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Back in 2011, I began my year of service with City Year in Washington, D.C. As part of the program, I was a tutor and mentor for students in struggling schools. It was difficult, and at times grueling work.
City Year is an Americorps program, so naturally they lack a religious affiliation. As someone who was considering a life of ministry, it was important to me to maintain a connection to my faith, so I began attending a church near where I lived just outside the city.
The messages I heard from the pulpit there, however, were completely unhelpful. A great deal of it was about how if you just do the right thing and help others, all will be well. I remember thinking "I am doing everything you're telling me I should do every day of the week, and I don't feel that way." Something was missing, something this church should have been providing but wasn't. I needed something else, something more.
This is where we meet Paul in Galatians. The Law itself cannot save us. In fact, the law itself is not at all what grants us justification. When Paul calls the law a disciplinarian, he is saying it is there to help us for a time, such as time out or gold stars in kindergarten. The Law is not ultimately what we need. What we need is Jesus.
Having Jesus, having God, in your life does take work. We see that in the story of Elijah. He has just defeated the priests of Baal in a contest to prove which god is actually God. But before he can even catch his breath, Jezebel, the queen, comes after with a price on his head. Elijah has to flee to exile, and the whole turn of events brings him down a bit.
Elijah has gotten cocky in his role as prophet. He needs something more than just his zeal and fervor of faith. He needs God and a closer and deeper relationship with the Lord.
God takes him to a spot where that can happen. God leads him to Horeb, one of the so-called thin places in the Tanakh where the Israelites have often encountered the Lord. There, Elijah too encounters the Lord, but not in wind, earthquake, or fire as one might think. Elijah instead encounters God in what is best translated as "the sound of shear silence." Elijah meets God when all other distractions have melted away and God is all that is left.
Meeting with God has the power to transform. We see that directly in Jesus' encounter with the man possessed by Legion. This man goes from running naked in a graveyard to sitting at the feet of Jesus, ready to learn. It is such a stunning transformation that the people in the village don't know what to make of it except to react out of fear.
The emptiness that we often experience in life can be filled with many things, most of them unhelpful. We can try to be better people, but there's still something there that we need. We can do everything we think is expected of us, but there's a deeper relationship that needs to be sought out even then. We can fill it with bad and tempting things, but that still won't help. Ultimately what we need is a deeper encounter with the Divine. Ultimately what we need is our Lord Jesus.
It's not that this path will always make everything rosy or cheery. Our Psalm 42, which we read today, ends with a cry to God in despair. But that despair is not the end of things. That's why our Lectionary adds on Psalm 43, for this psalm gives us the message of hope and deliverance of God as our defender and savior.
There's nothing we can do on our own to make our lives better. Fortunately, we don't have to make ourselves whole. What we really need is a closer and deeper companionship with our Lord. All we have to do is reach out towards Him. All we have to do is cut out all the noise and static until the only one we hear is Him. All we have to do is come humbly before Him to sit at His feet and listen.