Eduard Schweizer - "On the Mount of God" (March 11, 1962)
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| - | Dear friends, the story that we just listened to, | 0:16 |
| begins as it could begin with us, Elijah is in the dumps. | 0:23 | |
| He is even disgusted and fed up, | 0:29 | |
| fed up with life so desperately | 0:32 | |
| that he's giving up everything. | 0:36 | |
| He leaves his works and flees into the desert. | 0:39 | |
| One could as well flee into a hectic activity, | 0:44 | |
| into a flirt that just helps to pass the time | 0:51 | |
| into some amazing record, | 0:56 | |
| in record performance in sports | 1:00 | |
| or into successful achievements in school. | 1:04 | |
| He said, "It is enough now oh Lord, take away my life." | 1:11 | |
| So it seems to be rather serious. | 1:17 | |
| As soon as it concerns ourselves, | 1:21 | |
| it always looks rather serious | 1:25 | |
| and we used to say very much the same as Elijah, don't we? | 1:28 | |
| At the root of all these, | 1:34 | |
| in the deepest layer of his unconscious, | 1:37 | |
| there is exactly the same craze as today. | 1:41 | |
| Throughout 3000 years, | 1:47 | |
| the crazy longing for perfection remained the same in man. | 1:51 | |
| I am no better than my fathers. | 2:01 | |
| Elijah is on one of these doldrums | 2:06 | |
| in which we simply cannot endure any longer | 2:10 | |
| being not 100% perfect. | 2:15 | |
| And yet with Elijah, one presupposition is unshakeable, | 2:21 | |
| it is God who takes our life, God only, and nobody else. | 2:29 | |
| He, Elijah, gives notice to his Lord. | 2:38 | |
| He tells him, he even asks him to take his life. | 2:44 | |
| And yet it is still Him, God alone, who should kill him. | 2:51 | |
| Even in throwing himself away, | 2:58 | |
| he is still in an area in which somehow, | 3:02 | |
| God dominates the picture. | 3:07 | |
| Hence, Elijah remains psychologically more or less sound. | 3:11 | |
| And he lay down and slept under a broom tree, | 3:19 | |
| which sure lays the most reasonable reaction | 3:24 | |
| to such desperation. | 3:28 | |
| Now, however, a strange thing happens. | 3:31 | |
| He suddenly awakes from his sulky sleep | 3:34 | |
| and finds bread and water, not a hymn book, | 3:38 | |
| nor a liturgy for different prayers of confession. | 3:43 | |
| No religious experience is awaiting him, | 3:48 | |
| but simply a meal. | 3:51 | |
| There is nothing for his soul. | 3:54 | |
| That is what he really and urgently needs, | 3:57 | |
| something for his empty stomach. | 4:00 | |
| And still this story could be our own story. | 4:05 | |
| So often it happened this way. | 4:12 | |
| So often when we were at the end of our pedal, | 4:17 | |
| like a punctured balloon, which lost its air, | 4:23 | |
| something happened, something quite worldly. | 4:27 | |
| Or some friend invited us for a barbecue, | 4:32 | |
| we passed an impressively beautiful girl in the street, | 4:36 | |
| we found a good letter in our mailbox, | 4:41 | |
| we got what we needed, not for our soul, | 4:44 | |
| but for our everyday person. | 4:49 | |
| To be sure, the scripture says that an angel did that. | 4:53 | |
| Only Elijah did not realize it, | 4:59 | |
| as little as we usually notice it. | 5:04 | |
| And yet it is the truth. | 5:08 | |
| It is God who may put a bread under our tree | 5:12 | |
| or invent a barbecue for our vacant evening | 5:18 | |
| or send a girl along main street. | 5:24 | |
| God is not only the head of the department of souls, | 5:28 | |
| He's at the root of so many other things, | 5:33 | |
| whether we realize it, | 5:37 | |
| or just trot around like these donkeys | 5:39 | |
| which must with blind folded eyes, | 5:44 | |
| keep a meal going by trotting around in circles. | 5:48 | |
| Elijah did not realize it. | 5:54 | |
| He ate and drunk and lay down again. | 5:59 | |
| Now if God were an average christian, | 6:05 | |
| He would have thought, "Well, if he doesn't want to listen, | 6:11 | |
| let him go." | 6:16 | |
| But God is no average Christian. | 6:18 | |
| He comes again with bread and water, | 6:23 | |
| not with religious appeal, a penitential sermon | 6:28 | |
| or summons to prayer. | 6:32 | |
| He simply repeats His gift for Elijah's empty stomach. | 6:34 | |
| Eventually, even Elijah notices something. | 6:42 | |
| Not that he would feel guilty, | 6:47 | |
| by far not far from that. | 6:50 | |
