ourselves. We avoid it
because the silence forces us to deal with the turmoil that is going on inside
us. And it is the last place that we expect to encounter God.
John
Cage wrote a famous piece of music called 4'33", which indicates the
length of the performance. The performer enters the stage, sits at the piano,
and proceeds to do nothing for 4'33". The "music" is the sounds
in the room: the A/C, honk of a horn on the street outside, shuffling feet,
nervous coughs, and more. When asked about its purpose, Cage said, "Take
time and listen, the sounds around you are music, too.” Didn't Elijah discover the
same about God? He expected God's presence in the wind, earthquake, and fire,
yet found God's presence in the silence.
There
are times when it takes a lot of practice and patience to wait in silence for
God to begin a dialog, instead of performing our incessant monologue – our
needs, our wants, our predetermined ideas about what God wants by creating God
in our image.
This
week as Shawn and I were driving back from our vacation, we caught up on the
daily devotional podcast, Our Daily Bread. Last Monday’s was based on this 1
Kings passage. Sheridan Voysey of Oxford, England wrote:
I once heard a businessman
describe his years in college as a time when he often felt “helpless and
hopeless” from bouts of depression. Sadly, he never talked to a doctor about
these feelings, but instead started making more drastic plans—ordering a book
on suicide from his local library and setting a date to take his life.
The library notified the
student when his book on suicide was ready to collect. But in a mix-up, the
note went to his parents’ address instead. When his mother called him,
distraught, he realized the devastation his suicide would bring. Without that address
mix-up, he says, he wouldn’t be here today.
I don’t believe that student
was saved by luck or chance. Whether it’s bread and water when we need it, or a
timely wrong address, when mysterious intervention saves our lives, we’ve
encountered divine tenderness.[iii]
But
we must also acknowledge that some biblical scholars don’t see Elijah as the
hero in this story. Elijah behaved a little like Jonah, proclaiming God’s words
and then mad when it didn’t all turn out the way Elijah thought it would. Yes,
Elijah prevailed on God’s behalf, but Elijah also had to run for his life. Not
quite the resounding victory Elijah imagined. Whether he is angry or afraid,
Elijah gave up. But that was not in God’s plan, and with a nap and something to
eat in his grasp, Elijah travels a dangerous road to be reminded that God isn’t
just in the big things, but in the microsecond of silence, if we will only pay
attention. Sometimes our ability to lead
can only be accessed if we confront our own weaknesses and rely on the Holy
Spirit to direct us into places we would not choose ourselves to go.
I
don’t know what that looks like for you… it’s looked a lot of different ways
for me. Some of the directions my life has taken can only be described as
places where only God’s voice – still, small, or in silence, gave me the
courage to go forward, even when others said, “stop.”
God’s
divine tenderness can be gentle and caring, but God can also hand us a Snickers
bar and remind us to have a snack and a nap, and then be on our way… on our way
to where God calls, and where we will face our future, unafraid.
Amen
and Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment