Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Listening to God" (June 24, 2001)

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-	Let's pray.	0:03
	May the words of my mouth and the meditations	0:07
	of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight,	0:10
	O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer, amen.	0:13
	Just a moment ago, our presiding minister Richard Hayes	0:20
	invited each of you to stand	0:23
	and to read a portion of Psalm 42.	0:26
	I wonder how many of you remember the words that you read?	0:29
	My soul thirst for God, for the living God.	0:34
	My tears have been my food day and night.	0:38
	While people say to me continually, where is your God?	0:43
	My soul is cast down within me.	0:48
	I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me?	0:50
	Now I'm realistic enough to know that most	0:58
	of what is read in church washes over you and me	1:01
	like warm bath water.	1:04
	The words are generally comforting	1:06
	to us in their familiarity.	1:08
	The hymns are satisfying for their musical appeal.	1:10
	And the faces around the chapel are beaming with confidence	1:13
	that everything really is going to be okay,	1:16
	at least for this one hour.	1:19
	But every now and then, we think about what we've just said,	1:21
	and we start to get a little nervous.	1:25
	Who are we to speak in such a casual way	1:27
	to the maker of heaven and earth,	1:31
	the Alpha and the Omega, the Ancient of Days?	1:33
	My God, why have you forgotten me?	1:38
	I'm reminded of an image first penned by Annie Dillard	1:42
	in her book, Holy the firm and since quoted by preachers	1:46
	in many pulpits, including this one.	1:49
	And she writes, the higher Christian churches,	1:52
	and by that I think she means churches a lot like us,	1:56
	come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism,	1:59
	with authority and pomp,	2:04
	as though they knew what they were doing.	2:06
	As though people in themselves were inappropriate	2:09
	set of creatures to be and to have dealings with God.	2:11
	I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words	2:16
	which people have successfully addressed to God	2:19
	without they're getting killed.	2:22
	Based on Annie Dillard's words,	2:26
	perhaps wearing crash helmets to church would be	2:27
	the most appropriate attire as we dare to approach	2:29
	the throne of the Almighty.	2:32
	We say all the right words, but so often	2:35
	do so without thinking about what we are saying.	2:38
	And certainly without knowing how God will choose	2:42
	to respond to us when we say them.	2:44
	If this happened to be your day,	2:47
	for really listening to the Psalmist's words,	2:49
	for feeling them right down in the marrow of your bones.	2:52
	This warning probably doesn't apply to you.	2:56
	If tears have been your food both day and night.	3:00
	You didn't have any trouble connecting with this psalm	3:04
	because you've been there.	3:07
	You have your own story,	3:10
	or you know someone else's story well, that tells	3:11
	what it's like to feel completely alone in the world,	3:15
	to be forgotten, afraid,	3:20
	swallowed up by the darkness, angry with God.	3:23
	I'm sorry even to have to remind you of these feelings	3:28
	when you may have simply been trying to get away	3:32
	from them on a pleasant summer morning here at Duke Chapel.	3:34
	The problem is you can't really get away	3:38
	from these things in church.	3:41
	Not if you're gonna read the Bible,	3:43
	and think about what those people went through.	3:45
	Take Elijah as a good example.	3:48
	You heard about him in 1 Kings 19.	3:51
	He went from being most successful prophet	3:55
	to most wanted man, in a matter of minutes.	3:58
	In fact, the words of this psalm	4:03
	could have come straight out of Elijah's mouth.	4:04
	My God, why have you forgotten me?	4:07
	We meet him in this story at the conclusion of a contest	4:12
	between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.	4:15
	Why was he in a contest with the prophets of Baal?	4:21
	Well, there was a drought at the time, a terrible drought.	4:24
	And the people were conflicted about which deity,	4:28
	Yahweh or the Canaanite God Baal,	4:31
	just might be able to send them some rain.	4:35
	The purpose of this contest was to discover	4:38
	whether Yahweh or Baal could miraculously bring down	4:40
	the fire that would burn the sacrificial offering,	4:44
	and the winner would surely be the one	4:47
	who could end this terrible drought.	4:49
