The Spiritual Practice of Seeking Refuge

Readings for 14B 2018 (remember, we're using track 2 through year C)

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The passage from 1^st Kings we heard today has the plot line of the epic poem. And while, my own attempt at verse is not, by any means, epic. It does attempt to give you the entirety of the narrative arc beyond the broom tree and Mt. Horeb. Here goes…

Recently returned triumphant

From the sacrificial plains

In which his Lord and God

Had prevailed

Against the prophets of Baal.

Elijah met

Real God,

And a real fire,

Who in consuming the offering.

Brought down the false

And, inspired the wicked to revenge.

So, the victorious prophet

Fled.

From the vengeance of those,

Once mighty, now mocked.

Until he came to rest

Beneath a tree

Where despair met anguish

And where,

God, once called upon,

Provided cake.

But no direction,

Beyond the past

Which lay ahead

At Mount Horeb.

Mount Horeb where his ancestors had gathered to hear the covenant proclaimed. Mount Horeb where Moses, with a shining face, came back from his encounter with God. Mount Horeb, the place of burning bushes and the promise of land.

Elijah, who is given new life by bread and water beneath the broom tree goes back. Back to the spiritual home of his people, the point of origin of his people’s future.

And in this his pilgrimage of faith, the meaning of Elijah’s story is enriched through his connection to the overarching arc of God’s salvation. The offering consumed by fire, the wilderness journey of 40 days, the Exodus of his people—all woven into the story of God and his ancestors. He looks backwards in order to see forwards.

He returns to what was so that the future might be.

As poet Pablo Nerudo writes in his reflection in the World’s End,

“And that's why I have to go back
to so many places in the future,
there to find myself
and constantly examine myself
with no witness but the moon
and then whistle with joy.
ambling over rocks and clods of earth,
with no task but to live,
with no family but the road.”

Going back, to find ourselves in the future.

To remember who we are and to whom we belong.

Lest we forget, and find ourselves despairing in the midst of our own wilderness.

When Elijah returned to Mt. Horeb he was going to the birthplace of God’s covenant with God’s people. Mt. Horeb is the site upon which Moses encountered the burning bush. A place where Elijah could be reconnected with the God who had sent him forth, and the God who had called him home.

The God in whom, as the psalmist writes, he could take his refuge.

And, so as we consider the readings appointed for today, we are invited to consider alongside Elijah, alongside the author of Ephesians, and alongside Christ himself, the spiritual practice of seeking refuge. 

where we come from,

who our people are

and where we go when we ourselves seek refuge.

When fear of the world overwhelms us, when the headlines afflict us, when we grow anxious and worried about work or school, when societal injustices consume us. Where do we go?

Where do you go?

Silence….

Throughout my life, I have had the need for refuge. For one reason or another, needing to go somewhere to remember who I am and to whom I belong.

When I was little, I would go climb the jacaranda tree in our front yard, sitting between the branches surrounded by the purple blooms.

In college, there was a swing above the campus pond and the bright walls of the campus chapel.

When our children were born, refuge was the smell of their milky heads.

Here in this space, it is the breaking of the bread and the upturned hands.

Yesterday, it was a cup of coffee and the high-pitched buzz of the dog day cicadas.

All of which have served to remind me who I am and to whom I belong.

Where do you go?

Silence…

Having considered this, I invite you to turn to the person next to you and ask them where they go. Where they go for refuge in this world of ours.

Conversation…

Thank you all for taking the time to make these connections this morning. To consider the fear that drove Elijah to despair and to explore where we ourselves go when we long for refuge. 

Let us consider the truth that is offered today...

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in the Lord.”  

You who are afraid.

You who are ashamed.

You who are troubled.

Taste and see, in the shelter of this moment, taste and see, that there is goodness, that there is love, that there is kindness, and that we are not left comfortless.

We are not left comfortless.

And, today we are offered this bread, this cup, this peace, and this space, as a means by which we can remember that the Lord has called us beloved and in that belovedness we are called to love likewise.

Amen.