Community Church Sermons

August 10, 2008

Pentecost 13

“Whoosh! Boom! Roar!”

 

1 Kings 19:9-18

Matthew 14:22-33

Rev. Rhonda A. Blevins

 

Listen to this Sermon!

 

Did you hear it? God was not in the WHOOSHBOOMROAR!

There was the prophet Elijah, standing on top of a mountain when three natural disasters struck. First a great big WHOOSH . . . a wind splitting the mountain causing rocks to come tumbling down. And after the whoosh came a BOOM . . . an earthquake shaking the very foundation under the prophet’s feet. Then after the boom came a mighty ROAR . . . a fire consuming everything in its path. But God was not in the WHOOSHBOOMROAR.

This is big news! This goes against pop culture’s tendency to place God where God is not, particularly when we have our own WHOOSH or BOOM or ROAR.

Like after the WHOOSH of Hurricane Katrina which left over 1,300 dead and countless more homeless. John Hagee saw God in that WHOOSH, and suggested it was God’s punishment for a particular city’s upcoming gay pride parade.

Or after the ROAR of September 11, 2001 when terrorists flew airplanes into buildings killing roughly 3,000 people. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell saw God in that ROAR, and suggested it was God’s punishment for America’s corruption.

Oh, and it’s not just the right wing that does this. The lefties come up with this crazy stuff, too! You probably remember the BOOM in China back in May that left over 70,000 people dead. Sharon Stone saw God in that BOOM, and suggested it was God’s punishment for China’s treatment of Tibet.

It’s easy to blame God when disaster strikes.  When there is a WHOOSH, a BOOM or a ROAR, people search for answers, and unfortunately there are those who capitalize on those opportunities to make some kind of point for their own purposes.

But there on the mountain stood an exhausted and terrified prophet waiting for a word from God. But God was not in the WHOOSHBOOMROAR.

That must have been pretty disappointing for Elijah. I imagine Elijah was probably a lot like us, wanting God to manifest God’s self in exciting, extreme ways.  We always want the next big thing.  We want our houses bigger. We want our computers faster.  We want our cell phones to have cameras and our MP3 players to have GPS.  We want our joint replacements to make our espresso. And we want our hurricanes and our earthquakes and our fires . . . well, we want the Lord God Almighty right in the middle of them like an orchestra conductor. It makes for a pretty sexy deity.

When I was a kid growing up in church, I remember thinking of the Bible as a book of answers. Whatever problem I had, the Bible had an answer for it.  I don’t know where I picked up this technique, but I learned to practice the “holy flip.” I would simply state my dilemma before God, flip through my Bible to some random page, place my finger upon the print and POOF! There the answer would be! It reminds me of a story:

A preacher was driving down a country road when his car broke down, so he walked to a nearby bar to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed there at the bar. “What happened to you, Frank?” asked the good reverend. “You used to be rich.”

Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall. The preacher told Frank to go home.  He said, “Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God’s answer.” Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped out of a Mercedes. “Frank.” said the preacher, “I am glad to see things really turned around for you.” “Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you,” said Frank. “I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer—Chapter 11.”[1]

Wouldn’t it be great if it were that simple? We have a question, we flip and find the answer. A disaster strikes, we simply determine who God is punishing.

However, I don’t think God has much taste for such bravado.

Back to the mountain with our disappointed Elijah. Instead of God revealing God’s self through the extraordinary means of the WHOOSHBOOMROAR, God gently whispered in what the King James Version calls a “still, small voice.”

A very popular perfume commercial from the 1970’s is forever lodged in my cerebrum—it went like this: “Whisper. If you want to capture someone’s attention, whisper.”  I suppose God wanted Elijah’s attention, so God didn’t yell or scream or throw a God-sized tantrum. God didn’t even show up in the WHOOSHBOOMROAR. Rather, God simply whispered. I think God is still in the whispering business today.

But we can’t hear the whispers because there is too much NOISE! I dare say every one of us has a debilitating disorder called “sensory overload.” From televisions to the radio to the internet, we’ve got to have noise.  We even buy machines for the express purpose of making “white noise.” The constant cacophony leaves little space whispers.

It’s not only an auditory issue. We have visual overload as well. I hosted a student from England in my home a few years back, and I asked her what was most striking about the United States that was different from England.  She commented that she was taken aback by all of the advertising, particularly the billboards.  I started paying attention after that and discovered that she was right!  20 minutes of advertising before a movie.  Advertising on our grocery carts.  I’m thinking about getting in that game by hosting ad space on the back of my Sunday morning vestment. What do you think? Mama needs a new pair of shoes!

What’s even more detrimental in our ability to hear the whispers of God than all of that external clanging is the internal chatter. Our minds are busy dredging through the past or fretting about the future. And somewhere in the center of all of that is God . . . gently whispering to us . . . calling us by name . . . telling us we are beloved . . . spurring us to boundless faith, radical hope, and revolutionary compassion.

God is in the silence. “Be still and know that I am God,” we read in the Psalms.[2] Stillness is both a mandate and a prerequisite for hearing and knowing a God who desperately wants to be known.

I read a story about several applicants seeking a position as a ship’s Morse code operator. While they were waiting to be interviewed, the room was filled with the sounds of conversation, and so the applicants were oblivious to the sound of dots and dashes emanating from an intercom. Then another applicant came in, sat down, and quietly waited. Suddenly, she jumped up, walked into the private office, and after a few minutes, walked out with the job. The other applicants exclaimed, “We were here first! How could you go ahead of us and get the job?” To which she replied, “Any of you could have gotten the job if you had just been quiet long enough to pay attention to the message on the intercom.” “What message?” “The code said, ‘A ship’s operator must always be on the alert. The first person who gets this message and comes directly into my office will get the job.’”[3]

If we could just be quiet long enough, what might we hear? What might God be whispering to us today? After the WHOOSH of the hurricane, after the earthquake’s BOOM, after the ROAR of the fire . . . what might the silence say? Brothers and sisters stop looking for God in flashing neon and:

Make room for the whispers.
Make room for the whispers.
Make room for the whispers.
Make room for the whispers.