Words We No Longer Avoid: Depression and the Gentle Whisper of God ~ 1 Kings 19:1-15, 18

 

Our series this summer is called Words We No Longer Avoid. Every community has words that are uncomfortable. We whisper them. We rename them. We pretend they belong to someone else's life. Sometimes we avoid them because they are painful. Sometimes because we don't know what to say. Sometimes because we've been wrongly taught that faithful people shouldn't have to deal with them, like today’s word - depression.

For many years, the church has not always known what to do with that word. We've been more comfortable talking about sin than sadness, more comfortable talking about victory than despair, better at celebrating mountaintops than acknowledging caves. But Scripture never avoid emotional distress. It’s remarkably honest about the human condition. Again and again, it tells the truth—not only about faith, but about fear; not only about hope, but about hopelessness. Which is why one of the greatest prophets in Israel's history is introduced to us today not standing triumphantly on Mount Carmel, but running for his life.

Just one chapter earlier Elijah experienced one of the greatest victories in all of Scripture. Fire has fallen from heaven. False prophets have been defeated. God has shown himself faithful and Elijah revels like some Hebrew prizefighter. And then comes the death-threat. And Elijah flees – terrified. He leaves his servant behind. He walks alone into the wilderness. He collapses beneath a broom tree and prays a heartbreaking prayer: "I have had enough, Lord. Take my life."

Today many of us understand what Elijah is living through—exhaustion, fear, isolation, hopelessness, despair, even suicidal thoughts. Whether Elijah would meet a modern clinical diagnosis isn't really the point. The point is that Scripture is showing us something we often forget. A faithful person can experience profound emotional darkness. And Elijah isn't alone.

Moses also once prayed that God would take his life. Job cursed the day he was born. Naomi renamed herself "Bitter." Jonah wanted to die. The Apostle Paul confessed that he despaired of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8). Even Jesus, in Gethsemane, tells his friends, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” What do these people have in common? None of them are faithless. Apparently, faith and despair are not opposites. Devotion and depression can occupy the very same heart.

One of the greatest burdens people living with depression often carry is the burden of shame. “If I just trusted God more... “ “If my faith were stronger...” “If I prayed harder...” “If I loved Jesus enough... then I wouldn’t feel this way.” But notice Elijah's story. There is no condemnation. No critique. Never a lecture. God never says, “Elijah, what’s wrong with you?” God never chides, “Where’s your faith?” The text never suggests Elijah's despair is punishment for sin.

I’m not saying that every emotional struggle is easily understood or not without root causes that harm us. Our lives are always more complicated than simple formulas. But this story refuses the easy conclusion that depression is simply a failure of faith.

Instead, our story presents us with something much more honest. It presents a faithful human being who has simply reached the end of himself. We live in a beautiful world, but also a broken one. We experience loss, violence, disappointment, grief, illness and loneliness. Sometimes the weight of living becomes unbearably heavy. Depression doesn’t lie outside the ordinary landscape of human life. Sometimes depression is simply what happens when fragile human beings are forced to carry more than they were created to bear.

So what does God do? God sends an angel. The angel doesn't begin with a sermon. Or theology. Doesn't begin with correction. She begins with a gentle touch, bread, water, and rest. The angel gently touches Elijah and says, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you."

The angel doesn't say. “Snap out of it.” “Try harder.” “Pray more.” Instead, the messenger of God acknowledges reality: “The journey is too much for you.” Sometimes that's the most healing sentence another person can hear. Not because it removes the burden. But because it reminds us that we don't have to pretend the burden isn't there. Friends, depression isn't simply something that happens in our thoughts. It affects our bodies. Our sleep. Our appetite. Our energy. Before God addresses Elijah's soul, God nourishes Elijah's body. Before God asks questions, God offers food. Before God speaks, God cares. That tells us something important about how we are called to love one another.

Now some of you today aren't the ones under the broom tree. You're the angel. The word “angel” literally means “messenger,” “envoy,” “ambassador.” Sometimes they are clearly spiritual beings but other times they’re ambiguous and mysterious – perhaps angelic, perhaps or all-too-human. Regardless, they are sent to represent the king or God.

Someone in your family... your workplace... or sitting just a few pews away... May be exhausted, lonely, depressed. They need an angel. Not to fix them. Not to tell them everything happens for a reason (Don’t ever say that). Sometimes the most angelic thing you can do is bring a meal. Sit quietly. Listen without trying to solve. Send a text. Offer a hug. Stay. Sometimes God's greatest miracles arrive looking remarkably ordinary. A casserole. A gentle hug. Presence.

