The voice of silence

Green Bell, above Eden Valley.

1 Kings 19:11-12
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 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.

The spiritual journey downwards reveals God’s surprising word to us.

Let us go on a journey with Elijah the prophet.

It’s a journey every human being will need to make at some point or other.

It’s a journey that writer Richard Rohr calls ‘falling upward’, and it’s far from easy.

It’s a journey without geography, except the geography of the human soul, and it’s the most important journey we’ll ever make.

I don’t know if you’ve ever done something really heroic, and felt justifiably proud, only to come crashing down the other side?

On July 6 2005, Britain was riding high having just won the Olympic bid for London 2012 against stiff competition from Paris.

The great and glorious news was announced – Britain had won the Olympic bid.

Elated scenes in Trafalgar Square!

Cue cheering, screaming, hugging, jumping up and down.

Union Jack umbrellas, balloons and streamers.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, called it a ‘momentous day for Britain’.

We all felt wonderful; we felt proud; we felt elated.

Less than 24 hours later, London was plunged into terror and grief as we reeled from fatal attacks on the London Underground and bus that killed 52 innocent people.

A lot can happen in a day.

Elijah had reached perhaps the pinnacle of his spiritual achievements.

He had stood up to the threat from wicked King Ahab and his evil wife, Jezebel; he had proved with miraculous power even over weather, that the LORD was God, and not Ba’al.

He had been a faithful leader to Israel and zealous for Israel’s God.

But all it takes is 24 hours, a scary threat from Jezebel, and Elijah is on the journey down.

The great prophet of God, the confident man of faith turns on his heel and runs away.

‘He got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, and left his servant there (…) and went a day’s journey into the wilderness and sat down under a solitary broom tree.’

From hero to zero in three easy steps.

What has happened to Elijah the great prophet, the man full of righteous anger, the mighty instrument of God’s judgment?

He’s just discovered he’s human after all.

It seems to be our lot in life to have a trough after a peak.

To suffer gloom and boredom after joyful achievement.

Remember the disciples at the Transfiguration?

Coming off the mountaintop with the vision of Jesus fresh in our hearts, to the messy humanity at the bottom of the mountain– a child no one can heal?

Coming off the mountaintop always carries a strong health warning.

Bear Grylls, explorer and survival expert extraordinaire writes movingly of climbers he has known who have not survived Everest - the thing to note is that they nearly all died on the way down.

They conquered the summit, but lost it on the descent.

The descent in life is always a tough one.

The descent into mediocrity, the descent into losing capacity…

Elijah’s descent begins in fear and continues as he runs away from Mt. Carmel, scene of his spiritual triumph over the prophets of Ba’al, scene of his wonderful God-filled moment of victory.

After running, he is tired; he despairs and he falls asleep under a tree.

He is alone, he is depressed and he is exhausted.

Having experienced a spiritual peak on Mt Carmel, he is now on the way down, miles form everything familiar and in unchartered territory spiritually.

But unchartered territory spiritually is the best territory to be in for growth.

Perhaps even here we are learning (depending on how mature we are) that it is at our lowest, that God can be nearest.

Mercifully God knows we have also physical needs when we’re at our lowest ebb.

After sleeping, Elijah is refreshed by food that miraculously appears, twice, and an angel encourages him to eat his fill before continuing the journey to Mt. Horeb.

The angel doesn’t ask why he is going there (though well he might, and we might) – just that he eat enough for the arduous 40-day journey.

A 40-day journey from one mountain to another.

I expect human beings always discover something about themselves in the mountains.

40 is a biblical number for completeness – it’s as if Elijah is destined to wander in order to discover himself, as did the Israelites in the desert for 40 years.

This is Elijah on the way down.

For the first half of our lives we like to think we’re on the way up - upwardly mobile – acquiring qualifications, work experience, relationships, children, a house, etc.

There’s nothing wrong with these things; they’re markers of identity.

But eventually we have to ask ourselves who are we, on the inside.

This is the turning point of the journey of life, because if done truthfully, it requires us to be divested of our pretensions to status, pride and subtle one-up-man-ship.

Alain De Boton writes of ‘status anxiety’ and most of us suffer from it – even in the church.

We wonder who is more spiritual, more knowledgeable, more popular.

Who has the perfect family life, the better lifestyle, the longer lasting relationships.

Those of us with kids compare them to other people’s and either feel smug or panicked.

It would be better if we could accept ourselves with contentment.

The other side of status anxiety is pride.

If you’ve ever started to imagine yourself as more than you are; and then been brought up short, you’ll understand what taking a tumble feels like, pride-wise.

It feels like Elijah feels.

Elijah doesn’t know why he’s in a cave miles from anywhere and everyone.

He can’t even answer the question, ‘what are you doing here Elijah?’

A question God puts to him twice.

A question we could perhaps interpret as ‘what are you, here in this desert, Elijah?

This is the crux of falling upwards: we grow by having our false pretences stripped away.

As a once great prophet full of courage and purpose and spiritual power, Elijah doesn’t look much now.

An old man hiding in a cave, unable to answer the most basic question about himself.

Who are you?

What are you doing with your life?

It’s a question God asks us from time to time.

Who are you?

What are you doing with your life?

This is where the story gets mysterious.

This is where God appears in a surprise.

This is the famous part of the story, so you know it well.

Here at this moment of crisis for Elijah, God is about to pass by.

Here comes the great wind – splitting rocks, more powerful than anything you’ve ever imagined, a raging, hissing, destructive, terrible force of nature.

But God was not in the wind.

Here comes the earthquake – a hissing, boiling, splitting, shifting landslide of terror and awe.

