Text: 1 Kings 19:1-15a

James Alison believes that we must ground any deep theological understanding in what he calls a cracking of the heart. That is, to understand God’s way and God’s will for our lives there needs to be a letting go of what we may value most, what we think is most important in our lives. It is in the cracking of the heart, held close and tight, that the amazing grace of God may flow in with the power to heal us and make us whole. But often this healing, this wholeness comes at a cost we think is more than we could ever bear.

Alison himself tells of his self-serving crusade to get the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church to accept him and validate him as a gay man and a priest. It took a profound cracking of heart for him to see that the only acceptance and validation he needed comes from God. There were three crucial events all occurring one on top of the other that contributed to his cracking of heart. One was the completion of his dissertation, with its attendant “postpartum” depression, the second was his dismissal from the Dominican order for being gay and the third was the death of his lover to AIDS.

One could imagine with three such blows one would sink into despair and lamentation at God’s abandonment. Perhaps even Jesus experienced something like this when he cried out from the cross. And yet for Alison there was a cleansing that swept through his heart cracked open, something like the healing balm of Gilead, the reassurance that, whatever might happen in his life, God was with him, drawing him into an ever-deepening understanding of what it means to be a child of God. He says that our ancient word for this morning tells such a tale of a heart-close-to-cracking.

A few years ago I incorporated this text into a sermon preached on the last Sunday in June. This is the Sunday in which Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender pride is traditionally celebrated around the country and nowhere more jubilantly than in San Francisco. It also marks the date I was ordained by the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland in 1996 after my own 23 year struggle with ecclesial authority. The theme for the Pride parade that year was “Shakin’ It Up” and so I cleverly used that title for my sermon. It seemed appropriate since there are few biblical texts that give us a more dramatic tale of moving and shaking than this one. This tale fits well into the biblical tradition of radical transformation for one caught up in the presence of the holy. Often in scripture we are confronted by the unexpected, traditions are overturned, the self- righteous are challenged, sinners are saved, paradox is affirmed and the world is turned upside down.

Here we see Elijah, the mighty prophet. He is a powerful figure, in some sense, bigger than life, almost a superhero. But we quickly see he is also very human. In this morning’s ancient word we find Elijah running for his life. Why would such a great and powerful figure be in flight? There had been a long drought in Israel. Three years without rain, ostensibly because King Ahab, under the evil influence of the Queen Jezebel – isn’t it interesting in these old stories how often the woman gets blamed? – had tolerated the worship of her Phoenician god, Ba’al. Elijah had been the one called forth to confront the king for straying from God with the prophecy of this drought as the “word of the Lord.” You can imagine that he had not been too popular in court and had made himself scarce around Samaria.

Finally, in a magnificently dramatic confrontation on the summit of Mt. Carmel, Elijah, standing alone, defeats 450 prophets of Ba’al in a showdown of prayer and sacrifice. After the failure of Ba’al’s prophets to invoke the fire to burn their sacrifice, Elijah calls on the one true God to consume his sacrifice and send the rain that will end the drought. And God provides.

Is Elijah rewarded by the royalty or the people for his success? No, Jezebel puts out a contract on him and Elijah flees. So here we find him in full flight, crying out to God, “Enough! Take my life. These faithless, wicked people will never hear your word!” Note that his own faith in God is not shaken, only his hope for God’s people and for his prophetic task. His heavy heart is close to cracking. He has done everything he thought he ought to do and with little impact on God’s people.

God leads Elijah on a journey from Israel to Judah and into the wilderness where we find him holed up in a cave on Mt. Horeb (also known as Mt. Sinai, the very site where the first great prophet, Moses, had been covered by the presence of God and received God’s law.) Once more the word of the Lord comes to confront the prophet, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah pleads his case, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Basically, he is afraid.

But God insistently calls him out of the supposed safety of the cave to stand alone before God on the barren mountainside. A mighty, sweeping hurricane, a bone-rattling earthquake, a fiercely blazing fire all pass before him and swirl around him. Is this a test of Elijah’s fearful faith? If so, it is spectacular. Is the awe-inspiring Creator of the universe to be found in any of these predictable events? Not on this day. It is only when all the tumult has passed that God greets Elijah in the way Elijah most needs to be met – in the “sound of sheer silence,” a still, small voice gnawing at Elijah’s very core. “What are you doing here, Elijah? I still need you to be my prophet, to speak the word of the Lord. There is so much work yet to be done, so much for you and all my people to learn about whom I am and what I desire. Go back to Israel and represent me, Elijah.” God’s challenge remains fierce and demanding, but, on this day, Elijah also experiences God as peace, reassurance and safety, felt deep in the center of his being. New power for new being is offered on the mountainside where the law was first delivered.

