Elijah, the prophet, is discouraged.  More than discouraged – he is afraid, exhausted, and feels like a failure.

 

When we meet Elijah in this morning’s scripture passage, he has been running for his life from the evil King Ahab and the wicked Queen Jezebel.  Elijah runs so long and so hard that he finally collapses under a broom tree, exhausted.  He sleeps for a while, and then the Lord sends an angel who brings food and water; strengthened, Elijah continues on his journey for 150 more miles and then he takes refuge in a cave.  God calls out to him and asks what he's doing, and Elijah starts to sing the blues.  He feels he has done everything he can for God, but it has been to no avail -- he has failed at the mission God has sent him on, and now he is afraid, alone, and hopeless. 

 

Have you ever felt discouraged like Elijah?  I have.  Twelve years ago, I was burned out by my job in the financial services industry.  I had just turned 40, and I guess as part of my “mid-life crisis,” I began to take stock of my life.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that helping people with money make more money was an unsatisfying way to spend my days.  I felt that my life had no meaning, and that I was making no difference in the world.  And so, like Elijah, I retreated into my own kind of cave to await a sign from God on what to do next.

 

Now, I was waiting for God to speak to me in a big voice, by some spectacular sign, the way God had done to the Hebrew people.  God led the Hebrews to the promised land veiled in a mysterious cloud.  God also came to the Hebrews as a powerful pillar of fire which parted the Red Sea.  And God’s mighty power was revealed in the plagues that were brought upon Egypt.

 

But God spoke to Elijah in the cave in a very different way.  God sent a tremendous wind, a cyclone, that ripped through the mountain.  But God was not in the wind.  Then God sent an earthquake that shook the whole mountain.  But God was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake, God sent fire and lighting, but God was not in the fire.  And then there came a still, small voice through which God spoke to Elijah.  The Hebrew expression “still small voice” literally means “a voice of low whispers, a sound of gentle stillness.”  Elsewhere in the Old Testament, wind and lightning and earthquakes were often signs of the presence of God.  And yet there in the cave, God spoke to Elijah in the silence -- God of wonders, and God of whispers.

 

As I muddled through my midlife crisis, I expected God to speak to me as a roar.  But when God did speak to me, it was with the still, small voice in which he had spoken to Elijah in the cave.  So low was God’s whisper that I missed it at first; so gentle was God’s sound of stillness that it was easy to ignore.  But God was persistent, and slowly, I could hear that God was calling me into the ministry.

 

I figured that once I was at seminary, God would start speaking to me in that big voice, with thunder claps and trumpet blasts [Exodus 19:16].  But God continued to whisper to me.

 

I’d like to share with you the story of my first, fear-filled day of seminary eleven and a half years ago.  On that day, my alarm clock beckoned me to a new day, just as it had for 20 years.  However, instead of donning my usual uniform of a power suit and high heels, I pulled on blue jeans and workboots.  Instead of a briefcase, I carried a backpack.  Instead of sitting behind my desk in an office, I was taking a seat in a windowless classroom.

 

What on earth was I doing? I thought to myself.  For many long months, I had wrestled with the hushed voice that had spoken to my heart, trying in vain to ignore it and then finally giving into its quiet insistence.  I had sought guidance from my pastor.  I had confided in friends.  I had broken the news to my family.  I had withstood the questioning looks, the skeptical comments.  In the end, I had followed God’s call -- not knowing how my family would be supported, not knowing how I would pay for tuition, having only a faith that if God was calling me, God would provide.  Was I crazy or something?  

 

On that first day at seminary, I sat down in the classroom, and an impossibly young-looking professor entered the room and began distributing the 14-page syllabus to each of us.  I scanned down the single-spaced pages, becoming more tense with every requirement: mastery of the Greek alphabet, seven short papers, an oral report, and a final, comprehensive exegesis paper.  What a mistake this was, I thought desperately; I certainly did not belong in this class, and I probably did not belong in theological school at all!  Who was I to think that I was cut out to be a pastor?  How arrogant of me to think that God was calling me; surely, I had been hearing my own ego-driven voice, not God’s.

 

I began to plot how I would escape at the first break.  But as the professor continued to speak, I slowly became caught up in his enthusiasm and found myself listening, fascinated.  I began to jot down some notes, trying to capture the unfamiliar terms – periscope, redaction, sitz im lieben...  As I became immersed in the lecture, I felt my body relaxing, my anxiety giving way to curiosity.  Slowly, I felt a gentle calm wash over my being.

 

Break time came and went, but I stayed.  In that very classroom, I felt the essence of life unfolding before me.  What could be more important in this world than studying God’s Word, than learning the wisdom and truth found in the Holy Scriptures?  I looked around the windowless room, with its uncomfortable chairs and its institutional feel, and realized in that moment that I was on holy ground; God was quietly present right there among the alphas and the omegas.

 

I think we have many opportunities to hear God; we need only to recognize the many ways in which God speaks to us.  We may have felt God’s everlasting arms sustain us during times of loneliness, or suffering, or loss.  We may have met God in the “close and holy darkness”[1] of the night.  We may have felt God unclenching the tight fist of anger around our hearts and transforming it into a reconciling and forgiving love.  We may have recognized God in an encounter with a stranger, someone who was there when we needed them - or someone who needed us, and we responded.

 

God can seem unimaginably distant, but God can also feel unspeakably close.  God can be the far away ruler who is too mighty to grasp, but God is also the close friend with whom we can share our lives.  In the words of our communion liturgy,[2] God “is as distant as the farthest star and as close as breathing.”  The same God who makes the oceans roar can also whisper in our ear.

 

Are you waiting for some "big voice," some spectacular thing to happen to show you that God is present?  Perhaps God wants you to be still and let God speak.  God has the power to create wind and fire and earthquakes.  But God also has the wisdom to whisper to us in a still, small voice. 

 

Stop waiting for the big noise.  Stop, and listen to the silence.  Amen.