June 22, 2025
Traceymay Kalvaitis
On Where There is God

1 Kings 19:1-13

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 came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might 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, otherwise 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 in 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 and 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?”

Galatians 3: 24-28

Many of you… have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

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Today’s sermon is titled On Where There is God. This is a revised sermon from June of 2019. I want to start this morning with a nursery rhyme; please feel free to join me.
Itsy, bitsy spider went up the water spout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And the itsy, bitsy spider went up the spout again.

I think this song is sung in so many languages all across the world because it speaks so accurately of the ups and downs of our lives. Even when we try our best, even when we have managed to climb to great heights, sometimes catastrophes occur. Sometimes the rain comes down and washes us back to where we started, and what is there to do but to try and try again?

If you are a spider prone to philosophical and theosophical questioning, you may well ask, after the inevitable wash out, where is God in all this? Was that God’s plan for my life, that I should be washed right out of that spout? These are core questions in theology. What has my life experience taught me about what God is and what God isn’t? Do I believe God is in charge of every minute detail of my life? Where does my will stop and God’s will start? Beware, these questions are like one-way tickets to an existential crisis; you will soon be asking, “What is the meaning of life?”

The prophet Elijah was in the middle of his own existential crisis when we meet him in the scriptures today. Elijah has just won a bet about whose god is the most powerful. Elijah is at the top of his game. If he was a spider climbing the spout, he would be pretty near the top. Perhaps he was getting a little too big for his britches. In a fit of self-righteous anger, he slays hundreds
of the prophets of the god Ba’al; that’s bad enough in and of itself, but the prophets were favored by the queen of the land, Jezebel. She vows that Elijah will pay for his crime with his own life, so Elijah runs away into the wilderness to escape the queen’s wrath. Elijah is no longer feeling like the victor; he is a killer, he is hunted, he is exhausted, he is discouraged, he is done. He
says, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Elijah thinks that, like the prophets that have come before him, he has failed to turn the people’s hearts to God, to Yahweh. He is washed out and ready to give up.

And then a beautiful thing happens: rest, followed by water and food. “Out came the sun and dried up all the rain…” And Elijah hears the voice of God calling him to go to a sacred place,

Mount Horeb. It is a long journey for this prophet, and a long climb back up the spout for the spider. Plenty of time to think, though, time to recover and time to reassess.

It’s easy to imagine that Elijah is questioning, trying to figure out where he went wrong and what he is supposed to do next. Elijah is at a critical juncture in his life. Such times are often when our ideas and beliefs are redefined, refocused and reinforced, especially our beliefs about God. Elijah is about to gain a profound insight into the nature of God. God is not in the great wind that split the rocks, God is not in the earthquake that crumbles the mountains or the raging fire. It
was in the “sound of sheer silence” that Elijah senses God and God asks him one terrifying question, “What are you doing here?”

Isn’t that just how it goes? Wherever we find God, whenever, however, in whomever, it is not long before the same question arises if we are paying attention, if we are listening, we can not help but to face that same terrifying question: What am I doing? Am I doing the right thing?
Are my relationships in order? Are there people I need to forgive? Are there people from whom

I need to ask for forgiveness? Am I on the right path in my life?

In the face of such questions, I am most grateful for the example of our teacher, Jesus Christ. I am certain he faced many of the same existential questions in his life and in his ministry. I am certain that he wrestled with the prevalence of suffering in the world, just as we do. As we witness wars on multiple fronts, widespread wildfires to our north in Canada, targeted political violence here at home our concept of God is challenged. Are war, natural disasters, and domestic violence part of God’s plan?

I think back to Elijah and conclude that God is not these forces, rather, as we read in the scriptures, (1 John 4:8) “God is love.” God is working through the peace negotiators, God is working through the first responders to emergencies large and small; God is working through the neighbor helping their neighbor; God is working through the stranger saving a stranger; God is working through us, Love is working through us, if we allow. The words we heard this morning from Galatians echo the reminder, “we are clothed in Christ…we are one in Christ.” When I remember that, the questions of my life fall away and the work before me is clear, to live as Jesus

lived, simply and in service, to learn of love, to try and try again when the rains come and wash me out.

In closing, I hope that we remember Elijah and our friend, the itsy bitsy spider. Wherever we are, I believe, God is there. So be it. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

God of All, we hold our cares about so many things and at times our caring can feel like a heavy weight. Help us, we pray, to cultivate the practice of prayer and the practice of asking for what we need. In a culture that so values independence and self-reliance, we have a difficult time appearing in need or vulnerable or weak. Remind us, God, in our times of fear and doubt, that there are unlimited reservoirs of goodness available to us if we can humble ourselves to ask, and humble ourselves to receive. As individuals, teach us to care for ourselves so that we are making choices from a foundation of fullness, not of need or fear of lack. As communities, teach us to extend ourselves to those who we tend to avoid. As a nation, teach us that our greatness is most accurately measured by our kindness to the least among us, as Jesus Christ so humbly exemplified. All this I ask in your beautiful name. Amen.