We just recently completed the 2003 Eastern Washington – Idaho Synod Assembly in Wenatchee. Information on the actions taken and discussions held will be coming your way shortly. Most pastors took the Sunday “off” and remained at the assembly while others of us (including yours truly) returned to preach in our parishes. For those not preaching, Bishop Wells prepared a sermon to use based on the texts for the day and the Rural Ministry theme for the Assembly. I think it’s worth sharing and I offer it for your reading. PDGrace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. AMEN
Today as we gather for worship our partner in ministry, the Eastern Washington and Idaho Synod, is meeting in Assembly in Wenatchee, Washington. At this Synod Assembly members from our churches will act in the name of the 110 congregations that make up the EWA and Idaho Synod. This assembly is led by our Bishop, Martin Wells, and our synod council officers, led by Vice President Patsy Gottschalk. Strategic Planning, a new evangelism strategy, a budget, and resolutions will all be part of the work of this assembly.
The lessons for this second Sunday after Pentecost remind us of the great power of our God, the creator of the universe and the source of all life.
So powerful are these lessons that it is almost possible to hear the great, deep voice of someone like Charleton Heston behind the texts: “WHO is THIS that darkens counsel by WORDS without KNOWLEDGE?” demands the voice from the whirlwind. Job, the hard-luck prophet, thought that he had already encountered everything bad that could happen to him! What must he have thought as he stood silent before the “Author of Everything?”
It wasn’t as if Job set out to make anyone mad. He had been a faithful follower of God, even if his faith had been ordinary and pretty thin. Now his life had been turned upside down by a series of hardships that had all but taken his life. He was searching for a reason, any reason, for his misfortune. And while he didn’t blame God, who could blame Job for finally turning to the Source of life for some explanation for his predicament?
At first blush it is a cold and austere God who replied. On the one hand God doesn’t owe explanations to anyone. And then, of course, there’s the little matter of sin, that rebellion that brought creation crashing down around the ears of our grandparents, Adam and Eve. Why wouldn’t God be justified in reminding us that the perfect creation God had created was spoiled by those who thought they should share the wisdom of God?
And, of course, the chaos of creation can be a great teacher, reminding us that except for the benevolence of God we would be lost at sea, drowned in the chaos of our own making.
God has even used such chaos as a way to recover those who are fleeing from God’s will. Remember the prophet Jonah? Fleeing from the will of God, Jonah is caught in a great storm while crossing the sea to Tarshish (Spain). This great tempest is clearly the work of the Creator; even the pagan sailors understand that! In this case God uses the chaos in order to recover his prophet, thrown overboard, as if to “feed” the angry sea. But note: As the sea is calmed, Jonah is swallowed up in the protective belly of a great fish. Only then does Jonah understand his rebellion and return to the calling God has given him.
And so it is with Job; the great, demanding voice is not the last word Job has from God. Instead there is an intimate exchange wherein Job acknowledges that his connection to God has been a thin one, insufficient for the challenges of life. Job says to God: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you….” Here is a deep communion with God!
And now Job is better prepared for the real bumps and bruises of life. His faith is restored and strengthened precisely by finding God in the terror of life.
And so it is that the disciples face terror, the terror of the angry sea.
Out in the midst of the sea, likely exhausted from a day of ministering among the crowd, Jesus and the disciples face a tempest. Jesus is close at hand, but asleep.
It is a great irony that Jesus is so close in their time of terror. If Job cried out to a distant and remote God, that is surely not the problem for the disciples. Yet when faith is tested, terror ensues.
The lesson of this text has at least two dimensions.
--Now it is Jesus who bears the mantle of the all powerful God, ruler of the creation and the chaos. He says “Peace! Be still!” and the wind ceases to bluster. Jesus is God and this reality will be part of the on-going and still present scandal of his two natures, that of True God and True Man.
