God is God (not you)

Job 38:1-11            Psalm 107:1-3,23-32      2 Corinthians 6:1-13       Mark 4:35-41

I wonder if this morning’s gospel reading took you back to Sunday school days?

Did it remind you of the classic action song – ‘with Jesus in the vessel you can smile at the storm…as we go sailing home’? (please tell me that song made it to Australia!).

This passage was a solid one for kids in my churches growing up. And the message we had to learn, along with the actions, was we didn’t need to worry because Jesus is in charge – he will calm the raging seas and the storms in our lives.

It’s a great message – it’s true to the story, maybe it’s even the point, but what else does God have for us? And what does God have for us in a world where sea levels rise, storms are more ferocious, and people die in boats as they cross waters looking for somewhere safer to live – where the waters are wild and untamed and aren’t peaceful and still. And hearts aren’t either.

And that train of thought took me to the reading from Job that N just read for us.

Job has been suffering and struggling. He has lost everything; his livestock, his servants and his children have all died in one day. His health fails and his friends are useless and revel in some intense victim blaming. He reaches the point where he wishes he was dead – he is full of fear and he’s angry and he feels intensely sorry for himself – understandably – and then God interrupts him and we have this passage, where God asks Job all these rhetorical questions:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding

Who determined its measurements – surely you know!

Who stretched the line upon it…who laid the cornerstone…who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out of the womb.

Who prescribed bounds for it and said ‘thus far shall you come and no farther’

And Job relents, pleads for his friends and he and they are restored.

And then we have Jesus, woken up in this fierce, terrifying storm, and he speaks to it and says ‘peace, be still’ and the wind ceases and there is dead calm, and the disciples are filled with awe.

And I think these two passages say the same thing.

And I think they have an overarching message that streams down through time and eternity and speaks into every situation…and even into our annual meeting, and every second that proceeds and follows it.

In this passage from Job we are hearing God say ‘I am God. I’ve got this. I made this and you and all these things. I am God’

In the gospel reading we hear Jesus saying ‘peace, be still’ or ‘I am God, I’ve got this. It’s going to be alright. Don’t panic’.

And the condition of the human heart is to think that we are the most important one here – that we are God – we are the centre of the universe – we are in control. That seems to me to be humanity’s starting point and go-to, particularly when the shit hits the fan. I’ve got this. I’ll sort it. and if we acknowledge there is a God, our main temptation is to create God in our own image; a God who loves the people we love and likes the things we like. A God who agrees with our politics and hates anyone and everything we hate. That is the condition of the human heart.

And our role, our counter cultural existence as children of God and followers of Christ is to say ‘I am not in control, Lord – you are’. Our role, through our whole life is to constantly assess where we are positioning ourselves and get out of the way so that God can be front and centre. Not because God is needy and insecure and wants the attention but because God is God and life works out better when we live that way.

Our lives work is to shift our attention from ourselves, from our vain ambitions to succeed and look good and to place our attentions on God and on all that God is doing and then to join in. 

Of course Jesus can calm the storm – in the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God – he was there when the wind and rain and sea and sky were made. Of course he can calm it. And of course he can calm the storms in our hearts and lives. Of course. And we can’t, because we are not God. But, as people who are committing our lives to follow and worship God and are trying to become more like Jesus we have a role in calming storms too.

While we need to make ourselves less of a god (with a small g) we also need to follow after the example of the one true God. So where we can bring peace and calm, we absolutely must. Where we can soothe the sick, care for the bereaved, help those who have lost everything, we must. Wherever we can be Christ’s hands and feet that is our role. Not because we are God, not because we can do it better, but because we want to open wide our hearts and emulate that life-giving love we have found in God.

God calms storms; literal and figurative. God brings peace. There is no situation that can’t be healed and stilled and redeemed. Our job is to fix our eyes and hearts on God, get out of centre so that God can work, and if we spot ways that we can join in, pray for the grace to do so. Amen.