God is in the Details

11 Pentecost, Proper 14, Year B
August 12, 2012
1 Kings 19:4-8 

(Art created during parish retreat, now hanging in the Church)

Since I’ve been posting my sermons on my blog I’ve sometimes been flummoxed by having to come up with titles for them.  It’s usually a few hours after I’ve given my sermon when I copy it onto my blog page and then sit and stare at it for a few minutes trying to think of something catchy to call it.  But this morning I’ve already figured it out in advance.  Have you heard the saying “the devil is in the details?”  I think it means that something seems ordinary and innocuous enough but then upon closer inspection you find something unsavory in the small print.  And it may be a true and useful enough saying in some contexts, but for this morning’s Old Testament reading from 1 Kings, I’m going with exactly the opposite -- “God is in the details.”   

Before we see Elijah this morning, he has been working miracles, confronting King Ahab and Queen Jezebel with their wicked ways, proving God’s power in a contest against Baal, and finally slaying hundreds of Baal’s prophets.  This infuriates Jezebel, who threatens Elijah’s life.  And so he escapes to the desert, which is where we find him this morning hiding out, exhausted and frightened.

            Our small slice of Elijah’s story is full of interesting details.  Elijah went “a day’s journey into the wilderness”.  He sat down “under a solitary broom tree.”  An angel offered him “a cake baked on hot stones”.  And then he headed to “Horeb the mount of God.”  I can almost feel his fear.  I can picture him, dusty and dirty, making his escape from Jezebel.  I can imagine his discomfort sleeping on the hard ground.  I can almost smell the warm cake the angel offers.  I can appreciate the sustenance of that cake that helps him to keep trudging along for the next forty days.

            This same story told in the abstract wouldn’t be the same.  Can you imagine?  “Elijah was afraid and fell asleep.  And angel gave him food and then he walked for a long time to a mountain.”  A story like that wouldn’t matter.  It would be bland and pointless and it wouldn’t draw me in at all.  It’s the concrete descriptions and specific information that give this story – give any story – shape, make it personal, help us picture the scene and feel empathy and connection. 

            It’s the particulars in this story that connect it to so many other stories that I know.  This isn’t just Elijah moping under the broom tree; it’s Job under the withering vine, angry enough to die.  This isn’t just Elijah lying down to sleep under his tree and being awakened by an angel; it’s Jacob sleeping with a stone for a pillow before his visit from the celestial wrestler.  This isn’t just Elijah journeying in the wilderness; it’s the Israelites wandering in the desert.  This isn’t just Elijah trekking to Mount Horeb; it’s Moses heading to that same mountain to receive the 10 Commandments. 

And somehow in Elijah’s story are my stories, too.  I see my son plopping down on the ground exhausted and fussy during a walk to the park.  My dad and I trying to find food that might spark my mom’s interest on her sick bed.  My friend at seminary leaving chocolate in my mailbox just before my GOE exams.  In Elijah’s particular story are somehow connections to places where all of us might meet God in our own experiences, in our own wildernesses.

            Just like Elijah’s, our stories of encounter with God are not abstract, but particular.  God is in our specifics, too.

            Last weekend at our parish retreat at Shrine Mont we spent some time thinking about and sharing times in our lives when we have felt particularly close to God.  Our stories were set in particular times and places.  Sometimes they included certain people, or clouds that looked a certain way, or some event in the background that set the scene.  Sometimes we could remember specific thoughts or feelings or conversations or smells.  Some stories came with tears and some with laughter.  The stories encompassed times of testing, times of provision, times of weakness, times of despair, times of strengthening, and times of redefinition.  Every story was different, but in one way they were the same -- the details were part of our stories, and they mattered. 

            Our God is a God of specifics.  An incarnational God who finds each and every one of us.  Smack dab in the midst of whatever sliver of our own story we find ourselves.  And God is also in the space after our stories.

            What comes next in Elijah’s story isn’t included in our lectionary reading for this morning – we won’t get it in church for another two years – but I’m betting it will sound familiar to many of you. 

After Elijah travels for forty days and nights on the strength of that cake baked on hot stones, he finally reaches the mount of Horeb.  God tells Elijah to go stand on the mountain.  And then “there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

And in that sheer silence Elijah encountered God.  Other translations call it “a gentle and quiet whisper” or “a soft murmuring sound”, but I like the “sound of sheer silence” best, since that’s so often where our stories ultimately bring us.

At Shrine Mont, after each of us told our personal story of a time when we had felt close to God, our instructions were to take a minute of silence.  But I don’t think my group even needed those instructions.  That silence seemed to flow naturally.  And, for me, anyway, in that silence was respect, awe, thankfulness, new insight into the person sharing their story, and appreciation of God’s miraculous and varied presence in the details of our lives.  And a connection – always a connection to my own story in some way.  God was in the silences just as surely as God was in the details that came before.  Maybe even more so.

            There’s a Ted.com talk where Karen Armstrong describes a spiritual exercise that was developed in India in the 10^th century BC.  First, the Brahmin priests went out into the wilderness on retreat, fasting and meditating.  And then, after a while, they returned for a competition of sorts.  Someone would start with a description of God that embodied all of his learning and insight, trying to condense his experience of God, his encounter with God, into words.  And God was surely present in those experiences, in those encounters, and in those words.  And then the others would respond, taking the description further, each building on what the others had said.  And God was surely present in all of that too. 

        But the winner of the contest was the person who finally reduced everybody else to silence.  The person who brought the group to the place beyond words – the place where we so often find ourselves after an encounter with God, or after being privileged enough to hear about someone else’s encounter with God.  In those moments, there is nothing left to say.  And in that space is present a God much bigger and more particular than our words can ever describe.  Amen.