	The prophets of Baal went first with Ahab, King of Israel,	4:52
	and all the Israelites as witnesses.	4:56
	These prophets danced around the altar	4:59
	and they shouted instructions to the sky	5:01
	with Elijah standing back and mocking them all the while.	5:03
	Maybe Baal is meditating or taking a nap,	5:07
	or maybe he wandered away, which means in Hebrew,	5:10
	he was attending to natural needs.	5:14
	But all of this was to no avail.	5:17
	There was no fire forthcoming from Baal.	5:19
	Now, when it was Elijah's turn, he repaired the altar,	5:22
	and he doused the wood with water three times,	5:25
	enough even to fill this trench	5:28
	that he had dug around the altar.	5:30
	Then he prayed for the Lord to reveal His power,	5:32
	which he did, by sending a fire so hot	5:36
	that it consumed the whole thing, the wood,	5:40
	the offering, even the fire that was in the trench.	5:43
	The people were duly impressed and they declared Yahweh	5:47
	to be the winner, and Elijah declared the profits of Baal	5:50
	to be the losers by killing all 450 of them.	5:54
	The final scene of this encounter describes Elijah	6:00
	telling King Ahab, his old nemesis,	6:03
	you better get that chariot off the mountain	6:05
	because there's a storm coming.	6:07
	And as the rain began to pour, Elijah surged ahead	6:09
	of Ahab's chariot on foot,	6:13
	and ran the entire 17 miles back to Jezreel,	6:16
	flaunting his victory every inch of the way.	6:20
	It was only when Ahab got home to describe these events	6:24
	to Queen Jezebel, his wife,	6:28
	that things took a sharp downhill turn for Elijah.	6:31
	You see, Jezebel had been the biggest supporter	6:35
	of these prophets of Baal that Elijah had just murdered.	6:38
	As the daughter of a Phoenician King,	6:43
	who was also a priest in one of the cults of Baal,	6:44
	she was used to getting her own way.	6:48
	And she was not about to take	6:50
	this kind of behavior from Elijah lying down.	6:51
	She probably sent the message to Elijah,	6:55
	that within 24 hours, she would do the same thing to him,	6:58
	he had done to the prophets of Baal.	7:03
	With this news, Elijah plummeted from the heights of glory	7:06
	to the depths of despair,	7:10
	he was terrified by Jezebel's threats.	7:13
	He tried to get as far away from her as he possibly could,	7:16
	and ran away to the middle of the wilderness,	7:19
	where he found himself sitting	7:22
	underneath a solitary broom tree.	7:24
	He begged God to let him die on the spot.	7:28
	According to Elijah's own words,	7:31
	he was feeling that the example of his ancestors,	7:33
	such as Moses, was so far beyond his own,	7:37
	that he could never match their standard.	7:41
	And now he just wanted to end it.	7:43
	But the Lord had other things in mind.	7:46
	After God sent food and water to the beleaguered prophet	7:48
	via an angel, Elijah embarked on a very long journey	7:52
	for 40 days and 40 nights to mount Horeb,	7:56
	also known as Mount Sinai,	8:00
	the place where Moses had received the law.	8:02
	Not only was it a very long journey,	8:06
	but Elijah fasted all the way.	8:08
	And when he arrived there, Yahweh was waiting for him.	8:11
	The Lord asked, what are you doing here, Elijah?	8:16
	He answered that he had been very zealous for the Lord,	8:19
	but the Israelites had forsaken the covenant.	8:22
	And now he was the only faithful one left	8:25
	and a hunted man at that.	8:29
	If Elijah was looking for sympathy,	8:32
	he wasn't going to get it here.	8:33
	Yahweh simply instructed him to stand on the mountain	8:36
	and wait for the Lord would pass by.	8:39
	So he did.	8:43
	First there came a great wind strong enough to split	8:45
	the mountains all around Elijah into a million pieces.	8:48
	But the Lord was not in the wind.	8:51
	Then there came a great earthquake so powerful	8:55
	that it seemed as if the foundations of the whole world	8:57
	were trembling, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.	9:00
	And then there came a great fire so hot	9:05
	that no one could stand anywhere near it.	9:08
	But the Lord was not in the fire.	9:10
	What was Elijah supposed to make of this,	9:13
	were this supposed to be the signs that traditionally	9:16
	told that Yahweh was near?	9:19
	Remember Moses and the burning bush on this same mountain,	9:21
	even Elijah himself had prayed for rain	9:25
	and a miraculous fire on Mount Carmel, on Mount Carmel,	9:27
	and the Lord had delivered.	9:31
	But now, as he listened, and he waited,	9:33
	the only thing left to do was to grow more terrified.	9:36
