Job 38:1-11
The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb?—
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?”
Mark 4:35-41
When evening had come, [Jesus said to the disciples,] “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
——
The last time I preached on this gospel text from Mark, it was six years ago, just days after Dylan Roof, a young white man and member of an ELCA congregation, walked into Charleston, South Carolina’s Emmanuel AME Church, sat through Bible study with its members, and then shot and killed nine of them in a stunning, tragic, evil act of race-fueled violence.
That Sunday, our nation was reeling - we were confused and afraid and shocked. Everything felt like chaos.
Six years later, I wish I could say that the storms had stilled, and that our world was a more peaceful version of itself.
But whether it is Charleston or Charlottesville or Minneapolis or other continued reminders that the deep chaos of racism is still swirling, or the disorienting chaos of a full year of global pandemic, or the anxiety and chaos of our vitriolic and violent political climate, or the personal storms of life transition or health struggles, or the ship-tossing unknowns facing us as a congregation right now: chaos is still a very-present companion for us.
The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb?—
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?”
Mark 4:35-41
When evening had come, [Jesus said to the disciples,] “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
——
The last time I preached on this gospel text from Mark, it was six years ago, just days after Dylan Roof, a young white man and member of an ELCA congregation, walked into Charleston, South Carolina’s Emmanuel AME Church, sat through Bible study with its members, and then shot and killed nine of them in a stunning, tragic, evil act of race-fueled violence.
That Sunday, our nation was reeling - we were confused and afraid and shocked. Everything felt like chaos.
Six years later, I wish I could say that the storms had stilled, and that our world was a more peaceful version of itself.
But whether it is Charleston or Charlottesville or Minneapolis or other continued reminders that the deep chaos of racism is still swirling, or the disorienting chaos of a full year of global pandemic, or the anxiety and chaos of our vitriolic and violent political climate, or the personal storms of life transition or health struggles, or the ship-tossing unknowns facing us as a congregation right now: chaos is still a very-present companion for us.
The sea is stormy, and we are left peering through the whirlwind to see where God might be in all of it.
The disciples panic as the chaos of the storm threatens to swallow them whole. They wake up the decidedly un-anxious Jesus from his afternoon nap, and cry out to him from emotions of terror and betrayal: “Do you not care that we are dying?” Jesus rubs the sleep from his eyes, and then rebukes and silences the storm. The same way Jesus has rebuked and silenced demons in this first wave of his public ministry.
The exorcism language here is intentional. For Mark, this storm is more than just a storm. It is a symbol of the cosmos out of order. It is a symbol of the chaos of life and of tragedy and of fear about what the future will hold.
And into this chaos, Jesus is the one who, by a word, tames the waves and casts away the gusty winds.
Boston University professor David Schnasa Jacobsen says, “As strange as it sounds, Jesus is not offering therapy for our fears but an exorcism for a world out of whack…In the midst of all this chaos when the world-as-known is ending, here this Jesus is revealed not as one more therapist or miracle worker but as a revelation of God’s extraordinary cosmic purpose.”
In stilling the storm, Jesus reminds the disciples that the God who is powerful enough to hold authority over creation itself is also the God who is plenty powerful to hold and carry their lives as well.
This is a message we also hear in our first reading from Job today, a passage that comes near the end of the book.
Job has lost everything in a chaos of unexpected and unexplained suffering. He has tragically lost his family, his livelihood, his health; his relationships are suffering, his mental health is suffering, his faith is unbroken but suffering. He cries out into the void, He laments to God that it would have been better if he had never been born, if the very stars had never shone in the sky.
Finally, 35 chapters later, out of the whirlwind, God speaks:
“Who was it that created the earth? Who set the morning stars singing and let loose the joyful shouts of the heavens? Who was it that set boundaries around the swirling sea? Who was it that tamed the chaos of the deep?”
God is not minimizing Job’s suffering, nor is God defending or ordaining suffering as a path to a greater good. God is doing quite the opposite: pulling Job and us out of a headspace where we try to understand, make sense of, or ascribe divine meaning to suffering.
God instead invites Job to remember the vastness of the creation, and the vastness of its creator.