| Unfortunately he is not American | 6:54 | |
| with his Puritan background. | 6:56 | |
| He still is convinced that he is absolutely right, | 6:59 | |
| but at least he has learned that it is impossible | 7:04 | |
| to leave God alone. | 7:08 | |
| And it is a remarkable success of God, | 7:13 | |
| if a man has learned at least that. | 7:18 | |
| We are not Elijah, we are Edward Schweitzer or Jane Miller. | 7:25 | |
| And this means that God has usually to come four to five | 7:32 | |
| or 20 to 30 times. | 7:39 | |
| It is God's unbelievable and overwhelming patience, | 7:43 | |
| that He really does it. | 7:49 | |
| And yet He came twice to Elijah. | 7:52 | |
| We don't know whether or not | 7:56 | |
| He would have come at the third time, | 7:58 | |
| He comes perhaps 20 times to us. | 8:01 | |
| We don't know whether or not He will come the 21st time, | 8:05 | |
| if we still do not realize that we certainly may doubt, | 8:13 | |
| may fight, and rebel against God, | 8:19 | |
| but that under no circumstances, we may leave Him alone. | 8:23 | |
| And Elijah arose and ate and drank | 8:31 | |
| and went in the strength of that food 40 days | 8:37 | |
| and 40 nights to Horeb, the Mount of God. | 8:41 | |
| And now Elijah is where God is able to put questions to him. | 8:48 | |
| There are two moments only, | 8:55 | |
| which are really important in our life. | 8:58 | |
| The first one, when we lose our attitude, | 9:01 | |
| that takes everything for granted. | 9:06 | |
| When God starts to disturb our sleep, when He stirs us up, | 9:09 | |
| and the second one, when God gets through | 9:16 | |
| when we begin to hear Him, | 9:22 | |
| both has happened to Elijah. | 9:25 | |
| However, God's question is very surprising. | 9:29 | |
| He doesn't ask, "What is your belief? | 9:34 | |
| Where are your abouts? | 9:37 | |
| What is hindering you from being faithful?" | 9:39 | |
| He asked, "What are you doing here Elijah?" | 9:42 | |
| His belief or unbelief, his religiousness | 9:47 | |
| or his atheism, his strong faith or his doubts, | 9:51 | |
| are not of first importance to God. | 9:58 | |
| It might well be that Elijah found such an attitude of God | 10:04 | |
| simply unbearable for with all his desperation, | 10:08 | |
| even with his willingness to die, | 10:12 | |
| Elijah found, is still taking himself very seriously. | 10:15 | |
| Spinning continuously around his failure, | 10:22 | |
| his inferiority, his sinfulness | 10:26 | |
| and as long as we have so much time | 10:32 | |
| to think about ourselves, not being better than our fathers, | 10:36 | |
| and yet being treated so unjustly, | 10:42 | |
| we have not yet understood what God wants us to understand. | 10:46 | |
| Elijah is answering to God's four words in exactly 24 words. | 10:54 | |
| He's still chattering six times more than God | 11:05 | |
| and all these 24 words show how important he, Elijah | 11:12 | |
| and his destiny are. | 11:20 | |
| Now God's answer is very strange. | 11:24 | |
| He passes by and mighty events happen, | 11:29 | |
| storm and fire and earthquake. | 11:35 | |
| Indeed, mighty events happen in our world | 11:41 | |
| and we stare at them thinking that nothing else | 11:46 | |
| is as important as these things. | 11:49 | |
| They are frightful blizzards until a young man | 11:52 | |
| and a young woman really find their way to each other. | 11:57 | |
| Or until young nations find their place in the history | 12:03 | |
| of our world. | 12:06 | |
| And when we are in the midst of such a storm, | 12:09 | |
| it is difficult for us to see anything else. | 12:11 | |
| And yet we read, "And the Lord was not in the fire, | 12:15 | |
| and the Lord was not in the earthquake | 12:19 | |
| and the Lord was not in the storm." | 12:22 | |
| Not that God had nothing to do with fire and storm | 12:27 | |
| and earthquake, all these recedes Him. | 12:31 | |
| God is certainly also behind fire and storm and earthquake. | 12:37 | |
| And nothing happens without Him, | 12:43 | |
| but He's in its background only, at its roots, not in it. | 12:46 | |
| And as long as we just stare at these mighty events | 12:53 | |
| and not really pierce into that which is behind all this, | 12:58 | |
| we will not encounter God. | 13:03 | |
| And after the fire, a still small voice. | 13:09 | |
| And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face | 13:16 | |
