Isaiah 65:1-9; 1 Kings 19:1-15a

A few weeks ago, weather forecasters across the country were talking about a record-level geomagnetic storm that would make the aurora borealis viewable even into the southern United States. The level of activity was expected to be so strong it could be visible to the naked eye right here in western Nebraska. I told my kids about it, and they were both excited to go aurora hunting. Unfortunately, on the day of the highest expected activity, the skies were overcast all day. We decided we would still go out into the country and look, just in the off chance the cloud cover cleared and we would get to see the northern lights.

That evening as I was cleaning up the kitchen, a notification popped up on my phone that said, “If the cloud cover clears, you might be able to see the aurora tonight.” With that, we all loaded into the car and went for a drive. 

When we got to our usual sky-watching spot, we pulled the car over, rolled down the car windows, and looked. All we could see were clouds. No stars. No sparkling sky. Just clouds. And, apart from the low rumble of the car engine, we couldn’t hear anything either. There weren’t the usual sounds of crickets chirping, and the wind wasn’t rustling the tall grasses. Every now and then, a car would drive by on the highway, but other than that, the place where we were was dark and silent. 

Suddenly, the silence was pierced by a strange cackling sound. At first we thought it was a frog, or something like that, but then the sound changed. It sounded like a whistle, then a song, then a chatter. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was the sound of a bird. But why would a bird be singing at almost 11 p.m.? Usually, the chorus of birds is strongest before dawn and as the sun goes down, but in the dark? How strange!

I pulled out my phone and pressed the recording button on my bird watching app. Immediately, it told me that we were hearing the song of a yellow-breasted chat. Fascinated by this singing bird at night, I decided to research the yellow-breasted chat. It turns out that the yellow-breasted chat is one of few songbirds known to sing at night. They are most likely to do this at the height of their mating season as they call out for another chat to join them in producing a new family of chats. Yellow-breasted chats move seamlessly from one song to another – from whistles, to cackles, to singing, to a gurgly rattling sound. They are regular old chatterboxes, fluent in the language of their birdy types. As a side note, though yellow-breasted chats remain relatively common in western Nebraska, their population is on the decline in other parts of the country.

In that quiet space, I encountered something I had never experienced before. Even though I couldn’t see the bird, its presence was unmistakable. There was silence, and then there was presence. The little voice calling out into the otherwise silent night made me perk up my ears and open my eyes wider. 

Last week, Pastor Jeff talked about God’s presence as a voice. The passage we looked at from Proverbs talked about wisdom and understanding raising their voice so that we might hear. In our passage from 1 Kings 19 for today, God shows up in another way: in silence. You may have grown up with the King James Version of verse 12 that says after the earthquake and the fire, God’s presence showed up in “a still, small voice,” but many English translations struggle with how to translate this phrase most accurately. The NRSV translates the phrase in verse 12 as the “sound of sheer silence.” And the ESV translates the phrase as the “sound of a low whisper.” A small voice, sheer silence, or a low whisper–which is it? 

The phrase in the Hebrew is three words long. The first word is often translated as “voice” or “sound.” The second word means “to be silent” or “to be motionless.” And the third word means “small” or “thin.” If you were to make a translation of this, what would it say? How would you put together a voice that is silent and small in a way that makes sense in English? You can see the struggle translators have had and continue to have. 

Nancy deClaissé-Walford, professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages, says that although scholars have struggled with how to translate this phrase, one thing is certain: “God revealed God’s-self to Elijah in a manner very different from the ways in which God had revealed God’s-self at other points in Israel’s history.” In other words, we’ve seen God appear in miraculous ways, like in the fire of the burning bush, in a rushing wind and an earthquake at Mt. Sinai and in the book of Isaiah. In fact, Elijah had just experienced the awe-inspiring and terrifying action of God one chapter earlier in 1 Kings 18. You see, Jezebel (wife of King Ahab) was the daughter of Ethbaal, the priest-king who ruled over the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon. When Jezebel married Ahab, the King of Israel, she persuaded Ahab to allow for the worship of Baal right alongside the worship of God. The prophet Elijah had confronted King Ahab about this worship of Baal, but Ahab continued to allow it.

