Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

When God Speaks, He Whispers! 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, August 13, 2023

To truly understand Elijah, you must among other things, examine the meaning of his name. In Hebrew, it is Eliyahu, which means, “Yahweh is God.” The meaning of your name could define and explain what your identity and mission are about. Elijah means “Yahweh is God,” and in many ways it generates a great spiritual question: Wh0 or what is your God? By God I mean “ultimate value, ultimate concern, final preoccupation.” At the end of the day, what matters most to you? What are you finally about? In itself, family is a great thing. But if your family matters most to you, you are a family person. In itself money is good, but if money matters most to you, then you are a money person. In itself, pleasure is not evil, but if pleasure matters most to you, you are a pleasure person; you are Epicurus. Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who said that the greatest good was to seek for pleasure and freedom from fear and bodily pain. If sex matters most to you, then you are a playboy. If business matters most to you, then you are a busy company person. What matters most to you tells you the kind of person you are. And that which matters most to you is actually what you worship. It is your God, your highest value. As for Elijah, he is a Yahweh man. God is his final preoccupation. It is the reason why he challenged the king of his time, king Ahab, because the king has abandoned the true God, Yahweh, and gone after false gods. That’s why he challenged the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. In the contest, Elijah said to them: call upon your gods and after you, I will call upon my God to see who answers with fire. The prophet’s name is Elijah. He is a Yahweh man. He is a man of God through and through. 

The first reading (1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a) for this weekend is a continuation of the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. In the contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal, Baal utterly proved itself unreliable, impotent, and deaf. But the moment Elijah, the Yahweh man called upon Yahweh, Yahweh answered with fire, thereby showing himself as the only true, living and most reliable God. Caught in the excitement of his victory, Elijah slashed the throats of the fake priests. When Queen Jezebel, the wife of king Ahab, the king of Israel at the time heard what Elijah had done, she sent the troops after him. To save his life, Elijah fled the land. After a long journey, he settles on mount Horeb, also known as mount Sinai, the mountain of God. It is the same mountain that Moses received the Ten Commandment. On this mountain, Elijah was told that God will be passing by. And what follows is an impressive display of natural power: “A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord.” There was an earthquake and a great fire. Those are terrifying forces. Some years ago when I was in Memphis, Tennessee, I remember seeing on television the powerful and destructive effects of natural powers like tornadoes. When it landed in Joplin, Missouri, it destroyed and flattened cell towers, damaged 75% of the city and destroyed 20% of its buildings. It was so devastating. Imagine how these forces must have impacted ancient people who didn’t have any means of protection. 

Now, let’s read these impressive natural disasters symbolically. The wind, the earthquake, the fire stand for those mighty and impressive goods of this world that beguile and impress us— money, fame, prestige, political power, family, nationalism, tribe, etc. We really want them and we want them now. But as impressive as these are, we are told that “the Lord was not in the wind or in the earthquake or the fire.” The Lord, the true God, Yahweh is not similar to any of the great powers of this world. He is not identical to those values, forces, and institutions that catch the attention of our minds and imaginations. After the impressive display by those natural forces, we are told that “…there was a tiny whispering sound.” And when Elijah heard it, he knew that was God. Elijah was not preoccupied with the affairs of the world no matter how impressive they are. He knows that the true God can only be heard with ears that are finely attuned. He knows that God’s voice can be heard through the sounds of a roar, but not any sounds of the roar. God’s presence can be discerned in all things but God is nothing in the world.

Elijah’s great virtue is that he is able to discern the difference. He is not distracted by the impressive values of the world. Rather, he listens, waits, discerns and is able to give himself to the true God alone. This story of Elijah is a very powerful one. His experience is so important especially for our time when secularism is spreading like a wildfire. What’s secularism? You can characterize secularism in a number of ways. But in the light of this reading, I will describe it as the culture’s incapacity to hear the tiny whispering voice. Secularism is a complete surrender to the powers of this world like pleasure, money, power, fame, prestige, institution, domination etc. A secular man or woman is someone who has utterly surrendered to them. What does our secular culture need? Many armies of Elijahs! Elijah criticized the king of his time for surrendering to a false god. Do we have people today who can criticize a political figure even if they voted for him and still like him? Our culture has gone into all sorts of worship of false gods. We need people with the spirit of Elijah who can discern the tiny whispering voice, the voice of Yahweh. 

In our great Gospel of today (Matthew 14:22-33), we find Peter and other disciples in the boat. That boat stands for the Church. Peter and the disciples in the boat are all of us. As they are making their way to the world, they are met by a great wind and a mighty storm that threatens their lives. This echoes Elijah’s experience too. Just as we can be defined by the things we seek and love, we can also be defined by our fears. What are you afraid of? If you answer honestly, you have done a very important spiritual work. Maybe you are afraid of losing a family, losing your health, losing your wealth, losing your position in society, losing your good name, or losing your life. These are real and okay. We all have those fears. But problem comes when we become defined and determined by these worldly fears and worldly aspirations. In the midst of the storm, Jesus comes walking on the waters. Jesus is the God who transcends anything that frightens us. At his best, Peter keeps his eyes on Christ and for that moment is able to walk on water. But when he looks away, and identifies with what frightens him, that’s when sinks. Don’t identify yourself with what frightens you. Rather keep your eyes on Christ just as Elijah kept his ears attuned to the tiny whispering voice. If you do this, you will find the capacity to overcome even your greatest fears.