But God was not in the earthquake.

And then the fire – roaring, consuming, raging, full of heat and light and acrid smoke.

But God was not in the fire.

Although God is often described like a fire, or like thunder, or like a rushing wind of Pentecost, it is God’s prerogative to be where God will be.

He does not dance to our tune.

He is the God of surprises.

We can’t assume we have God taped.

We can’t assume he does things the way we would.

How will God surprise you today?

Elijah’s surprise is what happens after the noise, after the rumpus, after the adrenalin fuelled activity and excitement.

Because surprisingly, God is in the ‘after whisper’.

God is in ‘the still small voice’; ‘the voice of silence’; ‘the voice of a thin, fine silence’; ‘the voice of fragile silence’ (however you translate it)*

In a week of violence and tragedy, with the Orlando gay club shootings and the violent death of a Leeds MP going about her daily constituency duties, the voice of silence is eloquent.

There are sometimes no words.

We do well to stop, to attend to how we conduct ourselves in public and in private; what violence we have in our own hearts, what prejudices we unknowingly harbour towards those who are very different from us.

Who vote differently, who love differently.

We do well to be silent in the face of our own manipulation of others with language, to get them to do what we want, or to endlessly justify ourselves.

We do well to listen again to the still small voice of God.

The smallness of the voice masks its power to speak the word of loving correction, to raise us up and set us on our feet again.

Or the voice can be a question.

What are you doing here?

After your job, or that role is no longer yours, after your charity work is done, after your parenting, your project, your directorships, at the end of everything, what are you?

What is your name?

(My name is Legion, for we are many).

In the silence, in the whisper of something utterly true about himself, Elijah meets God afresh.

In our quiet places of prayer, alone or together, God speaks something special and unique to each of us also, here and now.

Elijah’s journey was downwards, to littleness.

Ours is too.

Only after that journey did God re-instate him, with a fresh direction and fresh instructions.

He shows him his successor – always a sobering moment for anyone.

Elisha will be even more full of the Spirit than Elijah.

But we mustn’t compare.

The downwards journey to littleness is one all of us will make; some sooner than others.
It is of course the ultimate journey made by Jesus, in his Incarnation and eventual self giving on the cross.

As we leave Elijah at Mt Horeb, humbled and surprised, about to re-engage with the next phase of his life, we can ask for grace to look beyond the chatter, the contests, the spin, the prejudice, the comment, and to make room for the surprising, the very personal, the very quiet, the very life changing, word of God.

Amen.

* http://www.torahtrek.org/app-writings/writing-2 

(very helpful website re. translation of ‘still small voice’)

How to be humble

Luke 14: 'When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Jesus noticed things, people. He was a people watcher. He describes here a familiar setting - a celebration meal. We all have a sense of who the important ones are at a formal, or even informal meal, in any given social setting, even if we think status doesn't matter any more these days. Yes, we have Twitter, where you can message your favourite author or celebrity in the hope they will respond, but mostly, the more well known they are the less likely that is to happen.

At my school (all girls, fee paying, 1980s) status mattered. The Head had status. She had 'presence'. She ate lunch with a different table of 'gells' every week on the dining hall. Obviously, she took the top table, on the dais, and the 'top' seat on that table. If it was your turn to sit next to her you had to accord her the proper status while she complained about Elton John ('isn't he the one who writes everything in C?') and telepathically expected things to be passed her (salt, jug of water) at just the right moment without her having to ask for them. It always gave me indigestion.

Status is not dead. Alain de Botton writes (status) 'anxiety is provoked by, among other elements, recession, redundancy, promotions, retirement, conversations with colleagues in the same industry, newspaper profiles of the prominent and the greater success of friends'. I only have to think about colleagues who have finished their Curacies already while I trudge into year four and at least three more 6 hour training days, plus paperwork, and I break out in a cold sweat...

Jesus 'noticed' how guests subtly chose the places of honour and of course he wants reversal, in his inimitable way (you can see why he made enemies amongst the religious status holders...) Aim for the lowest place and you will be moved higher, maybe. We all want to be noticed, to count. Who can think of someone who's so secure in their identity that they can be said to be truly humble? It's difficult. Rev. Angela Butler, a colleague on our Team, who passed away in the Spring, was such a person. She was ready and willing to serve the church as a single woman three decades before women could be ordained, but she never complained about her apparent lack of status; instead she waited patiently until the Church came round to the idea. She served by making others feel good about themselves and by underplaying her own talents and her vast experience of ministry. Other people, ordinary people, genuinely interested her - she was constantly amazed, like a child, by the ordinary situations where she perceived something extraordinary to be a work.

Is humility a spiritual issue? 'Humus', from which we get 'humility', means earth.

When you're earthed, you know who you are and you understand your status before God, others and self. The earth is good. The earth IS. By chance we sang 'For the Beauty of the earth' as we considered this passage in church: I like the version which uses the tune 'As with Gladness', particularly as Beth Nielsen Chapman sings it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAf_FsS0YFM (it's really beautiful, especially the key change...)

If your view of reality is as forgiven person, reliant on God, it's refreshing not to have to grab onto personal status. Who we are counts before what what we do. A completely counter cultural way of looking at life. When my maternal grandpa died a prayer was discovered in his desk. It surprised the family - he did not come across as an especially religious man. It was entitled: 'A Prayer for Humility':

'Lord, keep me from becoming talkative and possessed with the idea that I must express myself on every subject.

Release me from the craving to straighten out everyone's affairs.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong. 

Make me helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of knowledge and experience it does seem a pity not to use it all.

But Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.'

Amen.