God invites Job to regain perspective - if God is big enough to tame the heavens and the earth, then God is plenty big to carry his proportionately small existence as well.
God invites Job to re-establish faith in the one who is not defeated by chaos, but the one who, at the very creation of the world, asserted all power and authority over the swirling stuff of the universe; the one who drew forth from chaos the order and beauty of the cosmos.
Brennan Breed, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, writes: “Life is a process of expanding and unfolding and growth, but it also [includes] death and receding and collapsing…For growth to occur, some things must fail. For there to be new orders, the old orders must tumble. For there to be space for new life, some things must die…Nature needs disorder for its order to function…This is a mystery. It is not explained or defended; God merely asserts it. The world, full of beauty and creativity and danger, seems not to have been constructed merely for human consumption. The story is bigger than us, and none of us are the main characters.”
The story is bigger than us, and none of us are the main characters.
In the beginning, so the story goes, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void. The tohu va-vohu, as the Hebrew puts it. Vast, swirling, chaotic nothingness. Everything and nothing. A swirling sea of “not yet.”
From this raw material, God speaks: “Let there be light.”
And creation begins, a process of drawing order from the void. God takes what is formless and void, and thoughtfully and meticulously does the work of forming and filling.
God forms the light and the dark, forms the land and the seas and the skies. And then fills them with sun and moon and stars, flying birds, swimming fish, creeping things and vegetation.
And then God reaches down and grabs handfuls of dirt. God forms the dirt into a human form, and then God fills the earth-creature with God’s own breath.
Forming and filling. God transcending chaos. The world, resting in the hands of its creator: This is the bigger story of which we are a part.
Over and against the chaos that we know in our lives, personal and communal, our invitation is to trust that God is always creating, always forming, always filling, never leaving chaos unchecked, but instead drawing forth new life and new beauty from each tohu va-vohu of this life.
Whatever chaos we face, we trust that God is bigger.
Whatever storms we weather, we trust that God is stronger.
And we trust that God continues the holy and creative work of forming and filling us through it all.
As a society, we still face the chaos and void of racism and pandemic and politics.
But I believe that out of these swirling storms…
…we are being formed by our repentance for legacies of oppression that we have inherited and perpetuated. And we are being filled with a new fervor for justice - and the tools to seek it.
…we are being formed by our new awareness of public health and our new understanding of those who have lived much more than one year with health challenges that have kept them isolated. And we are being filled with creative energy for redefining community and connection in more expansive ways.
…we are being formed by our growing dissatisfaction with politics as a game of winners and losers. And perhaps we are or will be filled with new resolve to tend to the common good, and advocate for deeper conversations borne out of thoughtfulness and compassion.
And I know and trust that for all the other ways that our boats are being tossed to and fro, as a congregation and as individuals, we have the one who stills the storms riding right alongside of us. Jesus is not panicking. He is at rest. And perhaps our hearts can be at rest, too.
For we are held by the hands of mercy - hands powerful enough to scatter the stars across the sky, and hands tender enough to lift even the weariest of souls.
And when we, in our desperation, cry out, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” God will always respond, “Have faith. I’ve got this. Peace, be still. It is well with me. Let it be well with your soul.”
The disciples panic as the chaos of the storm threatens to swallow them whole. They wake up the decidedly un-anxious Jesus from his afternoon nap, and cry out to him from emotions of terror and betrayal: “Do you not care that we are dying?” Jesus rubs the sleep from his eyes, and then rebukes and silences the storm. The same way Jesus has rebuked and silenced demons in this first wave of his public ministry.
The exorcism language here is intentional. For Mark, this storm is more than just a storm. It is a symbol of the cosmos out of order. It is a symbol of the chaos of life and of tragedy and of fear about what the future will hold.
And into this chaos, Jesus is the one who, by a word, tames the waves and casts away the gusty winds.
Boston University professor David Schnasa Jacobsen says, “As strange as it sounds, Jesus is not offering therapy for our fears but an exorcism for a world out of whack…In the midst of all this chaos when the world-as-known is ending, here this Jesus is revealed not as one more therapist or miracle worker but as a revelation of God’s extraordinary cosmic purpose.”
In stilling the storm, Jesus reminds the disciples that the God who is powerful enough to hold authority over creation itself is also the God who is plenty powerful to hold and carry their lives as well.
