The Absurdity of God

 

We are stepping back this week to look at the whole of the fabric of Elijah’s life that we have been studying over the last few weeks in church.  Yesterday, we reflected on the question, what is feeding you?  What are we consuming through all our senses (not just the intake in our mouths, but the words that fall from our lips and enter our ears and experiences that warm our hearts and the ones that cause our souls to break.  There is too much in one day of life to every fully understand…yet we keep racing and running on to the next event and experience determined to squeeze the lemon of life into lemonade.)

Another thread and theme in the fabric of Elijah’s life is listening to and for God.  God tells Elijah to go camp by the wadi, to go to the widow, God tells the widow to feed some strange man who will show up asking for bread, God instructs Elijah to go tell the king that rain is in the forecast (and Elijah think, “Humph, I can improve that message with some fireworks!” and goes off script ~ more on that tomorrow), God comes to Elijah not in wind, earthquake or fire, but in a still small whisper.

We live in a world that is full of noise, noise, noise.  The twenty-four hour news cycle tossing and throwing out words, pausing only for commercials that seek to sell you something that can almost certainly make you happy ~ no refunds however if it doesn’t make everything magically or instantly better.  All this happens while your phone dings with notifications and emails pile up and Slack notifications from co-workers tell you that they need that report yesterday ~ because their lack of planning is now your emergency ~ while you are told that only you can prevent forest fires and need to solve all the world’s problems because what kind of world do you want to give your children??  (Insert a deep breath here!).

In the immortal words of Shaggy of Scooby Doo fame, “Zoinks!!”  Gulp.  No wonder I want to curl up with a pint of ice cream and binge watch television while surfing Amazon for anxiety treatments.

If God is still speaking, how does God get a word in edgewise when humans fill every silence with words?  Insert a deep breath here again.

So today, I encourage you to put your phone in time out, in a drawer ~ seriously ~ put the phone away for a while.  Turn off the television.  Go out for a walk or sit outside in the sun or go to the beach (be sure to wear sunscreen though and bring a hat).  Breathe and be.  Breathe and listen.  Breathe and be open.  I am not promising that God will show up, although I deeply believe that God is always present but doesn’t always use neon signs and bolts of lightening to communicate.  God loves to communicate creatively with us.  Emily Dickenson said to tell the truth with a slant, God loves coming into our lives in unconventional, not always through the front door, and in sometimes absurd ways (see the Christmas story of God being born in a barn!).  The more we practice being in the presence of God, the more we find ways to tune and turn toward the One who is still composing a symphony of life, yours and mine and ours together every day. Amen.