God speaks in many ways, but if you want to hear him you need to be prepared to listen.  In 1 Kings 19:12, following wind, earthquake and fire –which is the name of a 70s band, I believe – Elijah hears a “sound of sheer silence” (NRSV), or “a tiny whispering sound” (NAB). The prophet Elijah responds to the imperceptible, the silence, or near silence and “when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave” (v. 13). Elijah had gone to Mt. Horeb to talk to God and indeed had been sent by God (vv. 1-11); as a prophet, a mouthpiece for God, he had every expectation that he would hear God’s voice. And he did, but the voice came in an unexpected way.  

The account of Elijah is a fascinating one, not just for the manner in which God’s voice comes – quietly and unobtrusively –  but it indicates that to hear God’s voice, we must be ready to hear it, listen for it intently and put ourselves in  a place, in Elijah’s case figuratively and quite literally, where we can respond to it.

In some ways, it is difficult to connect this reading to the others for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, but here, too, we need to be attentive to God’s voice speaking to us. In Romans 9:1-5, Paul cries out that “I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”  Paul says this in response to the reality that the message of Jesus had taken root amongst the Gentiles not his own people. Yet, as he develops this argument in Romans 9-11, Paul acknowledges that God is in this, that God’s ways are a mystery and that God will never abandon his people. Paul, to my mind, says “because I know how God loves and because I have heard and listened to his voice, I know he must be here too even if I cannot understand it.” It is hard to accept how and where God is at times and so simply turn from his presence and reality. Peter falls victim to this kind of subtle rejection of the voice of God.

Peter listens to the voice of Jesus in Matthew 14:22-33, when he takes tentative steps on the water, which I suspect is the way that any of us take steps into the new and the unknown.  He had asked Jesus to command him and the voice of Jesus said “come.” Peter listened and responded to the voice of God, but his tentativeness turned to fear when the wind and the waves arose. Peter began to sink.

“Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down.  Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

Ultimately Peter does turn back to the voice of God, which can be heard in the stillness, in confusion and mystery, and in the midst of a great storm, if and when we are prepared to listen, able to hear, willing to take tentative steps and when we fall,  to call out again and again for God to speak to us. Listen. God will speak.

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @johnwmartens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.