Where God Is, Where God Isn't 6.23.19

Where God Is, Where God Isn’t

A Sermon on 1 Kings 19:1-15

By Griff Martin

For the Second Sunday Following Pentecost (June 23, 2019)

To the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of your presence here in this space and in these words God, for if we are present to you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter. Amen.

Teaching my kids to swim has been one of the great parental joys in my life – moments I will never forget. For a lot of reasons. First, it is sharing one of my very favorite experiences with them. I love being in the water; you know it’s my personal theology that any chance you pass up on swimming might be the unpardonable sin. 

I also think swimming is close to prayer. For the briefest time, you are suspended between two worlds: water and land, sacred and ordinary.  

It’s as spiritual as it gets for me. 

Which adds to moments like this: Once I had Blake hanging on my shoulders while we went to the deeper end of the pool. We would go under the water, swim a bit, come up, and so forth. Once we got to the middle of the pool and in some of the deeper water, Blake with her arms wrapped around me said, “Dad. I don’t know how we got here, but I know this: I don’t like it. Take me back to that safe end where I can stand.” It’s a prayer that I have prayed many times in my life: God, take me back to the safe places that I know all too well. Don’t challenge me or change me.

Or with Jude when he was learning – every time we took off with his kicking board, he grabbed my hand and said, “Dad, promise me that you are never going to let go of me, but that we are always going to be together out there.” It’s another prayer that I pray often: God, let me know that we are in this together. 

Isn’t that one of our deepest needs as people, to know that we are not in this alone? That there are others in this with us, that we don’t have to do it alone? Is this not maybe the most prayed prayer in our world? Study after study continues to show us that even if we are the most connected people and have more technology to network and link us, we are the loneliest human beings of all times. Medical professionals have labeled this a loneliness epidemic. Almost 50% of us report to feeling lonely more often than not, and this is taking its toll on us as human beings. 

Which means this Old Testament text this morning is Gospel for us this day. Today’s text is about the promise of God that we don’t have to go alone. But I think the text is more than just that promise; I think it’s an incredible testimony to the character of God, the ever presence of God.

Which is a bit problematic, because I think this text is typically preached in such a way, we miss that. Sadly, it’s the character of God who often gets missed in the preaching of this text, and that is somewhat understandable. God is up against a pretty big character in this story, Elijah. He’s the closest thing we have in the Old Testament to a Biblical superhero. 

He can literally make it rain. He can call down fire. Animals respond to his voice and command. He takes on just about anyone who gets in his path. As one preacher says of Elijah, “There is more drama in the story of Elijah than of almost any other Biblical character.”

If we were telling this story in present day, Elijah would be the guy we all know from the gym. You know, the guy who loads as many weights as he can on the chest press bar and makes enough noise for everyone to notice that he just set a personal record and did not even really break a sweat. Only Elijah would be that guy, and we would all like him. Essentially, he’s The Rock. He was one of a kind. 

But make no mistake: this is not his story; this is God’s story. And we can’t overlook God in this story, because if we do, we miss something really important. 

For instance, when we preach this text, we often make God silent. And that is what a lot of sermons on this text are all about, the silence of God and how to experience the silence. And I confess to having preached that sermon before, but today I think the text is more than that.

I do believe in the silence of God and I think the silence of God is one of the most important spiritual disciplines that we have. If someone looked at my toolbox of spiritual disciplines and said, “You can only keep one,” I don’t know what I would keep: the discipline of reading, or of silence. Silence is one of the most needed virtues in our lives today; I just think there are better places to preach that message (Psalm 46:10, for instance), be still and know that I am God. Or Jesus’ 30 years of silence in the Gospels. 

Or Thomas Merton, the Desert Mothers, Teresa of Avila. 

Not Elijah. 

I mean, in this morning’s text, we have God speaking at least four times. So, it’s hard to say that God is silent.

Look at the text: “Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” (vs 9). Verse 11: “He (God) said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’” Then we have an earthquake, a wind, a fire, and then sheer silence. And then verse 13: God speaks again, “What are you doing here Elijah?” Elijah answers, “Go return on your way (and further instructions)”

It’s hard to preach a sermon on the silence of God when God’s voice is all over the place. 

Let’s try this from that angle – We have Elijah, our biblical hero, but in the midst of a rough patch. He’s worn down and he’s depressed (depression is not new to us). He wants to die; he wants to be done with this life. However, this is not what God wants.

