Seeking as a Way of Life
June 20, 2010
June 20, 2010
The Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Psalms 42 &43; 1 Kings 19:1-15a
Today’s readings are some of my very favorites – I love Psalm 42, some of its verses touch me so deeply, and I love the story about Elijah – it was also the passage that I had to take one of my ordination exams on. And it is a story that really needs to be set in its context, so let me tell the back story.
Ahab was king of Israel – the northern kingdom after Israel splits into Israel and Judah. The books of Kings were written as part of a series of books known as the Deuteronomist history books. These are books that were written during or after the times when Israel and Judah had been captured by Assyria and Babylon and many of the leaders taken into exile. The books try to answer the question – how did such a thing happen to us? And the basic answer of these books is that God has given us guidance about how to live, and when we ignore that guidance, there are consequences. And in general, the consequences aren’t some abstract punishment from God – far from it. The consequences tend to flow logically (if not apparently beforehand) from the choices that are made.
1 Kings begins with the death of King David – the greatest king in the history of Israel. After his death, there is a struggle for succession, and one son, Solomon, prevails and becomes king. God offers him one wish, and Solomon wishes for wisdom, which God gives him. But soon, we see Solomon no longer trusting the wisdom that God has given him, but choosing instead to follow the way of the world in securing the safety of Israel. Solomon makes many marriages, in order to establish alliances with other kingdoms. But in doing this, he introduces, through his wives, other faith traditions into Israel, and the religious unity which has characterized Israel comes apart.
And after Solomon’s reign, the national unity also comes apart and the kingdom splits. Israel has a series of kings, most of whom continue to make mistakes. The seventh of these kings is King Ahab, and he is the worst of the lot. His wife is Jezebel, who is devoted to the false god Ba’al , and soon Ahab is worshiping Ba’al also.
Elijah is the prophet, who is called by God to the classic prophetic task of “speaking truth to power” – that is, of helping Ahab to recognize that he has turned his back on the God of Israel. So in the preceding chapter, Elijah challenges Ahab, and all of Israel, saying, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If Yahweh is God then follow him, but if Ba’al, then follow him” and there is a contest between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al. Two bulls are provided and the priests of Ba’al choose their bull, cut it up and put it on top of firewood. Then the priests of Ba’al call out to Ba’al and prevail upon him to take the bull. They shouted aloud all morning, calling upon Ba’al to take the offering, but nothing happened. Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud. Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” He is quite sarcastic.
Then Elijah takes 12 stones, to symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel, and builds an altar. Then he digs a trench around the altar, puts the firewood on the altar, and the bull on the wood. Then he has 12 large jars of water poured over the bull so that the firewood is soaked, the altar as well, and the trench around them filled with water. Elijah calls upon God to affirm that he is God, and that the people should follow him. And fire falls from the heavens and the bull is consumed. And Elijah calls upon the people to detain the 450 prophets of Ba’al, and he has them killed. Between his earlier sarcasm and this action, he has certainly provoked Queen Jezebel, who is the primary patron of the priests of Ba’al. And he turns to Ahab, and he announces that the three-year drought is over, and then the rains come. And that is what takes place before today’s reading. Let us listen to what Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story” [read 1 Kings 19:1-15a.]
At first, it seems kind of odd that after his big triumph, Elijah would essentially collapse into depression. But depression doesn’t always follow a rational course. Further, as we look at the situation, it may be less surprising. The events in the previous chapter were very intense, and then they were over. Elijah has to be exhausted. And, he is in serious danger, because Jezebel is after him. And he feels alone. Danger, exhaustion, and isolation…it is not so surprising that Elijah responds with a sense of despair. And it is interesting, and not at all trivial, that God’s first response is to feed Elijah and send him on a long walk, under the care of an angel. According to The Chemistry of Joy by Minnesota psychiatrist Henry Emmons, exercise can play a critical role in recovery from depression. Being well-nourished is also important, as is getting adequate rest. And forging connections is as well.
