1 Kings 19:9-18 – 7/25/2026 – The Feast of James, the Apostle
“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.
1 Kings 19:11-12 (NRSVue)
One never knows where wisdom will come from; it is impossible to predict how and when God will speak. We live in an age where hearing from God is held in ill-repute. We are too skeptical and too suspicious to believe naively in such things. Too many people have pretended to hear God’s voice, only to teach or practice horrendous things for their own advantage and greed. Take, for example, the conquest of the Americas. God spoke to Popes and theologians telling them that heaven land was free land, a gift from God. Were those religious leaders really hearing God and hearing God clearly? If they were, God says some pretty horrendous things. More likely is that many who claim to hear God mistake the voice of their own self-interest for God and so are deceived and deceptive to others.
Our skepticism of others who claim to hear the voice of God is justified, and we can and should therefore be suspicious of those who claim to speak authoritatively of God’s will and desire. This need not preclude us from hearing God for ourselves. We may never be able to convince another that we “really” heard from God, but perhaps convincing others is not the point. The story of Elijah hearing God in the stillest of silences when he could not hear God at all in the sounds of sublimely awesome nature reminds us that God’s voice, its content, its sound, the emergence of the voice itself, is always a surprise. The voice of God—the voice of wisdom—is unpredictable and hides underneath the din of the flux of becoming.
Revised Common Lectionary Readings for 7/25/2026:
1 Kings 2:1-4
Matthew 12:38-42
Psalm 119:129-136
Feast of James, the Apostle – readings (ELCA):
1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 7:1-10
Acts 11:27—12:3a
Mark 10:35-45
Reflections of a Dionysian Lutheran, comments on the daily readings of the Revised Common Lectionary by Justin Marquis
Dionysus on a Bike 
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