I Kings 19:9-18 Commentary

This week, I am mixing it up—because the Lectionary does—by switching to an alternative reading from Hebrew Scripture: The story of Elijah meeting God in a still, small voice.  If you are still tracking the story of Genesis, you might see my previous commentary on Joseph here.

Commentary

The placement of this Elijah narrative matters immensely. For some unknown-to me reason, the lower-case-g gods of the lectionary offer this as an alternative Hebrew Scripture reading for this Sunday. It is disconnected from the stories before it.  While the immediate context is Elijah’s weighty confrontation with Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard, which explains his sense of weariness, before that we essentially have a highlight reel of Elijah’s greatest hits. Elijah provides for the widow and raises her son from the dead. And after that, Elijah shows up the 450 prophets of Baal. This was the time for Elijah to take a victory lap. This was a time when Elijah should be sitting confidently in the faithfulness of God.

Instead, he hears Jezebel’s threats against him and he thinks, “no miraculous deed goes unpunished.” Weary of doing good, Elijah is on the run for his life. Elijah curls up under a tree and says, “I have done enough”, goes to sleep and waits to die.

But God says, “No. Not yet.” God feeds the prophet and strengthens him to reach Mount Horeb, another name for Mount Sinai, where Moses received the covenant of the law. At Mount Horeb, Elijah crawls into a cave. And it is there, in his weariness, his exhaustion, his defeat that God meets him and God asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?

And as though the subtext is, “Well, I’m so glad you asked!” Elijah launches in. “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left and now they are trying to kill me too!”

In other words, I have grown weary of doing good.

But the story is not over after Elijah says his piece. Instead, God invites him into the presence. Not a violent wind, shattering rocks and throwing debris. God invites Elijah into the presence. Not an earthquake jarring and tearing the mountains apart. God invites Elijah into the presence. Not a fire wickedly consuming the ground. God invites Elijah into the presence. A gentle whisper.

This is the part so many of us love. There is too little stillness in our world. How many of us have taken vacations this summer in order to find and keep that little bit of stillness. On a beach. By a lake. Gazing at mountains in the distance or standing on mountains to survey the world in stillness below. And it is right to be called into quiet places, for God can meet us there. It is right to be beckoned into an intimacy in which words are not needed, for God can meet us there. It is right to settle into our deep-in-the-soul knowing that God is present. That God loves us. That we belong to God.

It’s all good and you can get there from this text. But what happens next seems the most important part. The gentle whisper asks Elijah, “What are you doing here, Elijah?

…And Elijah responds the exact same way he did before the wind, before the earthquake, before the fire. Elijah responds the exact same way he did before he heard the still small voice.

“I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left and now they are trying to kill me too!”

Lord, my God, thank you for asking. I am still weary of doing good.

The comfort we receive from God, the claim we receive in hearing God’s voice of blessing is needed, my friends, make no mistake. But we are not only claimed by the voice of God. We are called. We are confronted. We are challenged. We are called children of God. We are confronted with the reality of sin—our sin. And we are challenged to enter into the world as one who says no to sin and yes to God’s call.

Which is what God says in response to weary Elijah. “Get back in the game! Get back there and anoint Hazael as king of Aram. Anoint Jehu as king of Israel and anoint Elisha as your own successor. And, oh by the way, you are not alone.”

As one commentator paraphrased it, “God tells Elijah to go back to work. Elijah does not have to give up his frustration, but God will not let him give in to it.” And what Elijah cannot see, yet, is that Jehu will someday kill Queen Jezebel. And Elisha will serve the people through words, through miraculous deeds and will sustain God’s people in a double portion of Elijah’s power. Get back in the game, Elijah. There is work yet to be done.

Elijah does not have to give up his frustration but he can trust God to sustain him and even to use him in the midst of weariness, frustration and disappointment.

Friends, are you weary? Hear the voice of God calling and claiming you. Receive the stillness of God’s presence as a comfort to you. And then, dear ones, take the call, the claim, the comfort and the challenge of God’s voice and God’s presence back out into the world.

So, just as God asks Elijah, I will ask: What are you doing here?

God gathers us here to re-group. To encourage us —literally to fill us back up with courage. In worship, we may hear God’s voice again. Claiming, calling, convicting, challenging and, yes, comforting. And then, dear ones, knowing that there is work yet to be done, God grants us faith enough to “go back”, to get back in the game.

Worship Idea

August is a strange month in the US context (to say nothing of our readers in other parts of the world) because some of us are already headed back to school while others are wringing the last bit of sunshine and rest out of the summer. Either way, this text works well because we are called out before we are called back in.  If you have tech capacity in your worship space, you might ask people to share a photo this week: of a place they found rest and renewal this summer (from a backyard hammock to the almost liquid chill of a European cathedral.) Similarly, you might ask them to send a picture of where they are called to go this coming school year (classrooms, offices, at-home work spaces.) The bridge from one to the other is often the still, small voice of God we hope to hear and attend to in worship.