Podcast of "Words and Deeds in a Chaotic World" (MP3)
1Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Friends, it is good to be back with
you. As you’ve probably heard, we’ve had a chaotic week. We discovered the
distance from the Marshall Wal-Mart to our house is just over 1,253 miles if
you go by way of Mexico , Missouri . We also
discovered that some phone calls sometimes chaos has a way of overwhelming life.
So it is good to be back home where we belong, away from the chaos. So now, if
you will indulge me, I want to start at the beginning. In fact, I’m beginning
with the beginning of the beginning.
Genesis 1:1-2 reads, “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and
empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters.” I begin here to share a word that doesn’t get a lot
of play when looking at the creation story, formless. In this setting formless
means “land reduced to primaeval [sic] chaos”[1]
When God created the heavens and the earth; creation began with utter and
complete disorder. There was nothing but chaos. It took the act of creation to
bring order to the primeval chaos of existence.
In ancient times, water embodied chaos.
So God built a barrier, a vault, between the waters of order and the waters of
chaos. Continuing with verses 6 and 7, “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault
between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and
separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.”
God would later use the waters of
chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story the flood. The
chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea.
The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the
depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and incomprehensibly
deep underworld. The sea was considered the personification of death itself.
Ultimately, the scriptural image of the waters and the seas and the storms and
the winds is danger.[2]
In our enlightened age, even for
people who do not know the history or the mystery, storm-tossed waters continue
to be a metaphor for the turmoil of living.
Let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In the midst of the storm, in the midst of
the sea, in the midst of certain death; Jesus was resting on a cushion. We read
that he was sleeping, but scripture goes further, he was sleeping on a cushion.
The Galilean galley didn’t have a lido deck where Jesus could rest in the stern
of the ship. On the contrary, these were working vessels for working men. There
wasn’t a place designed on the ship to go take a nap. Still Jesus was resting
on a cushion.
Jesus knew there would be a storm.
I imagine that as soon as the skies began to boil everyone knew there was going
to be a storm. At least one-third of the disciples were seasoned fishermen and
the rest of them were locals. As Jesus notes in Luke’s gospel,[3] these
disciples knew how to interpret the look of earth and sky. So we can safely
say, even though the storm rose suddenly while they were on the water, the men
in the boats on the sea knew hard weather was coming up. Still Jesus takes a
nap-on a cushion.
Soon everyone on the boat was,
well, let’s say they were emotionally wrought. They were in a big old panic.
They were losing their collective minds. Everyone had a pretty good idea what
kind of danger they were in and the fishermen knew what kind of danger they were in, and Jesus slept.
I imagine by this point, everyone
who saw the Lord catching forty winks on a cushion was wondering when or if he
would wake up and grab a line or pick up a bucket to bail or something. Jesus
had not yet revealed his messianic identity, so they weren’t expecting anything
miraculous, but c’mon, lend a hand.
I also imagine their conversations included
the sentence “Wake him up!” followed by its mate “No, you wake him up!”
Finally, some of the disciples got the fuzzy end of the lollypop and scripture
tells us what followed, “The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher,
don’t you care if we drown?’”
Now, there’s a sentence right out of
the chaos, “don’t you care?” And it’s not an unfamiliar sentence to these
disciples on the water in the storm. The story of the prophet Jonah[4]
features this scene:
Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea,
and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the
sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo
into the sea to lighten the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay
down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you
sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we
will not perish.”
In the midst of the chaos, Jonah
takes a siesta as the world crumbles around him. This leaves us the captain to
wake the one person not feverishly praying to his God. To paraphrase this
captain, a man who cries out to his passenger, “Maybe your God will care enough
not to drown us, maybe your God will care enough to keep the chaos from
swallowing us. Do something!”
There is an old saying attributed
to St Francis of Assisi ,
“Preach the gospel always, if necessary use words.” Francis is telling us to
get up off the couch and do something with our salvation. It’s a good thought,
but it denies an important truth. It forgets that when our God created the
cosmos, he spoke. God didn’t pull the ingredients out of the cabinet and pop it
in the Easy Bake. God spoke and God created. In our reading, Jesus spoke and
the storm was calmed.
You have often heard me say all
translation is interpretation, and this is true. In our reading, the New
Revised Standard Version tells us Jesus awakens and says, “Peace! Be still!”
Isn’t this wonderful? Can’t you see Jesus standing in the boat in the midst of
the raging sea, stretching his arms and saying “Shalom!” It’s Jesus offering
his peace over the terror of our lives. It’s a nice picture, but it’s not what
Mark’s gospel means.
The New International Version gets
it better in this case. Jesus cries out “Quiet! Be still!” The word Jesus uses
is a cry to tell the wind to shut up. He’s telling the wind stop and be still.
The Greek word tells us that Jesus is telling the wind to be muzzled.[5]
Jesus binds the storm and the chaos in a muzzle. He’s not offering his peace.
He’s not giving the wind and the storm his shalom. He’s binding the chaos of
life now and forever from the midst of the tempest. In a word, in one word, Jesus
binds the chaos of the world under his control for all times.
This is what I mean about words and
deeds. For our Lord and God, words are deeds. Our God creates a world that he
declares “very good” simply speaking it into existence. Our Lord binds the chaos
of the world and places it under his control.
For us, this has been a time of
chaos. By the way, if you think I’m standing in the pulpit talking about you
specifically, you’re not completely wrong. When I was younger, I often felt
like my pastor examined my soul when writing Sunday’s sermon. Please know that
the reason this feeling has truth is that what I am saying is universal; we all
know the chaos of our lives. We are all being thrown around in our dinghies on
the sea of chaos. It’s the reason why the reader of Mark’s gospel could hear
the story of Jonah in the words of the disciples; everyone was familiar with
the stories. Just as important, they were familiar with the words.
A part of our personal chaos
included the death of my sister’s husband Tom. Between Tom’s death and my
mother-in-law Toni’s health, the chaos of our lives made their way across the
life of the Elders, Georgia,[6]
and this congregation. During Tom’s funeral, the Reverend Terry Kukuk of the
First Presbyterian Church in Mexico ,
Missouri
shared these words:[7]
Psalm 23 (the Lord is my shepherd…) was read this afternoon because Mary Jane (my
sister) said it was Tom’s favorite. It’s
a favorite Psalm for many. Somehow, these ancient words have stretched
themselves out over the generations and found a home in many hearts. The image
of God as shepherd brings comfort and reassurance in many moments for life.
These words often act like an anchor, holding us when so much around us is
falling apart.
We have come to associate Psalm 23 with
funerals but when you really stop to consider the words of this Psalm you
discover that this is a Psalm about living. For it locates the daily activities
of life in the presence of God. This Psalm calls us to have confidence that in
all circumstances of life we can turn to God and trust in God’s steadfast
faithfulness.
In these words, Rev. Kukuk clearly
and wonderfully answered one of the most problematic questions asked about scripture. Jesus does not promise that there will be no
more storms. He promises that he will be
with us in the storms. Jesus doesn’t
promise to end the pain. He promises to
be with us while we are in pain.
In Leipzig , Martin Luther was asked, “Where will
you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against
you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.”[8] So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with
Jonah, so it was with the disciples, so it is with Mary Jane, so it is with
Toni, so it is with us all.
Here is what this means to me: In
the face of everything that did happen, was happening, and is going to happen,
Jesus had a peace about him that was unknown to everyone else on the sea. The
disciples knew they were in danger. The waves were breaking over the bow of the
ship and it was taking on water. The boat was filling with so much water that
it was being swamped by the sea, the wind, and the waves.
The disciples were worried, I am sure;
they knew their situation was perilous.
In the meantime, here’s Jesus, napping on the stern, on a cushion. So when they were asking Jesus if he cared, the
disciples were probably just hoping Jesus would grab a bucket or a line and
help stem the rising tide of the storm.
But what they got was different;
they got the word of the Lord crying, “Be still.” “Be still;” this is the same phrase Jesus used
in the first chapter of Mark when expelling the unclean spirit from a man. Now he uses this phrase to calm the chaos of
the wind and the water and the sea.
The disciples knew they needed a
miracle, they didn’t know the miracle was taking a nap on the boat. In ancient times, boats were seen as symbols
of the church. It was a great ark that
saved humanity in the time of the great flood.
The boat was integral to the story of Jonah. Jesus spent enough time on the docks to earn
his union card. Is it any wonder that we
are called to the vessel where Jesus is by the rudder?
Our reading reminds us that we are
called to join the one who brings order to the storms, the rage, and the chaos
in the boat we call the body of Christ, the church. This is what God calls us
to do. Just like the lives of the disciples who are called to follow Jesus
then, we are called now. We are called to be in the boat with Jesus through the
chaos of our lives together.
As the old song goes, “Does anyone
know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”[9]
Yes, we do. The love of God is with us in the waters of our baptism, the very
waters that were separated at creation by the vault; the waters which Jesus
stills by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the love
that muzzles the chaos of the sea and promises to remain with us through the
storm of our lives.
[2]
Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Chaos
entry
[3] Luke
12:56
[4] Jonah
1:4-6
[5] A
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature. Bauer, Danker Ed’s. Chicago : University of Chicago Press
[6] Georgia
is our church secretary and instrumental musician. She is a gem.
[7] Editor’s
note—The quote from Rev. Kukuk is in italics. The regular font is my comment.
–PAA
[8] Luther
quote from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2723,
retrieved June 21, 2009.
[9] Gordon
Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the Edmond
Fitzgerald.”
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