Please join me in prayer. Almighty God, in you
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Open our eyes that we may see the wonders of
your word and give us grace that we may clearly
understand and freely choose the way of your
wisdom. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our second
reading this morning comes to us from 1 Kings
chapter 19 verses 1 through 13. Let us now listen
to God's word. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah
had done and how he had killed all the prophets
with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger
to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and
more also if I do not make your life like the
life of one of them by this time tomorrow. Then
he was afraid. He got up and fled for his life
and he came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah.
and there he left his servant. But he himself
went a day's journey into the wilderness and
came and sat under a solitary broom tree. He
asked that he may die. It is enough now, O Lord,
take away my life, for I am no better than my
ancestors. Then he lay down under the broom tree
and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him
and said to him, Get up and eat. He looked, and
there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones
and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay
down again. The angel of the Lord came a second
time, touched him, and said, Get up and eat,
or the journey will be too much for you. He got
up and ate and drank. Then he went in the strength
of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb,
the mount of God. At that place he came to a
cave and spent the night there. Then the word
of the Lord came to him saying, What are you
doing here, Elijah? He answered, I have been
very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts,
for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant,
thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets
with the sword. I alone am left, and they are
seeking my life to take it away. He said, Go
out and stand on the mountain before the Lord,
for the Lord is about to pass by. Now there was
a great wind, so strong that it was splitting
mountains and breaking rocks and pieces before
the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And
after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was
not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake
a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And
after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When
Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle.
went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
Then there came a voice to him that said, What
are you doing here, Elijah? The word of God for
the people of God. Thanks be to God. So this
morning, I was on my way here at what my father
used to call Zero Dark Thirty, and a little sleepy.
And I drove all the way here, no traffic obviously,
got here, got here, parked in the parking lot,
and realized I didn't remember anything about
the journey. Didn't remember anything about the
ride here at all. Not a single thing. Just that
I left there and I got here. Have you experienced
things like that when you do things by rote?
You do them so often that you don't even know
what happened along the journey. You just know
you got from point A to point B and that was
what was most important. And that can happen
sometimes when we're so focused on where we're
going that we don't pay any attention to what
we're going through. Sometimes, I leave one room,
go into another room to do something, and for
the life of me, can't remember what I went into
that room to do. Now, some people out there will
go, well, yeah, that's because you're older.
No, it's happened to me since I was 12 years
old. And I know that it can happen because of
aging, and that is true. But it also happens
to people who are younger, and it may happen
maybe because we're distracted or stressed out
or because we've lost our focus, but it does
happen to us. We forget our goal or we totally
miss what happens along our journey. So I do
have a question for all of you. What are you
doing here? No, really, what are you doing here?
Have you thought about it? Have you thought about
what got you here to this point in your life's
journey? Do you remember the people and the moments
that helped you and directed you? What are you
doing here? in this place at this time with these
people at the beginning of Lent. Have you thought
about it? This is the first Sunday of Lent and
we now begin a journey that's going to be both
taken together and individually. And yes, it
is truly a journey. I grew up going to church
and actually sometimes being dragged to church.
And that means that I've gone through Lent a
whole bunch of times. Don't try figuring out
how many times I've gone through Lent. But growing
up, Lent didn't mean a lot to me when I was little.
You know, it was a journey I went through, but
it wasn't something that I really knew a lot
about. And I was young. I knew that Lent did
something, though. It was a waiting period. It
was a time when we went along and that at the
end was going to be Easter. And what I knew as
a young kid about Easter was two things. One,
I was going to have to dress up and wear a tie.
And two, there'd be candy. That's the only thing
that mattered. I was getting there and that was
it. Only when I got older did I realize and pay
any attention at all to the actual journey and
realize what Lent was about. And Lent, as I got
through Lent and looked at it, I looked at Easter
as something more deeply meaningful than I had
when I was young. Now, no matter how many times
you and I have repeated this journey, we now
begin again. We begin anew. with another opportunity
to reflect on our faith and practice spiritual
discipline, to take stock along the way and even
take time to do some soul searching, to ask ourselves
if we are now who God has called us to be. During
the Sundays leading up to Easter, we will be
focusing on fellow travelers in the Bible, people
who have walked the road before us and for whom
the road was not always easy. It's an opportunity
for us to learn from their journeys. Elijah,
in today's story, is one such traveler. Poor
Elijah. He gets asked twice by God, what are
you doing here? And the question's posed to him.