| in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance | 13:19 | |
| of the cave. | 13:23 | |
| You see, as a young minister or teacher. | 13:26 | |
| one easily makes one of the silliest mistakes when teaching | 13:32 | |
| a class of school boys, if they are not quiet, | 13:37 | |
| chattering and laughing and ready for any nonsense, | 13:41 | |
| one raises the voice thinking that the intensity | 13:45 | |
| of the sound stresses the importance of what we have to say. | 13:50 | |
| And its of course just the other way around. | 13:57 | |
| The louder we speak the louder they will chatter. | 14:00 | |
| If a good teacher wants to catch the attention | 14:04 | |
| of his pupils, he speaks in a very low voice, | 14:08 | |
| forcing the children to be quiet to catch it. | 14:14 | |
| Like a good teacher, God speaks in a still small voice | 14:20 | |
| and one must get very still in order to hear Him. | 14:29 | |
| We of course are not convinced that all | 14:39 | |
| that God is wise doing so. | 14:43 | |
| We think He should demonstrate His Lordship by miracles | 14:45 | |
| and powerful actions, killing all Communists | 14:50 | |
| or if you refer all rightists by a flash of lightning. | 14:55 | |
| Then everyone would believe that there is a God. | 15:01 | |
| And exactly this would be the great illusion. | 15:05 | |
| God could do whatever He wanted. | 15:11 | |
| He could shout and thunder, | 15:16 | |
| we should simply build up a new theory | 15:20 | |
| explaining these strange occurrences. | 15:24 | |
| God speaks in a still small voice | 15:29 | |
| and we must still get still to perceive it. | 15:35 | |
| In this still small voice, He asks exactly the same question | 15:41 | |
| that He asked before, "What are you doing here Elijah?" | 15:46 | |
| God doesn't stop the discussion | 15:52 | |
| because this is not the problem of theoretical reflection. | 15:54 | |
| He helped Elijah by taking him and you into His service. | 15:58 | |
| There is one single point | 16:06 | |
| which God stresses in order to grant real help to Elijah. | 16:08 | |
| He tells him that he's certainly not alone. | 16:12 | |
| There are 7,000. | 16:17 | |
| There is the people of God. | 16:20 | |
| They're no arrows these 7,000, | 16:24 | |
| they are not free of doubts. | 16:28 | |
| They are not particularly pious or even religious. | 16:31 | |
| There is just one thing to be said for them, | 16:35 | |
| they have not bowed to Baal. | 16:41 | |
| They do not idolize all that is adored so much by everybody. | 16:45 | |
| And just this is the best help that Elijah can get. | 16:54 | |
| He's sent a new to work. | 17:00 | |
| Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. | 17:05 | |
| It's God's work alone that matters. | 17:10 | |
| Even he Elijah, who took his destiny, | 17:16 | |
| his unworthiness and failure so seriously is not important. | 17:20 | |
| "And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-Meholah | 17:27 | |
| you shall anoint to be prophet in your place." | 17:32 | |
| When he dies, there are others who will follow | 17:38 | |
| in his footsteps. | 17:42 | |
| God's work will go on. | 17:44 | |
| This only is real freedom | 17:46 | |
| to know that nothing really matters, | 17:49 | |
| not even we ourselves, except God. | 17:53 | |
| For if you know this, | 18:00 | |
| even in the deepest layers of our soul, | 18:02 | |
| then we perceive at the same time, | 18:05 | |
| the still small voice of God telling us that exactly | 18:09 | |
| this God loves us more than anybody else in the world | 18:16 | |
| would ever be able to love us. | 18:21 | |
| God did not stop His work in 870 BC. | 18:28 | |
| His still small voice became flesh. | 18:37 | |
| We are living in an infinite cosmos | 18:46 | |
| where an eternal terrifying silence reigns | 18:51 | |
| in which no life, no words of man are to be found. | 18:55 | |
| And we are living on an earth where radio and television | 19:01 | |
| sideshow, bar coast and evangelists, jazz singles, | 19:07 | |
| and superman try to catch out a ear | 19:13 | |
| by shouting with ever increased intensity | 19:18 | |
| and even newly invented noises. | 19:22 | |
| In this world, God's still small voice became flesh. | 19:26 | |
| In this world in which cannons and brackets, | 19:35 | |
| great conquerors and glens are the only things that count. | 19:40 | |
| In this world, God begins His journey | 19:47 | |
