Tenth Sunday after Trinity
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Readings: 1 Kings 19: 9-18 and Romans 10: 5-15
“Let your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of your humble servants, and that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
So runs the words of today’s Collect. There are many parts to the life of prayer, and people engage in many different ways of praying. Some will find shutting themselves off in a quiet room the best environment for their prayers; others will walk out into the countryside, perhaps with the dog; others find they can engage with God in their everyday tasks, and find God in that work. Others will accompany their prayers with music. Some people will find early morning the best time to pray; others late at night, having been encouraged to say their prayers at bedtime as children. Whilst it is good to have some discipline over our prayers, that is not a luxury everyone can afford in the busy-ness of a chaotic family home or in a stressful working life.
Of course, how you pray will depend on your idea of God. Some people sense God as their constant companion so that they seem to be talking to him every moment. Others won’ t have that experience. Some will find praying and worshipping most natural when with other people, as in church; but for many folk their relationship with God is quite private and they pray and worship alone.
I have been reading a book by Sarah Winman called “When God was a rabbit.” It came to my attention through the wedding we had here a month ago. I thought it an unusual title, but it’s quite simple really – a little girl called Elly is given a large rabbit on Christmas Day, and her brother names it ‘God.’ But what caught my attention was an encounter between Elly and Arthur, an elderly gentleman who comes to live nearby.
‘Do you believe in God, Arthur?’ “Do I believe in an old man in the clouds with a white beard judging us mortals with a moral code from one to ten? No, my sweet Elly, I do not! Do I believe in a mystery; the unexplained phenomenon that is life itself? The greater something that illuminates inconsequence in our lives; that gives us something to strive for as well as the humility to brush ourselves down and start all over again? Then yes, I do. It is the source of art, of beauty, of love, and proffers the ultimate goodness to mankind. That to me is God. That to me is life; that is what I believe in.” I thought that was rather good. As you might expect, I would want to take that further, but I suspect that is where many people are with faith and belief in their widest sense.
And there is something of Arthur’s answer in Elijah’s encounter with God as recorded in chapter 19 of 1 Kings. Of course, we don’t know how such an encounter came to be written down, but it marked a turning-point in Elijah’s life. It is truly a personal encounter between the prophet and his God, but also a demonstration of the Lord’s power and majesty.
Elijah’s faith and trust in God had been tested by the things he experienced. He eventually discovered God in the sound of sheer silence. He was at a low ebb when we take up the story, afraid for his own life. He had triumphed over the godless prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, but the wicked Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, had vowed to get him and take his life. We heard his plea to the Lord. “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but now everyone is seeking me out to take my life.” It was a cry for help – for God to act. It’s a reminder that our prayers to God don’t always have to be measured or restrained. Elijah had done everything asked of him – ‘very zealous for the Lord’ but here he was, afraid and pouring out his heart to God.
We find other similar encounters in the bible, of people of faith telling God just how they feel, even being angry with him. And there’s every indication that God accepts those prayers of anger or lament. In fact such prayers often give God the opportunity to reveal himself in a deeper way. But here, although Elijah witnessed wind, earthquake and fire, he wasn’t reassured until God was there in mystery – ‘in the sound of sheer silence’, or – if you prefer an older version of the bible – the ‘still small voice.’
We might think of St. Paul as a more cerebral person. But in today’s reading he is also approaching mysteries when he says that the gospel is more than obeying the Law. Now that Christ has appeared and been raised from the dead, a new life principle has been established. His exaltation to heaven does not require anyone to attempt to bring him down, any more than his death requires anyone to descend into the grave to find him. His life is a spiritual reality known at first hand.
Christianity, says Jane Williams, is a relationship, offered by God, in which our place is opened up by Jesus, and in which we are constantly tutored and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. No one is ‘good’ at it, but that’s all right, because entrance is not by exam, and places are not limited. The temptation is to go off looking for challenges to prove your worth to God, or seeking him in the terrifying power of the wind, the earthquake and the fire, because surely silence and the rhythm of your own heart are too small and mundane for God? But Elijah’s encounter with God tells us otherwise.
The word, says, St. Paul, is near you; it is on your lips and in in your heart. But he doesn’t leave things there, any more than the Lord left Elijah in the depths of the sheer silence. “Go,” he tells Elijah, “return on your way.” He calls him to further action.
And St. Paul’s concern is for those who have never heard of God’s love in Christ. He recalls the text ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed or never heard of? And how will they hear unless someone tells them?
So here is an invitation to translate what we believe in our hearts to outgoing witness. Do we take our faith for granted? Are we concerned about those who have never heard, or, more likely, who have not heard what this means to us, in our own words, such as Arthur so eloquently spoke to young Elly in our story from earlier? Do we pray for others with the same fervent concern that St. Paul did, desirous that all should come to the fulfilment in life that he had found in Jesus?
“Let your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of your humble servants, and that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”