So, he runs, and God does not let him run off and starve. He feeds him. And Elijah keeps running. He gets to Mount Horeb, a most known location – a thin place if there ever was one. A place where God has showed up before. A place where one might anticipate God’s presence.

And when he gets there, God asks him what he is doing there. Elijah’s calling is not out here in the middle of the desert; God has called him to a different ministry. But God sees this depressed and worn out man, and God wants to be present with him.

So, God tells Elijah to go stand at the mouth of the cave because he is going to pass by. And do you know what Elijah does? Nothing. This is really important, and we can’t afford to miss it. God commands Elijah to go stand on the mountain, but Elijah does not even go to the mouth of the cave until after the wind, earthquake, fire, and silence. To be franker, Elijah disobeys. 

Go stand on the mountain, I am going to pass by… and Elijah stays in the back of the cave. 

Which means, maybe we need to question the phrase that is continually repeated here in the text, “but the Lord was not in.” How does Elijah know the Lord was not in those things? He was not there to experience it. He was back in the comfort of the cave. So maybe the Lord was in those things, Elijah just missed it.

And we can’t blame Elijah. How many times have you and I missed God? 

Think about the life of Elijah. Elijah leads a big life, so earthquakes, fire, and storms are nothing to him. His life is a summer blockbuster full of explosions and action, so these big events are commonplace to him. 

Silence, quiet. This is not common to him. This calls to him. 

I think God begins with the noises Elijah is most used to in his life and then changes strategy and tries the noise (or lack of) that Elijah never gets, but so badly needs and possibly wants. 

Which to me sounds just like someone who loves us. Start with the familiar, start with the comfortable, and then work to find other ways to get your attention. 

And it works. In the silence, God finally gets Elijah’s attention. Elijah leaves the safety of the cave and goes to hear and experience God. 

So, what does this story give us? This story gives us a God who so badly wants to speak to us, to be present with us, to get our attention, to let us know that God is present, to be here with us. A God who often begins with the very language we best understand. In this story, we encounter a God who wants to be encountered and wants to be known. 

A God who makes spaces for us to hear in both noise and silence. 

A God who wants to get our attention. 

Our only job is to stand on the mountain and be ready. 

Be ready, for God is about to be present. 

And we don’t want to miss that moment.

Back to the swimming pool. Once after a full day of swimming, we stopped to have a picnic dinner and then we let the kids swim a bit longer. I did not feel like getting in the pool with Blake. I was planning on siting by the edge and letting her play in the shallow end – to have a bit of relaxation. But as soon as I sat down, she walked over to the edge and said, “Daddy get in.” I explained that my legs were in. Her reply: “That doesn’t count. I need you all the way in the water with me Daddy.” And how do you deny that?

We have a God who is all the way in the water with us, we just often miss it. 

God is so present in this story, trying to get Elijah’s attention and being present to Elijah.

And then go to the New Testament, where we have the story of Incarnation, of God becoming present to us in human form to get our attention.

Or listen to Richard Rohr describing this in his new book The Universal Christ. The sentence that has captured me and I personally think might be the most beautiful sentence ever: God loves things by becoming them. 

John’s Gospel: “And the Word became flesh and lives among us, and we have seen his glory.”

Or Luke’s Gospel, where Jesus travels all the way by boat to the Gerasene demoniacs home in the graves, is present with this man, heals this man only, and then heads back across the shore. A long journey to be present to one damaged soul. 

And even after the Resurrection, God sends God’s spirit, to continue getting our attention and being present to us. 

From Luke’s Gospel: “I will pour out my spirit among all flesh.” It’s the very season of Pentecost we are living in this day and moment. 

God is present among us.

God is still speaking to us. 

We just need to get our hearts in a place where we can receive, listen, and experience. To move from the safe places to the mouth of the cave. To be constantly aware. To understand that we have a God who wants to create space for us to be with God. 

A God who loves us so much that God wants to be in the water with us – all the way. 

One famous preacher concluded his sermon on this text with these words: “God wasn’t in the sound bites; God was in the silent bites.” 

That preacher had it wrong: God was in both. God always is. 

We just need to learn to look and listen always. If God is always present, then we should be, too. Amen and Amen.

*artwork: The Prophet Elijah in the Desert, by Dieric Bouts the Elder, 1464