This is a message we also hear in our first reading from Job today, a passage that comes near the end of the book.
Job has lost everything in a chaos of unexpected and unexplained suffering. He has tragically lost his family, his livelihood, his health; his relationships are suffering, his mental health is suffering, his faith is unbroken but suffering. He cries out into the void, He laments to God that it would have been better if he had never been born, if the very stars had never shone in the sky.
Finally, 35 chapters later, out of the whirlwind, God speaks:
“Who was it that created the earth? Who set the morning stars singing and let loose the joyful shouts of the heavens? Who was it that set boundaries around the swirling sea? Who was it that tamed the chaos of the deep?”
God is not minimizing Job’s suffering, nor is God defending or ordaining suffering as a path to a greater good. God is doing quite the opposite: pulling Job and us out of a headspace where we try to understand, make sense of, or ascribe divine meaning to suffering.
God instead invites Job to remember the vastness of the creation, and the vastness of its creator.
God invites Job to regain perspective - if God is big enough to tame the heavens and the earth, then God is plenty big to carry his proportionately small existence as well.
God invites Job to re-establish faith in the one who is not defeated by chaos, but the one who, at the very creation of the world, asserted all power and authority over the swirling stuff of the universe; the one who drew forth from chaos the order and beauty of the cosmos.
Brennan Breed, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, writes: “Life is a process of expanding and unfolding and growth, but it also [includes] death and receding and collapsing…For growth to occur, some things must fail. For there to be new orders, the old orders must tumble. For there to be space for new life, some things must die…Nature needs disorder for its order to function…This is a mystery. It is not explained or defended; God merely asserts it. The world, full of beauty and creativity and danger, seems not to have been constructed merely for human consumption. The story is bigger than us, and none of us are the main characters.”
The story is bigger than us, and none of us are the main characters.
In the beginning, so the story goes, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void. The tohu va-vohu, as the Hebrew puts it. Vast, swirling, chaotic nothingness. Everything and nothing. A swirling sea of “not yet.”
From this raw material, God speaks: “Let there be light.”
And creation begins, a process of drawing order from the void. God takes what is formless and void, and thoughtfully and meticulously does the work of forming and filling.
God forms the light and the dark, forms the land and the seas and the skies. And then fills them with sun and moon and stars, flying birds, swimming fish, creeping things and vegetation.
And then God reaches down and grabs handfuls of dirt. God forms the dirt into a human form, and then God fills the earth-creature with God’s own breath.
Forming and filling. God transcending chaos. The world, resting in the hands of its creator: This is the bigger story of which we are a part.
Over and against the chaos that we know in our lives, personal and communal, our invitation is to trust that God is always creating, always forming, always filling, never leaving chaos unchecked, but instead drawing forth new life and new beauty from each tohu va-vohu of this life.
Whatever chaos we face, we trust that God is bigger.
Whatever storms we weather, we trust that God is stronger.
And we trust that God continues the holy and creative work of forming and filling us through it all.
As a society, we still face the chaos and void of racism and pandemic and politics.
But I believe that out of these swirling storms…
…we are being formed by our repentance for legacies of oppression that we have inherited and perpetuated. And we are being filled with a new fervor for justice - and the tools to seek it.
…we are being formed by our new awareness of public health and our new understanding of those who have lived much more than one year with health challenges that have kept them isolated. And we are being filled with creative energy for redefining community and connection in more expansive ways.
…we are being formed by our growing dissatisfaction with politics as a game of winners and losers. And perhaps we are or will be filled with new resolve to tend to the common good, and advocate for deeper conversations borne out of thoughtfulness and compassion.
And I know and trust that for all the other ways that our boats are being tossed to and fro, as a congregation and as individuals, we have the one who stills the storms riding right alongside of us. Jesus is not panicking. He is at rest. And perhaps our hearts can be at rest, too.
For we are held by the hands of mercy - hands powerful enough to scatter the stars across the sky, and hands tender enough to lift even the weariest of souls.
And when we, in our desperation, cry out, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” God will always respond, “Have faith. I’ve got this. Peace, be still. It is well with me. Let it be well with your soul.”