The Thin Silence
By Caroline Dean
August 12, 2012
1 Kings 19
retelling of 1 Kings 19:
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Elijah
had a bad day. The morning started off great, Elijah faced off with the
prophets of Baal in a contest of “set this altar on fire with lightning to prove
that your god exists” and Elijah won! But Queen Jezebel found out about
Elijah's victory and she sends her best henchmen after Elijah to kill him
sending Elijah into the wilderness to escape her wrath. And so Elijah ends up
crashing from exhaustion under a solitary broom tree (which is just as lonely
as he is). And Elijah falls asleep with the resolution that it would be okay
if his life ended right then and there. After his greatest shining moment he
sinks into despair. And then after he sleeps for a bit, an angel taps Elijah
on the shoulder and provides him with food and water. And Elijah eats and
falls back into a deep sleep. And this happens another time, an angel taps
Elijah on the shoulder and says “eat
and drink – you need this to sustain you on your journey.” Which
would be true; Elijah journeyed in the wilderness for forty days and forty
nights (sound familiar?). And finally Elijah arrived at his destination. He
comes to Mount Horeb, The place where Moses
received the Ten Commandments.
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Now,
if I am travelling with Elijah, I'm thinking that climbing a side of the
mountain is the last thing that we want to be doing right now, since neither of
us have eaten in 40 days. But that is exactly what Elijah does, climbs the
mountain and finds a cave and he sleeps there that night. Elijah is woken from
his sleep that night by a voice saying, “What are you doing here Elijah?” It
would be awesome if Elijah said… “umm sleeping?” But
instead he bursts into a bit of a monologue
“I
am worn out God and I have been working really hard for you, everyone else is
jumping ship, following other Gods, forgetting about you, bashing your sacred
things, and killing folks like me, I am the only one left and I might not be
around much longer!”
Pretty
dramatic, but he has had a pretty bad day. And then God sidesteps the drama and
says, “Go out and stand on the mountain, for God is about to pass by.”
And so Elijah goes out to the edge of the cave a bit tentatively. Perhaps
something will show him the answers to his dilemma. "Will everything be
okay? Will these evil people be ousted from power? What is the secret plan
God?"
And
then suddenly, there was a great wind that split through the mountains. Imagine
a whirlwind or a twister that passed by Elijah's cave, which sent him back into
the recesses of that cave. And then came an
earthquake. Imagine Elijah huddled in a cave, probably the least safe place in
the world in an earthquake. And then came a fire, again imagine lightning bolts
that light up the sky. And each time the story says that God was not in the
wind, God was not in the earthquake, and God was not in the fire. And then
something captures Elijah's attention. And it draws him again to the
entrance of the cave, the edge of a cliff. The scriptures say that there was a
“thin voice of silence.” The word “thin” in Hebrew can refer to a small speck
of dust or a single strand of hair. And when Elijah approaches the edge of the
cave he covers his face in awe with his cloak because of this “thin silence.”
And
then a voice comes and again says to him “What are you doing here Elijah?” And
here is when the story gets frustrating for me. It would be a perfect
opportunity for us to figure out what this is all about. What did you learn?
How were you transformed? What was in the silence? What is the moral of the
story Elijah? But the problem is that Elijah repeats himself WORD FOR WORD and
goes off on the same soliloquy. I've worked hard! Everyone's dying! Blah blah blah! And then God ends the
story by giving Elijah new marching orders, anoint "So and So" over
some kingdom and find a successor named Elisha who will take over for you.
And
Elijah marches off into the distance rehearsing his to do list. Let us
pray: God of the “thin silence” –
capture our attention today, and inspire us as we sit in awe. Amen.
There
is nothing that can quite capture my attention like cracking thunder or a severe weather report. When we were at RISE, we were painting along
with our bright yellow happy paint on our tall metal ladders and a woman passed
by and said, “You know – they are calling for severe weather in 30 minutes or
so!” And I thanked her and told the
students to finish up and come down soon. A few minutes later our homeowner Karen popped her head out and said,
“Caroline! There is a severe
thunderstorm watch in 5 minutes and a tornado watch that starts in 20
minutes!” That got my attention and I
shouted at our students to get off the ladders and clean up ASAP!
Have
you ever been out in the elements during a thunderstorm? Perhaps camping, or boating, or hiking? These sorts of experiences snap you back into
the moment. You stop worrying about
finishing a project or the little anxieties of your day and you are fully
present. Watching and waiting as the
storm approaches. I love that feeling –
the interruption, the change in perspective, the feeling in the air as the
skies change and the wind picks up.
Elijah
has this experience. But there is an
interesting twist. The windstorm, bolts
of lightning and earthquake get Elijah's attention for sure. He is afraid (rightfully so!) and he stays
huddled in the cave. But here's the
twist, the thing that is curious to him, the thing that draws him out of his
shell is this “thin silence.” This
encounter draws him fully into this moment. The “thin silence” has the power and impact of striking thunder,
twisters, and lightning that lands right outside of
his cave. And yet the silence is
mysterious, how can silence cause such a fuss? Elijah covers his face as he approaches this sacred sound silence.
