THE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Year A, Lectionary 19
August 10, 2014
1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 85:8-13
Matthew 14:22-33
Pastor David Tryggestad
Concordia Evangelical
Lutheran Church
Duluth, Minnesota
Our prophet Elijah had just come from one of the most spectacular
of all stories in the Old Testament. He had proposed a contest to determine
which god was the true God: the Canaanite fertility god Baal or the God of
Israel. King Ahab and his fiery Queen Jezebel had assembled 400 prophets of their
patron god Baal to dance and chant around an altar, frantically cajoling and
exhorting their god to send fire from heaven. Nothing came of it. They cried
out, “O Baal, answer us!” But nothing came. In desperation they began cutting
themselves with swords and lances. They carried on from morning until almost
sunset. Nothing came. Then it was Elijah’s turn, with no one else but himself,
pouring 12 large stone jars of water over his altar. Then he appealed to the
God of Israel to show all those assembled that Yahweh, the God of Israel, was
the only true God. Fire from heaven rushed down and consumed the altar, the
water, and even the dust of the earth. Elijah himself slew all 400 prophets of
Baal. When you go to Mount Carmel, you will
see a large statue of our prophet wielding a sword above his head.
Our prophet Elijah had just come from one of the most
spectacular of all stories in the Old Testament. The next thing we know, he is
running for his life. Fiery Queen Jezezel is not happy with our prophet Elijah
and has vowed to kill him. So Elijah runs to Mount
Horeb, otherwise known as Mount Sinai, where God had given Moses the Ten
Commandments some four hundred years before. Elijah wants to appeal to God for
divine protection, protesting that he and he alone is left who still worships
the God of Israel, and that all others have forsaken their faith. Elijah seems
to be having a bit of a “pity party” and he wants God to “hold his hand.” No
doubt, Elijah is expecting that God would communicate to him in some quite
spectacular way. God does indeed communicate with Elijah, but not in a way
Elijah might wish for. There was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting
mountains and breaking rocks in pieces, but God was not in the wind; and after
the wind an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake, and after the
earthquake a fire, but God was not in the fire. I wonder if Elijah was confused
and even a bit miffed. God had sent spectacular fire from heaven just days
before; where is God now?! But God is a God of surprises: “. . . and after the
fire a sound of sheer silence.”
The world was shocked to learn, after her death, that Mother
Teresa for forty years had heard only silence from God in her prayers and that
she did not feel God in her heart. We
marvel that she carried on with her mission work in faith, despite her sense of
God’s silence. No doubt, Mother Teresa could identify with Elijah in the
experience of “the sound of sheer silence.”
What do you expect when you go to God in prayer? Do you
expect some kind of sign? How often do we appeal to God for answers and seem to
hear only silence?
Our psalmist is listening intently for God to speak. Our
psalmist sings, “I will listen to what the Lord
God is saying . . .”
How do you tune your ears to hear God speak?
I will return to our psalmist.
If there is a rating scale for fear like there is for pain
when you go to the doctor, no doubt the disciples in the boat would be
somewhere around a ten: intolerable! Probably around the same place our prophet
Elijah had been as he was running for his life. Seasoned fishermen as some of
the disciples were, they had been in the boat all night with the waves
battering them, driving them away from the shore, until somewhere between three
and six o’clock in the morning. They were terrified. It seems ironic to me that
they are terrified, as they had just the day before witnessed Jesus feed 5000
men, besides women and children, with only five loaves and two fish.
It seems the same kind of irony in Elijah running in fear
for his life after just having called fire from heaven and killing 400 prophets
of Baal with his own hands.
But the disciples cry out in fear when they see Jesus
walking toward them on the water: “It is a ghost!” Jesus reassures them, “Take
heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter begins to walk out on the water to Jesus at his
invitation, but when he notices the strong wind of the storm, he becomes
frightened all over again and begin to sink, crying out, “Lord, save me!”
When Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and rather focuses his
attention on the storm raging about him, he begins to sink into his own fear.
Horatio Spafford was a prominent lawyer in Chicago in the
1860s and 70s. He and his wife, Anna, were strong supporters of Dwight L.
Moody, the famous preacher and evangelist, founder of the Moody Bible
Institute. Tragedy struck the couple when their only son died of scarlet fever
at age four. A year later, the Chicago Fire destroyed all of his investment
properties. Two years later, the Spaffords planned to sail with their four daughters
from New York to England to join Moody on one of his
preaching missions. Horatio was called back to Chicago on business, and his wife and
daughters set sail, Horatio planning to join them later. Nine days later, he
received a telegram from his wife in Wales: “Saved alone.” Their ship
had collided with another at sea and sank in only twelve minutes, claiming the
lives of 226 people, including all of the Spafford daughters. Anna’s last memory was of her baby being
violently torn from her arms by the force of the waters. She survived because a
floating piece of debris buoyed up her unconscious body. After she was rescued,
she heard a voice speak, “You were spared for a purpose.”
I will return to the story.
Let’s go back to our psalmist: “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying . . .” Our psalmist
goes on, singing to God: “for you speak peace to your faithful people and
to those who turn their hearts to you.”
Our psalmist insists that God speaks peace to us.
A letter to the editor in yesterday’s Duluth News Tribune railed against those who use their “holy book”
to justify violence and domination.[1] He
writes, “How splendid it must be to know God favors your race over other races
and intends for you to conquer them and to know He smiles when you kill,
displace or imprison the inferior races who are unworthy of the land on which
they live.”
We acknowledge the painful truth that the Bible has often
been misused and abused to justify violence. At the same time, we see right now
in Iraq and Iran the violence perpetrated by ISIS, which claims to represent the true Muslim religion.
The writer of the editorial goes on: “And all the superior
races want then is peace: Because conquerors always want peace.”
Let’s return to our psalm: “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for you speak peace
to your faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to you.” Our
psalmist goes on: “. . . righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Another translation of “righteousness” is “justice”: “justice and peace have
kissed each other.”
Our psalmist insists that there is no peace without justice.
The writer of the letter to the editor is correct in his assertion that those
who subjugate others want peace, but they maintain
that peace with violence or threats of violence.
This is not the peace that God has in mind. The peace that
God would have us enjoy is available only when we practice justice. Justice
includes right relationships with our neighbors near and far. Peace is not the absence of violence; rather,
peace is right relationships.
In addition to the social or communal peace, there is also
the “peace that passes all understanding” that the Christian can experience
within the heart. This is the peace that prevails despite all outward
circumstances, despite the storms that swirl around us. It is the peace of the
“still small voice” within us.
I want to return to the story of Horatio Spafford. On
learning of the sinking of the ship that claimed the lives of all four
daughters, Spafford sailed to England
to join his wife as soon as possible. When the captain of his ship told him
that they had come to the approximate place where his daughters had lost their
lives in waters three miles deep, Horatio went to his cabin and penned the
lyrics to the hymn that has become famous:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll,
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
it is well, it is well with my soul.
We can trust that as those victims struggled for life in the
raging waters, Jesus was there, reaching out his hand, saying, “Take heart, it
is I; do not be afraid.”
Thanks be to God!
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