Elijah Meets God at Horeb

1st Kings 19: 8-15, OT page 326 He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then 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 alters, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away.” The word of the Lord 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. 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?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your alters, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.” Sermon Over the past few weeks we have been reading about Elijah, and just last Sunday was the story of Elijah’s great triumph over the priests of Baal. It was a dramatic contest, two alters with a bull on each alter, wood piled up around. The god who answered by fire would be recognized as the true god of Israel, so the priests of Baal numbering 450 called out to heaven for their god to light the wood of their alter. When no fire came Elijah began to taunt them – “Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is asleep and must be awakened.” At that the priests tried harder to gain Baal’s attention, cutting themselves with swords and lances until blood gushed out over them, but “there was no voice, no answer, and no response.” Then Elijah, greatly outnumbered, has the wood surrounding his alter soaked with water three times, then he calls out, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you O Lord, are God.” And whereas Baal remained silent, even as his priests mutilated themselves before his alter, at the words of Elijah fire poured down from heaven consuming “the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water.” Now after such an incredible triumph you might expect Elijah to reap the reward due to God’s faithful servant. Instead, not long after the sacrifice burns Elijah flees for his life as the evil Queen Jezebel plots to kill him. Sometimes that is the way it is – the reward you expect is not always the reward you receive. That was the case for a fine man named Roy. Roy is a member of Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, the last church I served, and when I saw him last Tuesday at a funeral I remembered a story about him. Despite the 50 years difference in our ages, Roy and I formed a close relationship and hit it off right away, shortly after finding out that we had both attended the same college in South Carolina. After serving in World War 2 Roy was invited to play tennis there at Presbyterian College, and after playing for four years there, shortly after graduation he was invited to contribute financially to the tennis program, which he did faithfully. One year, in addition to the financial request, Roy received a letter inviting him up to Presbyterian College to celebrate his many years of faithful contributions at the ribbon cutting for the new tennis courts. Roy was excited to attend, and as he drove up to Clinton, South Carolina his mind wandered about what this might be all about. He had after all contributed to the program faithfully for nearly 50 years. He had been a better than average tennis player in his day. And they were opening up these brand new tennis courts that would be requiring a name – why the Roy Brown Tennis Complex didn’t sound too bad now did it? Somewhat excitedly he approached the ceremony, took his seat, and when his name was called to come forward to be recognized he accepted his Presbyterian College coffee mug proudly. Sometimes that is the way it is – the reward you expect is not always the reward you receive. So even after his extreme display of faith and courage in soundly defeating the priests of Baal and doing his very best to turn the hearts of the people of Israel back to the one true God, Elijah sat down under a solitary broom tree after his first day on the run for his life. Then he asked God that he might die saying, “It is enough; now O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” An angel woke him up after he had fallen asleep to feed him a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. Then after sleeping the angel of the Lord came a second time bringing food and said, “get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, ate and drank; “then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.” Not one bit of this sounds quite like a pat on the back, and given the choice between the cake baked on hot stones and glass of water or a coffee mug from Presbyterian College, I think I’d take the coffee mug. Elijah is not being rewarded or encouraged, and surely he must have been wondering where this God who was so present back on Mount Carmel, even raining down fire on his sacrifice, had gone off to. Now it was not Baal who seemed to be sleeping or off on a journey but God. You may know the feeling. God seems particularly absent in the moments following God’s intense presence. But that is the way it is with everything. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote: “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” but those who have had love fill up an empty space now know that space to have been empty and feel that empty space profoundly when the one the one who filled it up is gone. The man who once had use of two good hands is forever haunted by the memory of their use when one hand is lost, and all those who have been healthy and strong long for those better days as aches and pains pile up, because they know it has not always been this way. Those who have never known these things – while they may suffer from the absence just the same – the frustration is different because you can’t mourn the loss of something that you never knew. So I’m not as frustrated by political correctness – I never knew a time when school began with prayer. I don’t feel stifled by a culture that seems to many to be almost hostile to religion because the only culture that I have ever known has celebrated Santa Clause at Christmas while hardly mentioning Jesus and has tried it’s best to keep religion out of public life. For as long as I have been alive the separation between church and state has been an insurmountable chasm that I don’t resent because it’s always been there. But I understand how those of you who knew how it used to be would grow frustrated, just as Elijah must have felt terribly alone there in that solitary cave because he had only just seen God so powerfully present. He must have wondered then – if God can rain down fire why can’t God stop Jezebel from hunting me down like an animal? If God can rain down fire than why can’t God provide me with a decent bed to sleep in? If God can rain down fire then why has God gone and left me all alone? Then 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.” Then the word of the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then “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 came 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.” Now God had come before in the wind – blowing back the sea so that the people, led by Moses, might cross over on dry land as they fled from Egypt – but God was not in the wind. God had come before in an earthquake; in the earthquake that swallowed up a group of men seeking to corrupt the people with their idolatry, then again God used an earthquake to strike fear into the Philistine army during war – but this time God was not in the earthquake. And God had come before in fire – and Elijah had seen it first hand as fire rained down from heaven on the sacrifice back at Mount Carmel, and while God had been there, now God was not in the fire. This time God was in the sound of sheer silence, but would you have recognized God there? I heard a story about a man who lost his sight, and not being able to see would often find himself unable to locate certain things in new places. In a new hotel room he was not able to find the phone because the phone was not on the coffee table where he expected it to be, but in a little alcove above the couch, a place he had never imagined a phone would be. The greatest challenge of losing his sight, he said, is that if you make the mistake in the mental image of your surroundings, you get stuck inside the mistake. So if you have never imagined that a phone could be in an alcove you will be without a phone though it is right there. And if you have never imagined that God could be present in silence – if in your experience you have only known God to be present in wind, earthquakes, and fire – then you will not recognize God in the silence because you are stuck inside your mental image of who God is. When what you expected to happen doesn’t happen. When your body or your life changes in ways you did not ever expect them to change. When the world that you grew up in no longer looks like the world that you remember. When God is no longer present the way God used to be present – does that mean that God is absent? I tell you it is a strange thing our culture. There are fights about all kinds of things, and it’s not easy for me to tell which fights are worth fighting and which ones aren’t. But of this I am absolutely sure – just because God changed, that did not mean that God had left Elijah alone. And just because our culture has changed, our lives change, things will never change so much that God will cease being God or that God will leave you and this creation behind. You must expect God to be at work in new ways. For while Elijah ran back to the mountain where God had been most powerfully present in the history of his people, he was not called to minister where God had once been but where God would be. Go – go back to the wilderness of Damascus Elijah, for the Lord has work for you to do there. Look – look at the world around you and do not be surprised to see God at work in new ways, for God will always be at work and is never far in times of trouble. And hold fast – for while things change, life changes, bodies change and even fade away – while God may change and while God may be at work in you and new and different ways, God will never fade away. Amen.