"Earth, Wind, and Fire" - 1 Kings 19:1-15a
Worship, August 7, 2022
1 Kings 19:1-15a
Earth, Wind & Fire
Kate Fiedler
When I told my seminary friends that I was going on a silent retreat for a May term class, they were surprised. “You? Really? Do you think you’ll be able to be silent for so long?” I wasn’t confident that I could keep my mouth shut for days on end, but I wanted to try. Now, over a decade after that silent retreat, I am grateful still for the time set apart, spent in shared silence. I learned how to be comfortable in a room with other people without conversation, and I learned how to listen more intently to my surroundings. Our class agreed that we would make eye contact at meals, but we would not break the silence for three days. During that retreat, I was awakened to the power and delight that silence can offer. I found the experience freeing and calming to join a community that practiced silence together.
We at Second Church offer opportunities to sit in silence together. Thanks to the practice of Lectio Divina, our group spends time in shared silence every Monday afternoon. We share silence and space for the Spirit to inspire us through scripture, pausing in the quiet three times for reflection. Additionally, Roger and Kelley lead a monthly Taizé worship, centered around shared silence. I invite you to join them in the chapel on the first Tuesday of the month to join them in prayer, song, and to sit in silence and listen. Many of us are uncomfortable with silence, and practice in community can help. Our life together offers moments when we can share silence as a church family.
Now I’m not sure what Elijah was expecting when the Lord told him to stand on the mountain and experience the presence of the one true God, but I doubt he expected the sound of sheer silence. As our passage begins, Elijah’s had a rough couple of days to say the least. Death threats and drought, sword fights and supplications from the Lord and the King…Elijah has been fighting for his faith and finds himself fleeing for his life, way out in the wilderness, without his servant or a steady supply of food. But God is no stranger to the wilderness, and the word of the Lord meets him there, with a personal charge. But in order to experience the commanding presence and still small voice of the Lord, Elijah has to withstand the strident sounds of earth, wind, and fire first. Listen now, to this story from 1 Kings:
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid;[a] he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” 8 He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. 9 At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus…
What a story! After running for his life, Elijah is waited on by angels. And then God shows up to offer further support. To stay true to the text, we’ll begin with the wind, and I’ll relegate my affinity for the classic 70’s funk band that gifted us with “Let’s Groove,” “Boogie Wonderland,” and “September.” This was no ordinary breeze mind you; it was “a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces.” God didn’t start the conversation with a gentle rush, but with a mighty gust that took apart the very mountains where Elijah had found shelter.
You may remember, I’ve shared before that one of my favorite Hebrew words is ruach ( ר֫וּחַ), the word for wind, breath, or spirit. It occurs nearly 400 times in the Hebrew Bible; for example, the ruach of God hovers over the waters in the second verse of the creation story in Genesis.[1] There is a divine element to the wind or breath defined by ruach, and it’s the word used in this text. Surely, Elijah expected to find the Lord in that divine driven wind, but the Lord was not in the wind. While not all biblical scholars would agree with me, I think the ruach of God echoes every time the Holy Spirit surprises us and shakes things up. Throughout the biblical witness, the Holy Spirit is at work, demanding our attention through Pentecostal flames, visions and dreams, and doves descending. Showing up in unexpected places and people, and events, the Holy Spirit stirs up the imagination of God’s people to live for and believe in the world ruled by the love of God.
North Carolina singer songwriter, Christine Kane hints at ruach’s work in her song, “Falling in Love with the Wind,” when she sings,
…several angels walked me / right through the darkest alleys
till I could tell what’s holy / outside a cathedral.
All the poets taught me / That there’s a difference between free
And just pretending not to see / What you have run from.
Elijah is running to be free from the persecution of the powerful. He’s running to defend his faith, and he finds the Holy out in the wilderness, announced by a great wind. The wind, the ruach, leads Elijah to see and hear more keenly, to pay attention to the sacred dialogue that has commenced.
Just as quickly as the wind arrives, it is replaced by an earthquake. If the mountains splitting and rocks breaking weren’t enough, the Lord then shakes the ground down to the foundation of the earth. God has shown up as a landscape architect more than once—moving mountains, parting seas, leveling the high places, and lifting up the plains. And if the wind echoes the force of the Holy Spirit, then the earthquake echoes the work of Jesus Christ. Throughout the gospels, Jesus is shaking things up, questioning the established order, doing the unexpected, puzzling the powerful, and paying attention to women, children, and the marginalized. Jesus makes a simple meal of fish and loaves a miracle with leftovers; he calls a short statured tax cheat down from a tree and converts his heart to sharing; he spends time with the least respected and overlooked; he heals on the Sabbath; he opens eyes and becomes known and familiar by breaking bread and passing the cup. We believe that he was crucified because he threatened the powers that be, but he had the last word and the ultimate scene change, when three days later he shocked his followers, women and men, by dusting off his grave clothes and offering his peace. I realize our text today doesn’t dwell on the earthquake long, but we are gathered here to worship because Christ is still rumbling in our hearts and shaking up our mindset to know God’s love and to share it. Make no mistake, Christ is still in the earth-shifting business.