	Finally, there came a still small voice,	9:40
	translated variously as a thin whisper,	9:44
	or a faint murmuring sound, or a sound of sheer silence.	9:47
	So quiet, it was nearly inaudible.	9:52
	But for Elijah, there was no mistake, that Yahweh was near.	9:56
	When he heard it, he wrapped his face in a mantle	10:01
	and stepped to the entrance of the cave where	10:03
	he had been waiting, just as Moses had hid his face from God	10:05
	and took shelter in the cleft of the rock on Mount Sinai.	10:09
	Once again, the Lord asked, what are you doing here, Elijah?	10:14
	And once again, Elijah made the very same response	10:17
	that he had made earlier,	10:20
	that he was the only faithful one left.	10:22
	But this time, there would be a clear directive from God	10:25
	about what Elijah had to do.	10:29
	He was to go back, back to Damascus,	10:32
	and back to the people in the place	10:35
	he had been running away from.	10:37
	Like Moses, when he left the mountain,	10:39
	carrying new tablets under his arm of the law to read,	10:42
	the way, to lead the wayward Israelites,	10:45
	Elijah came down off that mountain	10:49
	with an appointed assignment from God.	10:50
	He was called to lead the Israelites back to God,	10:53
	and to put into motions, the events that would lead	10:56
	to the downfall of King Ahab and his family.	10:59
	Elijah would be the new Moses,	11:03
	destined to lead his people through a perilous time.	11:05
	I suppose none of us have stories nearly as dramatic	11:09
	as Elijah's who was ultimately	11:13
	taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire.	11:15
	Yet all of us, at one time or another,	11:18
	have undoubtedly found ourselves stuck in a very dark place,	11:21
	searching for God.	11:26
	What happens when we pour our souls out to God	11:28
	with words like, why have you forgotten me?	11:31
	Only to be met with sheer silence.	11:35
	How long does it take, before we completely give up on God?	11:38
	Can life ever be found on the other side of despair?	11:43
	Christians have struggled for centuries	11:49
	to find answers to these questions.	11:51
	In the process, a rich tradition of teachings	11:55
	and practices has grown within church	11:58
	to guide us on our spiritual journeys.	12:00
	One model for spiritual discernment developed	12:04
	by St. John of the Cross dates back to the 16th century.	12:06
	He wrote about an experience	12:12
	which he called Dark Night of the Soul.	12:13
	The Dark Night which he writes about, is not something that	12:18
	should be considered completely negative or destructive.	12:21
	On the contrary, it is an experience,	12:25
	which is almost to be welcomed as a sick person	12:29
	might welcome surgery, when it promises to bring healing.	12:31
	The purpose of the darkness is not to punish or afflict us,	12:36
	but its purpose is to set us free of the distractions	12:40
	that have been impeding our relationship to God.	12:43
	St. John of the Cross embraced the soul's Dark Night	12:47
	as a sort of divine appointment,	12:51
	a privileged invitation to draw close to the divine center.	12:53
	What does this Dark Night look like?	12:58
	It may involve feelings of abandonment, dryness,	13:01
	desolation, emptiness, exactly the kind of things	13:04
	we spend a lot of time and energy trying to avoid normally.	13:08
	St. John described this in one of his poems as	13:13
	my house being now all stilled.	13:16
	Somehow, we've been sold on the idea	13:21
	that life should be one big celebration.	13:22
	And it isn't, we can certainly turn it into one.	13:25
	But the Dark Night of the soul is a time	13:29
	when we don't have that energy anymore,	13:31
	to try to put up a false front.	13:34
	Rather than our being able to run away	13:37
	from life's difficulties, we're stopped dead in our tracks.	13:39
	And as a result, we can be primed into a period	13:43
	of stillness and receptivity to God's voice,	13:47
	even when we didn't choose to be there.	13:50
	It's in times like these when we may benefit	13:53
	from a spiritual relationship.	13:56
	One such as working with a spiritual director,	13:58
	or meeting with a Stephen minister,	14:02
	or even talking with a trusted friend	14:04
	who can walk with us into the dark places,	14:06
	and provide support in the discernment process.	14:08
	This would not be a friend who rushes to your rescue	14:12
	and tells you to hurry up and get over it.	14:14
	But someone who offers a compassionate presence,	14:17
	and gentle acceptance, and may even be able to advise you	14:20
