Homily – June 19

“Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?  My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long they say to me, “Where now is your God?”

Like many of you, the recent violence in our country has occupied my thoughts this week.  It seems that we are in a decidedly bleak time; that violence is winning; that civility and concern for our fellow humans has been forgotten; that hatred is just too strong to overcome.  Indeed, that may very well have been the mood of the psalmist when he wrote these words.  

Elijah could relate to how we are feeling.  He is a man at the end of his rope.  Over the past few weeks we have heard of his exploits.  He faced down the King and the prophets of Baal.  He showed them through means of fire raining from the sky that God is the true God, and Baal worshipers were on the wrong side.  Doing this has not won him any friends in the royal court and Jezebel the queen, who was the patron of the priests of Baal, wants to see Elijah dead.  He had stood against 450 of them all by himself, and with the Lord’s help, he won.  At his request the Lord rained fire from the sky as a visible manifestation of power.  But like anyone after a battle, once it is finished, Elijah is exhausted.  Gone is the adrenaline rush that fueled him through his conflict.  He has been left utterly spent and vulnerable.  And then the queen’s messenger arrives to inform him of her evil intent.  And he is afraid and runs for his life.

He leaves the country, heading into the most remote area he can find.  He leaves his servant there and goes on alone, heading even further into the wilderness to escape.  He comes across a small tree, likely the only shade for miles, lies under it, and prepares to die.  He has no strength left.  He has labored long and hard, exhausted his reserves of vitality, and still finds himself hated and pursued by his enemies.  He feels abandoned by God and by the people, and wants nothing more than to die in peace.

Suddenly an angel wakes him up and gives him food and water.  He eats, drinks, and goes back to sleep.  The same thing happens again, but this time the angel tells him, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”  It would seem that while Elijah wants nothing more than to die, God has other plans.  The Lord is not yet finished with Elijah.  So he does as he is told and then travels for 40 days and nights to Mount Horeb.  There he finds a cave and goes inside, to sleep and to hide from the world.

You can imagine how he was feeling.  He had fought hard, given all that he had.  His strength was gone and he felt abandoned by his people and by God.  All he wanted to do was crawl into a hole and hide from the world.  Again the words of the psalmist echo saying “why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? And why are you so disquieted within me? I will say to the God of my strength, why have you forgotten me? And why do I go so heavily while my enemies oppress me?”

And just as Elijah sits brooding, the voice of the Lord intrudes upon his pondering and asks what he is doing there?  Elijah complains that he has labored long and hard for the Lord, he has been abandoned by his people, and all are seeking to take his life.  And he is told to stand on the holy mountain; that he might be there when the Lord passes 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; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle”  

Even in his current state, Elijah knew that he was not to look upon the face of God so he covered his face.  This meant that he had to rely upon his other senses to know when God was there.  But to his great surprise, being in the presence of God was not what he had thought it would be.  Elijah had called upon the name of the Lord to do great deeds of power.  Fire raining from the sky; that was the awesome power of God and that is where he expected God to be.  But that is not what happened.  For God was not in the great wind, God was not in the earthquake, God was not in the fire.  Instead God was in the absolute serenity of silence, a silence so intense that it was palpable.  And when he is at last in the presence of God, Elijah makes his complaint.  

But to his surprise, Elijah does not get sympathy and comfort.  The Lord does not grant his wish to die.  Instead, God responds to his complaint by giving him a mission.  A new mission; to continue living and to go forth and bring change to the world.  So Elijah goes, secure in the knowledge that he is not alone and that the Lord has plans for him.

As Elijah learned, so must we.  The world is not a perfect place.  There is great pain and suffering.  People will hate one another and will hate us.  Death will intrude on a regular basis.  The forces of evil will seem insurmountable.  We will feel overwhelmed and want nothing more than to crawl into a hole and hide, as Elijah did.  But just when we think everything is bleak and all is lost, the Lord intrudes upon our wretched thoughts.  And just as He gave to Elijah, so too does God give us a mission.  Go forth, and change the world.  

We are to change the world by showing them that love is stronger than hate.  Love is stronger than hate.  We are not called to hide from the world, but to go out into the world and show everyone that love is stronger than hate.  That is the central tenant of our faith and we must not allow evil acts to make us afraid or deter us from our mission.  We are to show we are Christians by our love and by doing that, we will change the world.  

The psalmist knew this.  For even as he wrote the pleading words we have been discussing, he also wrote “The Lord grants his loving kindness in the daytime; in the night season his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”  God is with us, in daytime and nighttime, in good times and bad; he is that still small voice in the silence.  God will always be with us, and we will be his people as we show the world that love is the true essence of God.