Christianity is many things, but contrary to what some false teachers today might tell you, it’s not and has never been a religion that claims that good things will happen to good people or that we get what we deserve. No, it’s far too realistic about both the world and the human condition for that. The question for us isn’t whether we’ll experience or witness bad things in our lives, but what we do with them and how we bring them to God. Do we defend everything as an expression of God’s will? Do we rail against God for the ‘problem of evil’? Or do we do something else? A few years ago now, I tackled this question in my series Theology from under the Rubble, by exploring how several figures from throughout the centuries managed things like invasions, systemic racism, Fascism, Communism, societal moral failure, and severe illness from a perspective of faith. But our Old Testament reading for today, the famous story of Elijah and the ‘still small voice’, looks at the question from the opposite direction: How might God respond to our times of crisis?
Elijah’s journey in 1 Kings is a strange one. Unquestionably a great prophet of God, he is nonetheless portrayed a bit ambivalently. His story comes to a head when he undertakes a one-man religious war against Queen Jezebel’s god Ba’al and his priests and prophets. After a moment of greatest success — he calls down lightning from heaven to defeat Ba’al’s priests in a heavenly battle of the gods — his victory is short-lived and he finds himself on the run. (Shockingly, the queen did not take kindly to her god’s priests being publicly embarrassed, then executed.)
This brings us to today’s reading. Elijah escapes Jezebel’s forces and flees to Mount Horeb. There, he receives a word from God. And what is Elijah’s first reaction to this? He complains.:
The word of the LORD came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ (19.9-10)
Despite being a powerful prophet, Elijah comes across as pretty unheroic here. He responds to his personal crisis and religious and political setbacks by whining to God and justifying himself. I don’t say this to ridicule him, because, let’s face it, he reacts just like most of us would. Our first response to any sort of reversal is to cite everything we did right, as though to make a case that things should have gone differently. The divine visitor (likely envisioned as an angel, since angels were believed to be ‘words’ of God) tells him in response, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
What happens next is unexpected:
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 and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (19.11-13)
From the story of the Bible until this point, one might expect, like Elijah clearly did, for God to come in a grand gesture of power. After all, this is the God who sent the plagues to Egypt, who led Israel out of captivity in a pillar of smoke and fire, whose Spirit empowered judges and kings to wreak havoc on enemy armies, and who had answered Elijah’s prayers to send fire from heaven to defeat Ba’al’s priests. But here the story starts to change — not just for Elijah, but for the whole biblical tradition. God does not appear in the earth-shattering wind storm. Nor does God appear in the earthquake. Nor does God appear in the fire. Where God appears is in the sound of silence, the ‘still small voice’:
Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ (19.13-14)
None of these wonders — the wind, the quake, the fire, the voice of God — is enough to get Elijah out of his head and out of his feelings. He immediately jumps back into his litany of complaints, his well-worn cognitive ruts and automatic negative thoughts: ‘Look at all the things I did for you and now I’m alone and being hunted down.’
God’s answer is again surprising “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.” This is where today’s assigned reading ends, but God’s speech goes on:
Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.’ (19.16-18)
What is God’s response? Essentially, God tells Elijah to dust himself off and get back to work — his real work, which is not to fight a holy war, but the simple work of identifying and blessing those God has chosen to lead Israel and its neighbours. History will continue — the religious and political wrangling in Israel will continue. But so will God’s work. It’s not up to Elijah to do it all. He has a part to play — a small and quiet part to be sure, but a part nonetheless. The rest isn’t for him. The speech ends with words that are both reassuring but also point out the hyperbole of Elijah’s distorted thinking. Far from being alone, there are still over seven thousand faithful in Israel.
So what might all of this say to us, in those times when it seems like the world is falling down around us, whether personally or in the world at large? God’s message to Elijah was simply this: Settle down. Feel your feelings, but drop whatever story you’re telling yourself about them. Then pick yourself up and get down to business and do the simple work before you. And if that’s true for Elijah — a prophet of God — how much more is true for those of us with humbler callings? The real work isn’t to be found in the grand gestures, but in the still small work of every day life. And no matter how lonely that work may feel, we are not alone. All is not lost.
It was a message Elijah needed to hear and I think it’s an important one for us to hear too.
May the God revealed not in elemental power but in the peace of silence be with us all and lead us on to persist in the simple work of love before us ever day. Amen.
Matthew Root 