"Identity in the Silences", June 23, 2013

I Kings 19: 8:15 Luke 8: 26-39 We create ridiculous expectations. At Graduations, at Weddings, Anniversaries, even Funerals, we expect someone to stand up and hand us Wisdom that will satisfy. At 5am this morning, there were already 150 folding chairs set up around the Gazebo. We expect Salutatorian, Valedictorian, Commencement speakers, Scholarships; yet for 13 years, since our children were in Kindergarden, what we looked forward to was leaping in the lake. No one will remember the words said this day or any of those days. Years ago, here in the Village, the clergy tried to have a Baccalaureate and not only could we not get the graduates or families to come, we could not even get the teachers, Principal or Superintendent, because they all wanted to be at Bacchanalia parties. The point of this morning is not a David Thoreau's Walden “Go off into the wilderness, searching for silence and solitude!” But afterward, when in the night you awake to find you have a spouse sleeping on the pillow, when after 9 months you lay your baby on the mattress, when the party is over, when the last relative leaves, when your graduate is left at College, there will be SILENCE. And in that silence the identity question, “What are you doing here?” or as spoken by Legion: “What has God to do with my life?” The point of the story of Elijah, was not that God is NOT in Earth, Wind, Fire or Silence. Just before this, is one of the most dramatic Miracle Stories of the Old Testament, the Man of God stood up before the entire Nation, with confidence and resolve questioning everyone: “How long will you try limping in two opposite directions?” Either worship and serve the Fertility Idols made by your own hands, or serve God. Human culture has continually told us that we are lacking, we are in need, and fulfillment will come with New Shoes, a Car, the Lottery, purchase of some thing not in us. Elijah boldly stands in opposition to 450 Prophets of Cultural Worship. Almost 500 Prophets choose the best sacrifice, and pray together, and whip and beat themselves to attract attention, to stimulate feeling, but nothing. Old Man Elijah, with his own hands, lays one boulder atop another to make an altar to God. Elijah sacrifices a bull, then lays half a steer, on top of half a steer. He has 12 buckets of water poured over it. Then Elijah prays to God and God responds with lightning bolts from heaven to consume the sacrifice and all the water. Arrogantly, boldly, with absolute dominance in his belly, Elijah sacrifices all 450 prophets of Baal. Suddenly, in the silence after the contest is over, Elijah loses his nerve, loses his own prophetic voice, questioning “Who am I? What has God to do with me?” God did not need to be present in a miracle in earth, wind or fire, God had already shown the King, all the Nation and World the power of God, and God's relationship with Elijah who believed in God. Perhaps like me, you have discovered there are times, when what we want most of all is to be heard, to state our case and be proven right; but what this story tells us is often what we want is to be able to hear ourselves, as God reminds us that there are still 7000 other believers who also never gave up on God. I think when JR Tolkien set out to write The Lord of The Rings, he patterned the character of Gollum/Smeagol after this creature Jesus finds at Garrison. Abandoned, unclean, no longer Human, unable to wear clothes, unable to stand upright, hurting himself and hurting others, shackled with broken chains, he dwells among tombs and graves. When asked his name, this stranger does not say “I am Possessed by a Demon” because in truth he is more than possessed, he is occupied by an army of demons, the Roman Legion was 6000 voices and weapons laying siege to a place and people. One of the points of this story, is how often we allow circumstances, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a divorce, to define who we are. Our language is painfully clear, when we make someone an “invalid” what we are saying is they are “In-Valid” when we claim a handicap, we are labeling a person as “incapable or incompetent.” What Jesus does first is to listen and to treat the man as a human being. As vegan animal rights people of the 21st Century, we may react to this story, that Jesus sent the demons into poor pigs, who ran off a cliff, or as capitalists we may identify with those who owned the pigs. But in that time and culture, pigs like these spirits were horrible, unclean, creatures of destruction, and what was left when they were gone was a whole human being, a rational and compassionate mind. Naturally the first request of one who had been chained, who had been shunned, who had been treated as less than human for a lifetime was “Take me with you” but Jesus sent him into his own community, his own people to describe what God had done for him. Often times, particularly in the Silences of life, we question our identity. Ironically, for the last 100 years our search for identity has been, if abstracted from everything else, if we could go back and fix our relationship with our Mother, our Father, who are we, pure and whole without anything else. However, a great part of who and what we are, we develop in relationship with our community, and with God. We cannot live unto ourselves without God. So the Baptismal question in times of silence is “Almighty God, What would you have me do?”