We continue our sermon series on the Hebrew Prophets by looking this week at Elijah who occupies almost a superstar status within the Hebrew tradition.

There is no biblical book of Elijah - he was not one of the writing prophets - but his life story forms part of the 1st and 2nd Books of Kings, and his impact on Hebrew culture was so great that he lives on as a very real presence in Jewish custom.

Elijah was a man of action, he showed tremendous courage, he was absolute in his faith, he tolerated no failures in the covenant between the chosen people and their God, and for this he was imbued with great power - he also aroused great opposition from the other cultures with which he fought almost continually.  If King David is looked back on as the best King which the Hebrews ever produced, then Elijah is looked back on as the greatest warrior for the purity and authenticity of the Hebrews' covenant with God.  In fact, there are many parallels between the deeds and actions of Elijah and the deeds and actions of Moses which serve to reinforce the idea of a new hero who, like Moses, hears and proclaims the word of God and steers the Hebrew people back into a right relationship with their God.

In the timeline of early Hebrew history we have moved forward a few generations from Nathan and King David whom we heard about last week.  After the monarchy of David's son, Solomon, the Hebrew nation has divided into two kingdoms - Israel in the north, and Judah in the south.  Ahab is now the king of the northern kingdom of Israel and, in Elijah's judgment, is failing to defend and protect the authenticity of the Hebrew religion from the influence of the local beliefs prevalent in the northern kingdom.  That local religion was the worship of Baal, it involved much use of idols and images, and it perceived the power and presence of Baal in such physical manifestations as storms, wind and fire.  What Elijah observed was a growing tendency of the Israelites to compromise with the local culture, to relax the rules of their faith, and to start to lose their unique identity as a people defined by their religion.

Elijah challenges King Ahab about this and particularly alienates King Ahab's queen, Jezebel who ultimately issues the threat against Elijah's life that we heard in the reading.  Eventually a contest takes place on Mount Carmel between Baal and the God of the Hebrews, with various priests of Baal representing their deity on the one side, and Elijah representing the Hebrew God on the other side.  Each side has to call upon their God to ignite the sacrifice which has been prepared on their respective altars.  The priests of Baal spend all day performing their rituals and making their incantations, but fail to produce the necessary result.  Elijah goes to great pains to dowse his sacrifice with gallons of water so that it cannot possibly burn, then he calls upon God to send down fire from heaven, and immediately the sacrifice to the God of the Hebrews is consumed by fire.

But even though Elijah wins the contest on behalf of his God, the people still do not turn convincingly back to God and they continue to give way to the customs and practices of the local religion.

Elijah now feels that he has failed as a prophet.  The Israelites are not listening to the word of God as he proclaims it, and Elijah has made some dangerous and powerful enemies.  So he retreats to the desert and gives way to his feelings of despair: he actually asks to be allowed to die.  Angels feed him while he is in the desert and eventually Elijah arrives at the holy mountain of Horeb - which is another name for Sinai - and Elijah takes shelter for the night in a cave.  Here he experiences a true 'Moses moment'.  Elijah experiences God's powerful presence on the holy mountain, firstly in the form of a mighty wind, secondly in the form of an earthquake, thirdly in the form of fire, but then finally in the sound of sheer silence.  After the silence, Elijah covers his face and stands at the entrance to the cave, and God speaks to him and sends him on a mission to anoint new kings and to appoint his own successor in the prophetic task.

The Hebrew original which is translated here as 'the sound of sheer silence' has been translated in many different ways over time: it has been called, "a gentle whisper" (NIV), "a still small voice" (ASV), "the soft whisper of a voice" (GNB), "a whistling of a gentle air" (Douay), and "a gentle and quiet whisper" (Message).  It's a notoriously difficult idea to put into words, but it seems that it was certainly an active occurrence.  To say simply that Elijah experienced the presence of God in silence can suggest that he experienced no more than an absence of sound; but it seems to have been much more than that - he experienced a presence of something, something deeply still, something deeply communicative, something deeply personal, something unique to the one true God. And it empowered him to go on.

The followers of Baal believed they could summon up storms and winds and fire.  The God of the Hebrews also used massive natural forces to announce his presence and to demonstrate his power; but now the people of God have learned that they also experience God in that deep and active stillness of God's personal presence.

As we think about Elijah's experience of God's presence in his life, perhaps we recognise that God is often in the unexpected experiences of our own lives.  Although we might hope for the great revolutionary acts of power which would bring about our perfect world, we are more likely to experience God's presence in the small things, in the everyday task, and in those parts of our life that we give unconditionally to others.  Elijah's experience also shows us that God can be perceived in those parts of our life that we give unconditionally to ourselves and to the still small voice within us.

In busy and demanding lives, as we live in an era of much noise, distraction and intrusion into our private spaces, it can be hard to find time and to create the environment for stillness.  Sometimes we live at such a pace that when we reach a time of stillness we may perceive it simply as an absence of sound, rather than a presence of something spiritual.  I remember reading of a former, very saintly Archbishop of Canterbury who told his students that he wished he could pray more deeply during his prayers each morning; but, no matter how he approached it, in each 30 minute period that he spent alone in his private chapel, it took him 25 minutes to become quiet.  He seemed to be saying that he could have 30 minutes of the absence of sound, but was lucky to achieve 5 minutes of a deep and active stillness in God's presence.

Elijah's story shows us that even the most committed and energised prophets need sometimes to reach into their deepest selves and to encounter the presence of God within them, as well as perceiving and proclaiming the power of God around them.  Our challenge, as children of the same God who drew Elijah into an experience of a still small voice, is to consider how we can nurture that same understanding within ourselves.

Amen.

(Philip Jones)