“The Sound of Sheer Silence”                                              June 20, 2010

I Kings 19:1-4;8-15a                                                         Rev. Dr. Beth Braxton

June is bursting out all over! My hydrangeas are in full bloom now; my Easter lilies and daisies and rose-of-sharon starting blooming this week. We have had bursts of rain, lots of sunshine and some wonderful low humidity! Some nights with windows open for cool sleeping! There have been joyful tearful, graduations and graduation parties, our first picnics and barbeques! The beginning of summer is just glorious!!

Now I am sorry that we have such a downer of a story in such a glorious season. There is no getting around it. In this scripture for today, Elijah is depressed! Not a good Father’s Day model. In fact as far as I know Elijah was not a father. Sorry Dads, but maybe God DOES have something significant to tell you through Elijah.

I must be blatantly honest with you about the humanity of one of God’s true servants. Even though Elijah has been blessed with much success, after all he just defeated in the previous chapter the massive number of Baal’s prophets, he is showing, in this story, all the signs of ministerial burn-out!! He is stressed by his success and he is stressed with fear. And yes, he manifests all the signs of depression. He appears to be totally worn out, fatigued. Here is a prophet who always stood up for the Lord; he seems to be sleeping a lot in this passage. He complains. He is suicidal. He needs to be told to eat. His view of reality is distorted –(not all of the prophets of Israel have been killed). He is quick to blame others for the situation in which he has found himself. He feels all alone and afraid.

I think Elijah needs our Tree House Ministry; a place to be loved, and to find God’s love again.

This is a serious problem; not just in the ninth century BC. Depression is becoming a huge problem for us today. Let me share some statistics about the situation in our US of A today!

* Depending on which source you read depressive disorders affect approximately 15-24 million American adults or about 8-10% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year.

* Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers -- over a million -- are clinically depressed.

*The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% p.a. And about 20% of teenagers will be depressed before adulthood.

* Depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease by 2020.

* Depression results in more absenteeism than almost any other physical disorder and costs employers more than US$51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost productivity, not including high medical and pharmaceutical bills.

“Depression and its myriad allied disorders are symptoms of a society that has lost its way,” say the psychologists. Have you lost your way?

Maybe this scripture is what you need to hear on this beautiful June day because I imagine that at this time of year many of us are feeling burn-out: school burn-out; pushing homework burn–out, burn-out at work; relationship burn-out, meeting burn-out. Many of us feel in the wilderness this time of year and we just want to sleep under our broom trees! Am I right? You don’t want to fight one more morning about being late for school, you don’t want to prepare one more agenda, you don’t want one more night meeting, you don’t want one more project, you don’t want one more trip to Chicago/ Houston or wherever, you don’t want to do one more training, you don’t want to discipline one more co-worker or child, you don’t want to shed one more tear or yell one more time. You are burned-out! Depressed? Maybe.

Many of us go off and have pity-parties with ourselves, like Elijah, complaining to God or others. Poor me …everyone is after me, no one will help me, no one does anything but me, no one understands me, no one cares, and so on.

But your pastor is here to remind you of who you are and whose you are! I am here to remind you again that you have been loved by a love that will not let you go!! You are named and claimed by God’s love! Remember your baptism (today we will experience baptism firsthand!) I am here to remind you to look for God’s epiphanies. This scripture passage is full of epiphanies.

God does not leave Elijah alone to wallow in his self- deprecation. And Elijah was pretty far down. NO, God is present to us even, and maybe even more particularly, in the wilderness times of our lives, those times when we hit bottom, when we are exhausted and afraid! In those times when we say, “if only I had…” or “if only he/she had…” God is present to Elijah in the wilderness.

Second, God sends angels. God is constantly sending angels in to our lives – people who provide what we need at the time. Twice God sent angels to Elijah.

You remember the story of the man who was stranded on his roof in a terrible flood. A neighbor came by in a rowboat and told him to get in that the river has overflowed and it is only going to get worse. The man said, no, I’m okay; God will provide. Then a Red Cross worker came by shortly after that in one of those large rubber raft boats and told the man to jump into the raft that the waters were continuing to rise. The man refused; he said, God will provide. And then just an hour later the waters were now up to his roof top and a helicopter flew over and hovered. From a bull horn the Army Reserve pilot spoke, “we are lowing a basket, get in and we can take you to safety.” The man refused this help; he said “God will provide.” Well the man drowned. And when he got to heaven the man asked God why he didn’t save him. And God said, I sent a neighbor, a Red Cross Worker and the Army Reserve!

God does send angels. We must pay attention and look and listen for them.

Third, God does provide nourishment in the wilderness. Even in the desert places of our lives, there is the food we need for the journey God plans for us. That nourishment often comes in friendship- a phone call, some computer help, a book that is passed on.

God is present; God sends angels; God provides nourishment. And most important God speaks to us out of the silence.

