BEYOND THE SOUND & FURY
I Kings 19:9a-13, Matthew 14:22-33
I’m going to make an assumption. If I’m totally off base then I will have to preach this sermon to myself while the rest of you go get coffee because it is the only one I have today. My assumption is that I am not the only one that is feeling, these days, a gnawing anxiety….a sense that we no longer have confidence that we or anyone really understand all the forces at work in our increasingly interconnected world. When we try to make our plans and put the pieces of our lives together in some rational and coherent fashion we remain on edge, ever vigilant and protective because it seems fragile and we are increasingly suspicious that what we have assembled will not necessarily work or even make sense in the next stage of life….or next year….or even next month.
We have been awash this past week with retrospectives on the events of September 11, 2001. And the recurring theme usually is the way our world or the way we perceive our world changed on that day. And it did in ways, I believe, that we haven’t quite come to terms with which causes us collectively to keep reacting to this new world in ways more appropriate for a prior era perhaps. Maybe we are still trying to live into this new world but no one gave us the map. Maybe we won’t know exactly what changed and how for a couple more decades. It will be interesting to see how our grandchildren tell the story when they write the textbooks.
But the Al Qaeda attacks on our country were not the only thing that has changed the way we understand and live in our world. I listened to one reporter who pointed out that on that day text messaging was not common nor were phones with cameras. Facebook had not yet been invented nor had twitter….those engines of revolution for the Arab Spring. Most of us got our news that day from the car radio or network television. Technology and its uses are exploding and it has given us democratic revolutions in the middle east and it also makes me want to take a sledge hammer to it all when month after month if have to learn something new.
The economic and political realities in our brave new world seem to be challenging some of our most basic beliefs about how things work like “invest in the stockmarket and all will be well. We are re-examining the meaning and purpose of some of the foundational structures of our lives like community and government. We are bombarded with dysfunction on a daily basis. Have I thoroughly depressed you yet?
A hurricane hits drought stricken Texas and simply seems to fan the flames of wildfires while in Maryland and Pennsylvania are bailing out from a storm that wasn’t even on our mental radar screen. And New York prepared for Irene and Vermont gets the worst of it. And then before that we got an earthquake which even though it wasn’t much of one seemed metaphorical somehow….reminding us that something seems to be shifting beneath us. OK…now I’ve really made you all candidates for therapy. Let me just capture this moment with my cell phone….because it won’t last. I hope.
We just heard two stories from the Bible about times of change and crisis. Elijah lived in a time that had some surprising similarities to our own. There was an environmental crisis….a serious drought…and a political one, a crisis of leadership. Elijah was a prophet…one who understood his life’s work to be bringing God’s values into the conversations of the day and speaking the truth about what was going on in light of those values. (love God take care of each other) This is hard work and not often received well by those in power even if they are pushing the counter agenda in the name of God. Elijah retreated to a cave totally depressed, hopeless about the future and wondering where God was in all this. And he watches and he listens and he waits. And there is a great howling wind…you know, like the kind that knocks over trees…but that wasn’t God. And there was an earthquake but that wasn’t God and neither was the fire. Sound familiar? But where is God? In the gentle and quiet whisper. Perhaps so gentle and quiet that it took some intentional work to hear it, he had to go away by himself…maybe even the depression was an underappreciated gift that allowed him to shut out the noise and chatter so that he could refamiliarize himself with the whispers of God.
Do you know what one of my biggest frustrations with religion is these days? It is how loud it has gotten. All the loud, brash voices of extremism that kick up so much dust and are so intoxicated with violence and destroying all perceived opponents that it would APPEAR religion is a large part of the problem in these days of unsettledness. Wars rage and kingdoms totter and every gun fired and bomb dropped seems sometimes to be in the name of God…or competing gods.
But there is another voice that needs to be heard: The gentle and quiet whisper of the One who knows the best that we are capable of. But it takes practice to recognize that voice. The world doesn’t make it easy to do that but it is not impossible. Religion does not have to be the problem. It should be….it could be, the solution.
After six weeks of earthquakes, wind, and fire, both current and remembered I walked into this sanctuary on Thursday morning for the first morning communion service after the summer hiatus. It was still stormy outside in here there were candles flickering and soft music and I was able to sit and let the fragments settle and remember that if we are going to be part of the solutions to the challenges we face we must periodically take a step back from the sound and fury and turmoil around. If we don’t make a conscious effort we might start believing that God’s way is where the wars are plotted or where the hatred and suspicion is nurtured, or where revenge is the order of the day. It is so easy to be distracted by the language of threat and danger that it requires a conscious effort, every day, to seek out the goodness in this world, all the possibilities that God opens before us.
In fact, wonderful things are emerging. But mostly they don’t make the news. It takes effort to pay attention to the quiet and persistent voices of reason and hope around and within us and resist the distraction of those who “love their megaphones and nurture their hatred." (1)
The media are not practiced at theological nuances. But beyond the minority of Muslims, Christian and Jewish extremists are the vast majority who quietly, patiently and without much attention seeking are building a new future based on the common practices of compassion and forgiveness. The Sun paper headlines report that politicians are furious BGE because of the length of time necessary to restore power after Irene. But what was missed, or buried in the inside pages were all the stories of neighbors coming together to help each other and the caravans of workers from all over the country of gave up days off to come to the east coast and help. I believe God is most actively at work, not in the sound and fury of anger and revenge but in the quiet work of caring and forgiving.
Some people point to all the confusion and chaos in our world with all the injustices and hurts, death and destruction and conclude that there is no God. Others listen to the voices of religious extremists who leave only death and destruction in their wake and conclude that God is the problem or at least religion in the name of God. But there are those, and we should make sure that we are among them, who see God at work and recognize God’s voice in the quiet steady sound of those who bind up the wounds and practice peace, who live simply and give generously, who stop just wishing for yesterday and start living for a hopeful tomorrow, who see through the lies and demand the truth, who don’t make the headlines because they are busy building communities and loving neighbor as self.
According to the Gospel writers Jesus would often find himself so caught up in all that was going on around him and so weary from what was being asked of him that he had to go away by himself in prayer so that he could become reacquainted with the God and God’s ways. Then he called disciples to step out of the accustomed ways of understanding the world and try something new in the company of Jesus. And then, says Matthew, amazing things begin to happen…things we never dreamed possible before. Healing, hopeful, steps toward a new and better future.
Mary D. Gaut
(1) Feisal Abdul Rauf, “A Call to All Religious Moderates” in the WSJ 9/9/2011.
