August 13, 2023, That Is Not God, 1 Kings 19:9-18 and Matthew 14:22-33 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ August 13, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above.

In the OT reading today, we find the great prophet Elijah hiding out in a cave, alone and terrified and in despair – and with good reason. The Queen of Israel, Jezebel, has painted a giant target on his back. She has sworn to seek him out and destroy him, and she is as cruel and ruthless as she is powerful. But God calls to him; God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah pours out his woes: the spiritual bankruptcy of God’s people, and the slaughter of God’s prophets, not to mention his mortal danger. “I’m the only faithful one left,” he tells God, “and now they’re out to get me, too.” And then Elijah is commanded to go out of his cave, to go stand on the mountainside, because God is about to pass by.

And then we read that dramatic scene. As Elijah cowers in his cave, a great wind arises. It is such a powerful wind that the mountain is split. Rocks are broken in pieces and go crashing down the mountainside. But that’s not God. Then, as Elijah continues to wait, there is an earthquake; he can feel the whole mountain trembling under his feet. But that’s not God. Then, as Elijah continues to wait, he sees the glow and feels the heat of a raging wildfire, consuming everything in its path. But that’s not God, either.

Finally, Elijah hears what this translation calls “a sound of sheer silence.” I think it must be a hard phrase to get exactly right in another language. Other translations call it “a gentle whisper.” My favorite is the King James version, that uses the beautiful phrase “a still, small voice.”

And that’s God.

As soon as he hears that sheer silence, that still, small, voice, Elijah wraps his face in his cloak – because he doesn’t dare to look directly at God – and he goes out to meet God on the mountainside.

***

The gospel reading finds Peter, like Elijah, getting more than his fair share of the terrifying forces of nature. Peter and the apostles are in a relatively small fishing boat – something like 25 feet long – right out in the middle of the sea of Galilee, in the darkest hours of the night, just before dawn, battered by gale-force winds, plunging helplessly from the crests of the waves down into the black valleys between the swells, unable to make their way toward land, seasoned sailors though they are.

And that’s when Jesus shows up.

Matthew doesn’t tell us how the disciples can see Jesus – maybe just at that moment the sun begins to appear on the horizon – maybe there is some luminescence, natural or supernatural, that allows them to see that small figure coming toward them, walking on the water. But they do, they see him, and quite reasonably they jump to the conclusion that they’re seeing some kind of phantom. What else could it be? And they’re terrified.

Until Jesus calls out to them, telling them not to be afraid, telling them it’s just him, Jesus. And Peter, always impulsive, tells Jesus, “If it’s really you, Lord, command me to come to you on the water.” And we all know how that goes. Peter makes a brave start; he gets out of the boat; he starts toward Jesus – and then he looks around himself: black clouds overhead, crashing waves under his feet, howling winds all around him, and himself, Peter, as good as alone in the midst of it all. So he panics. And he begins to sink. And in his despair, he cries out to Jesus. “Lord, save me!” And the moment he cries out, Peter feels a strong, solid hand take hold of him, and pull him to safety.

And that’s God.

I think one of the things that our readings are about today is how to recognize God in the midst of the many powerful, destructive forces with which we are surrounded – every day, it seems like.

We’ve been praying this week for Steve Levison, who was terribly injured in a motorcycle accident last Saturday – one minute, life was proceeding along with its everyday twists and turns, and the next minute the whole Levison family was overtaken by a storm of fear and anxiety and sadness.

We’ve been praying for Lynn’s daughter Joanne, who was hit head-on by a diagnosis of cancer, right in the middle of being a single mom of two little children, as if that wasn’t hard enough.

Each one of us could add our own trials and tribulations, but the storms of life are raging far beyond the sphere of our personal lives. The island of Maui in the state of Hawaii was ravaged by wildfires this week, a whole village engulfed in flames, destroyed in minutes, 80 lives lost on an island whose whole population isn’t much bigger than the city of Rochester.

I couldn’t begin to make a comprehensive list of the storms and tragedies in the world, just this week. Lest we forget, the war still is still on in Ukraine, people are still dying every day, homes and hospitals and peoples’ livelihoods destroyed by missile strikes and gunfire. This week, there was a coup in the nation of Niger; and its democratically-elected president is being held under house arrest. Not to mention, if you haven’t already heard, Covid is alive and well and we are expecting a surge of infections in late summer, which is just about now. Can you hear the wind howling around you yet? Can you feel the earth shaking under your feet?

But that’s not God.

When terrible things happen, when hard things happen, when we face things, or see things, terrible things, things that are so much more powerful than we are, it’s very easy for us to mistake them for God. We think God is angry with us. We suddenly feel we are being punished for some failure on our part – or we imagine God is punishing someone else for their failures. We think God is testing us – maybe to see if we’re good enough, or strong enough – to see if our faith is really as strong as it ought to be. We think God is causing this terrible thing – our cancer, or the loss of someone we love, or some terrible tragedy – to accomplish somthing in our lives. I know we think those things because I hear people say things like: “What did I do to deserve this.”

And sometimes people say even worse things, much worse things.

I have heard people claim that AIDS is God’s way of punishing gay people.

I have heard people suggest that God sent the earthquake that devastated the island of Haiti, some of the poorest people in the world, as a punishment for the voodoo and other “demonic” religions that are practiced there.

But that is not God.

God is in the business of saving the world, not threatening it. God is in the business of healing his creation, not terrifying it into submission. And God is in the business of loving us, not condemning us. We all know what Paul wrote about God working everything together for good for his beloved children. That means God can use even the most terrible things in our lives to bring about good for us. Most of us have experienced that. But there is a world of difference between saying that, and saying that God inflicts pain and suffering on his children to make them better people.

Elijah recognized God, not in the catastrophic winds, not in the earthquake, not in the raging fire – but in the stillness, in the quiet, where he found courage to drive away his fears and give him new purpose, where he found love when he had thought that he was abandoned and utterly alone.

And Peter, panicking at the storm and tempest, floundering in the waves, recognized God in the strong grip of Jesus’ hand that pulled him to safety, and in the voice he knew so well, saying, “Why did you doubt?”

It’s a stormy world. We’ve all been more or less blown and battered and tossed about quite a bit – some of us more than others. But God is always there in the midst of the storm – “in the silence at the heart of things.” We can always find God if we listen for the still, small voice. We can always cry out for help and be sure his hand will take hold of us and bring us to safety.+