By the way, as an aside, when you arrive in heaven,
the last thing you want to hear God say is, what
are you doing here? And certainly, And I could
pick a few out, like Russ. And certainly, you
don't want to hear, what are you doing here?
Right? That would be worse. Russ has been picking
on me today, so I just let him go over there.
So back to Elijah. He's on the road. He's on
the run from Jezebel. He's completely stressed
out. He's longing for relief. He believes he's
a failed prophet, and he believes he can't go
on. He is at a very low point in his life. Can
you relate? It can be so hard to focus on much
of anything when you're stressed out or just
plain exhausted. The demands of daily life can
be overwhelming and we all know that. Elijah
turns to God asking for one thing, for it all
to end. Instead, God provides a different response.
God sends an angel to bring him sustenance through
bread and water. Not only did the angel bring
the food and water once, but he did it twice
and encouraged him both times to eat and build
up his strength. for the journey ahead. The angel
is persistent, and Elijah is not easily convinced.
But he does finally give in, and he continues
on his journey, making his way to Horeb, the
mount of the Lord. Once there, he finds a cave
that he can rest in, and he hears the word of
the Lord ask him, what are you doing here, Elijah?
Is that question supposed to be a wake -up call
for Elijah? Is it God's way of trying to get
Elijah back on track? Is God making a point with
that question? Is Elijah being called out by
God? Now there are times when we all, same as
Elijah, we all need to be called out. Whether
we ask ourselves, what am I doing here? Or whether
the wake -up call comes from someone else. We
need that wake -up call to get our journey and
our life back on track. It's an opportunity for
us to look inward and take stock. to be reminded
of who we are called to be and how we are called
to live. We all need those moments, those markers
along our journey to keep us on the path. Now,
you could think of them as cairns. I don't know
how many of you are familiar with cairns, but
it's spelled C -A -I -R -N -S. Cairns are piles
of rocks. They are literally piles of rocks that
people stack up. Cairns were our ancestors' way
and their first foray into building structures.
Pile some rocks on top of each other and they
would have the beginnings of a shelter or a place
to store some food. In Tibet, Buddhists used
them in ceremonies to call in good fortune and
balance conflicting energies. Before the intervention
of lighthouses, cairns warned sailors away from
Norway's jagged fjords. They also became markers,
markers to help travelers find their way and
not get lost. In the midst of a wilderness area,
where the scenery all looks the same, they can
keep you on the path when the trail is hard to
see. Now at times, we lose our path, and we find
ourselves wandering in the wilderness. A spiritual
cairn can get us back moving in the right direction.
Cairns are markers left by others to help us
and to guide us, to make our journey a little
easier. We just need to take the time to look
for them. And I want to share a story which will
illustrate, at least has illustrated to me, a
little bit about my faith journey and about finding
my way. Years ago, before we had GPS, before
we had, you know, any way of finding our way
places, before we had cell phones, my wife Maureen
and I went on our first trip to Europe. We rented
a car. We drove through I don't know how many
countries with a map, with a map. So it's the
two of us, the little car, you don't get big
cars, you get little cars, and going through.
And of course, not knowing what we're doing,
we drive into Paris during rush hour. Now those
of you who have ever been in Paris know you don't
even want to drive into Paris when it's not rush
hour, but we drove in during rush hour. And we
were completely lost. We needed to find our lodging.
It was in another part of the city and we didn't
know how to get there. And we came to an intersection.
And it was 16 lanes of traffic, all for every
way, coming at each other. And there were two
police out there directing traffic, stopping
it, moving it. And my very smart wife said, we
should ask directions. And I figured there were
two choices, get divorced in France or ask for
directions. So I chose the directions. And I
waved over the one gendarme. And he came over,
which surprised me. He made us pull up a little
bit onto the center island. And I realized he
spoke no English whatsoever. I pointed out where
I wanted to go. This is where we need to go.
