Be Still: Part III – Dealing with the Noise1 Kings 19:9-13
09/22/13
After being still and celebrating 111 years of ministry
in this place at Homecoming we come back to the third part of this sermon
series. Let’s do a quick wrap up of
where we are in this series. In the
first sermon I talked about being still.
We have a lot of movement, chaos, stuff to do in life and it is
important to find time to be still. In
Psalm 46:10, it says, “Be still and know that I am God.” In our happiest times and in our hardest
times in life we need to find time to be still so we can feel God in our
midst. We passed out some of these
devotionals and you can still pick some up if you haven’t already. The challenge was to find 10 minutes a day to
be still with God for 28 days. Then in
week two we talked about the Knowing and No-ing. If we want to really get to know God we have
to be able to make him a priority. We
may have to learn to say no in order to say yes to build a deeper relationship
with God. But life can get in the
way. The demands of life can be too much
and we need to remind ourselves and practice stepping back, like Jesus does, to
find time to be still with God.
Today we are talking about dealing with the noise. Life has lots of noise, pressure, fear, and
angst. Our struggle is finding time to
be still when life seems to be in panic mode.
For inspiration we hear the story of Elijah. Now you probably have heard of Elijah
before. He was one of the greatest
prophets in Israel’s history. He did
many miraculous things but he also never died.
Instead, when he found a predecessor in Elisha, a chariot of fire came
between Elijah and Elisha and Elijah was taken up into heaven in a world wind. In Malachi it is said that Elijah would
return before the great day of the Lord.
This is why when John the Baptist and Jesus come on the scene people are
wondering if they are actually Elijah who has come back. Elijah is also one of the three people at Jesus’
transfiguration. You had Jesus, Moses
and Elijah that appeared to the three disciples, Peter, James and John.
But today we are going to talk about Elijah running in
fear. When we meet him in 1 Kings 19:9
he is hiding in the wilderness from the Queen Jezebel. Jezebel was not a fan of the prophets of
God. She had killed hundreds of them and
Elijah was the only one left. Elijah
really makes her mad in chapter 18. In
that chapter Elijah comes out and challenges the prophets of Baal to a duel of
some sort. He comes up with test to see
which God is better, Baal or the God of Israel.
Here are the rules of the challenge: they will each prepare an altar and
slaughter a bull on it. Usually they
would light a fire and sacrifice these animals as burnt offerings to their gods
but Elijah tells them that they should see which God provides the fire.
There were 450 prophets of Baal verses Elijah in this
showdown. The prophets of Baal construct
their altar, slaughter the bull, and start calling on Baal to send down
fire. They do this from morning to midday
and nothing happens. They start dancing
around to provoke Baal but nothing happens.
At this point Elijah starts talking some smack. He says, “Shout Louder! Certainly he’s a god! Perhaps he is lost in thought or wandering
(relieving himself), or traveling somewhere.
Or maybe he is asleep and must wake up!”
Where is your God? Using the
bathroom? On vacation? Sleeping in?
The prophets then start shouting louder and cutting themselves with
swords and knives to show their devotion to Baal. The scripture says, “Their blood flowed all
over them.” What a scene. What an image. These prophets shouting, dancing, and running
around covered in their own blood. But
Baal never comes. Their turn is over.
Elijah steps up and creates an altar and then digs a
trench around it. He sacrifices his bull
and gets ready to pray to God to send fire.
Instead though he tells some people to get four jars of water and pour
it on the altar. They do and then he
tells them to do it two more times.
There is so much water on the altar that it is dripping off it, all over
the ground, and the water has filled up the trench he dug around it. Elijah is making sure everyone knows how
powerful Israel God, Yahweh, is. If God
sends down fire on this then there is no doubt who’s God is more powerful.
Elijah starts to pray and sure enough God sends down
fire. 1 Kings 18:38 says, “Then the
Lord’s fire fell; it consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the
dust. It even licked up the water in the
trench! That is the God of Israel! That is the God we worship! Ahab, the king of Israel, sees this and
understands how powerful God is and Elijah takes the prophets of Baal and has
them all killed. Then he goes to the top
of a mountain and through prayer and conversation with God he ends the 3 year
drought by making it finally rain.
Elijah is on fire for God. He is
doing everything right. He is showing
the people there who God is. In fact
that is his name. Elijah means “My God
is Yahweh.” He is living out his namesake.
But then Jezebel hears what happened. Her husband, Ahab the King, reports what
Elijah has done, the fire from heaven and the killing of the prophets. She is REALLY upset. She sends a message to Elijah, “May the gods
do whatever they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life
like the life of one of them.” What a
great line. Hollywood couldn’t write a
better line. “May the gods do whatever
they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life like the life
of one of them.” I can just see Walter
White using that line. It scares Elijah
and Elijah does what comes naturally to us all when faced with the reality of
death. He runs, he runs, and he runs
some more.
