Do we see God when he speaks to us in the gentleness of a quiet whisper or in the power of a great storm? Do we see Jesus in the real presence of his body and blood of the Eucharist? (This chalice was given to me by Father Jeff Stealey, who was a seminarian with me at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wisconsin. I remember Jeff when I use this chalice during mass.)
When
we encounter the prophet Elijah in our reading from the first book of Kings, he’s
in quite a predicament. He’s fleeing for
his life, knowing that King Ahab and Jezebel are out to kill him. Elijah has seen the people of Israel break
their covenant with God to worship the foreign god of Baal. Distraught, Elijah flees into the wilderness
in haste, wishing for death to come to him peacefully. The word of God comes to Elijah, telling him
to stand on the mountaintop to see the Lord pass before him. A great wind, a strong earthquake, and a
tremendous fire all passed by Elijah as he looked out the entrance of the cave
where he was hiding. Elijah was
surprised that the Lord was not in any of those strong, powerful acts of nature,
since that was often where God appeared to his prophets. Yet, after seeing that the Lord was not in
those grand acts of nature, the Lord came to Elijah in a tiny, quiet
whisper.
We might be looking for God in certain
things, we might be expecting God to speak to us in a certain way, but God
often is present to us in some very surprising ways. When I first arrived on my missionary
assignment in the jungles of Ecuador, the pastor of our mission site asked me
if I would accompany him to a remote village deep in the rainforest where we
would have mass. The pastor had not been
to this village for over a year since it was very far from our home base and
since our mission site was over-loaded with 90 villages under our care. After a 4-hour canoe ride, we rode horses for
another two hours. I’ll never forget
that horse ride, since I was mounted on a wooden saddle, which was incredibly uncomfortable. But the worst part came when we arrived in
the village. We had to cross this large
ditch about 15 or 20 feet deep in order to get to the church; the only way
there was by crossing this rough-hewn tree that was stretched across the
ditch. As I saw the villagers hurrying
across the ditch effortlessly, I looked at the pastor and said: “Oh no, you’ve
got to be kidding if you think I’m going across that.” He told me that I had no choice, that it was the
only way across. I tried to take my time
to inch across slowly. As I started
across, inch by inch, I actually made it to the half-way point on this huge
log. But when I started thinking about what
I was actually doing, I panicked and I came to a standstill, frozen in my
tracks. I remember looking across the
other side where it seemed like half the village was watching me, quite
fascinated by the ordeal I was making out of this. I made eye contact with this little old man –
he couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall, and he looked like he was about
100 years old. Out of everyone in the
crowd, he seemed to be the least equipped to help me, yet before I knew it,
this man ran to me on the middle of log, literally picking me up in a bear hug
and carrying me across to safety in an energetic run. I was in shock, but I realized I had made it
to safety. I was so grateful to this kind
angel who helped me out of his compassion and kindness.
Yes, God can come to us in very
expected ways in the different situations we are confronted with in life. Perhaps we’re expecting God to come to us in
this huge earth-shattering event in our lives. But, more often than not, God
comes to us in the quiet moments, in those seemingly mundane, ordinary events
that make up the majority of our days here on earth. Maybe we’re looking for a specific way for
God to speak to us, so much so that we miss the way he is already present to
us. Elijah had the wisdom &
fortitude to recognize God’s voice in that whisper. He then covered his face with his cloak out
of respect, knowing that he was before the divine presence. Here Elijah was trying to run away from all
his problems, even wishing that the Lord would let his life mercifully come to
an end, but here God found him and opened his heart to his presence.
In our Gospel for today, the disciples
also don’t see God in all the signs he has given them. They had just seen the miracle of the
multiplication of the loaves and the fish, yet in the midst of a fearful storm
out at sea, when Jesus is walking right towards them to offer them help and
comfort, they don’t even recognize Jesus, they think it must be a ghost. The goal of our faith is not to experience a
miracle; it is not to be able to walk on water, or to see God in an event that
is as powerful as a great storm or a thundering earthquake. Rather, the goal of our faith is to grow in
our relationship with God, to see Christ’s presence in our lives in whatever
form it presents itself. We are to
experience God’s abiding love for us in the many different moments he is
present to us. In other words, God is
there for us in so many ways. It
is up to us to see him as he makes his presence known to us.
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