And he thought about it for a second. He goes...
So we figured, okay, that way, two blocks. Figured
that seemed sensible. And then he went... So
that way, three blocks. So we're trying to memorize
this because we don't have anything to write
it down with. Memorizing how we're going to get
where we're going. But he went through the whole
thing with us. So now we figure, now we know
where we're going and we just have to figure
out how to get our car off the median and back
into the traffic and we'd move on. He walks over
and talks to the other gendarme and they're talking
to each other and the other one goes, okay. They
walk to the middle of the intersection and they
go. And they stop all of the traffic in every
direction. And he goes, and away we go. We got
lost again later on. But it really is an example,
right, of a faith journey. We get somewhere and
we feel a little bit lost. And then we find a
way. to figure out what we're going to do to
get ourselves back on track. With our faith,
it may be talking to someone who's very special
and being able to share with them. It may be
reading the Bible. It may be a devotion. It may
be praying. It may be any of those things, but
it helps to clear the way. And sure, we're going
to get off track and get lost again, but then
we just need to do the process all over again,
right? That's the way that it works. Now, being
open to direction, Being willing to persevere
and having a way ahead cleared and trusting God
in helping you through your journey really is
the way to move forward. The second time Elijah
is asked, what are you doing here? It follows
all that drama of the ferocious wind, mighty
earthquake, raging fire. We're told that God
was not in those dramatic moments, not this time.
This time, God is in the silence. The scripture
calls it the sound of sheer silence. It could
be thought of as a whisper. or in that moment,
the calm after the storm. Our lives don't usually
have a lot of times of silence. We've gotten
so used to being busy and having noise all around
us. It's constant noise, constant motion, often
chaos, so much so that sometimes sitting in...
Does that work? There we go. Okay, so sitting
in silence can be sometimes uncomfortable for
us. If you don't believe that, think about this
for a moment. When we have the moment of silence
during the confession, we do the prayer, and
then there's that moment of silence. It usually
goes about to a count of 1 ,008, and then we
say amen. What if we went 10 minutes? You'd all
be in the seats going, did they forget? And poor
Kathy would be back there with her fingers like
this waiting to play something while we're having
all of this silence going on. Silence can, in
fact, make us uncomfortable. But perhaps silence
is actually the gift that we can give ourselves
during this Lenten journey. Finding moments to
move out of the chaos, to spend time calming
our minds, meditating, reading the Bible, praying,
whatever allows us to pause in our journey. I
find it hard to be comfortable in long periods
of silence. However, I also know that some of
the most profound moments in my faith life and
in my life in general have come in moments of
silence. Perhaps you've experienced the same.
Being open to hearing and feeling the Spirit
and taking to heart what you hear and feel in
those quiet moments of reflection can be life
-changing. Although I didn't read the next part
of the story this morning, God does provide Elijah
with direction. It occurs after the sound of
silence when Elijah emerges from the cave, humble
and ready to hear what God would reveal. And
God does give him direction as to where to go
next and what to do next. In one perspective
by a theologian on this moment, they said, in
other words, God tells Elijah to go back to work.
Elijah does not have to give up being frustrated.
God just will not let him give in to it. God
won't let him go. He doesn't have to stop being
frustrated. But he's not allowed to give in to
it. He needs to move forward and to move on.
Elijah had to be open to listen in order to hear
the direction God was ready to give him. Isn't
that the same for us? We need to be ready to
hear God's word in the silence as well in the
chaos of life. Lent is a journey. It's our journey
together and individually over these coming weeks.
We know how it ends. We know we're headed to
Easter and all that it promises to us. Maybe,
just maybe, the best way to travel through Lent
is to forget that we know where the journey will
lead and instead take time to focus on the journey
itself, looking for cairns along the way, maybe
even stopping for directions, making time to
listen for God's voice in moments of silence,
and being willing to sincerely ask ourselves,
what am I doing here? Let us pray. O God, as
we walk this Lenten path, grant us the grace
to be receptive to your guidance and teachings.
May your word take root within us, transforming
our lives and drawing us ever closer to you.
Strengthen our resolve to live in faith and love,
reflecting your light in our every step. Amen.