| in a poor man's manger. | 19:52 | |
| And when this child grew up, | 19:56 | |
| they called Him a glutton and a drunkard | 19:59 | |
| because He ate and drunk with tax collectors | 20:03 | |
| and even with prostitutes. | 20:07 | |
| And it was certainly not simply a soft party which He gave | 20:10 | |
| with a cup of tea and some cookies, | 20:15 | |
| it must have been a tremendous party | 20:19 | |
| since the whole faculty of the Divinity School of Jerusalem, | 20:22 | |
| the scribes and the pious lay groups, | 20:27 | |
| the pharisees were so shocked that they interfered. | 20:31 | |
| And it needs rather much to set the whole faculty | 20:39 | |
| of the Divinity School going particularly in corporation | 20:43 | |
| with pious layman. | 20:47 | |
| And again, the still small voice of God was not understood. | 20:50 | |
| When God ended His journey, there was no success. | 21:01 | |
| Jesus did not dine as a house mother in a home | 21:10 | |
| for converted sinners, but between two real breaks | 21:16 | |
| of unconverted sinners. | 21:21 | |
| In this world in which the success and the degrees, | 21:25 | |
| the bank account and valuable acres | 21:31 | |
| are the only things that count. | 21:36 | |
| God ends His journey on the gallows, | 21:39 | |
| where He lost the last bit of respect | 21:46 | |
| that He found at least with 12 men. | 21:53 | |
| And He lost even the few square interests | 21:57 | |
| that a man needs to put his feet on, on firm ground. | 22:04 | |
| So incredibly still and small is God's voice. | 22:13 | |
| So easy is it to kill it by our shouting. | 22:22 | |
| And yet like Elijah, some tax collectors and prostitutes | 22:30 | |
| got what they needed, a real meal and in it God's love. | 22:39 | |
| As we still get our meal, bread and wine, | 22:52 | |
| and in it God's love. | 23:00 | |
| And at least one of the tax collectors felt how good it was | 23:06 | |
| to be near this Jesus and followed Him. | 23:10 | |
| He wasn't changed at least not so obviously | 23:15 | |
| and not so quickly, but he remained on the Mount of God. | 23:18 | |
| He was living where Jesus lived with all his desires, | 23:26 | |
| his doubts, his rebellion, he was living near Jesus | 23:33 | |
| where God was able to shake him | 23:39 | |
| and to build him up, to fight against him | 23:42 | |
| and to comfort him and these alone matters. | 23:45 | |
| And one of the two robbers even on his cross | 23:49 | |
| felt how good it was to be near this Jesus. | 23:55 | |
| And Jesus told him that He would be with Him | 24:02 | |
| in all eternity. | 24:06 | |
| Dear friends, if it cannot be helped let us doubt, | 24:10 | |
| let us rebel. | 24:16 | |
| As long as we still stay on the Mount of God, | 24:17 | |
| as long as we still let Him give us food and drink, | 24:22 | |
| whenever we need it. | 24:26 | |
| As long as we still realize that it is God | 24:28 | |
| about whom we doubt and against whom we rebel. | 24:32 | |
| As long as we know | 24:37 | |
| that we cannot live without being sustained | 24:39 | |
| by His incredible grace day by day, its all light. | 24:44 | |
| This is what the Bible calls justification | 24:49 | |
| by God's grace and sanctification by His Spirit. | 24:53 | |
| This is peace and life, joyfulness and challenge. | 24:58 | |
| God's still small voice became flesh and went to the gallows | 25:05 | |
| in order to show us how unbelievably strong | 25:14 | |
| He's longing for us. | 25:20 | |
| Please let us pray. | 25:22 | |
| Our Lord, we are trotting along our ways, | 25:36 | |
| sometimes disgusted and fed up with everything, | 25:43 | |
| sometimes full of plans and activities, | 25:49 | |
| sometimes simply happy. | 25:53 | |
| But if you didn't catch us time and again, | 25:56 | |
| if you didn't stop us and bring us to the Mount of God, | 26:00 | |
| we should get totally lost. | 26:06 | |
| Sometimes we are feeling that, and sometimes we aren't. | 26:10 | |
| whether we feel it or not do catch us, | 26:14 | |
| do stop us and do nourish us. | 26:18 | |
| Give us whatever we are needing. | 26:25 | |
| Give us yourself so that we, with all of our desires | 26:29 | |
| and doubts, with all our rebel and our hidden longing | 26:34 | |
| for you, that we may leave with you. | 26:39 | |
| And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding, | 26:47 | |
| keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. | 26:56 |