The physical responses of exercise, rest, and appropriate nourishment are all important responses to Elijah’s situation. It’s important for us to remember that caring for our bodies is not only important for our physical health, but for our emotional health as well. But the rest of what I see in this story and the psalms is not so much about depression, as it is about our spiritual hungers and how we respond to them.
These two psalms are often paired together and treated as one. And psalm 42 opens with that simple thought, “As the deer longs for the flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Spiritual hunger is as normal, as simple, and as central as the desire for water. The universality of our desire for God is, to me, one of the ways we know that God is real – what else do we universally desire? Anything that doesn’t exist? No, we need food, air, sleep, relationships, love, beauty, purpose – all these can be readily found in life. If we did not need food for life, would we get hungry? Spiritual desire, spiritual curiosity is universal – all peoples in all cultures wonder about God, seek to understand God. Even atheism is an affirmation of spiritual need – it is another recognition of this essential spiritual hunger that is apparently integral to the human experience.
And I love the ways Psalms 42 and 43 describe the experience of yearning for God: deep calls to deep. Sometimes all we have is our sense of God’s absence, the echo deep within us of God’s desire for us. But this desire, this curiosity, this thirst (as the psalmist says) is part of how we experience being made in the image of God.
Where we get into trouble, and find ourselves more frustrated than grateful, is when we have a predefined idea of what experiencing God should look like, even if it’s based on our own prior experiences. And we want clarity. We want conclusive answers about the nature of God. We want our own experiences of God to be something we can point to and identify and explain. The psalmist had certain ideas about what God’s presence should look like, and in the absence of his expectations being met, he was not sure of God’s presence. We’d like a little earthquake, or wind, or fire. And that’s what Elijah wants, too. That’s what the Bible tells us that Moses had experienced on that same mountain. But that’s not what Elijah gets. He is left with an experience that the NRSV translates as “the sound of sheer silence” and what was classically translated as “a still, small voice.”
I worked with this paragraph a lot when I did my exegesis exam - the take-home portion of our ordination exams. We get a choice of two passages: one in the Older Testament, the other in the Newer Testament. And we work on it for a week at home, with all the language resources we may have, as well as the commentaries. The point of the part of the exam is to test us on the method of studying the Bible. And Presbyterian ministers are required to have done at least basic work in both languages: Hebrew and Greek.
So when I worked on this passage, I worked extensively on the translation issue of verses 11 and 12. What does the original Hebrew mean that is variously translated “a still small voice” and “the sound of sheer silence”? Well, it turns out that the original Hebrew is ambiguous. The Hebrew “qol” can be translated either as voice or sound, “d’mamah” is either whisper, quiet or silence, and the adjective is thin, small or fine. Was it a little sound or was it a thin silence? Was it a voice, a whisper, or just a noise? The original is ambiguous. So while it CAN be translated as a “still small voice” that doesn’t quite capture the ambiguity of the original in the way that “a sound of sheer silence” does. A guideline for Biblical translation is that where the original is ambiguous, the translation should not impose clarity. I translated it as “a low whispering sound”- providing the nuance of voice without providing certainty that is not there.
The verses as I translated them are as follows:
The original text doesn’t tell draw any conclusions and neither should we. Nor should we fear ambiguity in our own journeys. Seeking is part of being human, and there is value in the questions we ask, perhaps even more than in the answers we think we find.
Approaching life, God, and our own experiences from a stance of openness that does not need to draw conclusions can lead us to new richness, new depth, new questions and from there to new experiences. The God who calls us from the depths of creation to explore our own deep places, the God who startled his people by offering through Jesus to be known as Father, the God who was known by the Hebrew people as the Breasted One, the God who establishes us in deep relationships with God, with ourselves and each other, and indeed with all of creation – this God whose name is untranslatable and unpronounceable, this God who will not be defined, or categorized, or fully known, this God nonetheless reveals Godself in glimpses, in silences, in a spaciousness that makes room for us.
Thanks be to this God. Amen.
The Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Psalms 42 &43; 1 Kings 19:1-15a
Today’s readings are some of my very favorites – I love Psalm 42, some of its verses touch me so deeply, and I love the story about Elijah – it was also the passage that I had to take one of my ordination exams on. And it is a story that really needs to be set in its context, so let me tell the back story.
Ahab was king of Israel – the northern kingdom after Israel splits into Israel and Judah. The books of Kings were written as part of a series of books known as the Deuteronomist history books. These are books that were written during or after the times when Israel and Judah had been captured by Assyria and Babylon and many of the leaders taken into exile. The books try to answer the question – how did such a thing happen to us? And the basic answer of these books is that God has given us guidance about how to live, and when we ignore that guidance, there are consequences. And in general, the consequences aren’t some abstract punishment from God – far from it. The consequences tend to flow logically (if not apparently beforehand) from the choices that are made.
1 Kings begins with the death of King David – the greatest king in the history of Israel. After his death, there is a struggle for succession, and one son, Solomon, prevails and becomes king. God offers him one wish, and Solomon wishes for wisdom, which God gives him. But soon, we see Solomon no longer trusting the wisdom that God has given him, but choosing instead to follow the way of the world in securing the safety of Israel. Solomon makes many marriages, in order to establish alliances with other kingdoms. But in doing this, he introduces, through his wives, other faith traditions into Israel, and the religious unity which has characterized Israel comes apart.
And after Solomon’s reign, the national unity also comes apart and the kingdom splits. Israel has a series of kings, most of whom continue to make mistakes. The seventh of these kings is King Ahab, and he is the worst of the lot. His wife is Jezebel, who is devoted to the false god Ba’al , and soon Ahab is worshiping Ba’al also.
Elijah is the prophet, who is called by God to the classic prophetic task of “speaking truth to power” – that is, of helping Ahab to recognize that he has turned his back on the God of Israel. So in the preceding chapter, Elijah challenges Ahab, and all of Israel, saying, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If Yahweh is God then follow him, but if Ba’al, then follow him” and there is a contest between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al. Two bulls are provided and the priests of Ba’al choose their bull, cut it up and put it on top of firewood. Then the priests of Ba’al call out to Ba’al and prevail upon him to take the bull. They shouted aloud all morning, calling upon Ba’al to take the offering, but nothing happened. Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud. Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” He is quite sarcastic.
Then Elijah takes 12 stones, to symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel, and builds an altar. Then he digs a trench around the altar, puts the firewood on the altar, and the bull on the wood. Then he has 12 large jars of water poured over the bull so that the firewood is soaked, the altar as well, and the trench around them filled with water. Elijah calls upon God to affirm that he is God, and that the people should follow him. And fire falls from the heavens and the bull is consumed. And Elijah calls upon the people to detain the 450 prophets of Ba’al, and he has them killed. Between his earlier sarcasm and this action, he has certainly provoked Queen Jezebel, who is the primary patron of the priests of Ba’al. And he turns to Ahab, and he announces that the three-year drought is over, and then the rains come. And that is what takes place before today’s reading. Let us listen to what Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story” [read 1 Kings 19:1-15a.]
At first, it seems kind of odd that after his big triumph, Elijah would essentially collapse into depression. But depression doesn’t always follow a rational course. Further, as we look at the situation, it may be less surprising. The events in the previous chapter were very intense, and then they were over. Elijah has to be exhausted. And, he is in serious danger, because Jezebel is after him. And he feels alone. Danger, exhaustion, and isolation…it is not so surprising that Elijah responds with a sense of despair. And it is interesting, and not at all trivial, that God’s first response is to feed Elijah and send him on a long walk, under the care of an angel. According to The Chemistry of Joy by Minnesota psychiatrist Henry Emmons, exercise can play a critical role in recovery from depression. Being well-nourished is also important, as is getting adequate rest. And forging connections is as well.
The physical responses of exercise, rest, and appropriate nourishment are all important responses to Elijah’s situation. It’s important for us to remember that caring for our bodies is not only important for our physical health, but for our emotional health as well. But the rest of what I see in this story and the psalms is not so much about depression, as it is about our spiritual hungers and how we respond to them.