In a wild story, Elijah calls together all 450 prophets of Baal and challenges them to a contest to see whose God is greatest. They build altars to worship – the prophets of Baal to their God Baal, and the prophet Elijah to the God of Israel. To make things even more spectacular, Elijah dumps water all over the altar. He digs a trench and fills it with water. All the while, he is mocking the Baal and the prophets of Baal. In a flash, the fire of God comes down from heaven and consumes the offering on the altar, and “licked up” the water on the altar and in the trench until nothing was left. The prophets of Baal were terrified, and Elijah rounded them all up and had them killed.

When King Ahab told Jezebel what had happened, she was incensed and she swore an oath to have Elijah killed. Elijah–the same prophet who stood up to King Ahab time and again–heard that Jezebel was coming for him, and he was terrified. This shows you how much power and influence Jezebel had over the kingdom. Elijah runs for his life, and he sits under a broom tree and longs to die (a scene that reminds me a lot of Jonah sitting in anger under the bush in the wilderness. An angel of the Lord appears to him and gives him food and drink, and this food and drink encourages Elijah to keep going. Whenever I read this story, I’m reminded that sometimes the worst of our moods can be cured with a snack and a nap, but I digress. 

Elijah finds a cave and he settles there for the night. While in the cave, “the word of the Lord came” to Elijah: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Why have you run away? What are you afraid of and what do you think you’ll find out here in this cave? I’ll give Elijah credit that he responded to God pretty boldly. He told God that he had been “very zealous” in his worship of God and how the people of Israel had turned away from God and killed all of the other faithful prophets. Only Elijah was left, and he was terrified. God tells Elijah to stand at the entrance to the cave, and the LORD would pass by him. Elijah does so, and he is confronted by a parade of terrifying things: a wind so strong is split the rocks and mountain, a devastating earthquake, and a raging fire. With all of Elijah’s fantastic experiences with God, he may have expected God to show up in one of these ways, and yet it was not until all of these passed by and the sheer silence of still, small voice remained that Elijah knew he was on holy ground.

Elijah covered his face with his cloak – his prophets mantle, a symbol of his unique calling – and stepped into God’s presence. God repeated the question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” and Elijah repeated that he had been faithful to God, but was now terrified. Rather than address Elijah’s fear, God tells Elijah to return back on his way. And Elijah does what God told him to do. His fear was transformed in the silent place with God. This marks the beginning of the end of Elijah’s ministry as prophet, and soon Elijah would mentor Elisha to become the next prophet for Israel. 

We are living in a time when the news is saturated with stories that are difficult to hear. We have friends and loved ones who are going through hard times, and maybe we’re even going through hard times ourselves. Maybe we feel like Elijah, and we’d like to run away from it all for a while – 40 days and nights, or maybe longer. Today, we are urged to seek out the silent places, the moments of intense calm that make it possible for us to hear the thin whisper, or the sheer silence of God’s presence. 

I believe that we get there like Elijah did–by being completely honest with God. Elijah came to the end of himself–the end of his own abilities and the end of his excuses–and he told God, “I’ve done everything I can do, and I’m afraid.” God says, “Come and meet me in the silent place.” Elijah does and he is changed.

Have you ever tried to be silent before God? How did it go? If it didn’t go well, you aren’t alone. I read somewhere that the average American becomes intensely uncomfortable with silence after only 6.3 seconds. We either get anxious and start trying to fill the silence, or our minds start to sound a bit like the rushing wind or raging earthquake. The first time I did a full routine at yoga, I experienced this at the very end during the quiet, final relaxation. My mind started going wild. “What about the dinner you need to make? What about the friend you haven’t reached out to in a long time? What if you’re wasting your time right now? What if…what if…what if…” 

It is essential for us to learn how to access the silent space with God. It is the only way we will be able to navigate the troubled times we are in as a nation and world, as well as the troubled times we will inevitably face over the course of our lives. Sure, we can maybe survive without this silent time with God, but we won’t thrive. We won’t find the inner peace, the joy, the comfort that will help us face whatever we encounter with the assurance that we do not go through it alone.

Today, we practice Lectio Divina as a congregation to help us work on one tool for entering into silence, but there are others. We can practice breath prayer. We can work our way up to a little bit longer of silent prayer than what we’ve tried before. And many times, we might find ourselves face-to-face with all those distractions and raging storms instead of the silent connection we are after. But like that yellow-breasted chat in the night, if we show up, we will eventually hear the beautiful, earth-calming, soul-reverberating silence of the presence of God, and when we do, we will be changed. May God give us the courage to stand at the entrance of our hiding places, face the loud chorus outside the entrance, and then step into the silence where holiness lives.