2632AFC080726 – Someone is speaking.

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1 Kings 19:12-13 (GNT) [1] – ¹² After the earthquake there was a fire—but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the soft whisper of a voice.

¹³ When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, “Elijah, what are you doing here?”

Psalm 85:8 – (GNT)
⁸ I am listening to what the Lord God is saying;
    he promises peace to us, his own people,
    if we do not go back to our foolish ways.

Romans 9:1-3 – ¹ I am speaking the truth in Christ — I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit — ² I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.

Matthew 14:25-27 (GNT) – ²⁵ Between three and six o'clock in the morning Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the water. ²⁶ When they saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. “It's a ghost!” they said, and screamed with fear.

²⁷ Jesus spoke to them at once. “Courage!” he said. “It is I. Don't be afraid!”

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord. Adelphoi, what do we mean by “the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord?” Grace and Peace come to us through that knowledge, but from whence does that knowledge come? If we think back to Moses, early in the travels through the desert, he told the People of God, “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” (Look up Deuteronomy 30:11-14).

He’s telling them, “This command of God is not hard, or difficult to get hold of. You don’t have to send someone to the heavens or across the sea to “find it.” God has put it in your mouth and your heart. God himself has told you, and all you have to do is Love him and obey his Law and he will bless you abundantly.” If we reflect, even briefly, on the history of ancient Israel, we realize they spit it out of their mouths and cast it out of their hearts. They chose disobedience instead of respectful compliance.

It was like, “Yeah God, I know you’re Great and all that, but my neighbor has those really cool statues all covered in silver and gold, and he can see them sitting on the shelf right there every day. I only saw you once, and it was terrible! I like my neighbor’s gods better. They don’t talk, or flash, or thunder, or send up smoke, or make the mountains tremble. They just sit there and look nice. Imagonna go with those ones.”

Privately, we might smile at that a bit, but really, don’t we have some really cool things we like a lot better than God? For some of us it could be NASCAR, or NFL, or NBA, or MLB. For some of us it might be our kids’ soccer practices and games, or that really cute guy or gal around the corner. It could even be drugs, or alcohol, or pornography, or even Pokémon. It might even be just us – Me, Myself, and I – that we worship. It seems we can find just so very many things to fill our ears, our hands, our eyes, our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts with just what it takes to block out God, THE God who has done everything that only God can, the One God who will allow us to choose him instead of all that waste and refuse the World and all its tinsel offers us. Too often we choose idols, trash, no-gods, instead of El Shaddai-Olam. Why would we ever want anything, or anyone, less than God? Perhaps because we keep forgetting; we forget to listen; we forget to ask, knock, and enter. And then, sadly, we miss out on genuine communing with God.

Heedful Listening is Intentional Learning

Last week we reviewed Isaiah 55:3 and worked through that verse as an approach to listening to God. We started with "Incline your ear and come to me heedfully." That is something Elijah utilized when he stood in the cave as God passed by in his Glory. There were signs like a wind that split mountains and broke up rocks, then an earthquake, then a blaze of fire – and yet God was not in any of the things that show us his power as he had done at Sinai. Elijah “heard” the presence of The Almighty Everliving God in a profound silence. The Hebrew word used here for “still” (translated a still, small voice) is də-mā-māh. I bring this up because when we hear 1 Kings 19:12 ^d – a sound of sheer silence a gentle, barely audible whisper more felt than heard – we can just sail right past what that means.

In the USCCB Lectionary, that verse reads – After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. That doesn’t clue us one eensie-teensy bit about demamah. We too might expect God to speak in a deep, rumbling voice as in The Ten Commandments where the Voice from the Burning Bush says, (←Video Link!) “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is Holy Ground.” (KJV style for Exodus 3:5-6). That short passage from Exodus states at the end of verse 6, “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” Elijah also hid his face when he didn’t hear God but only demamah. The power of God transcendently exceeds our expectations. When God speaks to us, it might be that big booming voice (not so often these days), that demamah voice (happens more often than we think), or it may sound like our own voice, but – whichever we hear, or perceive in our hearts, we know it is God speaking because of the power it conveys – the power HE gives to hear God in the depths of our soul. That can occur in our contemplative discipline, during a visit with friends in a difficult time, at Church, or in utter chaos. God is speaking. Who will listen? Who can listen, and when and how? A quick flashback to last week again:

Subtitles in your Bible are important.

“When do we listen? Well, if God is speaking to us everywhere all the time, that's the best time and place to listen: Everywhere all the time.” Some readers might be challenged to state “Easy to say. Hard to do.” Yes, indeed; nonetheless, since “all things are possible with God,” shouldn’t we at least try? At the end of our Key Verses from 1 Kings 19, A Voice asks Elijah a second time “Elijah, what are you doing here?” His response is, “I'm running away from the one who is trying to kill me!” (Jezebel). What he could have said would be to quote today’s Key Verse from Psalm 85 I am listening to what the Lord God is saying;  he promises peace to us, his own people, if we do not go back to our foolish ways. Why could he say that? We must recall that King David, the principal Psalmist, lived about 100 years before Elijah. Psalm 85 is subtitled “A Psalm of the Korahites, the Sons of Korah.” They were descendants of Korah who challenged Moses’ authority and he and his family and all his followers got swallowed up when the earth split open beneath them as punishment for their rebellion. The Sons of Korah later took on important roles as Worship Leaders for liturgical singers and instruments. Now, why did I put that in here?

