Pentecost 4C – Proper 7                                                                                             6/20/2010

1 Kings 19: 1-4, 8-15a                                                                       

Psalm 42

Galatians 3: 23-29

Luke 8: 26-39

Lord, quiet our anxious minds and hearts that we might hear your still small voice in the sheer silence of our souls. In Jesus’ name we ask and believe.  Amen.

The prophet Elijah is ready to pack it in. This truth-telling job is just too much. He’s had no better luck than his ancestor prophets at turning the world ‘round right, at getting the Israelites to return to the Lord, at ushering in God’s kingdom, and now they are out to kill him. “I call Uncle,” he says. I give up, I’m done. The world is too much with me, Elijah seems to say, to borrow from Wordsworth’s sonnet. I know how he feels.

The world seems very much with us these days. And it is a chaotic, unsettling world. Have you noticed how quick people are to lay on their car horns? How full of vitriol our political discourse has become? How much bad news comes with each day’s New York Times?  It’s hard not to read signs and portents into these daily devastations.  The temptation to pack it in is real.

Instead, by God’s grace, we come here at 8:00 to sit beneath this sun-speckled canopy of trees, beside the running stream, before this empty cross or at 10:00 to this 200 year old house of prayer. We come here because this is where we are strengthened. This Father’s Day we come to our Father’s house.

This morning, in this space, the words of our holy scripture invite us to stand on our sacred mountain and wait for the Lord to pass by. Believe he is coming. Feel the winds of political posturing, of negativity and finger pointing blow this way and that and know that the Lord is not in the wind, though He can be our brace against it. 

Keep your balance as the ground shakes from earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the sink hole in Guatemala City and especially the geyser of black oil staining the Gulf of Mexico wreaking untold havoc on land and sea and know that the Lord is not in the earthquake, though He can inspire our creativity and collaboration in our recovery efforts. 

Turn from the heat of the fires of cancer or other illness, of divorce or family struggle, of the death of a loved one or the loss of a job and know that the Lord is not in the fire, though by the waters of baptism He can quench the burning flame, and bring his cooling balm to the heat of our passions. God is way deeper than all the holes we can dig ourselves into. In one of the Bible’s most beautiful passages, today we hear that God is the infinite sound of sheer silence. 

What does sheer silence sound like you might be asking? And how do we hear it?  It sounds like different things on different days, for different people, depending on our soul’s desire. And we hear it by opening our hearts to it. I can imagine someone for whom God’s voice might sound like a new baby’s cry.  Or a cardinal’s song in the morning. Maybe it’s a Bach cantata or a blues ballad. It could be an unexpected I love you or I’m sorry. This morning for Elijah sheer silence sounds like God’s quiet question:

What are you doing here?

When I hear that question I don’t hear the “what are you doing here?” of the young father who opens the door to find his toddler scribbling on the walls, or later to much worse as toddler turns teenager. I hear the “what are you doing here?” of the eternal father who so loves his child that he cares how she spends her life.

At a funeral I attended this week, the priest reminded us that in death life is not ended but changed and he encouraged us to use death’s sad occasion as an opportunity to consider one’s own life. To see it as a chance to listen for that still small voice, to hear God’s question, “What are you doing here?” How are you spending your one wild and precious life as the poet Mary Oliver puts it? 

Sometimes, it’s hard to know what we’re doing. The other day while taking Silas to school my orange gas light came on. I’ll swing by the Amoco on my way home I thought. As I approached the station and saw the green and yellow sunburst logo I remembered that the garage had recently become a BP station. I can’t go there I thought to myself and drove on. Passing the station later in that day, my miles to zero having moved from 40 to 20, I wondered about my decision. I like the owner of that local gas station.   I like his Mom and Dad who work the pumps, I like the first generation Hispanic immigrants whom he hires, I like the Indian who last year was able to go home to his 14 year old daughter in India because of the job he’d held there. Dave wasn’t responsible for the disaster in the gulf. I couldn’t inflict my anger on him. I pulled into the station. Fill it with regular please. But now, how do I register my outrage?

Knowing what to do is not easy these days. But knowing where our strength lies is. It lies here, in our relationship with God and with one another. It is here in the crucible of God’s care that we can together consider best practices for our Christian life together, where we can work to become the community that Paul writes of in his letter to the Galatians, a community where all are one.

This Father’s Day, honor the source of your strength, your earthly source and your heavenly source. When my earthly dad died a little over a year ago now, Pat Thompson sent me a note that said that my father’s strength would become my own. I wasn’t sure what she meant at the time. I am beginning slowly to know. And if my earthly father can strengthen me, even after death, how much more can my heavenly Father do? When life’s difficult moments cast us down, confuse us, leave us wondering what we are doing here, come sit in your Father’s lap, listen for his still small voice.

Then, strengthened by time in his presence, restored to our right mind through Jesus’ power, go, return home, and declare how much God has done for you.

One of the most beautiful prayers in our wonderful Book of Common Prayer is the prayer for quiet confidence. Pray with me:

O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Happy Father’s Day.