You see Elijah had forgotten – or perhaps he never knew – the uncountable faces of the God he served. His resolve had been shaken because his faith, though secure, was limited. Even after his great victory over the prophets of Ba’al, he thought that somehow Jezebel and Ahab held power over his life and therefore it wasn’t worth much. There were still things for him to learn, great prophet that he was. God always has more light to shed, more truth to reveal, more wisdom to impart, more grace to give, more love to share than we can ever fathom. God, the Worker of wonders and the Lover of life, constantly amazes our finite minds when we open them to allow God’s spirit to quietly steal in and turn us around.
Process theologian, Bruce Epperly, says of this passage that “Physical death is likely for the prophet if he returns to Samaria. But, spiritual death is already on the horizon. Under the duress of fleeing for his life, and despite his faithfulness to God, Elijah gives up hope and is ready to die…In his deepest despair, Elijah discovers the graceful providence of God. The Holy One provides the prophet not only with bread for the journey, but a direct experience of the divine…This scripture reminds us that God faithfully provides inspiration and energy in the midst of challenge and that, through commitment to spiritual practices, we can listen to the divine whisper amid life’s challenge.” (Bruce Epperly, Process and Faith Lectionary Commentary, Pentecost +3, June 24, 2007)
It is in such experiences, difficult and painful as they may be, that we may find our way into a deeper relationship with God and a more profound understanding of what it means to live immersed in God’s life-giving presence. Elijah carries his heart-close-to-cracking into the wilderness and up onto the mountainside. He has done all that he understands God has asked of him. In fact, he has been very zealous in speaking God’s word as he understands it and doing God’s will as it has been revealed to him. He has confronted the king in dramatic fashion and the prophets of Ba’al even more dramatically. He has followed what he understands as God’s orders to have all the prophets of Ba’al executed, and the text says he will go on to play a role in bloodshed to come. In spite of the reports of others who have repented, Elijah characterizes himself as the only one left who is faithful. Part of what he must learn is that death and destruction are not God’s way. He must also learn that he is not alone. Not only is God still with him, in fact with him in a new and more fulfilling way, but there are also a few who have heard the word of the Lord and taken heed.
The evolution of his understanding of his role as God’s prophet is slow and painful. He leaves this earth having done the best he knew how to do, insufficient as that may have been. But in this brief shining moment, on the barren mountainside, he is given the opportunity to encounter the living God in a moment free of drama, confrontation, strife; to see that God is not caught up with the sturm und drang of human battles but is much more likely to come to the sheer silence of desperate, waiting souls.
This is also a tale of the ongoing evolution of human understanding of God. Alison says that “…what seems to be the triumph of Yahwism is in fact presented as the story of the un-deceiving of Elijah. Elijah, before his un-deceiving was a champion fighter without problems of self-esteem and self-confidence. [For Elijah,] God was a god like Ba’al, but bigger and tougher, and Elijah was his spokesman, the one who pointed out his victims. The contest of Mt. Carmel was a splendid battle between rival shamans or witch-doctors. [But] after the bloody interlude, which he had won, Elijah sinks into a depression and doubts the value of all that…” (James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment, p. 29) At the seeming apex of his human achievement, Elijah looks around and asks, “Is this really what it’s all about? Is this all there is?” In the words of my old mentor, Bill Malcomson, “Success is a failure experience.”
“ One can understand what might be meant by zeal exercised on behalf of a god who appears with hurricanes, earthquakes and fires. But what on earth might it mean to be zealous in the service of a still, small voice?” (James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment, p. 30) This is the dilemma with which Elijah must struggle. He has done what has been asked of him in the prescribed manner and it simply is not enough. Only a few have caught his vision and repented and he does not even recognize them. There is no personal fulfillment for him in all the might and majesty of his prophetic career. The God he serves is a god of infinitely greater possibilities and mightily mysterious ways, a God who is constantly turning the world topsy turvy until it “comes ‘round right,” Elijah’s included.
Again Alison writes of the transformation of the prophet, “The still, small voice says much more than it seems to: it says that God is not a rival to Ba’al, that God is not to be found in sacred violence. Elijah, when he entered into rivalry with the prophets of Ba’al became one of them, because God is not to be found in such circuses, nor in the murders which go along with them. At the end of his un-deceiving Elijah is more Yahwist, more atheist, less of a shaman, less of a sacrificer, because God is not like the gods, not even so as to show himself superior to them. The cave of Horeb [then] was, for Elijah, the theological space for a cracking of heart.” (James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment, p. 30)
The heart that is cracked is the one that has indeed been very “zealous for the Lord,’ that now knows God has no need of his zeal in defense of God. His prophetic calling is to draw people back into faithful relationship to God, to guide them to the God whose ways may appear strange and odd and yet is filled with grace, love and compassion for the whole of creation. It may take sheer silence and a heart-close-to-cracking to allow God the access to our lives which will yet heal them and make us whole.