The Gentle Whisper

Sermon by the Rev'd Richard Smith, Ph.D.

St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, San Francisco

January 22, 2017

Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

The last several days have been a whirlwind for so many of us--from the inauguration to the Women’s March. From the President’s threat to deport millions of undocumented people and deprive many more of their healthcare to passionate calls to resist those cruel policies.

A whirlwind. How do we find our bearings in such a moment? How do we find a way forward?

Can we take our cues from something deeper than the cliches and labels--Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, progressive--and from something deeper than knee-jerk reactions to the latest headlines and presidential tweets and posts on Facebook?

How to get our bearings in this whirlwind?

Maybe you remember the old story about Elijah... It was a dark moment in Israel, a time of great upheaval in the land. Elijah had spoken out against all the corruption and murder in Israel, the ways Israel had abandoned its own deepest values and dreams.

Many great prophets had been killed, and now many in Israel were coming after Elijah, wanting to kill him as well.

He’s hiding in a cave. One day God tells him to go outside and stand on the mountainside where God will pass by.

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind.
And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

And that’s where God’s voice was to be found, in that gentle whisper. There, in that gentle whisper, Elijah finds the energy and the guidance for his next steps.

I love the story, and I’m hoping that same grace, that same gentle whisper, will come to me and to each of us in this crazy time, to help us get our bearings and find a way forward.

I hope that we can find that gentle whisper deep in our own hearts, deeper than all the roles we play, the hats we wear--spouse, parent, friend, professional, priest. Deeper than all the fear and anger and the need to be right. Deeper than all the labels--Hillary voter, Trump voter. Deeper than our skin color or sexual orientation.

I hope we can reach deep into our own hearts to hear that gentle whisper, the voice of God.

Which is a long way of saying I hope in these days we can be people of deep prayer.

Because even with all the other noise going on around us, we can still hear that gentle whisper if we want to, can still live out the joy, the passion and compassion, the love it stirs in us.

I recall the story of the teenager from rural Iowa who was visiting Manhattan with her mom. It was high noon, and there were taxis and trucks zooming by, horns blaring, people pouring out of the office buildings racing off to lunch. In the midst of it all, the young woman stops and says, “Wait, mom! I hear a grasshopper!” This annoys her mom who says, “Honey, we’re right in the middle of Manhattan. They don’t even have grasshoppers here! And even if they did, you’d never hear them because of all this racket.

At that, the girl went over to a small bush next to a light post and pulled back the branches to reveal a grasshopper happily chirping away.

Her mom was astonished and said, “How did you manage to hear that grasshopper in the midst of all this craziness?” The girl got very philosophical and said, “Well, we hear what we want to hear.”

Which is true not only of grasshoppers but also of that gentle whisper God placed in our hearts.

I see that same gentle whisper, that voice of God, playing itself out in Jesus' life.

For example, in today’s gospel Jesus has had an Elijah moment. Jesus’ time, like Elijah’s, like ours, was dark and turbulent. The Romans occupying Palestine had slaughtered many innocent men, women, and children; they had inflicted much poverty and cultural genocide on Jesus’ own people.

And in today’s reading, things take an even sharper turn for the worse. Herod has just incarcerated John the Baptist. The darkness is closing in.

And in that moment, Jesus immediately moves to Galilee, into Herod’s own territory and jurisdiction. This is a bold and dangerous move on Jesus’ part. It brings him onto Herod’s radar.

And when he gets back to Galilee, he goes even further, he does three things:

• He begins proclaiming the exact same message that got John into trouble: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The kingdom of heaven--so completely different from the kingdom of Herod and the empire, a subversive alternative to the world as we know it. Jesus takes up this message knowing full well it is likely to bring down Herod’s wrath on his own head just as it had on the Baptist's.
• And he begins to gather a community of disciples who can support each other in proclaiming that same message, be a light in the closing darkness, defy every effort to crush the human spirit.
• And he reaches out in compassion to heal the sick of diseases, many of which had resulted from what the Romans had inflicted on the Jews: the economic hardships, the lack of clean water, the shortage of good, nutritious food.

Proclamation, community, compassion--ah! God is here!

Where does Jesus get this boldness and courage, this deliberateness and clarity of vision in such a perilous time as his?

My guess is that, as with Elijah, it springs from that gentle whisper deep in his own heart. That whisper is what drives Jesus--more than fear or anger or dread, more than any expectations others may have of him, more than his own need to be right or recognized or successful or in control. He stays attentive to that small gentle whisper, trusts it, follows it, regardless of the consequences, with a deliberateness, a fierce determination.

Jesus, in other words, prays.

May it be that way for us as we get our bearings, find our way forward, together, in the dark and challenging days ahead.

Pray any way you like. Meditate here on Tuesday nights with the Buddhists in Mission Dharma, or take up a mindful form of yoga. Try some of the ancient Christian practices: centering prayer, the rosary, the Daily Office, Ignatian contemplation of the Scriptures. Or if music’s your thing, spend time listening attentively to Bach or John Coltrane or the other great composers.

Do it in your own inimitable way. But do it! Pray!

However we do it in these stormy times, may we, like Elijah, like Jesus, listen attentively to that small gentle whisper of God, trust it, and follow it--together--with deliberateness and courage, determination and joy--through the coming dark days of struggle.