Often in worship the reading of scripture begins with an invitation to listen to the word of God. This invitation is particularly meaningful when we think about the Hebrew scripture reading from 1 Kings – the story of the prophet Elijah listening intently for the word of God.
Here’s a little background on the passage: Elijah is fresh from a contest with the prophets of the God Baal, they were trying to best each other and prove which of the Divine Beings was real. I guess it was a contest of prophetic authority. What happened is that both sides built their own sacrificial alters and tried to get their god to do something. When the prophets of Baal prayed to their god to light a fire on the altar, can you guess what happened? Nothing! But when Elijah prayed to God, fire came down from heaven in an impressive show and ignited his altar. Then, in his overzealous moment of victory, Elijah led the prophets of Baal down by the riverside, drew his sword, and killed them all. Yup. That’s one way to prove your God’s authenticity…. Murder.
Now, thankfully, that’s not where the story ends. In fact, Queen Jezebel, who was a devotee of Baal, heard what Elijah did to all her prophets, and she took an oath to do the same thing to Elijah. The text says: “She sent a message 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, one of my prophets, by this time tomorrow.’” Then the scripture says, in one of the greatest biblical understatements ever, “Elijah was afraid.” Well, understandably so. He was in BIG TROUBLE and he knew it. He tried everything to get out this, resorting to his very last option – prayer. Hiding in a cave, far from the city, Elijah called upon God for help. The response though was a little less than what he expected. He got instructions to go up the mountain and wait. That’s it. You can bet that Elijah got himself up that mountain just as fast as he could, and settled in to waiting for God.
Now, listen to what the text says next:
Now there was a great wind so strong that it was splitting the mountains and breaking rocks in pieces, but God wasn’t in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but God wasn’t in the fire. After the fire, the sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, there came a voice to him that said, “what are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah answers the question by explaining the situation, and God promises, as God often does, not to leave Elijah alone. And this part of the story ends.
So what’s the takeaway from the story? God wasn’t in the noise. God was in the silence. The word Elijah was looking for wasn’t in the obvious powerful acts of nature, but rather in the silence that follows. Now most of us are familiar with the King James version of the passage which translates the Hebrew phrase used here as “still small voice.” We have come to treasure this metaphor of God’s presence with us. However, if we were to truly look at the Hebrew, we would see that it says sheer silence, utter silence. Could it be that silence, sheer uncomfortable silence, is often the requisite for hearing the still small voice of God? Noise serves to get our attention. Politicians, advertisers, and heck, even preachers capitalize on that fact… noise catches our attention. And often, those noisy bits capture us… but silence can pull us in too. The noise of the earthquake, the wind and the fire caught Elijah’s attention so that he was ready to hear in the silence.
As the poet John Ciardi has said: “we are what we do with our attention.” We are what we do with our attention. Silence is pregnant with the presence of God. Pay attention.
There’s an apocryphal story of several applicants seeking a position on a ship as a Morse Code operator. While they are waiting to be interviewed, the room fills with the sound of conversation, and so they are oblivious to the sounds of dots and dashes coming over the intercom. Another applicant comes in, and silently sits, quietly waiting. Suddenly, she jumps up, walks into the private office, and after a few minutes, walks out with the job. The other applicants exclaim, “we were here first! How could you go ahead of us and get the job?’ To which she replied, “any of you could have gotten the job if you stayed quiet enough to pay attention to the message on the intercom.” The other applicants were confused: “What message?” She replied: “The code that said: ‘a ship’s operator must always be on the alert. The first person who gets this message and comes directly into my office will get the job.” The coded message not unlike the still small voice in the silence.
Another story: A Cherokee woman name Shabari Redbird described the tradition her people called a vision quest. She says: “in vision quest, I renew silence in myself.” She spends four days deep in the woods without food or water, and she says the experience renews her spirituality, gets her back in tune with nature and re-affirms her oneness with creation and the Creator that she experiences – and these are her words –“deeper and deeper levels of silence.” Place that next to Jesus’ habit of withdrawing to lonely places of prayer and silence at every pivotal moment of his life and ministry.
I think we should be reserving a special place for silence in our relationship with God. Remember the words of the prophet Habakkuk: “God is in the Holy Temple. Let all the earth keep silence before the holy one.”
Christ came singing love. Christ lived singing love. Christ died singing love. Christ arose in silence. The greatest moment of silence in history. So if the song of love Is to continue, we must do the singing. And in the silence, in the sheer silence, when God’s gentle voice speaks, we are empowered to continue our song of love and compassion in the world, Amen.
