Hearing God in the Silence

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a

At the mountain of God, Horeb,

Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter. 

Then the LORD said to him,

“Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD;

the LORD will be passing by.” 

A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains

and crushing rocks before the LORD—

but the LORD was not in the wind. 

After the wind there was an earthquake—

but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 

After the earthquake there was fire—

but the LORD was not in the fire. 

After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. 

When he heard this,

Elijah hid his face in his cloak

and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.

The Prophet Elijah was exhausted and on the run. In 1 Kings 18, he had successfully defeated 450 prophets of Ba’al, the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, in the contest at Mt. Carmel. Despite the Lord’s convincing proof that he is the real God and Ba’al is not, the contest did not result in a massive change of heart for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Instead, its queen Jezebel threatened to kill Elijah (see 1 Kings 19:1-3). So he fled south through the Kingdom of Judah, all the way to the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula. There he sat down under a tree and prayed for death, feeling as though he was the only one left trying to follow the Lord (see 1 Kings 19:4-10). 

“The mountain of God, Horeb” where Elijah fled is the very same mountain where Moses and the Israelites encountered I AM in the early days immediately after the Exodus from Egypt. During that Great Theophany, the Lord made his presence known and felt through strong wind, earthquakes, and fire (Exodus 19:16-18). Elijah was hoping to experience the presence of God in a similar way, to boost his spirits a bit. Even the imagery of Elijah sheltering in a cave to see the Lord recalls Moses’ stay on the same mountain where he begged to see the Lord’s glory and hid in the cleft of a rock while God passed by (see Exodus 33:18-22). Yet this time, the Lord was not present in those flashy, dramatic elements like he was before. As the storm raged inside Elijah’s heart, the Lord came in “a tiny whispering sound,” a still, small voice. The Lord was in the silence. 

Silence. We do not get enough of it. We are so unfamiliar with silence and stillness that it can be a bit unsettling for us. Yet the Lord most often speaks in silence, and we must learn to hear him there. Jesus calmed the storm at sea to bring about calm, stillness, and silence. The Lord commands us, “Be still and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:11). Amid the hectic pace of modern life, the Spirit is calling us to set aside time for silence in the presence of the Lord. Instead of seeking him in the commotion around us, he calls us to find him in the still caverns deep within. 

Perhaps you feel a bit like Elijah, worn out from all the good you are doing. Perhaps you too have revisited the places where God has shown up in a flashy way only to find that the Lord does not always work that way. Perhaps you feel like a bit of a lone wolf, out on your own, trying your best to cling to the Lord in a culture that wants to kill you, at least spiritually speaking. The Lord is inviting each of us to cling to him in silence, to let our words be few (see Ecclesiates 5:2), and to encounter him in stillness. Silence can be a little off putting. Are you willing to try?