If we’re going to listen for God speaking to us, we need to know what’s going on when we hear Scripture read. Little details like that may or may not end up in a homily, but if we prepare ourselves to listen by reviewing the Scripture well before Church hour, that demamah becomes something we can recognize because we understand it may happen; either way, we won’t learn about what God is speaking if we can’t listen to how he’s speaking, and that requires some preparation. It’s kinda like what a Lector has to do for proclaiming the Word any day of the week.

I know of some Lectors who read in a sing-songy voice three words at a time. Others read like they’ve got the Yellow Pages instead of the Lectionary Scriptures and never once look up at the assembly, then rush through the liturgical acclamation, “thewordofthelord.” Others may read with dramatic gestures (a no-no), and still others may pace their reading based on the genre of the reading, the presence of different voices in the Word, and their knowledge of the context of what they are reading. That’s how it’s supposed to be done – thoughtfully, with sure knowledge of the content and context. Why is that important? Because, whether it’s a parent, a child representing her/his class, a Deacon, a Seminarian, an Instituted Lector, or a Priest, what is read is what God said. Any person at the Ambo reading from the Lectionary or the Book of the Gospel is conveying the Inspired and Inerrant Word of God. that’s not something one can take lightly.

Intentional learning yields clearer understanding

Nor should one in the pews dismiss the opportunity to hear and intentionally listen to the Word of God. That’s what these essays – sometimes burdensome, I know – are all about. On the website The Moon Beam Network (← Click Link), the “avatar” for the site is the Bible with light shining on it. The associated motto is “Shedding Light on The Word” and the Light is the Holy Spirit who is in charge of what goes on here. One thing that dropped recently is this       → → → → → → 

One excellent suggestion for that adage is to remember that what is read is what God said. This is part of what elicits The Apostle Paul’s painful admission, “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.” He would be willing to die if only all the Jews would accept that Jesus is Lord, the Christ of God.

How many of us would be willing to take it that far in our hearts? If a friend or loved one should refuse to accept Jesus as Lord, would we go so far as to become accursed for their sake? I mean, after all, this is the man who stilled the waters and walked on the sea. (← Music Link), so again we ask “Why would we ever want anything, or anyone, less than God?” HE is always calling to us, following us, leading us, walking beside us, surrounding us all the time everywhere saying, “Just Trust Me, I Love you and if you Love an obey me, I will redeem you.” These days, wa-a-a-a-y too may earthlings are saying something on the order of, “I redeem drink bottles. They need redeeming. I don’t.” We say again, they could be in for one helluva surprise!

In the Gospel story for the 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus is walking across the Sea of Galilee on top of the water in a storm, and when the Disciples see him, they freak out. Even today we’d be aghast. Yet, what does he say? “Courage! It is I. Don't be afraid!” the Greek words here again light up the story. The commands courage and do not be afraid are in the form of an imperative ἴσθι isthi EES-thee (← Click Link). It’s also in Deuteronomy 31:6 – ⁶ Be strong and [be] bold; have no fear or dread of them, because it is the Lord your God who goes with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. In all the instances where this combination appears, the imperative action required of an individual who is addressed is always coupled with the Divine power to achieve the imperative action bidden either by God himself or by his appointed spokesperson – a Prophet, a Priest, a lector, a parent, a brother, an Adelphos.

God, our Wholly Holy Triune God who is Almighty and Everliving, the God whose name is I AM THAT I AM, is speaking to us all the time everywhere. What he says should shift our efforts at obedience from doing something to becoming that something. We receive the Bread of Life (← Music Link), and become The Body of Christ. To make it simpler for us, God designed it so everything works that way – from doing to becoming. “If you want to be saintly, act as if you are saintly, and you will be saintly!” I don’t know who said that, but it sure makes sense to me.

Why so much Greek in these posts?

Now, one more tidbit before we close: Why were the Gospels written in Greek? Thank Alexander the Great for that. His “Hellenization” of his empire made “koine” (ordinary or common) Greek the language of trade and international communication. We don’t have direct proof of it, but I reckon Jesus himself might have addressed some Jews and gentiles in the regions of Tyre, Sidon, and the Decapolis in Greek. The Septuagint was basically completed and widely circulated beginning about 132 BC, so there was plenty of time for Greek-based reading and sharing of the Old Testament. When I give you the Greek words for our English words, I am shedding a little Light on The Word and hopefully making it a tad-bit easier to hear the One who is always speaking. That Someone is speaking to all of us right now, everywhere, all the time. What might we hear if only we listen everywhere, all the time? Someone is speaking. Is it someone reading this? Is it someone hearing this? Is it someone speaking this? Selah.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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