19th Sunday Year A - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 2017

This morning I want to reflect on the first of today’s three Readings.

The action happened in the middle of the ninth century before Christ, at a time when most of the kings of Israel had turned away from their earlier worship of God to worship instead the gods of their richer and more powerful neighbours.

Elijah, one of the earliest of the prophets, tried valiantly to turn them back to the original faith of Israel — but to little avail. Deeply depressed, he had withdrawn from Israel and journeyed on foot to Mount Sinai — where Moses had received from God, among other things, the Ten Commandments; where Moses had slowly shaped the Hebrew slaves, newly escaped from Egypt, into an organised people; and where the people had come to know God and to profess their readiness to enter into a formal Covenant with God, despite repeated relapses into faithlessness.

It was a watershed moment for Elijah, and would be so, in fact, also for the Israelite people.

Like Moses before him, Elijah had a memorable encounter with God while up the mountain of Sinai. Moses’ encounters with God had repeatedly been accompanied by earthquakes, destructive winds, frightening flashes of lightning, thunder claps and billowing clouds of smoke. Not surprisingly, the people had assumed that their God was a supremely powerful, unpredictable and terrifying God; and over time this conviction had taken deep root in their collective psyche. Their instinctive sense of God was that of a God to be feared more than to be loved.

It was time for God to lead Elijah more deeply into the mystery of the Godhead. As we heard this morning in the First Reading, God instructed Elijah: “ … to go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Then the Lord went by. There came a mighty wind, so strong it tore the mountains and shattered the rocks … But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there came the sound of a gentle breeze. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

“The sound of a gentle breeze”. Another reputable translation reads: “The sound of sheer silence”. No matter — both are ideal metaphors to point to the mystery at the heart of God.

Many people in our Church today are deeply disturbed at what has been happening. Older ones not long ago were puzzled that younger ones had seemed to have lost interest and faith in the Church. Nowadays they are puzzled that many of their contemporaries seem likewise to be heading in the same direction. A former attitude of fear of God seems no longer to ensure their obedience. Whatever the modern equivalents of the mighty wind, the earthquake, the lightning and thunder that no longer motivated Elijah’s contemporaries, they no longer seem to motivate people today.

I think that what would be great for all of us to learn is to listen for the “gentle breeze” or the “sound of sheer silence” or whatever else may suit us — however we name the simple still, quiet presence to us and in us of the God who loves us. We all need to connect somehow with God personally. It won’t seem like praying. I do a lot of it myself. It is the opposite of busyness, the deliberate absence of thinking, or trying to feel or imagine God [or Jesus] — simply to be still and silent. I have learnt not to be worried if I fall asleep or become quite distracted. It is not deliberate. And through my inability to perform well when I pray, God reminds me that what matters is, as St John wrote in one of his epistles: “Not our love for God but God’s love for us”.

Thank God!!