The
second twist is that Elijah encounters this holy silence and he has nothing to
say about it! And this frustrates
me! I want to ask him, “What just
happened?” Did I miss something obvious? The story ends with God giving you a prophet “to do list?” Really? That's all? That is so anticlimactic! Elijah
moves from a state of sheer exhaustion / depression / burn out / loss of
purpose and now the purpose is restored with a vision of what to do next. But what is the lynch pin that pivots Elijah
from despair to hope or at least to action.
We
know that the silence is important–it certainly catches Elijah's attention –
but we don't even have a proper definition for what it is – what it's purpose is – what is it's
role in this story!?! And this is the
hard part about some of these ancient stories – they don't have a nice and neat
ending. And maybe that is exactly the
point.
Perhaps
Elijah is captivated by this phenomena, the thin silence of the divine, because
he is in awe, he is not expecting it, thunder and lightning as a revelation of
God almost make more sense! It takes him
by surprise and he is caught up, at least for that second in a pure state of
awe.
What
is it about awe that helps Elijah being to pivot away from burn out and fear
towards his prophetic calling and his passion?
Awe
reorients us and gives us a new perspective. Think about Elijah's reorientation seeing the world from his mountaintop
view. How powerful it is to see the
world from the perspective of soaring birds? I am also reminded of Mary Oliver's poem “The
Summer Day”:
“Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary
Oliver is caught up in awe – kneeling in the grass, paying attention to the
tiniest details of a beautiful creature. And for her this new perspective is a prayer. Perhaps this grasshopper is the perfect
metaphor for the thin silence. Something
that grabs us, that provokes us silently, magically, and mysteriously.
Secondly,
awe grants us humility. So yes, Elijah
jumps straight from the holy moment into his monologue about his troubles. However, it should also be noted that God
does not dismiss nor does God validate Elijah's feelings. Instead God reorients Elijah and gives him a
new task at hand. And one of Elijah's
tasks is to recruit and train his new successor Elisha (totally confusing I
know!). And this is a moment of humility
for Elijah. He learns that he is not the
only one left in the world, which is on the one hand comforting and on the
other hand perhaps it is humbling. God's
new mission helps remind Elijah that there is a larger story and Elijah is a
part of that story, but the story isn't about Elijah it is about God. And that is a healthy humility – that we
might step back and remember that this life is not all about us, our despair is
important, but it is equally important to overcome hopelessness and despair by
living in God's larger story.
Lastly,
awe gives us more to think about than to say. Think about holy transformative moments of your life. It is important to give them words – but
words never fully capture these sacred encounters. Sometimes it is enough to say “something
important happened here” – I don't know exactly what it means – but I know that
it was something important.
But
if the “thin silence” is so mysterious, how can we even begin to experience it
in our daily lives? Elijah's journey
begins in fear, fear of death, fear of failure, fear of losing his calling, his
faith even! And he did not get God's
divine validation or rebuke over his fears, rather he received the divine
silence. I'm sure that many of Elijah's
fears still exist, and yet this moment of awe gave him enough faith to get
through it. Just like the angel's bread
in the desert, he received just enough spiritual sustenance for the journey.
And
so our question is how can we position ourselves to encounter moments of divine
awe/thin silence to give us spiritual sustenance for the journey ahead? One huge example from Elijah's journey is to
take spiritual risks. God says to Elijah
“Climb out on this edge here.” And
surely that was not a comfortable experience for Elijah,
perhaps he could even see and hear the wind and fire in the distance. Maybe God continually beckons us “Climb out
on this edge here, God is about to pass by!” And maybe for you that means going on a retreat, volunteering as mentors
with our youth or children's, committing to meet together with folks from
church to explore spiritual adventures together. Maybe it means for you to go out on a limb and
come to Nicaragua next year!
Nothing
about the “thin silence” is formulaic. That is why it is scary and uncontrollable and yes sacred. Wind, fires and earthquakes are outside the
realm of human manipulation and so are the divine mysterious of God. These sorts of things just
happens to us, we cannot “conjure them up.” But we can put ourselves “out there” in
spaces where God just might show up.
Some
of you have already taken steps of faith, experimenting with finding balance in
meditation practices, finding joy in mentoring in youth group and on youth
trips, serving our church in spiritual leadership, but my question is how can
you enter into that more fully, how can you try on something new that stretches
you spiritually?
God
is tapping us on the shoulder saying “eat and drink!” “Here is food for your journey.” And the thing that stops us from reaching out
to receive these moments of spiritual sustenance is often fear. What if I put myself out there and nothing
happens? Or what if something does
happen and it changes everything? But the
nature of faith is that you put yourself out there with no guarantees that
anything will happen. It's like falling
in love, like jumping out of a plane and praying that your chute will catch
you. I had a conversation recently with
one of our youth, and she made the beautiful point life would be indeed
lifeless if we lived with no risk, no love, no faith in the basic goodness of
creation, faith that all will be well.
And
so may you have the courage to stand on the edge of the mountain, even in your
seasons of exhaustion and burnt out. And
my God grace us with moments of awe, moments of divine “thin silence” that
change our perspective, inspire us and render us speechless.
And
now – I thought it would be only fitting, to spend a few minutes in silent prayer
pondering the silence and what it means in your life today. . .
“Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord
is about to pass by.”
