A STILL SMALL VOICE
A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Glen Burnie, Maryland
June 24, 2001
Text: "after the fire a still small voice." (1 Kings 19:12)
First Reading: Galatians 3:23-29
Second Reading: Luke 8:26-39
A great wind may rend the mountains and break in pieces the mighty rocks. But the Lord is not in the wind. An earthquake may shake the firmament and shatter the dwellings thereon. But the Lord is not in the earthquake. A fire may spread its flame across the land and leave desolation in its wake. But the Lord is not in the fire. Then when the tumult is over we shall hear a still small voice. And the voice will ask us as it asked Elijah, "What are you doing here?"
Last Sunday, on Father’s Day, a fire in Queens, New York, claimed the lives of three firemen. They left behind eight children for whom Father’s Day would forever be the day their fathers died. When our granddaughter, Emma, heard about the deaths she was worried about the children and had many questions for her father. Like, if the fathers are now in heaven when will they be coming back? Why did their fathers have to die anyway? What will the children do with no fathers to play with them? Emma and her father had their prayers last Sunday evening and prayed for the children and their mommies.
When Emma awakened last Monday they were still on her mind. She told her mother that she wanted to write cards for the children and she and her mother would take the cards over to the nearest firehouse and ask the firemen to please be sure to see that her cards were delivered to the mommies and the children. Emma’s mother suggested that on the way to the firehouse they buy some flowers to take with them. Emma thought that was a good idea, and they did so. Except they didn’t go to the nearest firehouse. Instead, Emma insisted that they go all the way to Queens from the Bronx, to the firehouse where the firemen had worked. She left her cards and the flowers outside of the firehouse along with all the other bouquets that people had brought.
When Jennifer told us this story I thought immediately about our text for this morning. Why I used the Revised Standard Version rather than the New Revised Standard Version is, I’m sure you noticed the revisers substituted "the sound of silence" for "a still small voice." What Emma did for those firemen’s families was not so much "the sound of silence" as it was "a still small voice." She in her still small voice did what she could at four years of age to help eight children not much older than she to deal with what she already knew would be a very bad thing, the loss of their fathers to play with them!
This past issue of People magazine features an interview with Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, on what would have been her fortieth birthday. Along with the article were some pictures taken of them when they were younger. But the one picture that caught my eye was of the blanket of flowers that "washed up at the gates of Kensington Palace in the days after Diana’s death." In the article Spencer calls such a display strange and reassuring. "It was very unusual for Britain." But, again, each one of those bouquets was, in my opinion, a still small voice. Like Emma being faced with a death she couldn’t understand, let alone the grief that accompanied it, the only response those in Britain could make was the still, small voice of reaching out to let the family know they cared.
Spencer goes on to mention how he will open Althorpe House on July 1st, which would be Diana’s birthday so that those who wish to visit the museum and walk the grounds may do so. When people come they treat the grounds as though they were in a sanctuary. They talk in hushed tones. They are very respectful of the island where she is buried. They’re on sacred ground after all! Again, it’s that "still small voice" of God’s presence that works in so many different ways.
The other day I visited Mary Snyder over at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Mary’s platelet count has dropped to 1,000 when it should be around 150,000. Mary has an antibody that is destroying her platelets and, if she does not get the necessary treatment, it could kill her. She is in the Weinberg Oncology Center where she is getting two months of chemotherapy in five days. The theory is much like a stem cell transplant. The chemo will kill all of the cells in her body including the antibodies so that her blood can replenish her platelets. After the treatment she will then have to go to a "safe house" for six weeks, live in a sterile atmosphere and allow her body to heal itself.
During our visit together, I watched the chemotherapy enter her body drip by drip. Again, I thought of the "still small voice." Each one of those drops contained the healing power of the risen Christ. They were God at work within her, giving her the hope for life she would otherwise not have. She still has a long trek ahead of her and the doctor has already assured her that she will lose her hair, she will be nauseated and she will likely acquire thrush in her mouth. Nevertheless, each drop she receives over the next five days will be drops of hope, drops of God’s grace, drops of that "still small voice."
The three firemen didn’t deserve to die on Father’s Day last Sunday. Diana didn’t deserve to die in a fiery accident in some tunnel in Paris. Mary doesn’t deserve to be in the Oncology Unit at Johns Hopkins fighting for some cure that will save her life. Elijah didn’t deserve to have Jezebel on his case repeatedly. So, what he does is go off by himself and ask God for some sign that God has not abandoned him. God, of course, goes along with his plea and is perfectly willing to accommodate him.
I’m sure all of us at some time or another have had a puzzle before us that has three things alike and a fourth that is completely different. We are asked to pick the one that stands by itself. The first three signs God sends Elijah are all the same. If we had our choice we’d prefer the first three, wind, earthquake and fire. All three are swift, they wreak total devastation, and they all do damage. When bad things happen to us we want to do damage. We want the bad to be destroyed so that it no longer threatens us. In a few weeks I’m marrying a firefighter in Baltimore. In their counseling together it has become clear to all of us that his future wife doesn’t want him fighting fires. She says it’s too dangerous. But that’s what he does and he doesn’t want to work in some safe environment. She wants to destroy the threat to her husband’s safety, which he doesn’t see as a threat but as a challenge. That’s where we have some counseling to do.
Emma didn’t want the firemen to die. Charles Spencer didn’t want Diana dead. Mary would rather be enjoying the summer than spending it in some sterile safe house. Elijah didn’t want to have to bother with Jezebel and the unruly Israelites. They would all rather have the wind, the earthquake, and the fire level the playing field and make their pains and bothers go away.
The problem with that, of course, is that God is not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire. God is in the "still small voice." God is in Emma’s card and the flowers she and her mother took to the firehouse in Queens. God is in the "sea of flowers" strewn before the gates of Kensington Palace. God is on the island at Althorpe where Diana is buried. God is in the drops of chemo that may just replenish Mary’s platelet count.
God will have it no other way. So, in the end we hear God tell Elijah to get back on the trail to the wilderness of Damascus. There he will continue to find God at each turn of the path. God will never be in the showy circumstances of life. God won’t destroy the pain and the bothers. What God will do is work in God’s own quiet ways within Elijah and each one of us.
The other night Emma’s mother Jennifer told us how she had no idea what made Emma do what she did. Sure, she and her father had prayed for the firemen and their families on Father’s Day. But to awaken on Monday dead set on doing something for them had to come from somewhere. God worked through the mind of a four year-old. The sea of flowers laid at the gate of Kensington Palace didn’t just appear. They came from an anonymous public who cared for a woman enough to show they mourned her death. God worked through the hands of each of them as they paid their respects. Mary’s doctor happens to be at the forefront of new thinking on the therapeutic uses of chemotherapy in such large and intensive treatments. God continues to work as each drip enters her body.
It’s not the wind, the earthquake or the fire that will save us. They may do damage, but in the long run what we need to hear is the "still small voice" of God. It may come in ways we can’t now imagine, all of which means we have to keep that much more attuned to hear God’s speaking to us. What we’ll hear is how we’re to return to the pathways of life, for at every turn God will be there to show us the way!
Thanks be to God,
Amen