Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (proper 14): August 7, 2005.

1 Kings 19:9-18

Psalm 85:8-13

Romans 10:5-15

Matthew 14:22-33

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will
kiss each other.
--Psalm 85:10

First Reading

Mountaintop experiences are great, but the exhilaration that attends them often is short-lived. Take Elijah, for example. Fresh from his (really, of course, Yahweh's) stunning triumph over and the ensuing slaughter of the 450 prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel, God's prophet suddenly finds himself a hunted refugee, fleeing Queen Jezebel's wrath and hiding out in a cave at "Horeb the mount of God." Here in a nice piece of ironic dialogue the "word of the LORD" addresses God's prophetic word-bearer, asking "What are you doing here, Elijah?"--which is invitation enough for God's so recently victorious mouthpiece to vent his frustration with the ill treatment he feels he's received, culminating in his self-pitying lament "I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." In other words, "I'm all you've got left, God. You'd better start taking better care of me!"

It's a feeling-sorry-for-ourselves moment that we pastor-types share now and again with Elijah. Funny thing is, "the word" doesn't spend time sympathizing with Elijah or holding his hand but orders him peremptorily: "Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then follows that great nonepiphanic episode where the prophet is encountered first by a great wind, "so strong that it was splitting mountains," followed by an earthquake and finally by a fire. "But the LORD was not in the wind ... not in the earthquake ... not in the fire," the text says in a wonderful economy of understatement. "And after the fire a sound of sheer silence." I love that simple alliterative translation of the NRSV, replacing the RSV's "still small voice."

Old Testament scholar Samuel Terrien believes that this "constitutes a repudiation not only of the mode of divine intervention on Mt. Carmel but also of the possibility that the Mosaic theophany on Mt. Horeb/Sinai would ever occur again in later history. The era of theophany is now closed, and its validity is consigned to the hoary glamour of distant ages" (The Elusive Presence, 230-36). Again the voice is heard asking Elijah "What are you doing here?" Again Elijah answers with his self-pitying answer. But the voice now directs Elijah to return to his prophetic calling in the thick of the everyday, political life of his people, which includes the anointing of his own successor, Elisha. Elijah in the "sound of sheer silence" did not see God but recognized God's presence sufficiently to be able now to heed God's voice and return to his own vocation as word-bearer.

Pastoral Reflection

I remember my summer of serving as a counselor at a Lutheran Bible camp. The week was an unusually invigorating one since Pastor Nelson Trout, who later became the first African-American bishop in the ALC, was our week-long guest evangelist. I loved his stimulating presentations to our young campers but especially enjoyed the late-night conversations around the kitchen table. There he would gently but in a no-nonsense manner engage in theological table talk that challenged the far more conservative, literalistic, and even revivalistic Anglo pastors, who seemed intent on making their youths' camp experience one in which success would be counted by the number who had "given their hearts" to Jesus by "making a decision for Christ." I recall the adrenaline rush I felt one particular warm summer evening as I summoned up the courage to pray aloud at our closing campfire that "the still, small voice" of God might be heard amid all the bombast and emotionalism of the wind, earthquake, and fire to which we were being subjected by the Bible-thumpers. (Even then I wasn't quite foolhardy enough to use the word!) It was a defining moment for me in my own way.

The story of Jesus' stroll across the stormy sea is another instance of epiphany by way of theophany being subordinated to the Word or voice of God, of the sense of sight being subordinated (and interpreted) by sound. (See, e.g., Matthew's story of the transfiguration in 17:1-9.) The disciples are terrified--who wouldn't be?--by the sight of Jesus walking toward them "on the sea." "It's a ghost!" they "cried out in fear." But Jesus reassures them with the encouraging words "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Characteristically, it is Peter, the leader of the disciples, who impetuously says, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." Whatever Peter's motivation might have been in doing so, he steps out onto the water. But "when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink" cries out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus reaches out his hand and catches him, while asking Peter, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

This story of Jesus' curious power has suddenly become a parable about faith that countless homileticians have seen illustrated by Peter's casting his fearful eye upon the roiling waves rather than on Jesus, the object of his trust. But I've long been fascinated with the conditional character of Peter's response to the sighting of Jesus: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." To me this suggests that Peter was caught up in what Terrien would call the "theophanic" character of Jesus' walking on water (like Peter's enthusiastic offer to build three dwellings in commemoration of the transfiguration, in which, notice, Elijah also plays a part), desiring to share in and perhaps perpetuate the display of glory and power. And so Jesus bids Peter "Come," knowing, one suspects, that this will teach Peter something about the nature of the divine presence that is apprehended by faith rather than sight.

Paul is up to something similar in paraphrasing the Deuteronomist to the Romans regarding how "the word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." Paul explains, "the word of faith that we proclaim." To his closing quartet of rhetorical questions, "How are they to call ... to believe ... to hear ... to proclaim?" his answer is essentially one: to hear and trust the good news. Peter desired to perpetuate the moment of theophanic glory as did Elijah before him. "It's a great mistake," the great Anglican Archbishop William Temple once said, "to think that God is chiefly interested in our being religious." Being faithful to the Word in the thick of everyday life, which Jesus once described as "taking up your cross" ("daily," Luke's Gospel adds)--this is the heart of discipleship lived out according to what Luther called a theology of the cross as opposed to a theology of glory. See Douglas John Hall, The Cross in Our Context (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003) for a recent exploration of this theme. JR