To Know and Be Known
1 Kings 19:9-18
At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
Sermon
Alright, go and regress back to your 7- or 8-year old self. For those of you who went to Sunday school growing up, picture that room where you were taught about God and the Bible and the Church. If you didn’t grow up going to Sunday school, just hang in there for a moment.
So you’re sitting in that Sunday school classroom. Your teacher has already brought out the flannel graph, or the overhead projector, and you’ve read a Bible story about Jesus doing something or other. On your left is a kid who knows all the answers. On your right is a kid who knows none of the answer. And in front of you is your teacher, who’s doing her best to not drop-kick the kid who’s snacking on the Elmer’s glue.
It’s then that your teacher asks you a question: “What is prayer?”
The answer? If I had to guess, there’s a good chance you answered by saying “prayer is talking to God.” Or it’s having a conversation with God.
For those of us who answered that way, it’s pretty likely that this answer still shapes the way we think about prayer. We may have added a little nuance here or there, but there’s a good chance that as adults, we still answer the question pretty similarly to when we were 7 or 8.
What if a second question is posed to your elementary-aged self? Let’s say that teacher looks at you and asks another question: “Does God know everything?” And right on cue, I bet you—or everyone in this room—will answer with an emphatic “Yes!”
Now… you could leave worship today with those same Sunday school answers that you came in with. That’s fine. But I’m going to challenge you to think about some slightly different answers to those questions. Those slightly different answers start with Elijah and today’s text.
…
To bring us up to speed, we are encountering Elijah today as he flees the wicked Queen Jezebel. Why is fleeing? Because shortly before this, Elijah has humiliated her religious leaders and religious community. Elijah taunted Jezebel’s prophets, who serve the god Baal. Elijah essentially starts a duel between his own God and the god Baal. The rules are simple: the prophets of Baal will call upon their god to rain fire down from heaven upon a sacrificial bull; Elijah will do the same, and everyone will know the true God by which one sends fire from heaven.
So the duel commences. Four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal perform rituals and offer prayers, but to no avail. Elijah, however, raises the stakes. He has jars of water poured upon the bull, not just once or twice, but three times, soaking the bull inside and out. Then, when Elijah calls out to God, fire descends, consuming the burnt offering.
As this humiliation takes place, and Jezebel’s religious community splinters to pieces, Elijah takes it even further: he goes and slaughters these four hundred and fifty prophets with his own hands.
Jezebel is incensed, and in her rage, pursues Elijah until he has been exiled into hiding. This is when we meet the prophet this morning.
This text is soaked in blood and retribution.
It is this trauma which propels the narrative forward; the trauma not only of migrancy and political revolution, but the trauma stemming from Elijah’s violent massacre of these prophets. The trauma of killing.
After his massacre, and immediately preceding this text, Elijah is so despondent and anguished that he asks God to die. God sends an angel to drive Elijah to eat and renege.
This is when God starts to ask a question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Remember one of our Sunday school questions? The one about whether God knows everything?
Well… here’s a conundrum. On one hand, we could assume that God is asking a rhetorical question. But there’s no evidence in the text that God is asking it for the sake of dramatic effect.
The renowned scholar Wil Gafney reminds us that omniscience is not a settled fact of our Bibles. The idea that God knows everything isn’t an idea that arrives in Genesis 1 and sticks around through the end of the Book of Revelation. Here, in 1 Kings, the authors of our Bibles do not yet believe God is omniscient. Just like the story of Adam and Eve [Gen. 2], God asks a sincere question, because God doesn’t know the answer: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” God asks it not just once, but twice.
“It is this trauma which propels the narrative forward; the trauma not only of migrancy and political revolution, but the trauma stemming from Elijah’s violent massacre of these prophets.”
If we temporarily set aside our rigid certainty that God is wholly, totally omniscient, this alters our understanding of today’s dialogue. If we put our assumptions down for just a moment, we see an entirely different depiction of God.
