19 Sunday Homily

Silence

Sound of sheer silence

A voice of thin silence

Preceded by a mighty wind, an earthquake, fire or lightning; phenomena which overwhelm and which signified the presence of the Creator and Saviour of Israel. But for Elijah in this moment, there is the sound of thin silence which leads him to discern the presence of the living God. This is one of the great moments of revelation in the Old Testament. What lifts Elijah out of his depression and renews his vocation is a totally new sense of God. The Lord once manifest in terrifying upheavals of nature is now known in something as subtle and gentle as ‘sheer silence,’ a silence that somehow has a ‘voice’. We did not hear it today, but after Elijah wraps his face in a cloak and stands at the entrance of the cave, out of the silence comes a question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” God knows what his servant is doing, but he starts with a question which gives space to his servant to speak, to tell his story.

God makes space for us just to be with him, makes space for us to have a voice, to be in relationship with him. He does not overpower us. He does not overwhelm us with truth which is too much for us, he enters into conversation with us and leads us gently. In God’s presence we do not need to prove anything, we can just be with the one WHO IS. He WHO IS loves us as we are – for we are his creation – and loving us invites us into a relationship with him which leads us to be more of who we are, calls us to turn from the hard-heartedness, selfishness, fear which makes us less.

In this relationship God calls us to the freedom of faith, our trust and love. That is what the Son of God asks of his disciples as he gradually leads them to know him. In the Gospel he sends them on a boat journey into stormy weather and there they encounter him coming to them across the water. The Old Testament worshipped God as the one alone who could calm the storms and whose way is through the sea. And when the disciples cry out in fear, he says, ‘Take heart; I AM. Fear Not.’ That is the literal translation of the Greek: ‘Take heart; I AM. Fear not.’ He uses the divine name, ‘I AM’ to refer to himself. In the storm they discover him as the one who is God with them.

Peter starts out on to the water trustingly, but then feeling the strength of the storm becomes fearful; he hears the voice of fear. We listen so easily to the voice of fear. We allow fear to overwhelm our faith, hope and love, to overwhelm our generosity and we sink. But even then he is with us, calling us out of our fear to trust in him.

We do not need to be other than who we are with God; we are indeed on a journey of discovering who God is as he walks faithfully with us and who we are as grow in the faith, hope and love which enable us to be truly ourselves We continue on that journey as we respond to God’s invitation in the people and events of our life. He always invites, gives us grace, his voice whispers gently in our hearts and minds calling us respond to people and situations with love, faith and hope. And as we do we become more ourselves, more than we thought we could be, more free in love, faith and hope. Step by step he leads us. And when we fall and fail, he is with us to lift us up once more: ‘Take heart. I AM. Do not fear.’