Falling On My Face

1 Kings 19:11-13

September 12, 2021 • Mount Pleasant UMC

“What are you doing here?” It’s a question maybe you’ve been asked when you show up somewhere you’re not expected. Or maybe—more likely, in my case—it’s a question you ask yourself when you feel uncomfortable or when you’re in a new place—or a place you don’t recognize. Maybe some of us have asked that question of ourselves repeatedly over the last twenty years. Yesterday was, almost unbelievably, the twentieth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on US soil, and while there are some of you here who weren’t yet born then, for many of us it’s a “where were you when” moment. And it changed the world into something different, something new, something that is sometimes hard to recognize. I heard someone say yesterday that they don’t recognize the place they are anymore. The world has changed; what are you doing here? And if 9/11 hadn’t been enough, the last eighteen months has turned our world over yet again. The pandemic, the racial tension, the political struggles and for we United Methodists the ongoing denominational strife has caused a lot of us to scratch our heads at a brave new world we don’t recognize. We might find ourselves sometimes asking, “Where are we? And what are we doing here?”

The other way that question might get asked in this place is if you’re trying to determine the purpose, the reason for our gathering. An outsider might look at us here Sunday after Sunday and ask, “What are you doing here?” Or, maybe, “What are you doing here?” What do we do here? When I was a kid, we would always talk about “going to church,” and technically I suppose that’s an okay way to say it, but in reality we don’t “go to church” because we are the church. That’s what Paul says in the New Testament. The word for “church” in the New Testament is ekklesia, which means “assembly” or “gathering.” It’s not a building; it’s a people. We are the church, and what we do on Sunday is not “go to church” but “go to worship.” Now, you may think I’m making a big deal about a small thing, but I hope, over the next few weeks, to make the case that worship is actually a very big deal. It’s the one thing we do on earth that we will continue to do in eternity. So since we’re going to do it forever, don’t you think maybe we ought to practice getting it right here? The church is a worshipping community. What are you doing here? You are here to worship.

That is, of course, the question God asked Elijah in our text this morning. What are you doing here? When I read the text, though, I almost hear God emphasizing all the words because at this point in his journey, Elijah is tired and confused and just done. So we’re going to start with him in this series of messages on worship, a series I’m calling “Becoming Hallelujahs,” because I hope by the end of these weeks together, we will trade “going to worship” for “being worshippers,” that we will become “hallelujahs” to God. So over the next few weeks we’re going to ask things like: what is worship? Why do we worship? Whom do we worship? And what’s the big deal? Does it even matter if we worship? (Spoiler alert: it does.) But let’s begin this morning in the desert with a discouraged prophet who, at this point, would rather die than worship. His name, as I said, is Elijah.

Elijah was a prophet. Now, I know when I say that, most people today think of “prophets” as people who tell the future, people who can predict what comes next. And yes, they did do that, but that was not and is not a prophet’s primary job. A prophet speaks the word of God that is needed for the people today. Their job is more about “forth-telling” than “fore-telling.” When they predict the future, it’s in light of the choices the people make right now. In other words, they will say, “If you don’t turn back to God, then this will happen.” Sadly, most of the time, especially the prophets in the Old Testament, they are right because the people constantly reject God’s word. The way we use the word “prophet” today is often a far cry from what the Bible describes as a prophet.

So Elijah was a prophet, and he courageously spoke the word of God, even to people in power. And that got him in trouble, especially since his most famous act was threatening the religion of the queen, Jezebel. Jezebel is so notorious that her name today is often used to describe someone who is conniving and threatening—because she was. Especially to Elijah. Where we came into the story in our text this morning, Elijah has just defeated all the prophets of Baal, Jezebel’s god, and he has had them all killed. This, understandably, made Jezebel a bit angry and she puts out a warrant on Elijah’s life. Now, some scholars say that had she really wanted him dead, she could have done it without any warning. She was the queen after all. What it seems she really wanted was for him to leave the country, which he promptly does (cf. Dilday, Communicator’s Commentary: 1, 2 Kings, pg. 218). One moment he is a hero, the next moment he is Public Enemy Number One.

So Elijah runs, and while the NIV says he “ran for his life” (19:3), another way to translate that is he “went for his soul.” It’s possible that Eiijah wasn’t so much afraid of Jezebel as he was aware that it would be better for everyone, and especially his own soul, if he got out of town for a while (Dilday 218). And look where he goes. After a long journey, he ends up at Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai, which the text calls “the mountain of God” (19:8). It’s the same mountain, out in the desert, where God had appeared to Moses long before and given him the Ten Commandments. This is a holy place, and once there, Elijah finds a cave and collapses (cf. Dilday 219; Goldingay, 1 & 2 Kings for Everyone, pg. 90). He is bone-weary; he simply can’t go any further. And in that cave, when he has nothing left, he has an encounter with God.

