From the Silence
1 Kings 19:1-15, reading only
v. 11-13
The special effects of this story are pretty amazing. I can imagine
this as a scene in a movie. Computer generated graphics, surround sound. You
can almost feel a sharp, cold, misty wind slapping at your face as you stand in
the mouth of a cave high up a rocky mountain face. And then, suddenly, the
earth shifts beneath your feet. The wind is howling, you fall back and grab a
rock for balance, and suddenly fire breaks out from a nearby lightning crack.
This is straight out of The
Perfect Storm. If
But, no. No Charlton Heston. Instead, right
there on the mountain side, the whole dramatic scene fades to black Ö and a
Quaker meeting breaks out! Silence Ö silence.
My first experiences with silence probably came when I began running
in high school. Solitary runs became the time for sorting and, on rare
occasions, for quieting ìthe chattering monkeysî that Henri Nouwen
was fond of mentioning when he spoke of the struggles of achieving a quiet
mind.
I can recall, also, my first experience with intentional silence in a worship
setting. It came at camp when I was a counselor and learned that a Quaker
service was the easiest vespers to plan on a busy day. No plans! Just sit in
silence!
Of course, the experience of sitting in ìsilenceî with thirty or so
ten-year-olds is a bit different than your typical Quaker meeting. Our Quaker
vespers tended to have a bit more giggling than the few meetings I have
attended.
But even with a bunch of kids, I was often amazed to observe silence,
especially when we gathered the kids along the lakeshore, invited them into
silence and into watching the wind on the water. The giggles would gradually
subside and silence would gather around us ñ broken now and then by a pebble
tossed, a mosquito slapped, another round of giggles. But the silence seemed to
work a fascinating bit of spiritual magic.
From the storm of activities, silence gradually gathered us in,
settled us, and invited us to listen.
Now, Iíd like to be able to tell you that one or another of us, or
better yet the entire group experienced the still, small voice of God in those
moments, and that radical transformation abounded. But, no. Nothing like that
ever happened. We counselors were just thankful for ten minutes of rest, and I
think the kids were grateful, too, for a moment to recharge before the high
hilarity of bed time.
Despite the smallness and seeming insignificance of those moments,
when I attempt these days to trace the contours of my own sense of call, when I
try to explain to myself my own experience of vocation and of discernment, I
almost inevitably recall those early experiences of silence.
For whatever reason, whether it was a long run or a last-minute ìletís
do a Quaker service so we donít have to plan anythingî vespers, or a silent
walk with two dozen campers charged with thinking about the word ìcommunionî
for ten minutes, these moments of quiet listening always crop up in my own recollections
of call.
Iíve talked with lots of folks over the past ten years about their own
sense of call, and I have met very few who claim any great, sudden clarity
about it. Iíve never yet met someone who experienced the call of God out of a
whirlwind or an earthquake or a firestorm.
Whether their call was to ordained ministry, to teaching, to medicine,
to art, to law, to parenting, to counseling, to running a business, to public
service ñ Iíve just not yet met anyone who had a ì
I donít doubt that more dramatic things happen, just not to me or to
anyone I know well. And I have looked for the high drama a certain clarity.
Iíve looked for a wind so strong that it broke the mountains ñ and Iíve hoped
that God would speak as clearly as that. I have hoped for an earthshaking
moment of such power that it would be abundantly clear where God was leading
me. Iíve dreamed about fires from heaven that would set my heart to burning in
a particular direction.
But none of that has ever happened to me. I know how Elijah must have
felt. ìWhatís next, God,î he cries out. ìShow me some sign, God.î
ìIím desperate. Iím on the run. Iím far, far from any place I could
call home. Show me some sign, God. Show me something as powerful as the wind.
Show me something as compelling as an earthquake. Show me something as hot as
fire! Show me a sign, God!î
And what does Elijah get in response? A still, small voice, posing a
simple question: ìWhat are you doing here, Elijah?î ìWhat are you doing here?î
I can recall the first conversation I had with Dana Jones, our senior
pastor in Lexington, as I was considering going back to seminary a decade after
leaving the Divinity School at the U of C utterly convinced that I was not,
thank you very much, ever going into ordained ministry. Dana sat in our living
room, looked at me, cocked his head and asked, ìYou know what Bonhoeffer said about his own calling?î
ìUh, no.î
ìBonhoeffer said, for him it was never a
matter of faith, but one of obedience.î
Now I can certainly understand that problem. I have never been good at
obedience to authority. I have authority issues, you can ask my parents.
