Just a few nights ago we experienced a storm—a quick moving one, but a storm nonetheless. Rain fell in buckets from the sky, winds tore leaves and branches from trees. Thunder roared. Any sane person would take cover, and wait until the storm has passed.
Contrast that with the crazy people who chase storms—who want to put themselves in the path of tornadoes, who are hoping to get great pictures, or help do meteorological research, or just get a high from surviving something so powerful.
So there you have it. Two kinds of people. Those who stay safe in the storm, and those who chase it. Today, I think I hear the call for us to be storm chasers.
We started our service with the focus Scripture of the day, Psalm 29.
The voice of the Lord is over mighty waters,
the voice of the Lord thunders,
the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon,
the voice of the Lord flashes forth as flames of fire, the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.
You can hear the storm, feel the storm. The storm is like God, powerful, chaotic, blowing through our lives. This power and majesty provoke all in God’s temple to say, “GLORY.”
Sometimes I think we domesticate God. We want a loving parent. We want a comfort in times of trouble. We want unconditional lover, a soft, cuddly God. Today we are reminded that God is I AM WHO I AM; God is the one who creates from the chaos; God is the storm—the frightening, overpowering, uncontrollable, winds and waves, lightning and thunder.
So what do we do with this God who is like a storm? Do we stay indoors until God has passed by? Or do we chase the storm?
God as Storm is an image of realizing that destruction rarely is “decent and in order.” God as Storm is an image used particularly in talking about injustice, about the things that need to be changed in our world. Martin Luther King Jr. made famous the saying “that arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Slow and steady wins the race may not be an acceptable slogan in the face of terrible, long-standing wrongs. Maybe God as Storm, and we as storm chasers are a better fit.
Listen to how the writers of this week’s Seasons of the Spirit heard this text:
“We the people – Syrian, Iraqi, women, orphaned, old, war-broken and ravaged, on the move, seeking refuge at closed borders, vilified – turn to God. Our prayer is for strength, consolation, a safe haven. We, the subjugated of empire, shackled by debt, underemployed, and heavily burdened, turn to God. We pray for strength and courage as we attempt to break from the oak-hardened stations to which we have been cast, now rooted in soil that does not sustain. God speaks to us, shaking us loose from our desert of despair, guiding us through the fearsome wilderness where we have been abandoned.” (p. 64)
God as Storm promises to upend even those things we think are immovable. God as Storm is a welcome sight to those who barely get from one day to the next. God as Storm is a warning if we are too comfortable when others are not.
I know it is dangerous and scary to go out in the storm. I know that leaving the safe shore is a risk. Even with Jesus in the boat! We feel for the disciples, as the winds sweep across the lake, as their boat starts to fill, as they think they are about to die—we understand them shaking Jesus awake, “Help us, we are perishing!”
And Jesus in our gospel lesson, does calm the waters, quiets the wind and waves. But I think his “Peace, be still” was as much to the disciples as it was to the storm. He was giving us a lesson on how to deal with storm chasing.
You see, if God is the Storm that can break through all our construction of status quo, and hierarchy, and “the good old days,”—and we are like the disciples, afraid of what might come, wanting only to be safe, we may miss what God is doing in our world.
If God is the Storm that is upending what has always been, and making us uncomfortable, and YET we want to be part of God’s kingdom breaking into this world—we must learn to become storm chasers.
If God is the Storm, and we are storm chasers, we need to be on the lookout—we need to be watching the skies and prepared to go at a moment’s notice. And we need to practice being calm, and learn how to be at peace, and still, even in the midst of all that swirls around us.
In a wonderful turning inside out of storm and safe haven, the people from the Cherokee Park United Church of St. Paul, MN who helped write the Season of Creation liturgy this year, imagine themselves as fueled by the energy of the storm to do great things, even as they realize they need to be that still, peaceful place for those who have been battered by life. They say:
“We, God’s people, can face the forces arrayed against us, withstand the full force of the oppressive, mighty waters. This becomes so as we vibrate with God’s force and energy, letting God’s voice penetrate our entire being, allowing God to speak in, and through, us. Most importantly, letting God’s voice take form in us as action in the world. We hear the shout, “We are perishing!” We do not stand idly by. We rebuke the storm and then give safe haven for those caught in its raging waves.” (p. 64)
That is our wish as well.
As the Psalmist wrote so many years ago:
May God give us strength.
May God give us peace.
Glory! Glory be to God.
Alleluia, Amen.
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