SERMON 21 FEBRUARY 2016 – LENT 2 THE STORMINESS OF GOD

SERMON 21 FEBRUARY 2016 – LENT 2

The Storminess of God

Readings:  Gen 15:1 – 12; Ps 29; Phil. 3:17 - ;  Lk 13:31-35

In the names of our glorious, all-encompassing God.  Amen.

During this past week, we’ve had some really dramatic, perhaps even frightening storms for some of us, in Johannesburg!  And in today’s Lenten Sermon, we’re invited to focus on God’s storminess.

This isn’t exactly the most reassuring image of God, is it?  Especially when viewed in light of some of our Highveld storms with lightening, hail, flash floods, etc.  And when we examine the storminess of God, as presented to us this morning in Psalm 29, there’s an unpredictable and dangerous wildness, perhaps even viciousness, about this description of God as being the weather, which is hardly attractive and certainly very frightening and threatening!

However, we need to remember that the people in the times in which the Psalms were written, had no real understanding of meteorology;  for them, any experience or form of weather was immediately animated into a mood or expression of God.  This is where our first painting comes in …. This is the large picture.  I’m sure that many of us recognize this scripture story ….. if you’d like to read it, you’ll find it in Matthew 14:22 following.  This story happens after Jesus’ miraculous feeding of 5000 plus people, Jesus sends the disciples over the lake in a boat, while he himself goes up a mountain to pray.

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In Verse 24, we’re told that the boat was buffeted by waves and wind ….. notice the spiral waves at the bottom of the picture – the wind is conveyed by the very fully extended sails … and other than the figure of Peter, sinking in the water, the rest of the disciples stand stiff and lost, almost frozen, paralyzed with fear.

Verse 23 mentions the darkness of the evening, in fact, the lack of natural light extends to the base of the boat, which extends the feeling of fear …. That the boat no longer feels solid or safe.  However, notice the gold aureole around the top of the sails and the gold line at the top of the boat (which obviously is a mystical message because no Galilean could afford, financially, to paint that boat with gold leaf … let alone being practical!)   …The gold represents the “holy bubble” of  the presence of God’s protection  - God doesn’t take away the storm, necessarily, but certainly is fully present in it.

Also, there’s a further containment shown in the right and left of the painting = on the right we see the figure of Jesus reaching out  to Peter;  on the left, there’s the figure on a large outcrop of rock (notice three little pinnacles) and the man seems to have a rope attached to the boat – is the rock perhaps God the Father  - eg Psalm 19:  “O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer”  (The Rock being God the Father;  the Redeemer Jesus;  the wind, the Holy Spirit.)

Remember also that, in Christian symbology, a boat represents a church!  And this raises the question:  when the global church faces various figurative storms, in the world, can we / will we remain faithful to focusing on Jesus, anchored on God, and allow the Holy Spirit to set the direction?

So, Veneziano’s painting and Matthew’s writing of this story, very much present a theology and image of God, which incorporates God’s storminess BUT as something external to us, and seemingly random and as storms caused by God;  what this then tends to do sometimes, is to present God almost as a petulant, ill-tempered cosmic child who has a temper tantrum when things don’t go his way!  Or, whatever …. Or who takes pleasure in punishing us for sin or unbelief, through all sorts of natural disasters.

In the second picture, the Munch – If you put part of your hand or some of your fingers over the red and orange sky, the mood and meaning of the entire picture changes.

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In other words, it is possible here that the storminess is in the person in the foreground’s interior being, and that the angry striped red and orange sky is an exteriorization of the person’s state of mind …. The storminess resulting from an anger-filled despair; despair represented in grey landscape.  A stark reminder that we see the world according to our moods, emotions, experiences, perspectives …. NOT how the world really is!

Neither of these paintings are really faithful representations of God’s storminess for us today – which really is much, much more like the “STILL, SMALL VOICE” that Elijah encounters on the mountain (refer to 1 Kings 19:11ff)  Most often, not exclusively, but most often any “storminess” which we’ll encounter as faith based people, either personally or communally, will tend to be because

1.  We’re  resisting some sort of spiritual growth, or
2. Because society criticizes, condemns or ridicules us for taking our faith seriously.

When God activates a form of storminess that deeply unsettles us, takes us out of our comfort zone, it’s usually either because we’ve got stuck in a rut and are perhaps only going through the motions of our faith, OR like Job, challenging us into a new depth in our relationship with God.

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In other words, for example, when we’ve become too attached and invested in the familiar and in human created securities, God may well send us a metaphoric storm so that we can let go of synthetic moorings and rather allow God to be our anchor, our boat, our captain, our wind in the sails.

Archbishop Helder Camara wrote a little poem about this:

            Pilgrim
            when your ship
            long moored in harbour
            gives you the illusion
            of being a house;
            when your ship begins to put down roots
            in the stagnant water by the quay
            PUT OUT TO SEA!
            Save your boat’s journeying soul
            and your pilgrim soul,
            cost what it may!

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A Lenten-type spiritual storminess may also be God’s way of overtly inviting us to let God’s Spirit remove all sorts of unhelpful barriers in our lives!  These barriers could be between the circumstances of our lives and the rest of the world, or, between God and ourselves, or resistances towards things of faith within ourselves, …. Etc.

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NB:  What is always to take to heart is that God’s storms always have a good purpose, meaning and fruitfulness which not only bless us, but also benefits all life around us!!

So yes, our spiritual iourney will at times, have aspects of storminess about it;  however, when these are not from God then God will protect us and be a refuge in the midst of them;  and when God has provoked the storm, then we can know absolutely that God has our best interest at heart!!

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Irrespective of the source or consequences of storminess in our lives, God will remain immovably present and our fail-safe security!

Amen

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Ven Michelle Pilet