And don't underestimate the courage it takes for Elijah to respond. Twice the angel tells him to get up and eat. Twice Elijah does. Getting up and taking care of yourself may not sound heroic. Until you've experienced depression. When you're healthy, brushing your teeth feels insignificant. When you're depressed, brushing your teeth can be an extraordinary act of courage. Getting out of bed means facing another day. Facing another day means choosing life once more when every instinct wants to disappear beneath the broom tree.

Sometimes faith looks less like moving mountains and more like eating breakfast. Sometimes courage looks like taking one more step. Sometimes hope looks very small. But God never despises small things.

Eventually Elijah arrives at Mount Horeb, where he hides inside a cave. And God asks him a personal question. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Not because God lacks information. God already knows. The question is an invitation. An invitation to ponder. To speak. To tell the truth. To put words around pain. And God listens. God doesn't interrupt. God doesn't rush. God simply makes space for Elijah's story.

Then comes one of the most mysterious and iconic moments in all of Scripture. A mighty wind tears apart the mountains. But the Lord is not in the wind. An earthquake shakes the earth. But the Lord is not in the earthquake. Fire comes. But the Lord is not in the inferno. And then... a gentle whisper. I don't pretend to know exactly why God goes through all the pyrotechnics. But I wonder if Elijah expected God to arrive with the same violence his own heart was experiencing.

Perhaps he imagined God was angry or that God had come to overwhelm him. Instead, God whispers. Depression has a way of shouting. It tells us we're alone. It tells us we'll never feel differently. It tells us we're burdens. It makes ordinary things feel like hurricane, earthquake, and wildfire. But God's voice is different.

God rarely competes by shouting louder. Not because God is weak. But because love doesn't overpower with fear - it patiently outlasts it. Notice what draws Elijah out of his cave. Not the earthquake. Not the fire. Not the wind. Only the gentle whisper of God.

A God whose power is expressed through astonishing tenderness. Who feeds before questioning. Who listens before speaking. Who whispers before commanding. And notice how the story ends. God doesn't tell Elijah simply to get over it. Instead, God softly gives him back a future. There is work yet to do. There is help he has not yet met. There is companionship he cannot yet see. There are seven thousand faithful people he didn't even know existed. Depression had convinced Elijah he was completely alone. God gently reminds him that he never was.

Perhaps that's the deepest truth this story has to offer us. Some of you came this morning carrying your own wilderness – perhaps running for your life. Some of you are sitting exhausted beneath your own broom tree. Some of you have been hiding in your own cave for a very long time. If that's you, I don't imagine one sermon will suddenly make everything better. Depression is real. Healing takes time. Often it takes many angels: counselors, physicians, medication, friends, prayer, rest, and communities willing to walk patiently beside us. All of these are gentle whispers from God when the journey is too much for you.

But if you hear only one thing today, hear this: Your depression is not proof that God has abandoned you or that you lack faith. The God who found Elijah beneath a broom tree still finds people in the wilderness. The God who entered Elijah's cave still enters ours. The God who whispered to Elijah still whispers today. Not always with bombastic Bible bombs. But with ordinary angels carrying bread. With friends. With therapists. With physicians. With tears shared honestly. With communities that refuse to let us suffer alone. And always with the quiet promise that even in our deepest darkness, the God who refuses to avoid us will never leave us alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.

In the spirit of Rizpah: A litany of lament for recent ICE shootings

 

In 2 Samuel 21:1–14, we find the land of Israel stained with blood, suffering under the curse of famine. Seeking to end the crisis, King David makes a political bargain with the Gibeonites. To satisfy their demand for revenge, he hands over seven children of Saul's household—children who are not his own, including the sons of Saul's concubine, Rizpah. They are executed, and their bodies are left exposed to be consumed by birds and wild animals.

But with the reckless love that only a grieving mother can know, Rizpah refuses to look away. She sets up camp beside the bodies and, for months, endures the scorching sun, the cold nights, and the rain, driving away every bird and beast that would rob her children of their dignity. Her grief becomes a protest. Her vigil becomes a prayer.

When David hears of Rizpah's courageous witness, something in him changes. He gathers the bones of the dead and gives them an honorable burial. Rizpah's steadfast compassion pierces the humanity of a king who had become so dehumanized that he could exchange human beings for political expediency and leave them to die without remorse.

