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