The Still, Small Voice of God

Sermon 6-23-13 

by

Pastor Peggy Ray

Two weeks ago we talked about the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal: whichever god answered his prophet’s call with fire from heaven would be seen as the “true god.” Elijah won: The Lord sent fire down from heaven. But, remember, then all the prophets of Baal were killed.
Not surprisingly, Queen Jezebel was determined to get even with Elijah for what he had done to her spiritual advisers. When Elijah heard that she had sworn to kill him, he was terrified. I want us to stop for a minute and just think about how afraid Elijah must have been. The people still had not rejected the pagan cults brought into the land by King Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel. Elijah believed Jezebel had killed all the other priests of the Lord: that he was all alone, fleeing for his life. This story makes our fears seem pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?
Elijah fled from the northern kingdom of Israel to the furthermost southern town in Judah, and then into the wilderness. In the wilderness, Elijah found a quiet place where he sat down and asked the Lord to free him from the chaos and pain of life. Death seemed like the better alternative under his circumstances. Instead, the Lord sent an angel to comfort him. The angel of the Lord fed him cake and gave him water to drink. Despite his fear and despair, Elijah was able to recognize God was healing and caring for him and to hear God telling him to go on to Mt. Horeb. Mt. Horeb, also called Mt. Sinai is where Moses received the Covenant and the Ten Commandments from the Lord. In Moses time, Israelites believed the Lord lived on Mt. Horeb.
Think about it. So, often when things are going wrong, we’re self-absorbed and unable to hear God. Elijah reminds us that God is not absent. Maybe God doesn’t prevent, stop, or interfere with the consequences of human evil, but God remains steadily and actively present, always ready to heal and care for us, even if he doesn’t miraculously make our troubles disappear.
Elijah journeyed (40 days and 40 nights) down to the tip of the Sinai peninsula to Mt. Horeb. On that holy mountain, God comes to Elijah. Hidden in a cave in the rocks, Elijah experiences a great wind, earthquake and fire, but God is not revealed in these displays of nature’s power and might.
In this period in the history of the Israelites, the Lord was a god of power, controlling the forces of nature (earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes—all of which were experienced in the geologically very active area of Israel). It is only after all of this noise and chaos has died down and things become very still that Elijah heard something. What he heard was so much like silence that it was only through the ear of faith that he knew it was Yahweh. God spoke, gently revealing God’s presence to his troubled prophet: What are you doing here, Elijah? God has healed and cared for Elijah. In a later verse, he reassures Elijah that there are and will remain far more than just one who is faithful to him alone, at least seven thousand. But God has work for Elijah to do. Go to Damascus, and anoint Hazael as king. Then come back to Israel, and anoint Jehu. Then find Elisha, and anoint him as your replacement. Like Abraham before him, Elijah is Blessed to be a blessing. God heals and cares for us, reassures and blesses us, but he also directs us to do his work in the world.
I can’t help but believe there’s a lesson in this old, old story -- passed down for generations before it was written down and incorporated into the scriptures. In later years, the Jewish people would see Elijah as God’s Messenger. Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, (Mal. 3:1) The most common description of the Lord is jealous (the Hebrew word means provoked to strong emotion such as anger, grief, frustration). The Lord was seen as violent, retaliatory, very exacting in his judgments, yet given to favoritism and careless of human life. But this is not Elijah’s experience of the Lord! The Lord is not in the wind. The Lord is not in the earthquake. The Lord is not in the fire. Only in the silence. If you trust that the Lord is with you, if you listen hard, then, like Elijah, you can hear the still, small voice of the Lord.
Evil has always been widespread in the world. Human beings have always been willing to commit atrocities against one another and against all of God’s creation. But even in the midst of admitting this cold, hard truth, we can testify that God is not absent. Maybe God doesn’t prevent, stop, or interfere with the consequences of human evil, but God remains steadily and actively present in the small things.
God is here in the small things of life:
•in the still small voices of the people who love us,
•the people who make sacrifices in order to lift others up,
•the people who reach out to comfort the afflicted,
•and the people who afflict the comfortable for the sake of a better world.
Signs of God’s continuous presence in the midst of evil keep popping up:
God is present. God is with us. And God is speaking in the still small voices among us. Yes, there is a lot of noise and chaos. Yes, there is a lot of violence. Evil is rampant in the world. But God is at work in, along with, through, or even in spite of events. God doesn’t control the events themselves. God is not controlling the universe as if it were a puppet or machine. Rather, God’s work and wisdom are gently but firmly present. Even when some human beings do great evil, God is present to guide and empower other people to do even greater good.
I ran into a very interesting definition of faith this week. The definition comes from Rob Bell, but was written in a commentary on Rob Bell. The author, James Wellman, suggests that the most common description of faith in Rob Bell’s sermons is, “Faith, as he says, is to be ‘awake.’ It is to recognize and ‘to see’ the form of the divine love that is incarnating itself in and through the creation. Let us make every effort to stay awake this week, to see and join into God’s work in the world.