Bishop Desmond Tutu reminds us that true liberation comes only when all are set free and “the oppressed are freed from being oppressed, and the oppressors are freed from being oppressors.”

In that same spirit, we remember Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo – two men who were here properly in the US and recently killed by ICE agents. We speak their names because every child of God bears a sacred dignity, and because love of neighbor refuses to look away when that dignity is denied. Like Rizpah, we choose to bear witness. We choose to stand in solidarity. We choose to keep vigil until every life is honored.

I invite you now to stand with me in silence, in the spirit of Rizpah's faithful witness.

Words We No Longer Avoid: Wrath & Judgment ~ 1 John 4:16b-19; Luke 15:11-32

 

There are certain words in Scripture we gladly embrace. We underline them, memorize them, even hang them on our walls. Words like grace, mercy, peace, and love. Then there are the words we quietly avoid. We skim over them in our Bible reading or relish them only if they happen to someone else, someone we don’t like, someone who we think deserves it. “Wrath” is one of those words.

But no sane person cross-stitches “wrath” onto a pillow. No good parent says, “I truly love you. But if you cross me, I will make your life a living hell.” And yet the concept of wrath is everywhere in the Bible and many of us have been told – that’s precisely who God is - an angry deity whose patience has run out—a God with folded arms, clenched fists, and lightning bolts at the ready. If we're honest, that picture has become one of the reasons some of our friends or family have walked away from faith. But what if the problem isn't the word itself? What if the problem is the picture we've attached to it – the meaning that wrath has been given?

Now, before we can talk about wrath, we have to begin with the nature of God. Scripture does not tell us that God is wrath. It doesn't even say that God is justice or holiness, though God is certainly just and holy. The apostle John tells us something even more fundamental: “God is love.”

Love is not merely one characteristic among many. It is the very essence of God's being. Everything else we say about God—his holiness, his justice, his judgment, even his wrath—must be understood through that one truth. God is not love plus something else. Love is the fountain from which every attribute of God flows.

John goes on to say, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” Notice that love opposes what fear imagines: punishment. If our understanding of God's wrath leaves us terrified of God rather than drawn toward him, then we have misunderstood both wrath and love.

And if Christians truly believe that Jesus Christ is the exact representation of God's being, the very image of God’s love in action (1 John 4:9-10), then whatever we mean by wrath must be consistent with what we see in Jesus. We don’t begin with our assumptions about wrath or quote just any verse about divine anger. We begin with Jesus, because Jesus is the fullest and final revelation of the Father. And Jesus does not persuade an angry Father to love us. He reveals the Father's heart toward us—a heart that has always loved us, even in our sinfulness (Romans 5:8). Wrath must be read through that lens. So how does Jesus reveal the Father's heart and a theology of wrath?

He tells a story. And you know it well. A father has two sons. The younger son demands his inheritance early, essentially saying, “I wish you were dead.” And astonishingly, the father gives it to him. He lets him go. He doesn't lock him in the house. He doesn't threaten him. He doesn't manipulate him. Love refuses to coerce. The son leaves for a distant country, squanders everything, and eventually finds himself feeding pigs, so hungry that the pigs' food begins to look good.

It’s one of the saddest pictures Jesus ever paints. But notice something remarkable. The father never disowns the son. He doesn’t kick him out. He doesn’t wish him harm and never stops loving him. The only thing that changes is the son's distance from his father. I have often found help from theologian Brad Jersak, who says that the story of the Prodigal Sons is Jesus’ definitive theology of wrath.

Think about that. If Jesus wanted us to understand God’s relationship to us in our sinfulness, and this is the story he chose to tell, perhaps this is what wrath looks like. Not the Father becoming our enemy. Not divine rage replacing divine love. But a loving Father painfully allowing his child to experience what life is like apart from home. Love sometimes has to let go and wrath is the felt experience of that loss. Not because the Father has stopped loving or will ever stop loving, but because God refuses to force us to stay or obey.

Parents understand this. Every instinct wants to shield a child from pain. But there are moments when reality becomes the teacher that words never could. Allowing consequences is not vengeance. It’s one of the hardest expressions of love.

It’s by mimicking Jesus’ own theology that Paul will describe God's wrath in the same surprising language in Romans 1. Three times he describes “wrath” with the  phrase: “God gave them over” (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). Notice what he does not say. He doesn't say God struck them down. He doesn't say God cursed them. He doesn't say God delighted in their pain. He understands that wrath is the love of God that willingly, painfully, consents to our wayward choices. Love honors freedom. Even when that freedom can wound us.

