All The Unexpected Places--August 18, 2023

All The Unexpected Places--August 18, 2023

"He said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass 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 and 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 and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.  Then there came a voice to him that said, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'" [1 Kings 19:11-13]

God is everywhere, that much is surely true.  And yet it takes a certain kind of vision--what we usually call "faith"--to recognize God in the places that don't seem majestic... or marvelous... or mighty.  Anybody can look at a mountain and say, "That is so big and grand--it makes me think that God is big and grand, too."  Anybody can look at a glorious sunrise as the glowing orb of the dawning sun scatters pinks and oranges and purples across the blues of the fading night, and conclude, "A beautiful God has created such beauty."  Those are all true and lovely observations, but they are also pretty slow and easy pitches right across the plate.

It is harder, however, to recognize God's presence in the ICU waiting room, as nervous relatives pace and sit in awkward silence over bad vending machine coffee, waiting for news and fearing to hear it when it actually comes.

It is more difficult to sense God in a jail cell, or in the rubble where your bombed out village was when the invading army attacked, or in the uncomfortable quiet before an intervention for a family member who is drinking themselves to death.

And in a culture obsessed with "winning" and "greatness" it is hard to spot God among the losers (or--gasp!--as a loser with nail marks on his hands), the left-out, and the least.

We tend to want our deities to show up in obvious ways: with power and glory, and a side of shock and awe.  A God who makes an entrance with a whirlwind, or an earthquake, or a fire would command respect and impress the neighbors. But Elijah has been given the peculiar kind of vision that comes with faith, and he knows to recognize God in all the least-likely, most unexpected places where respectable deities don't even bother making an appearance. Elijah's God--and ours--has never needed to impress, and so has never been afraid of leaving behind the special effect and CGI and just comes to be with us in silence.

I'm convinced that's because God is less interested in "wowing" us than in loving us, and because God isn't trying to kindle fear in us but to call forth faith in us.  And when you are acting out of love, you don't really care whether anybody else thinks you are foolish, silly, weak, or a "loser." You just care about meeting the ones you care about right where they are, just as they are. That's why God shows up where Elijah needs him--in the sound of sheer silence, and then with a voice that asks question rather than shouting slogans or barking orders.  

So God meets Elijah where the poor prophet's weary heart needs God to be--in silence, smallness, and weakness.  And for Elijah's part, Elijah dares to believe that God is meeting him there, rather than in all the overtly obvious places that speak of power and majesty, like a wind, an earthquake, or a fire.  God is reaching out to Elijah without the pomp and circumstance everyone expects for the divine, and without leading some heavenly military parade to intimidate the fearful prophet into getting back to work.  But rather God meets Elijah after all the hullaballoo has come and gone--in the stillness. That's a mark of love, I think. Anger needs to throw plates at the wall or kick the furniture (or if you're God, lob a lightning bolt).  Grief needs to scream sometimes.  But compassion is able to enter a situation in quiet, because the quiet allows for listening--and sometimes the other person in the room (or cave, in this story) needs to speak.  God creates a point in time and space where it is quiet enough for Elijah to say what he needs to say, because God cares for Elijah.  Love doesn't always need to go banging around on the pots and pans to get our attention; love can show up without fanfare in the silence.

And Elijah has trust enough to see that silence as a gift of grace.  He has trained his peculiar vision of faith so that he knows how to interpret the silence after the noisy things have passed.  When it gets quiet, Elijah believes that it doesn't mean God has left and Elijah's missed his chance to say what he needs to say; rather, he believes the silence is God's gift and that God is inviting him into the conversation.  And when even the silence itself isn't enough to prompt Elijah to vent what he has to vent, the voice comes with the invitation, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  like a nudge to him that it's now time for him to unburden himself.  God creates the gift of a safe space for Elijah to pour out all that he's been keeping in.  And Elijah recognizes by faith what God is doing.

A great deal of the Christian faith is that kind of learning how to recognize God's presence in all the unexpected places: in silence rather than noise, in weakness rather than in shows of brute force and raw power, in listening rather than in barking threats or issuing decrees, in the nail-wounds of someone on a cross rather than in the proud mockery of the ones with the hammer.  But once we realize that God approaches us in utter love, we begin to see that God really is everywhere--even in places a respectable deity wouldn't be caught dead, like a borrowed grave outside Jerusalem for a couple of days one weekend.  Today, then, our task is to learn (or keep learning) to see faith as more than just reciting the approved set of theological propositions, but rather as the practice of learning to see God at work, even where we least expect.

Where might God meet you today?

Lord God, give us the eyes and the vision to see you where you are reaching out to meet us.