So I had to parse the question a bit, but, in time, Iíve come to
realize that through that question, God was addressing me with a still, small voice
of insistent inquiry: ìDavid, what are you doing here?î
That question interrupted and unsettled me profoundly. There I was ñ
two kids, a minivan, a mortgage, student loans from an almost done Ph.D., in my
eighth year at the Council of State Governments. It did not feel like a high
mountain cave. If felt settled. It felt pretty darn good. ìWhat am I doing
here? Well, God, Iím enjoying life!î
And yet, that question nagged at me for weeks. It took me back to
those fading memories of camp by then already 15 years old, and it took me back
to the first experience of other voices ñ those of friends who knew me well --
asking me, ìDavid, have you ever considered going into ministry?î
Those friendsí questions, echoing over the years like voices coming
from some deep well of time ñ out of cave, if you will, were my voices from the
silence, echoing back through the storms of everyday living, to press upon me
with the simple inquiry: ìwhat are you doing here?î
As I wrestled with that question, I donít really think that my issues were the same as Bonhoefferís.
Indeed, I do not think they are the same for many of us these days. Despite my
issues with authority, it wasnít a question of obedience. It really was a
question of faith for me; it really is a question of faith for many of us.
Do we really believe that
God is the Lord of all aspects of our lives? Do we really believe that God has a purpose for our lives? Do we really believe that God calls us ñ each and
every one of us ñ into lives of ministry? Do we really believe that a voice might be saying to us, here and now, ìwhat are
you doing here?î
And what, after all, might we mean when we do say, ìI believe.î
Unlike Bonhoeffer, it was a matter of faith for me.
And I blame the church for that. I blame the church. You see, for a
long time the church has acted as if faith is a question of right belief.
Faith, for too many in the church, remains a question of believing the right
things about Jesus, the right things about church, and the right things about the
Bible, and, ultimately, the right thing about questions like who gets ordained
and who gets married.
Now I know that much of what I believe
intellectually about Jesus, about the church and about the Bible are wrong ñ at
least wrong according to a certain conservative orthodoxy. Unfortunately, that
orthodoxy has for far too long shouted out like a mighty wind, drowning out the
still small voice.
But against oppressive orthodoxy, the small voice from the silence
still asks, ìwhat are you doing here?î and it insists on posing that question
even to those of us who donít toe the line of ìrightî belief, and it insists on
posing that question even to those of us whom oppressive orthodoxy labels
sinners, and outcast.
Against that oppressive understanding of faith itself, I have come to
understand faith quite differently. And this morning, as we consider the still,
small voice that spoke to Elijah out of the silence, I invite you to think
differently about faith as well, as you listen for a voice from the silence speaking
to your heart.
You see, I have come to understand faith not so much as a matter of
intellectual assent to a set of propositions about God, and Jesus, and the
Church, and the Bible. That makes of faith something to argue about, something
to take sides on, something to drive us apart from one another as we take up
residence in our own distant camps and caves.
Instead, I understand faith more as a matter of the heart. The voice
from the silence that calls me here, now, to this ministry, is a voice that calls
me to give my heart ñ to give my heart to God and to Godís people ñ even to
those with whom I disagree.
As William Sloan Coffin put it, ìFaith is being grasped by the power
of love.î[1]
Now this should come as no great surprise. Indeed, if I had studied my
Bible as often as those who might use it as a weapon to beat us down, Iíd have
known much earlier that God always calls folks to give their hearts, and that
faith always arises in places of the heart. Moreover, if we look at the great
call stories of scripture, God is always calling folks to give their hearts to
the poor, to the oppressed, to those discounted by the larger society, to those
called sinners by the reigning orthodoxy, to those cast out beyond the margins.
Thus, Bonhoefferís first question ñ that of
faith, doesnít ask us where our heads are. Rather, it ask, ìto whom will you
give your heart?î
The second question ñ that of obedience, ask us, ìwill you go to them
now?î
The voice from the silence asks the final question that brings the
first two together: ìwhat are you doing here? Why are you way out here in the
wilderness, on a mountain, in a cave when my people need your witness to my
steadfast love? What are you doing here?î
I will freely admit that this call stuff is difficult terrain ñ perhaps
thatís why this call story about Elijah is set way up a rocky mountainside. As
Parker Palmer puts it, at the very deepest level, call comes down to this:
ìThis is something I canít not do, for reasons Iím unable to explain to anyone
else and donít fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.î[2]
The Elijah story invites us to take call seriously. It invites us to
commit to listening ñ to creating time and space for silence in which we invite
God to speak. And it invites us to have faith ñ a trust that far transcends
mere belief, as it compels us into the deepest places of the heart: places
where captives dream dreams, where women see visions and men clear their eyes,
where Godís people arise on the wings of bold new decisions.
Speak to your people, O God. From the silence. Amen.
Rev. Dr. David E. Ensign