The Church Fathers, the earliest interpreters of the Bible, understood that “wrath” described the consequences that naturally flow from sin itself. In the Bible, when God warned his people away from sin, but they ignored his warnings and suffered the self-destructive outcomes, Scripture often describes this as the “wrath of God.” But these earliest Christian interpreters would go on to explain that God’s actual role was only indirect. Because of the Gospel, they understood that “wrath” in the Bible, even when its attributed to God, was a metaphor for God’s respect of human choices and people’s experience of their own defiance. “Wrath” was not a literal description of God enacting harm. That would make no sense of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. No, wrath was both a metaphor for the experiences of our own sinful choices and an anthropomorphism—human traits projected onto God (like God having a face, or walking in the garden).

It’s like unplugging a lamp. The electricity is not punishing the lamp. Light simply exists in the connection. Once the connection is broken, darkness isn't imposed from the outside. It’s simply what happens when the source of light is removed. The same is true of judgment. Most of us imagine judgment as a courtroom where God finally pronounces sentence. But Jesus offers a very different picture. In John 3 we’re told, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world.”

Judgment as understood by Jesus is the presence of love and light in the world to expose and deal with sin. Light doesn't create what is in the room. It reveals what was already there. Think of opening the curtains in a room that has been shut for years. The sunlight doesn't create the dust. It simply exposes it so the room can finally be cleaned. That is God's judgment. Not his refusal to love us. His refusal to leave us trapped in illusion.  His refusal to allow that which has lain destructively in the dark to remain hidden.

If we truly want to know what wrath and judgment look like, we have to stand at Calvary. There we do not see an angry Father pouring violence onto an innocent Son or wicked people. We see humanity pouring violence, hatred, betrayal, mockery, cruelty, wrath, and death onto a loving God (Acts 2:23; 7:52).

And what does God do in the face of sinful wrath? He consents. He forgives. He dies and rises again – revealing that love unkillable. God wins. The Cross reveals that God would rather lovingly absorb wrath than inflict it. The cross is God’s judgment upon sin to save us from wrath. Paul says in Romans 5:9: “Since we have now been vindicated by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through him!” Jesus does not save us from the Father. He reveals our wrath and saves us from everything destroying us. From sin. From shame. From death. From the lies that keep us in a distant country. The Father's heart has never needed changing. Only ours. Even when Scripture speaks of God's final judgment, we should remember who the Judge is and what he has done.

The Judge is the same Jesus who washed feet. The same Jesus who welcomed sinners. The same Jesus who forgave his executioners. The same Jesus who wept over Jerusalem. Throughout Scripture, fire of judgement is often the image of purification. Gold passes through fire not because it is despised, but because it is precious. The purpose of the fire is not destruction. It’s refinement. God's final judgment is the triumph of holy love over everything that distorts and destroys. It is love burning away every false self. Every wound. Every lie. Every chain. Because God desires children, not slaves. Sons and daughters, not prisoners.

In Ephesians 3 the apostle Paul tells us that God's love is wider and longer and higher and deeper than we can comprehend. I love that Paul doesn't simply say God's love is great. He says it “surpasses knowledge.” That means every time you think you have reached the limits of God's mercy, God surpasses it. Every time you imagine you have found the edge of divine compassion, God surpasses it. If I can imagine God's love becoming greater than I currently understand it to be, Paul says it is greater still. And that means any picture of God where wrath overshadows love is already too small. God is love. Not mostly love. Not love struggling against anger but non-coercive, non-abusive, enemy-loving – love that restores us.

So wrath is not the fire burning in God's heart against us. Wrath is what life feels like when we insist on walking away from the fire of God's love. That should be taken seriously, but it’s not terrifying because wrath is love that refuses coercion. Wrath is love that honors freedom. Wrath is love that allows us to discover the consequences of our choices. But wrath is never the wish or action of an angry father. A Father who never stops watching the road. Every morning. Every evening. His heart remains the same. The Father didn’t send the son away. The Father didn’t make his son hungry. The Father's love was always constant, he never gave up, and he had the last word. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

And when the son finally turned toward home, he discovered something astonishing. The Father had already begun running toward him. That is the God Jesus reveals. That is the God Paul proclaims. That is the God whose judgment is light, whose discipline is healing, whose holiness is love, and whose wrath is the severe mercy that refuses to let us destroy ourselves forever. And that is the God whose love is always greater than we could ever ask, imagine, or comprehend. Amen.