Because rather than God asking a rhetorical question, and rather than God approaching Elijah in a paternalistic, even patronizing way, we see a far more complex, compassionate God. If God is asking, “what are you doing here, Elijah,” in a spirit of sincere curiosity—in sincere concern—we find a God who is feverishly seeking a deeper intimacy with Elijah. God wants to understand and search the mind of Elijah, to map the contours of his anxieties, and draw close to the traumas Elijah has inflicted and endured.
This is a God who is desperately trying to come close to Elijah, instead of a God who pompously expects the dust of creation to grovel. That’s what makes this so striking: God is worried about this brokenhearted, lonely, deeply-flawed, yet deeply-redeemable prophet.
“If God is asking, ‘what are you doing here, Elijah,’ in a spirit of sincere curiosity—in sincere concern—we find a God who is feverishly seeking a deeper intimacy with Elijah rather than to patronize him with rhetoric.”
If this text is one about prayer—which is a good question, in and of itself—we have to return to that question we asked earlier. What is prayer? Is it talking to God?
I don’t know.
Because on one hand, Elijah is talking to God in this passage. But on the other, I don’t think it’s really about talking to God in the way we conceive of it.
So often, we practice prayer like we’re sitting on our grandparent’s lap. Meemaw, here’s what happened today. Poopaw, I really need a new car. Mimi, can you help me be more patient? Pappy, thanks for being so nice this week.
As Americans, we start the prayer. We ask the questions. We say what we need. We tell God how we’re feeling. And it’s more often than not, stuck in our brains. It’s stuff we say, and stuff we think.
But when we look at this text, we see a story about God’s deep, selfless interest in humanity and our lives; we see a story about God’s arrival in wordlessness; a story about a prophet opening his heart and soul up, and bringing it into the presence of God. This is a story about self-revelation: about revealing ourselves to God, and letting God reveal God’s own self to us. It’s about intimacy in a troubled, heartache of a marriage between God and humanity.
Elijah has been torn open. And God shows up, wanting to know what has happened. God willingly chooses to come into the closest of proximities with the pain of humanity.
“This is a story about self-revelation: about revealing ourselves to God, and letting God reveal God’s own self to us. It’s about intimacy in a troubled, heartache of a marriage between God and humanity.”
This is a really long way to say that prayer might not be about the content, as much about the process and posture.
It’s why AI is incapable of prayer, or praying for us.
Because in prayer, we are bringing ourselves into the presence of God. We unlock the door to our spirits, unlock the door to the prisons we build within our hearts, and we say, “here you go, God.”
Sometimes that involves lightning and thunder and earthquakes and words upon words upon words. But a lot of times—perhaps more often than not—the journey into intimacy with God starts like today’s story: with silence.
This is what we’ve been doing on Thursday nights over the summer. As we overlook Swartswood Lake, we stop talking. We pause, we grow silent, we turn inward in the company of one another. There are some words—just enough to keep us quiet—and our time together culminates in partaking of the Sacrament of Holy Communion: partaking in the mystery of faith.
What I think some of us have learned is that God is a lot louder when we are a lot quieter. When we stop our constant interrogation of God, and let go of our constant expectations of God, we notice that God is a lot closer than we ever realized. We even notice that God has some questions for us. God actually has a lot to say to us, but we’ve been talking and thinking too loudly to hear it.
“Because in prayer, we are bringing ourselves into the presence of God. We unlock the door to our spirits, unlock the door to the prisons we build within our hearts, and we say, ‘here you go, God.’”
I want to speak to the 7- and 8-year old you that’s still inside of you. So tell them to put their markers down, and step out of that childhood Sunday school classroom for a second. Bring them in for a second.
You know how your teacher told you that prayer is talking to God? Well, there’s a little bit more to it.
Remember this: prayer isn’t about what you do.
What is prayer? It’s being. Being with God, and your heart, and soul, and mind. Being everything that you are, being beloved, being alive, being hurt, being hopeless, being hopeful. But in all things, being… being with the God who is always trying to know and be known. Amen.
Sources
“Commentary on 1 Kings 19:9-18,” Wil Gafney, WorkingPreacher.org, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-19/commentary-on-1-kings-199-18-6
