In one of the possible readings from the Jewish scriptures for this coming Sunday, we find the the prophet Elijah sitting under a broom tree, exhausted and possibly suicidal. It is the middle part of a story from First Kings that contains a great deal of spiritual and psychological wisdom. Here’s how I treat this story in my forthcoming book A Year of Faith and Philosophy.
In the Ordinary Time 2 Year C reading from the Jewish scriptures, we find a story that has much to teach both about physical and spiritual dynamics. We find the prophet Elijah exhausted, fearful for his life, and hiding from Queen Jezebel. Elijah has just scored a major victory over the forces of idolatry and for Yahweh by destroying the prophets of Baal on top of Mount Carmel. And Queen Jezebel wants him dead.
One day into his flight, Elijah gives up. “Yesterday I was on my way to the propheting gold medal,” he complains, “but today it isn’t working.” He collapses into a fetal position under a broom tree and has a classic drama queen moment: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” The divine response is interesting. An angel shows up, cooks Elijah some food, then wakes him saying, “Get up and eat.” Elijah wants to die and the angel makes him a meal. Sometimes it’s as simple as that—eat properly, rest, get some exercise, take your medication, and get over yourself. Elijah may not be better than his ancestors, but he is still loved by God.
With his physical needs taken care of, Elijah continues to flee from Jezebel, eventually ending up in a cave where God asks him a very odd question. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah’s response, paraphrased, shows his frustration and anger at everything, including God. “I’ve been the only one in the kingdom seeking to do your will, I’ve torn down their altars, I’ve killed the priests of Baal just as you told me to, and she’s trying to kill me!” Is that any way to treat your favorite prophet?
In response, God says “come over here on top of this hill—I want to show you something.” In succession, Elijah experiences a rock-shattering wind, an earthquake, and a fire—perhaps similar to the fire that brought the victory on Mount Carmel a few days earlier. But “the Lord was not in the wind,” or the earthquake, or the fire. All of these are followed by “a still small voice,” or as another translation puts it, “sheer silence.” And in the midst of that silence, Elijah knows what he is to do.
There is a Lenten prayer in the Benedictine cycle of daily petitions that asks God to make us responsive to “the fertility of silence.” Silence is divinely fertile because it shatters our expectation that God is transactional, that if we ask for X properly, we’ll get it. The transactional God is a projection of our human need to find at least a small part of reality that we can control. This is understandable, since the obvious truth that we are small fish in a large ocean of reality is never far below the level of consciousness. Anne Lamott quotes a friend who says that “you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
There is a reason why the first commandment is a prohibition against graven images—human beings are incurable idolaters. The ancient Israelites found Baal attractive because they thought they had him figured out and could control him. Elijah in the cave was upset because he thought he had God on a leash and found out otherwise. God is not transactional—God is indwelling. God is with me wherever I go, but never in ways reducible to formulas. As Jacob said after encountering the divine in a dream, “surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”
A third grader told Kathleen Norris once that “silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.” This is good to remember when my life gets overwhelmed by noise and distractions, as is the following from Psalm 131:
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. My soul is like the weaned child that is with me..
When I remember that God is in the space of silence and peace within, I realize that the divine’s response to my need is something entirely unexpected but absolutely God-like.
For reflection: It is difficult in our noisy and demanding world to create spaces of silence. Yet we are told regularly in scripture that it is in silence where we are most likely to encounter the divine. Where are the places in your life where it might be possible to create a silence in which to wait for and hear God?
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