These two psalms are often paired together and treated as one. And psalm 42 opens with that simple thought, “As the deer longs for the flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Spiritual hunger is as normal, as simple, and as central as the desire for water. The universality of our desire for God is, to me, one of the ways we know that God is real – what else do we universally desire? Anything that doesn’t exist? No, we need food, air, sleep, relationships, love, beauty, purpose – all these can be readily found in life. If we did not need food for life, would we get hungry? Spiritual desire, spiritual curiosity is universal – all peoples in all cultures wonder about God, seek to understand God. Even atheism is an affirmation of spiritual need – it is another recognition of this essential spiritual hunger that is apparently integral to the human experience.
And I love the ways Psalms 42 and 43 describe the experience of yearning for God: deep calls to deep. Sometimes all we have is our sense of God’s absence, the echo deep within us of God’s desire for us. But this desire, this curiosity, this thirst (as the psalmist says) is part of how we experience being made in the image of God.
Where we get into trouble, and find ourselves more frustrated than grateful, is when we have a predefined idea of what experiencing God should look like, even if it’s based on our own prior experiences. And we want clarity. We want conclusive answers about the nature of God. We want our own experiences of God to be something we can point to and identify and explain. The psalmist had certain ideas about what God’s presence should look like, and in the absence of his expectations being met, he was not sure of God’s presence. We’d like a little earthquake, or wind, or fire. And that’s what Elijah wants, too. That’s what the Bible tells us that Moses had experienced on that same mountain. But that’s not what Elijah gets. He is left with an experience that the NRSV translates as “the sound of sheer silence” and what was classically translated as “a still, small voice.”
I worked with this paragraph a lot when I did my exegesis exam - the take-home portion of our ordination exams. We get a choice of two passages: one in the Older Testament, the other in the Newer Testament. And we work on it for a week at home, with all the language resources we may have, as well as the commentaries. The point of the part of the exam is to test us on the method of studying the Bible. And Presbyterian ministers are required to have done at least basic work in both languages: Hebrew and Greek.
So when I worked on this passage, I worked extensively on the translation issue of verses 11 and 12. What does the original Hebrew mean that is variously translated “a still small voice” and “the sound of sheer silence”? Well, it turns out that the original Hebrew is ambiguous. The Hebrew “qol” can be translated either as voice or sound, “d’mamah” is either whisper, quiet or silence, and the adjective is thin, small or fine. Was it a little sound or was it a thin silence? Was it a voice, a whisper, or just a noise? The original is ambiguous. So while it CAN be translated as a “still small voice” that doesn’t quite capture the ambiguity of the original in the way that “a sound of sheer silence” does. A guideline for Biblical translation is that where the original is ambiguous, the translation should not impose clarity. I translated it as “a low whispering sound”- providing the nuance of voice without providing certainty that is not there.
The verses as I translated them are as follows:
And he said “Go out so that you may stand upon the mountain before the Lord and behold the Lord passing by.” And there was a great and strong wind, breaking apart mountains and shattering cliffs before the Lord. The Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake. The Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire. The Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a low whispering sound.
The original text doesn’t tell draw any conclusions and neither should we. Nor should we fear ambiguity in our own journeys. Seeking is part of being human, and there is value in the questions we ask, perhaps even more than in the answers we think we find.
Approaching life, God, and our own experiences from a stance of openness that does not need to draw conclusions can lead us to new richness, new depth, new questions and from there to new experiences. The God who calls us from the depths of creation to explore our own deep places, the God who startled his people by offering through Jesus to be known as Father, the God who was known by the Hebrew people as the Breasted One, the God who establishes us in deep relationships with God, with ourselves and each other, and indeed with all of creation – this God whose name is untranslatable and unpronounceable, this God who will not be defined, or categorized, or fully known, this God nonetheless reveals Godself in glimpses, in silences, in a spaciousness that makes room for us.
Thanks be to this God. Amen.