Today is the 75^th anniversary of the Nagasaki bomb and Hiroshima’s was three days ago, and I confess I had to go and do some research to educate myself on the realities of these historical tragedies. Now I have heard of Hiroshima, but honestly not of Nagasaki; but hearing is one thing, and seeing is something else. And yet living the experience is a whole other dimension.

This week I watched videos of my beloved capital getting destroyed and burned, the streets that once were full of life and music, perfumes and smiles and selfies; those streets and alleys I walked weekly on my way to seminary, or the seaside trails we biked on weekends. Those streets, those buildings, those shops I watched burning, they’re so real to me. And I know Hiroshima and Nagasaki are real for many of you as well.

Humanity is a work in progress it seems; even until this day.

Friends, to be honest with you I struggled to write a message of hope today, because what I am feeling is despair and disbelief and “deep sadness.”

And as I read the words of our scripture selection from 1 Kings, I couldn’t help it but notice the similarity between the destructive forces of Lebanon’s reality and the imagery in the passage. First, there is a wind so strong it splits mountains and breaks rocks into pieces. This is not a metaphor to me. I have seen this wind with my eyes throwing people and cars and trees away and breaking warehouses and splitting the earth in two. And then, there is an earthquake. Another imagery used by the author of kings, as well as everyone I talked to who was within a 15 mile radius of the explosion. And there was a fire. A fire that burned whatever the shockwave spared. Very powerful but also violent images.

Ironically, all of these images are regular OT accompaniments of God’s appearance. In Exodus we read that Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire; the book of Psalms describes how the earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook from God’s presence.

But then it is intriguing that the author of Kings lists all these elements in which God was indeed present before. Except not this time. And they make sure to explicitly mention that God was NOT in the wind, and God was NOT in the earthquake and neither in the fire. So, what is the point the author is trying to make?

Elijah’s life had been very stormy up until this encounter. To draw some background, in the preceding chapter, and after escaping a famine, Elijah had ordered to slaughter hundreds of the prophets of Baal in an attempt to cleanse the nation from false worship. The king’s wife hears about it, gets furious and threatens to take his life away in revenge. Elijah flees out of the kingdom into the wilderness where he dismisses his servant so he can be left alone. There, he pleads with God to take his life away and he lays under a broom tree -which does not provide much shade against the desert sun-, waiting for his power to fade out and for his life to gradually escape him. God talks him out if it, but Elijah’s depression does not just fade away. So at the beginning of this passage, he’d found a cave where he is now hiding.

So here’s Elijah who’s experienced disappointment after disappointment after threat after danger and now he is obviously depressed. Refusing to eat, wishing to die…        There are times when you’ve just had enough! When it has been storm after storm after storm after storm…      and faced with such deep sadness, which one of us wouldn’t run and find a cave to hide in. Who wouldn’t surrender to depression and just wish to withdraw and give up?

That’s been the state of my people even before the big catastrophe. I know it is the state of some of you. And I know for some others, even if your life right now is not there, but the memory of a historical bombing of entire cities is a painful one. And so we stand there, watching fire and earthquake and wind pass by, and missing God in the scene.

So there is Elijah.    Standing there.   Waiting for God to pass him.

But God was not in the wind that splits rocks, God was not in the earthquake that scares and terrifies, And God was not in the fire that burns mercilessly.

But then a sound of sheer silence or in Hebrew “stillness,” announces the passing of the Lord; a stillness that shakes Elijah’s presence harder than any wind or fire or quake.

Friends this image of God appearing in the calm after the storm to deal with Elijah’s troubled soul is so powerful. God is active, God cares, God listens, speaks, and acts, and not only in “obvious” ways but also in discreet and in the least expected ways.

In the other scripture reading that we heard, we see Peter, who, as per his habit, fervent, Impatient, impulsive and enthusiastic, cannot wait for Jesus to get to him but instead asks if he can go to Jesus. It doesn’t matter that it seems logically impossible; if Jesus can do it he can do it. Or can he?

Like Elijah, Peter too was weary from a long night of wrestling against waves and wind in the disciples’ boat when Jesus invited him to take a walk on the water. Even if he has had the faith to do it, he wouldn’t have had enough energy to sustain him as he walks to meet his Lord. And as the wind blew and scared him he went back to his storm.          

Friends, storm and stillness seem to come together in one package. Elijah finally encountered God in the stillness after the storm, and all Peter needed to do is to be still.

My spiritual director told me the other day “sometimes God takes more time than we appreciate.” And I also think that sometimes God is more silent or still than we appreciate or have patience for.

Stillness is not a comfortable place to be and silence is not always where God appears. There is deadly silence. You know it. You’ve heard it. We discussed it for two months on Tuesday nights. It is:

The deafening silence that follows an explosion or a bombing.

The deadly silence of dust falling back on earth.

The screaming silence of destroyed and desolate streets.

The sickening silence of the global conscience.

But that is not the silence in which God is found. But where God finally meets us is in that deep silence of a downcast soul.

It is in the stillness of a broken heart and the sincerity of raw pain.

It is in the stillness of a silent prayer of a mother still waiting and hoping her kid will come home after having heard a deafening explosion.

God appears to our broken world and turns the stillness of our grieving world:

Into stillness of quiet nights in which mothers can watch their kids sleep in peace.

Into a stillness of water that doesn’t frighten sailors.

Into a stillness of peace that is no longer disturbed by human acts against humans.

Into a stillness of a world ruled by the spirit of love.

Into a stillness of a humanity freed from greed and personal benefits from longing to power and authority and money.

Friends, at times like these when we grieve our world as we remember war history, as we grieve the harm of a global pandemic, as we grieve the loss of a member of our community and the worry about others, and as we grieve the rest of the countries that lie under so much misery… we are invited to stillness… And in that stillness, God finds us. And hopefully we too can find God.