28 Elul 5784

Cantor Emeritus David Bentley

Temple Shalom Gold Coast

Letting in the quiet

The Divine presence is revealed in myriad ways.

Some find it in nature’s displays, great and small, such as seeing the night skies dance with auroras of blazing colour, or in a sunrise, or in a tree, or in the whisper of a breeze bearing a delicate spring fragrance. For some God is in the fond touch of someone we love, or in belonging to a close-knit community. Some feel God when experiencing great art or when learning of a just outcome to some legal case. We might find God in sights as rare as seeing a shooting star, or in acts as familiar and routine as re-awakening each day. While we seldom dwell on God’s presence, the ways in which we might find God are, like God, all around us and without end.

In this episode in the life of the prophet Elijah, we read (1 Kings 19) that an angry queen threatened his life. He fled and took refuge in a remote mountain cave. The next morning Elijah told God of his fears and was instructed to leave the cave. Then God brought a great wind, strong enough to split mountains and shatter rocks, and then an earthquake, and then a fire.

What followed next was so slight that it might well have gone unnoticed – had it not first been announced by those first three terrifying acts of God. It was a still, small voice, or in another translation, a soft, murmuring sound. It seems that this gentle sound gave comfort, for it was only upon hearing it that Elijah left the cave as God had bidden him.

Perhaps the three natural disasters turned Elijah from his fears, freeing him to pay attention to what was about to follow. Had he kept brooding on his fate, that fourth and very subtle act of God, that still, small voice, may well have been missed. The noise in his troubled mind would most likely have drowned it out.

Our daily lives, thankfully, are not often filled with earthquakes and fires. Yet they are beset with a flurry of non-stop activity as well as our concerns with the troubles and cares that touch us. Perhaps this constant noise, like Elijah’s fear, can make it hard for us to hear what we need to hear, or to feel, or to know.

It’s worth letting in the quiet.