When we find him in verse 9 he has been living in the wilderness for a while and being fed by angels every morning. When he is refreshed he walks for 40 days and 40 nights until he gets to Mount Horeb, or as it is also known, Mt. Sinai, or God’s Mountain. Remember what happened on this mountain? God gave Moses the Law. It is here that Moses and God talked, interacted and God. In the midst of Elijah’s fear he runs to meet God. He crawls into a cave and God comes to him and asks, “Why are you here, Elijah?”
Have you ever had any moment like that in your life? You are scared to death about the next step. You know a decision has to be made. You know you are standing on one of those life moments and you know that after this moment life will never be the same. Fear consumes you. Your heart is beating so hard your hair feels like it is keeping time. Elijah is having one of these moments and God asks him, “Why are you here?”
I never wanted to be a preacher. I know I have mentioned this before but I
attempted to be in ministry in about any other way except to preach every
week. I went to college thinking I would
be a Christian Camp Director. But after
one semester I realize that wasn’t the case.
In seminary I did five field education placements, internships. I did some in the local church but I really
pushed myself to do some in chaplaincy, thinking that is where God may be
calling me. In my second year at Duke I
worked with Partners in Caring which was a ministry with HIV/AIDS patients at
Duke University Hospital and the surrounding counties. I loved it but at the end of the semester I
came to a realization.
After each semester was over, after my last exam, I would
always walk out of the Divinity School and into Duke Chapel. If you have never been there you should. It is an amazingly beautiful and enormous
space. You are surrounded by gorgeous
stain glass windows and it reminds you how big God is. I remember sitting there, in the quiet, being
still, wrestling with the fact that I knew God wanted me to preach. I knew after that internship with Partners in
Caring that chaplaincy wasn’t my calling.
Directing a camp wasn’t my calling.
Youth and Children’s Ministry wasn’t my calling. In my heart of hearts I knew what God wanted
me to do and in that pew in Duke Chapel I finally agreed. I had run in every direction I knew and it
all kept leading me back to the same place.
There is a story of another minister in our conference
who ran from his calling most of his youth and adulthood. He knew God was asking him to be a
pastor. Yet he got his education in
something else. He took a job making
good money in something else besides ministry.
Then one day at a bar he was thinking over a glass of beer. It was a revelation, life decision
moment. In his heart and soul he heard
God ask him, “Why are you here?” He had
attempted to run but in the end he ran straight into God’s awaiting hands.
Maybe you are running today. You are running from some trouble in your
life. Maybe you are running from a
specific person. Maybe you are simply
running from doing what you know you should be doing. Your heart and soul are screaming at you but
you are trying to run to keep it quiet.
You surround yourself with all the noise in life, the running we all do
in life to deafen that voice that calls out to us within ourselves. Maybe you are running today.
Elijah was running.
He shows up at God’s mountain and God wonders why he is there. He just proved that Yahweh was bigger than
Baal. He had just made it rain where it
hadn’t in three years. He was on the top
of this game and then Jezebel threatens him and he runs. Sometimes we see all the good we are doing
and the difference we are making in the world and the one thing we focus on is
the one bad thing someone says. Now for
Elijah Jezebel was a real threat. She had
killed all the other prophets of God and Elijah was the last one. But if God would send fire and rain down from
the sky, would he let Jezebel take him out?
How quickly our faith disappears when trouble hits.
As Elijah sits there in the presence of God, God tells
him to prepare himself because he is coming by.
Elijah does and a very strong wind blows by but God is not in the
wind. Then an earthquake comes but God
isn’t in the earthquake. Then a fire
rolls in but God is not in the fire. As
one commentary I read this week put it, “Earthquake, wind and fire are natural
forces associated with God’s appearance on earth. God is not found in any of these natural
forces, however; they only precede God’s coming.
Where is God found?
I love the phrasing in the Common English Bible. It says in verse 12, “After the fire, there
was a sound. Thin. Quiet.” That is where God was in the midst of the
thin and quiet. You see when life throws
us earthquakes, fires, and winds we have this notion that we can do it on our
own. We think we have enough in us to
make it through anything. We can
accomplish it all but in reality we can’t.
So we fight through the storms of life.
We put up with all the noise until finally we can’t do it any
longer. Then in our moment of stillness
we hear the thin and quiet voice of God.
When we hear that voice we look up and realize we are
surrounded by God’s grace, enveloped by his love and that all this running has
lead us right to what we were running from.
God doesn’t ridicule us, shame us, or belittle our running. God doesn’t mock us like Elijah did to the
prophets of Baal. God simply asks, like
a tender-hearted father, “Why are you here?”
Take a moment in this holy place today to be still in
front of God. Take a moment to stop
running and stop thinking you can do it all on your own. Let’s stop this morning so the noise passes
by and we can hear the thin, quiet voice of God. “Why are you here today?” “What are you here?”
[silence]
God is in the thin.
God is found in the quiet.
And all God’s people said. Amen.
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