Firstly to set the scene: there has been a great victory for the God of Israel. The Canaanite god is defeated at Mount Carmel. We know the story about the way the priests of Baal try to call down fire to consume the sacrifice and fail miserably. Elijah takes the Mickey out of them for their failure. Next he has the sacrifice soaked in water time and time again. He then prays and the sacrifice is consumed miraculously in fire from the God of Israel. When he should have been jubilant he felt threatened and so fled in fear of his life. Feeling miserable, Elijah then prays that he might just lie down and die, exhausted and feeling that by running away he had failed God, even though he had been triumphant at Mount Carmel.

But this running away has another context, that is one of preparing to meet with God in a special place and in a life changing way. Perhaps he needed this sense of desolation in order to make way for a life changing encounter with God. We see this sometimes in the great mystical Christian writers who talk about the sense of a dark night of the soul. In this light his flight may be seen as a journey out of the day to day ordinary world, into a pilgrimage into a sacred space. Symbolised by the solitary life and fasting with prayer. We know if we have ever been away on a retreat that God honours that time, or if we have fasted prayerfully then God honours that offering too. These to practises of Christian discipline are to be encouraged during our Lenten observance. Think seriously about the significance of fasting and solitary prayer or a retreat this Lent. If Elijah was entering a time of pilgrimage to Sacred space I am not altogether sure that he knew it but certainly that is what it became for him.

Elijah uncertain where God was leading, perhaps he was It even in the wrong place - and yet God still honours him and his discipleship. It would appear that he was in the wrong place! How do we know, simply because God asks him, ‘what are you doing here?’ When really he should have been in Israel. It was a perfectly straight forward question. Perhaps Elijah should have answered - because I was scared! But no he doesn’t, rather he answers with a list of three complaints:

1. I have been faithful and Israel has not

2. The people have been violent against God and his prophet

3. That he is isolated and in danger.

We could almost expect him to say enough is enough - find someone else to tell them! It seems that there is a real crisis of faith and not a little rant at God. It is the real heartfelt cry of why me! Perhaps in this way we can relate to Elijah. The times we have shouted at God and asked the question why me? Some Christian traditions would say that this is deeply unfaithful and something to be avoided but we need to go on and ask the question, How does God deal with Elijah and his ranting. Perhaps there is a clue in the times when we have asked an innocent question and the person to whom the question is addressed pours out their heart like a dam bursting its wall. We are asked to listen and be for that person the healing ear or as this passage puts it, the still small voice - which is better translated as the sound of utter silence - there’s a mystery and paradox, the sound of utter silence. This is not the silence that is accompanies isolation and emptiness. It is not that God says nothing or is not there, but that the very presence of God is enough. The overwhelming love consumes both the lover and the beloved, God and Elijah. But this is to anticipate our story.

Having listened to all that Elijah has to complain about, God simply says go and stand before the mountain of the Lord, we are told that Elijah ends up in the cleft of the rock or the mouth of a cave. A cave or rock cleft can be a very comforting space, an enclosed space, a hiding space, a place where we feel protected. It was from here that Elijah could again feel the presence of a loving God. It could be said that in fact that presence had never left him because otherwise how could Elijah rant at someone he thought no longer with him. Even our shouting at God can be an expression of our faith in him. But now it was time for the shouting to cease and for Elijah to feel that God was indeed watching over him and loving him. In the previous chapter, the great display and theatre of the Mt Carmel sacrifice God had been in the storm and fire. But now such power of God would have consumed Elijah into a wreck of a man. He comes to him in all consuming love that needs no words but the presence of God is assurance enough - it is the sacred space, the fruit of pilgrimage, like being overwhelmed by the refreshing stream after a life of the desert’s aridity! Elijah is again able to repeat his complaint but I wonder if this time it is more of a prayer than a rant? We do not know because the text does not tell us. But I wonder if after the encounter Elijah saw things differently, he was no longer working in his own strength allowing God to act occasionally, he had moved on in his discipleship. Do we know that there can be times when we move on in our discipleship, perhaps with the same questions, but now asked lovingly, quietly and prayerfully?

God answers each of Elijah’s prayers. God calls him to anoint the kings of Syria and Israel, Elisha shall be called as a prophet so that Elijah is not alone and has someone to literally take on his mantle at the right time, and say that Elijah is not alone for at least 7000 remain faithful and have not bowed the knee to the god Baal.

So the God who came to Elijah in silence is also a god who acts. The God who comes to us in silence does so not in emptiness and abandonment, but comes and answers our prayers for our good and his greater glory.

For me there is a prayer that echoes that still small voice - it comes at the end of evensong in the Book of common prayer. For me I suppose it has something to do with the setting where I learned to pray this prayer - it was used every day at Mirfield at the very end of Evensong. So kneeling in that beautiful Community Church that encapsulated for me this encounter with God in the cleft of the rock, a safe place, a holy space we would kneel to pray:

Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee; and dost promise, that when two or three are gathered together in thy name thou wilt grant their requests; Fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.