Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
“Be
still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will
be exalted in the earth.”
The
LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Those two words, “Be
Still”, represent for us one of the most difficult challenges for us and also,
an incredible invitation to a life of faith and trust.
Be Still.
Just be Still.
Another similar
passage comes from Exodus, the 14th Chapter.
Moses had just
led Israel out of Egypt, and they had come to the Red Sea. As they stood there with their backs to the
sea, and with Pharaoh’s army bearing down upon them, they panicked.
In great fear
they cried out to the Lord.
In response to
their cries, Moses said:
"Do not
be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish
for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only
to keep still."
Of course then,
the sea parted and the Israelites were delivered out of the hands of the
Egyptians and set free.
Stand firm.
Be Still.
And know that I
am God.
In Psalm 46 David
addresses two of the most powerful sources of threats to the people, natural
disaster and the national crisis of war.
In Genesis 1 the
state of the universe prior to God’s creative activity was that of a watery
chaos, formless, void, and dark.
And to an extent,
the threat under which we live in the face of natural disasters is a return to
that primordial chaos which reigned upon the earth at that time.
Fear is the
result.
Jerusalem was a
city that lay in the sites of many an empire.
The nations of
the world would rise up against her, and more than once armies would lay siege against
her.
Our instinctual
response to such threats and the fears they provoke is either to flee or fight.
God invites us to
another response:
Be
still, then, and know that I am God.
Calm down.
God is in
control.
As we journey
through this life we face threats in various ways and forms.
The first is the
threat to our life that comes as a result of our own mortality.
Life is fragile.
It is a delicate
balance.
And it can come
to an end in a moment, in the blinking of an eye.
The older I get,
the more aware I become of this.
And one of the
facts that becomes more and more pronounced for me with each passing year is
how many times I have faced issues which might have caused my death.
On Friday
morning, driving to work in Hayden for the last time, I reflected on how lucky
I was to have made that commute, in all sorts of weather, for four years and
aside from a minor altercation with a deer, to have been safe through it all.
A simple thing
such as driving can be a threat and end our lives in the blink of an eye.
I’m also
increasingly aware of the threat that we face with our health.
I’ve had at least
three conditions that, in another day, could have meant my death.
Open heart
surgery for a mitral valve failure.
Nearly drinking
myself to death.
And last year, a
bowel obstruction that just a few decades ago would have meant sure death in a
matter of days and weeks.
In the face of
all that threatens us, God calls out to us:
Be
still, then, and know that I am God
Our nation finds
itself in perilous times.
In years past the
threat that we faced was from the outside.
Whether it was
the Germans or the Japanese in World War
II, or the Russians during the height of the Cold War, the enemy was well
defined and, to an extent, easily defended against.
Today the threat
to our nation lies within.
It’s not that the
Left is a threat.
Or that the Right
is a threat.
What really
threatens our country is the growing partisanship and widening divide between
Left and Right.
Even though no
shots have been fired it is as though our nation is at war with itself.
And we fear for
the future.
Face with these
fears, God’s word for us is
Be
still, then, and know that I am God.
On another front,
natural chaos looms on the horizon and is too often experienced.
Mother Nature
seems to be pissed.
Scientists tell
us that this is the result of climate change.
And, that matters
will get worse, much worse.
Storms will rage
and destroy.
Flooding and
droughts.
Rising sea
levels.
And significant
changes to the delicate balance of this world in which we live that may result
in a variety of threats to our health and wellbeing.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth
be moved, and though the mountains shake in the depths of the sea; though its
waters rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
Be
still, then, and know that I am God.
Face with all
these threats do we fight or flee?
Or do we simply
choose to ignore them, pretending they are not here?
For some of us,
we have the privilege of responding with apathy and indifference because at the
moment we are not under direct threat.
For others, the
threat is real and the threat is now.
Category 5 Hurricanes
cannot be ignored.
Nor can one ignore
it when the family farm is now under water due to rising lake levels.
The dysfunction
of our government, and the threat to our democratic way of life do not resolve
themselves if we simply turn off the news.
Nor does our
mortality go away if we but choose to ignore it for another day.
Faced with all
this we can come out fighting.
Or we can flee as
fast and as far as we can.
Or we can just
stand there.
Be
still, then, and know that I am God.
The measure of
our faith is not in how we entertain ourselves during the good times, but
rather in how we face the most difficult of times.
Can we sit back
and simply trust God to be our deliverer, our savior, and our protector?
It seems to me
that there are two dimensions of this faith in God.
The first
dimension is to recognize that God, and not us, will be the only one to be able
to address and overcome these most difficult of threats.
In the midst of
it, our response then is to be that of faith, standing firm, being still, and
witnessing the salvation of our God.
That is a passive
faith in which we place our trust in the God who has promised to save us.
And then there is
also an active faith.
It is a bold
faith.
It is a faith
that believes that God can work through us and bless our labors as we seek to
do his will and follow his commands.
It takes faith to
believe that we can be agents of healing.
It takes faith to
believe that we can be ambassadors of reconciliation.
It takes faith to
believe that we can care for this planet upon which our very lives depend.
Most of all, it
takes faith to believe that God can and does work through us and through our
labors.
May this peace
that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
Amen.
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