Note the contrast of this chapter of scripture as a counterpoint to the previous one, chapter 18,where God did indeed appear in a magnificent fire from heaven and in a sudden rainstorm after a drought. And God has had spectacular manifestations before -- a burning bush, remember Moses, a loud voice from heaven accompanied by blindness, remember Paul, to name a couple. However, the point here is that God is not locked into any one mode of appearing. Sometimes God comes in quit unspectacular ways, through silence, in quiet times, through ordinary quiet working of history.

It is only when the thunderous noise has died down, to be replaced by the sound of sheer silence, that Elijah is drawn out of his hiding place, still feeling just as sorry for himself as ever. But then God gives him the presence and the direction he needs, calls anew, re-commissions Elijah to ordain two kings and to ordain Elisha to be the prophet in his place.

 “The sound of sheer silence” sounds like an oxymoron – doesn’t it? But we know the truth – just as Elijah was able to hear something from God in the silence, so can we. Silence is an important spiritual tool. Ask any spiritual leader in any denomination or religion. If we don’t observe some silence we can miss the whisperings of God, the still small voice, the sound of sheer silence, which will give directions for our lives.
In fact not having the silence is hazardous to our health. There was an article a few years ago in the Health Section of the Washington Post, entitled “Now Hear This: The Body Never Gets Used to Noise.”
“It probably won’t kill you, but exposure to everyday noise can over stimulate your body’s stress response. That hormone high might save you in an emergency, but when it’s activated chronically it causes wear and tear on much more than the delicate mechanism of your ears….Study after study has found that community noise is interrupting our sleep, interfering with our children’s learning, suppressing our immune systems and even increasing – abeit a little – our chances of having a heart attack.”

You have heard me say this before – the best way to avoid God is to stay busy and keep the white noise going. No silence is a sure way to lose your way, to miss the direction of God. Fred Craddock tells a story about noise distraction or silent avoidance. He said, “I go every year down to Oxford, Georgia to share in a Southern folk Advent service. There is such a crowd that we have to do two services. This woman came in late to one of the services with her noisy kids and distracted everybody. It even bothered me…these children were really a distraction. At the fellowship time afterward, she came up to me ad said, “you don’t know me, but I’m the one with the noisy kids.”

I said, “Yes, I noticed when you came in.” And we talked a little bit.

The next night she was back without the kids. After coffee hour, she said, “Remember me from last night?”

I said. “Yes, You’re the one with the noisy kids.”

She said, “I didn’t bring them tonight. I take my noisy kids and go late when I don’t want something to get to me. Tonight I came without them.” Did she want to be affected by the gospel? No? Yes? No? Yes? And then she said, “You won’t believe what a mess I’ve made of my life?

Quiet time to hear the Word, to hear the sound of sheer silence – the whisper of God – to find your way is probably one of the most important spiritual tool needed for the living of these days.

A member of the church wrote me recently and said, “I had been looking forward all day to that time of solitude and communion (on the labyrinth)…Few of us speak up for silence and few will ever demand contemplative practices. Still we have voices for occasions such as these. As I was sitting in the center of the labyrinth what came to me was how the Christian story became books, paper and ink, easily tossed and burned, yet once and still embodied by those who found the story compelling enough to repeat until it was part of themselves, living books. So too with the labyrinth which I have walked countless times, the pattern now imprinted on my heart and mind, and though I may not need the canvas cloth or the paper words, I still want them both a part of my life.” Embodying the Word, embodying the labyrinth prayer walk of silence!

The need for quiet time to hear -- quiet time to hear the sound of sheer silence of the voice of God, is one of the most valuable spiritual tools for these days of constant noise of ipods, CD players. television, radios, videos, cell phones, lawn mowers, gas-powered edgers, leaf blowers, washing machines, garbage trucks!

Finding direction for your way is about listening to God. Stressed, depressed or not, it behooves us each to be intentional about quiet and to find our caves to listen for the sheer silence of God’ voice.

Yes, even in our tiredness, even in our wilderness, even in our pity-parties,
God is present;
God sends angels to minister to us;
God nourishes us with all we need for the journey he wants to take us on;
And most important God speaks to us in the silent places of our hearts and calls us to the next step in our journey.

Maybe this is our special calling for this beautiful season, this Father’s Day – to listen to the sound of sheer silence, to the still small voice, to the whispering of God in our hearts! It is only when we silent the white noise, the noise noise, that we can hear and find the direction we so desire.

Let us pray – in silence. Amen!
 

Bob Murray and Alicia Fortenberry, “Depression: A Social Problem with a Relationship Solution”, AHA Perspective Magazine, June/July, 2004.

Rick Weiss, “Now Hear This: The Body Never Gets Use to Noise”, The Washington Post, June 5, 2007, Heath Section F, p.1.

Fred Craddock, The Cherry Log Sermons, (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2001), p.77.