--The other dimension emphasizes Jesus’ humanity. There is a shortness and exasperation in his response to the disciples: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Yet there is also a deep compassion, a compassion that will finally acknowledge both the disciples and the church as like a flock of sheep scattered before fear.
This is the burden of our searching, saving God: To both be God—ruler of the universe, bent on saving all creation; and to approach us and the rest of creation in a way that finally does not terrorize, but saves.
I know that my perspective is limited, but I cannot remember a time when so many factors have conspired to terrorize the church of our day. Surely there have been other hard days. Think of the decades of terror wrought by the Black Plague in the years before the Reformation. Think of that tiny, earliest church of Jesus, huddled in secret during the terrors of the Roman Empire. What must it have been like to be the Christian community of Hiroshima and Nagasaki facing the terrors of nuclear holocaust? More recently, what must it be like to be a Baghdad Christian and witness to Christ in the midst of the on-going conflict?
The Christian church still faces chaos and terror. We who have Christ’s promise of eternal life and share the real presence of Jesus in bread and wine each week still feel the terror of life.
The Jewish writer Elie Wiesel has said, “The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is anxiety.” Ours is a very anxious day, worried for many things.
--Writer John Westerhoff asks “Will our Faith have Children” in a book by the same name.
--We might well ask, “Does the Lutheran witness have a future” in a world that rejects discipline and is little inclined to the kind of theological rigor that has been our gift?
--We know our rural church struggles for life amidst changes in agriculture and the growth of world markets.
--We are not sure our church is up to the challenges of questions about human sexuality.
--We wonder why our church is not growing when other traditions seem to flourish.
---This is a time of real life and death terror for Christians in China and elsewhere.
Dare we ask, “Where is God?” “Why is God allowing this to happen to us?”
And if we do, how are we different than Job or the disciples adrift in their small boat?
The truth is that we are part of a world that is dying. The whole creation is suffering the terror of sin, whether we know it as rebellion against God or as a sense that “things” are unhinged, meaningless, and every direction bears threat.
Luther says in the Large Catechism that “Your god is that towards which your heart inclines and entrusts itself.”
Is it the God of Abraham and Sarah, the one called “Abba” by Jesus that we trust with our lives? Isn’t this the God of creation and salvation by the cross? Haven’t our hearts been captured by Jesus of Nazareth, true God and true man?
Those questions come with a voice that sounds a little like Charleton Heston, but without the threat. They ask for the truth, truth which we know, but truth which we forget when the storms of life come our way.
Brothers and sisters, we have entrusted ourselves to Jesus Christ and his saving work on the cross on our behalf. Jesus is with us by our prayers to the Holy Spirit and Jesus is with us in the bread and wine of our Lord’s Supper. Jesus is with us, precisely with us, in the storm. Jesus offers us the protection of God in the same way that the great fish offered Jonah protection in the chaos of the sea.
There is no question that those who entrust themselves to Jesus are safe in God.
But here is the harder question: Jonah was captured and held safe in order to turn him from the direction of his rebellion. Israel was captured and held safe in Babylon in order to turn them in a new direction. Could it be that we feel so vulnerable in the storms and chaos of this life because we are going the wrong direction? That which looks like God’s judgment or loss in the chaos may be God’s saving action for those of us fleeing the call of God.
God has promised help when we cry out in need. Our faith teaches us that “There is nothing in all creation which can separate us from the love of God.”
Shall we entrust ourselves to this Word precisely in the midst of the storm? Shall we let God be God and sit for awhile, awaiting an understanding of this day? Shall we breathe deeply the Holy Spirit’s life-giving breath and seek the Lord in silence? Shall we reach out our hands in this deepening need and receive the Lord in bread and wine, just as God has promised? How close is God! Here is Jesus closer even than with the disciples in the boat, now inside us to give life and peace!
Let us entrust ourselves, our families, our fortunes to this indwelling God! Amen
Sola Deo Gloria
Martin D Wells