Next, the Lord sends a fire. Somehow, given that this is the third sign of the power of the Divine, I doubt it was a carefully created campfire like what happens at Camp Hanover. Elijah had no time to make s’mores and enjoy the warmth or the flicker of the flames. This fire was present and then disappeared, and that’s when the sound of sheer silence sets in. That’s the moment that Elijah senses the full presence of the Lord, wraps/covers his head, and moves to the entrance of the cave. That’s when the Lord asks, for the second time, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” That’s when the conversation gets really good.
Elijah had to experience the wind, the earthquake, and the fire to prepare for the still small voice of the Lord, to prepare for the fullness of the Holy and his new mission. God used three forces of nature to make sure that Elijah didn’t miss his cue. It can be difficult to discern God’s voice amidst the noise and unrest of our world, our media, our minds. Long before TikTok and Twitter existed to distract him, Elijah had trouble discerning God’s voice through the violence and suffering of his time.
We too are familiar with violence and suffering. Recent headlines call our attention to the fires burning in California, Washington, and Oregon, in Montana and Idaho. After flooding in Buchanan County, we continue to pray for those dealing with the floods in Kentucky. We continue to pray for the warfare in Ukraine. Reports of violence ring out from Gaza, China, and ????. Like Elijah, sometimes we struggle to hear the word of the Lord, questioning what we’re doing and where we are going. Many of us struggle to embrace silence. Silence is seldom a routine part of our lives. Kathleen Norris writes about her experiment teaching art in elementary schools, using silence and noise as a teaching tool. She made a deal with each class: first you get to make noise, then you’ll make silence. It usually took two to three tries to unleash the possible volume—with shouting, pounding, and stomping—and the rules were simple for creating silence: Don’t hold your breath, and no funny faces. Norris writes,
The only time [she] encountered a class that was unable to reach a point of stillness, [she] learned the reason why when [she] happened to arrive early for the class one day. Their teacher was shrieking commands at them—Write; don’t print your name in the upper right-hand corner of the paper; set a left-hand margin and keep it; use a pencil, not a pen. These children had so many little rules barked at them all day long by a burned-out teacher that they had stopped listening, which surely is a prerequisite for silence.
Norris continues,
What interests me most about my experiment is the way in which making silence liberated the imagination of so many children. … [One] third grader’s poem turned into a prayer: “Silence is spiders spinning their webs, it’s like a silkworm making its silk. Lord, help me to know when to be silent.” And in a tiny town in western North Dakota a little girl offered a gem of spiritual wisdom that I find myself returning to when my life becomes too noisy and distractions overwhelm me: “Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.”[2]
Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go. Silence reminded Elijah that God was present and ready to take care of him wherever he went. Silence can remind us to carry our souls with us too. Today we are called to discern a sheer sound of silence as well, to take our souls with us wherever we go, to focus on the presence of the Triune God, calling us to new places and new patterns and new ways of being. Our world is jam packed with wind, earthquakes, & fire all around us; we are often overwhelmed by words, violence, and anger. Every day we are surrounded by noise and reports of fury and violence. It's enough to wear us down. Yet, we are called to listen—with prayerful attention—to the ways the Holy Spirit is still rushing in—sometimes with strong gale-force winds, sometimes with a gentle breeze. Today, listening may begin for you at Christ’s table, sharing the sacred meal with Christ and the communion of saints.
We are called to listen to the way Christ is calling us to be the change we want to see in the world. Christ is still calling us to follow and be disciples. Are we ready to hear? There are so many voices “shrieking commands” and howling their complaints; I wonder if we know how, or when, to be silent, or how to take our souls with us when we go.
We are called to listen for the call of a creative God, who remains steadfast no matter how often God’s children disobey and disappoint and make a mess of things. We too are called to listen to that still small voice, like Elijah. Called out of our comfort zone and into the presence and love of God. Can you hear it?
Will you listen to the sound of sheer silence in your life?
And finally, will you follow?
[1] “Ruach Studies” Hebrew Streams. http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/spirit/ruachpneuma.html
[2] Norris, Kathleen. “Silence” Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. 16-17.