Sunday 13 August 2023

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Today is Sunday the 13th of August, beginning the 19th week of Ordinary time.

Salt of the Sound sings, ‘Come Thou Fount’.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace

Streams of mercy, never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it

Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise to Thee an altar

Hither by Thy help I'm come

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home

Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wandering from the fold of God

He, to rescue me from danger

Interposed his precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter

Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, O take and seal it

Seal it for Thy courts above

Here's my heart, O take and seal it

Seal it for Thy courts above

Today’s reading is from the First Book of Kings.

1 Kings 19:9,11-13

At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces 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; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ As you begin praying with this passage, you might like to ask yourself this very question… what are you doing here? What do you desire in your prayer today?

‘…the LORD is about to pass by.’ Take a moment to become aware of how the Lord is about to pass by for you… How is God visiting the place you find yourself praying in today?

We hear that Elijah is met by various elements of nature… let’s take a moment to imagine each one. Put yourself in Elijah’s place, in the cave, on the mountain. Take it all in for a moment…what is it like?

‘Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD’… Imagine the sound of this wind… can you feel it against your skin and clothes? Such power…

But the Lord is not there…

What about the earthquake? What is that like? Perhaps frightening…

The Lord is not there either…

Now, a fire… Can you feel the heat from it? Smell the smoke; hear the blaze… what is it like with this displayed before your eyes?

The Lord is not in the fire either…

After all of the noise, movement and commotion of these moments, the sound of sheer silence. If you’re able, you might like to press pause if there is silence around you to get a greater feel for it, or recall a time you heard sheer silence at some point in your life…

‘When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave’… What was it about the silence do you think that made Elijah recognise the Lord’s presence? What beckoned him to go to the entrance of the cave?

What beckons you towards recognising God’s presence?

‘Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’

A return to the original question… ‘What are you doing here?’ As you’ve prayed with and imagined this passage, how might you answer this now? Why have you come to meet with God today? What is it you would like to say to the Lord? Take a moment to do this now, as if you were standing at the entrance of the cave…

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.