	if you need professional help, or medical treatment as well.	14:24
	A spiritual guide can be helpful in moving us	14:28
	beyond our need to order and fix life's problems,	14:31
	to embrace the whole of human life.	14:36
	With all its ambiguity, failure, and paradox.	14:38
	These are times when we have to be reminded	14:43
	that life isn't ultimately about problems,	14:46
	to be corrected according to our own desires,	14:49
	but a mystery to be lived into,	14:52
	including the pain and the chaos	14:55
	that can lead us into new birth.	14:58
	Elijah did not get the answer from Yahweh	15:01
	that he anticipated, when he complained of his miseries,	15:04
	feeling like a failure in every way.	15:07
	First, he asked to die.	15:10
	But instead the angel gave him bread and water.	15:12
	Next he bemoaned the fact	15:15
	that he wasn't as good as his ancestors.	15:16
	And he was ordered to take a long journey	15:20
	to the same place where Moses had met God.	15:22
	Then he was told that the glory of the Lord would pass by,	15:25
	but it didn't happen in any of the usual ways,	15:29
	only in a thin murmuring sound.	15:33
	And at last, Elijah continued to insist	15:36
	that he was the only faithful one left in Israel.	15:39
	But still he was instructed to go back,	15:42
	to face all the faithless people	15:45
	he had been complaining about all along.	15:47
	None of this was anything he had asked for.	15:51
	He wanted simply a peaceful end.	15:55
	And what he got was a lot of chaos.	15:57
	But this was the path he was called to follow,	16:00
	for a genuine encounter with God.	16:04
	This was the way God re-energized him,	16:07
	to go deeper and to go forward,	16:09
	to become the obedient servant he was created to be.	16:12
	Like Elijah, God has surprising things	16:17
	in store for each of us.	16:20
	Are you listening for that still small voice?	16:22
	Are you brave enough to answer?	16:26
	I love an image given to me at a workshop by Parker Palmer,	16:29
	a Quaker and well known spiritual writer.	16:34
	And this relates to an experience he once had,	16:37
	while rappelling down a very steep precipice.	16:39
	If you've ever done this or seen it done,	16:42
	you know that rappelling involves dangling	16:45
	from a series of ropes,	16:47
	as you gingerly make your way safely to the bottom.	16:49
	Parker was climbing down carefully but steadily,	16:53
	until he reached a very awkward place with a rock face	16:57
	suddenly turned away from him at a very sharp angle.	17:00
	Suddenly, he was dangling in midair	17:05
	with nothing to grab onto.	17:07
	He was not only terrified but paralyzed as well.	17:10
	It took him a moment to be able to regain his composure	17:14
	long enough to think about what kind of help he needed.	17:18
	But when he did so, he called out only in a tiny	17:21
	little child like voice, "Help!"	17:25
	The instructor who was watching all this	17:31
	from his own safe place on the ground, called back to him,	17:33
	"Parker, if you can't get out of it, get into it."	17:36
	Meaning for Parker to bemoan his state of affairs	17:41
	would get him nowhere.	17:44
	He was going to have to fully enter into his predicament	17:46
	to see what new possibilities would present themselves	17:50
	for the future, and then go with it,	17:53
	or else he would be stuck dangling in the same place	17:56
	for the rest of his life.	18:00
	Sounds a lot like something	18:03
	Yahweh would have said to Elijah, doesn't it?	18:04
	Or maybe even to you or to me.	18:06
	If you can't get out of it, get into it.	18:10
	The Lord is surely with you.	18:14
	And there will be bread for the journey.	18:16

Item Info

Title:

Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Listening to God" (June 24, 2001)

Description:

Sermon start time: 00:03. Sermon end time: 18:21.
The Lord is with us, and as believers we must be willing and courageous enough to listen to God (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “Like Elijah, God has surprising things in store for each of us. Are you listening for that still small voice? Are you brave enough to answer?”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4d21s05s

Date:

June 24, 2001

Speaker:

Ferree-Clark, Nancy

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1073
ref10303_ctj
uachapelsermaud
duke:321202
dcrau001717
ark:/87924/r4d21s05s
dc3c211a-896d-4da8-a816-89f6cde408cf

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Nancy Ferree-Clark - "Listening to God" (June 24, 2001)

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