Up to this point, at least as far as we’re told, God has not talked to Elijah. He sent an angel a few times along the way to make sure Elijah eats, but there has been no conversation, no reassurance of safety, no interaction between God and Elijah until Elijah is at the place where he can’t go any further. He’s done. He has come to the end of himself—and isn't that often our story? God waits until we’ve come to the end of ourselves to show up. When we can’t do it on our own anymore, that’s when God says, “Hey, how about we get things straight? How about we try things my way now?” But to Elijah in the cave, he puts it in the form of a question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” What are you doing here?

Pay close attention to what happens next. Listen to what Elijah says. “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (19:10). Do hear the whine in that? Do you hear how many times he says “I” and “me”? The only reason he cares about what the people have done to God’s altars and such is because it affects him and the way they treat him. Elijah has lost perspective, and I picture him spending the forty days of travel grumbling and complaining and stewing about his situation. You can almost hear him singing, “It’s all about me.” And we might laugh, or shake our heads at his response to God, about his attitude toward God, but we’re not all that different from him in this day and age, are we? What is the focus of our worship?

How many times have we judged a worship service by whether or not “I” got something out of it? How many times do we respond to a song or a message by saying, “I really enjoyed that”? “Church shopping” is a uniquely American and modern idea in which we “shop” for a church the same way we shop for deodorant. Does it not stink? How does it make me feel? What does the church or the worship service do for me? Ask someone what makes worship “good” and you’ll undoubtedly hear a long list of criteria that have very little to do with God and everything to do with the person talking. And very often, until we’re asked, we don’t even realize we’ve done it. “We have inadvertently created unspoken criteria for worship, and then appointed ourselves the judges of it” (Luz, Honest Worship, pg. 25).

But what if worship is not all about “me”? What if our feelings, and whether or not we “get” anything out of the worship service isn’t the point? What if, instead, worship is about God? What are you doing here, Elijah? When Elijah answers with his narcissistic complaint, God doesn’t correct him at first. Instead, he calls Elijah outside the cave, into what we are told will be the presence of the Lord. So you probably know the story; it’s the second-most famous story from Elijah’s life. First there was a powerful wind, a wind strong enough to tear the mountains apart and shatter rocks. But, we’re told, “the Lord was not in the wind” (19:11). Next comes an earthquake, “but the Lord was not in the earthquake.” That’s followed by a fire, “but the Lord was not in the fire” (19:12). So Elijah’s been through a little concert by that well-known band: Earthquake, Wind and Fire. (I need a rim shot here, Chuck.) Anyway—why does the author keep repeating that phrase, “the Lord was not in” these things? Because God has often been found in natural phenomena. The word for “wind” is the same word for “Spirit” in the Old Testament; it’s the “wind” of God that created all things. God showed up to Moses in a burning bush—fire that burned but did not consume the bush. And when the people rebel against God, he opens up the earth and swallows a whole bunch of them (cf. Numbers 16:31-34). So it’s not unusual for God to show up in such things, and it’s not unusual for people to look for God in such things—then or now. But this time, Elijah looks and he cannot find God’s presence in any of the spectacular things. “The Lord was not in them.”

We’re not told how he knows God is not in those things, but his spirit can tell. And his spirit also knows that God is, in fact, in the midst of the what happens next. The King James Version says it was a “still, small voice.” That’s the way most of us who know this story probably learned it. The NIV describes it as a “gentle whisper,” but I think my favorite translation is in the New Revised Standard Version, which says Elijah heard “a sound of sheer silence” (19:12). I like that translation because of the paradox. How do you “hear” silence? God shows up after all the spectacle and the noise and the destruction and he’s just there in the quiet. “A sound of sheer silence.” And when Elijah hears it, he covers his face. There is something within him that knows it’s not about him anymore.

That doesn’t mean he’s all straightened out, because when God asks him again—in the silence—“What are you doing here, Elijah?”, he offers word for word the same answer, but I imagine this time it’s with less whine. And God uses this moment to correct Elijah’s vision. He reminds him that he’s not actually alone, that there are still 7,000 people in Israel who are with him and with God. Take heart, Elijah—and he does. After that still small voice, Elijah is able to move out, and continue doing what God called him to do. The worship in the cave, the silence of the encounter, covering his face—it changes Elijah, even if the change takes a little while to settle in.

