Year A
1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

At the beginning of this chapter of 1Kings… Jezebel sends a messenger to Elijah… telling him that she intends to kill him that very day… Elijah has just killed the 450 prophets of Ba’al at Mount Carmel… perhaps even the 400 prophets of the goddess Asherah… and understandably… the threat of his own death frightens him… so he sets out on a journey to save himself… but by the time he gets to Beer-Sheba… his lust for life seems to have faded… so leaving his servant behind… he journeys for a day into the wilderness… finally collapsing beneath a broom tree… and there he prays that God will take his life… 

And an angel comes… and brings him some bread that was baked on hot stones… and a jar of water… and touches him… and encourages him to eat and drink… and he does… and he falls asleep again… and the angel comes a second time… and touches him again… and encourages him to eat again… since as the angel says… otherwise the journey will be too much for you… the angel is referring to Elijah’s forty day journey to Mt. Horeb… also known as Mt. Sinai… and when he arrives… he enters a cave and spends the night there…

Then the Word of God came and asked… What are you doing here… Elijah… now what’s odd to me about this passage… is that God asks Elijah the same question… also twice… almost as a test… and each time… Elijah offers the exact same answer… after the first time… a great wind splits mountains… there’s an earthquake… and fire… but it’s only when Elijah hears the sound of sheer silence… that he wraps his face in his mantle… and goes out to the entrance of the cave… he senses something… but it doesn’t seem that Elijah catches on fully… I wonder if he realizes that God can be fully apprehended in the silence… he’s somehow not quite there yet… because God commands him on his return to Damascus… to not only anoint Hazael as King over Aram… and Jehu as King over Israel… but to anoint Elisha… as his replacement…

Wendell Meyer… retired Rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in N. Berwick, ME… writes… despite his fear and self-denigration… Elijah is actually at the pinnacle of his prophetic career… a status that’s reflected by the parallels between this account… and the story of Moses and his divine revelation on Mt. Sinai… but even after Elijah has encountered the presence of God in the sound of sheer silence… his experience doesn’t move or change him… his heart remains anchored in feelings of desolation… and yet… God continues to use him… Elijah continues to prophesy to the rulers and people of Israel… demonstrating and exercising God’s will and God’s power…

God’s power has just been demonstrated in the feeding of the more than 5,000… remember… Jesus was trying to get away by himself… in a boat… to mourn the murder of his cousin John the Baptist… but as Mitzi Smith… New Testament Professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga… writes… Jesus momentarily sacrificed self-care… to attend to the crowds… the disciples urge Jesus to dismiss them… presuming that they all have the means and the ability to trek into the city to buy food… this won’t be the first time the disciples urge Jesus to send folks packing… but perhaps it’s because… in this case… his inner circle sensed that he needed to tend to himself… needed time to be alone and relax… though as soon as everyone had been fed… and the twelve baskets of leftovers had been collected… the Gospel says… Immediately… Jesus made the disciples get in the boat and go to the other side… while he remained behind like a good deacon and dismissed everyone… I can almost imagine him saying to them… let’s get out of here before anyone else arrives… and then he returned to what he intended to do before the feeding… he went up the mountain by himself to pray… to take care of himself… but listen to the timing of the text… when evening came… he was there alone… but the boat was already being battered by the waves… and was far from land… and we don’t know how early it was… as far as I can make out from the Greek… it says… at the fourth watch of the night… Jesus came walking out on the sea towards them… and they thought they were seeing a ghost…

And this is my favorite part… he says… take heart… do not be afraid… it is I… and last part… this… it is I… in the Greek is… I AM… it’s the same way Jesus identifies himself in John’s Gospel when he says… I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35-48)… I am the Light of the World (John 8:12 and 9:5)… I am the Gate (John 10:7)… I am the Good Shepherd (10:11-14)… I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)… I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)… and I am the True Vine (John 15:1-5)… and it’s the same response Moses got when he asked… If I come to the Israelites and say to them… the God of your ancestors has sent me to you… and they ask me… what is his name… what shall I say to them… and God said to Moses… I AM WHO I AM… and further… you shall say to the Israelites… I AM has sent me to you… the Ground of Being… the sheer silence…

Pastor Martin Billmeier writes… It’s so hard to have faith when the storm is swirling… when what’s happening is what we don’t want to happen… we can begin to doubt God’s goodness… when he’s sinking in the water… Peter definitely does not want what is happening to him to happen… but what does Peter do… he turns to Jesus… we waste a lot of time… he wrote… finding someone to blame for our troubles… God… another person or group… or ourselves… maybe the only thing we really need to do when trouble arises… is take it to Jesus… and center ourselves in Christ… and then act…

As the earth rotates… the ground at the equator… moves at roughly 1,000 miles per hour… while the ground at the north and south poles hardly moves at all… in a hurricane… the winds on the outside edges are the most ferocious… they have the farthest to go… and they go the fastest… while in the center… in the eye… there is a stillness… and a groundedness… which cannot be shaken…

We have much chaos in our lives right now… there are storms blowing us around… knocking us off balance… and it may even feel like we’re sinking and drowning… but I wonder how can we see past wind… and earthquake… and fire… and pandemic… and racism… and a contentious election cycle… when we’re most afraid… and find that still silent place where we can trust God… where we can see past all the clamoring for attention… and become more established in faith…

And let me point out… in today’s Gospel… Jesus doesn’t say… you of no faith… he says… you of little faith… and in Matthew 17:20 Jesus says… if you have faith the size of a mustard seed… you will say to this mountain… move from here to there… and it will move… and it’s to these disciples of little faith that Jesus entrusts the Kingdom…

The issues and circumstances which we’re being faced with these days… seem like a chaotic storm of storms… but the I AM WHO I AM… whose center is everywhere… and whose circumference is nowhere… resides deep within us… and this is why Jesus is not only a steward of the mystery… but an organizer of the chaos in our lives… and we are invited to move ever closer to the silence in every storm we encounter… and remain unshakable…