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 in 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 he prays that God will take his life…

And an angel comes… and brings him some bread… 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… twice… 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 he’s not quite there yet… then God commands him to return to Damascus… and 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… yet God continues to use him… Elijah continues to prophesy to the rulers and people of Israel… demonstrating and affirming God’s will and God’s power…

In our Gospel…  God’s power has just been demonstrated in the feeding of the 5,000… remember… Jesus had been trying to get away by himself… in a boat… to mourn the murder of his cousin John the Baptist… but as one commentator writes… Jesus momentarily sacrifices self-care… to attend to the crowds… ] the disciples urge Jesus to dismiss them…  maybe just hoping…  that they all have the ability 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 disciples 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…  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 alone… the boat was far from land…  and was already being battered by the waves… and we don’t know how early it was… but Jesus came walking out on the sea towards them… and they thought they were seeing a ghost…

And this is my favorite part of the story… Jesus says… Take heart… do not be afraid… it is I… and the 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 gets at the burning bush when he asked… If I come to the Israelites and say to them… the God of your ancestors has sent me… and they ask… what is his name… what shall I say to them… and God answered him… You shall say to the Israelites…  I AM WHO I AM… has sent me to you… the Ground of Being… the sheer silence…

Pastor Martin Billmeier writes… It’s 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 does not want what’s happening to him to happen… but what does Peter do… he turns to Jesus…  ] we waste a lot of time… 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… become established in the Ground of Being… and then act…

We have a lot of chaos in our lives right now… there are stormwinds blowing us around… knocking us off balance… and it may even feel like we’re the ones who are sinking and drowning… but I wonder how can we see past wind… and earthquake… and fire… and racism… and global warming…  and a contentious election cycle… and the death of a parent…  and find that still silent place where we can trust God… where we can see past all that clamors for our attention… and become more deeply established in faith…  because 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 with which we’re being faced 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 also organizes the chaos in our lives… and why we need to move even closer to Jesus in every storm we encounter…  whenever we feel as though we’re sinking…  because in him there is a stillness… and a groundedness… which cannot be shaken…  which allows us to walk on top of that…   into which we otherwise think…   we might sink…