Week 10 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9a, 11-16; Psalm 27; Matthew 5:27-32

Elijah knows the rules about seeing God and not seeing God. When he realises that the Lord, absent from the mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire, is present in the gentle breeze, he does not need to be told to cover his face. He does it on his own initiative, before going to stand outside the cave in which he has spent the night. Only Moses got to speak with God 'face to face', as a man speaks with his friend, but even Moses needs to be protected at one point from the full frontal vision of God and is allowed to see only God's back as he passes by.

'What are you doing here?', is the Lord's question to Elijah who, God knows already, has taken refuge there from the wrath of Jezebel. The emphasis seems to be on the 'here' - 'why are you here and not where you ought to be' seems then to be the implication.

Elijah, who has been cared for and defended by God so many times already, needs no further sympathy. There is no 'poor Elijah' from the lips of God but rather a simple direction to him to go back and get on with the work the Lord has mapped out for him. There are kings to be anointed and prophets to be called. The Lord's work is to continue, in spite of Ahab and Jezebel, and in spite of Elijah's loss of courage and his dip into depression. Elijah continues to have his role in the working out of God's providence.

There is consolation for us in seeing that even this fierce prophet had his moments of vulnerability. Zealous with zeal as he claims to be he still needs the re-assurance of that gentle breeze and the clear direction to get back to his work. The monks of the desert - perhaps in the same region as Elijah visited centuries before - were encouraged to get on with weaving their baskets and saying their prayers. They were to do this even, and especially, when they were tempted to lose courage, become depressed and give up the struggle.

Whatever my work is, whatever your work is, we are to get on with it and stick at it. God is always with Elijah, not just at Horeb, and not just in dramatic and critical moments of his life, times of wind, earthquake or fire. Likewise God is always with us, a gentle breeze respecting the limitations of our capacity to encounter God. We are to do our work, whatever it is, with patience and perseverance. It is how the Lord wants us to serve him and contribute to building his kingdom. Not in words crying 'Lord, Lord, look how zealous I am for you', true as that might be. But in actions and concrete deeds, each day, humble as those actions and deeds might be.

It may be that they are just twigs, these actions and deeds of ours, swaying in that gentle breeze that breathes on us. But they are twigs for an eagle's nest. And that's an image, woven by Yeats, that would have pleased the tough Elijah, familiar as he was with the ministrations of angels and ravens.