We can all use some time in the cave, falling on our face, recognizing that we are not the center of the universe. Think about how often we define God by how we experience him. Even in our worship songs, we often default to “me,” “my” and “I.” Again, we talk about what “I” got out of the worship service, not what I was able to give to God. Years ago I had someone tell me they wanted to get to church on Sunday so that they could they get “my” communion. What we miss, what Elijah missed, what our world misses is this: it’s not about “me.” It’s not about us. Worship is about God. Check out the worship in the opening chapters of Revelation (which you will have a chance to read this week if you follow the weekly readings). In the heavenly worship, you never hear “me,” “my” or “I.” The focus is entirely upon God. That vision was given to John in a time when the church was undergoing intense persecution. It wasn’t safe to be a Christian and the temptation would always be for the church to focus on itself, its safety, its protection. But the vision of worship they are given focuses exclusively on the one who is with them. No guarantees of anything except his presence. Do you remember where John was when he received this vision? On the island of Patmos, off the coast of Greece, tradition says in a cave, falling on his face. That’s when he heard these words from the halls of heaven: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (Revelation 4:11; cf. Luz 28).

Worship should change us, but it can only do that if it’s less about what we can get and more about falling on our face, remembering who we are in light of who God is. Worship ought to make us humble. Paul put it this way in his letter to the Romans: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you” (Romans 12:3). Or, put another way, humility is “truly knowing who you are before God.” It is “having a proper and personal understanding of who God is and then understanding who we truly are in light of that awareness” (Luz 44). We ought to come to this time and place in humility.

And that, in turn, should lead us to an outward focus. On our best days, worship should turn us around, make us other-centered (rather than me-centered). This God we worship is personal, to be sure, but he is not private. He loves you and he loves the world around you. When he appears to Elijah, he doesn’t call him to live in the cave and sing songs. He calls him back out into the world to make a difference. He calls him to literally change the world. Elijah is sent to anoint two people as kings over their lands, and to find and anoint his successor Elisha (cf. 19:15-18). When he went into the cave, that wasn’t anything he expected to happen, but worship has a tendency to change us, to reorient us, to redirect us. When we fall on our face, we rise up different, called to change the world we live in.

One thing that does need to be said about Elijah is that he initially ran away from rather than toward community. But he is sent back into community, back to the world because he—and we—can’t change the world on our own. In most instances in the Bible, as we’ll see in the coming weeks, there isn’t really an understanding of “personal worship.” Everything is centered and rooted in community, even in that worship scene in Revelation. “Personal worship” is an oxymoron. Here’s how one author puts it: “The church is not a group of individuals each finding God on their own, nor is worship a group of individuals each communing with God on their own. The church in its essence and nature is a community, and worship is more fully formed in community. We are like strings in a long ornate tapestry, each contributing a thread in a beautiful picture that God weaves in the universe. Outside of the tapestry the string loses meaning. Thus, as we are gathered, we are more ourselves than when we are apart” (Luz 46).

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once compared the worship service to the theater. Now, when you hear that image, most assume something like this: the pastors and worship leaders are the performers, God is the director and the congregation is the audience, passively waiting for “the show.” But Biblically speaking, that’s all backwards. Here’s how it should go: “the pastors and worship leaders are the directors, the congregation are the performers, and God is rightfully the audience” (Luz 47). Worship is, after all, “the work of the people.” Worship is what we do, together, honoring and exalting the God who sends us into the world to make a difference, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. It’s my prayer that, as we continue to explore more in the next few weeks what worship means, we (like Elijah) will become ever more sensitive to the voice of God and be able to hear him sending us out. God asks us: what are you doing here, church? And we respond: we are here to listen, to worship, and to become who you have called us to be.

I've shared before how much I now, as an adult, can appreciate the times we gathered around the table for dinner when I was growing up. Mom would call up the stairs to our rooms or Dad would get on his bike and ride around town until he found which friend’s yard we were in, and the call would be the same: “Supper’s ready!” And we would come home, gather around the table, have a prayer and share a meal. Almost every night. Family dinners are a lost art today, and far too many of us eat alone many nights. But as a kid, there was no TV and no radio on during supper. Supper was time for eating—feeding our bodies—and conversation—feeding our souls. And it was—and is—best done in the company of those you love, in community. Friends, I don’t think it is any accident that Jesus gave us one of the most important and soul-forming worship practices at a dinner table. It was the last night he would be with them and in the midst of feeding their bodies, Jesus was nourishing their souls. In the next 24 hours, as he hung on a cross, their temptation would be to think about their needs, their protection, their losses. So on that last night, Jesus gives them bread and wine—things that would be on every dinner table in their world—and he told them, “Remember me. As often as you do this, remember me.” He focuses them on himself. The bread, the cup—it’s not about you or me. It’s about Jesus. And like the elders in heaven (cf. Revelation 4:9-10), our response is to fall on our face and worship him. So let’s do that. Let’s come to the table with our family and worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the one who speaks in a still, small voice.