Genesis 1.1-10/Acts 2.1-21 11 May 2008
“NEW DESIGNS OUT OF OLD CHAOS”
Do you know how we go through times when our life feels swallowed by chaos? The power in my electric stove at home goes dead if I open the bottom drawer. But if I tilt the whole unit forward to 45 degrees, and gently set it back down, the power returns. That is, until the next time I open the drawer. We’re talking about chaos…I was one of the 250,000 people who had an American Airlines flight cancelled in April. I sought a refund. They noted I had booked through Iberia who flew me across the Atlantic. Talk to them! I called Iberia and they said, that con-nection wasn’t our flight, talk to American. I have already spent hours bouncing back and forth like this, and I am still at square one. We’re talking about chaos.
Two years ago, as I ate my Cheerios watching Sportscenter at sunrise, a long parade of winged termites made a pilgrimage en masse across the floor from my closet to my front window. The bug man has ingeniously fended them off. But it seems their cousins, the carpenter ants, were feeling left out. So this spring they make featured appearances on a regular basis. You can clear a plot of land from the forest but it is only a matter of time before the forest will claim it back again. Do you know how we go through times when our life feels swallowed by chaos?
The Bible says a lot about chaos and it isn’t very flattering. Gen. 1.2 reads, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was swooping over the face of the waters.” That “without form and void” is better translated “pure and utter chaos”. For the Hebrews turbulent seas symbolized this chaos. They were not seafarers, like the nearby Phoeni-cians, sailing off to settle Spain. They feared the seas. Maybe they never recov-ered from the daunting days of walking through a parted sea chased by an army.
Anyway, back to Genesis, as God’s creative presence swooped over the primor-dial waters, order emerged. But notice something: that primeval watery chaos predates creation itself. It is that entrenched in existence. Before creation chaos lurked as a preexistent menace. For Jews, chaos was the original threat to life, endangering everything good. Creation, to remain vital and strong, must con-tinually fend off this destructive chaos. Like the march of termites across my den.
So this theme of chaos threatening what is good in life is at once both ancient and modern. When things go terribly wrong later in Genesis, the writers look back to this primeval chaos, and shake their heads, “Well, there you have it. We saw this coming at the outset. We named this threat in the first word of the story.”
So when the earth floods in Noah’s time, it’s not so much God inundating things, as God briefly relenting in protecting us from these waters of chaos, stung by our faithlessness. When the chaos of Babel descends, everybody talking in their own words and no one understanding, it’s not so much God cursing the earth, as God wounded by our hubris in creating towering monuments to our ego, then ceasing his 24/7 orderly maintaining of creation’s wholeness, letting chaos creep back in.
And that brings us to our New Testament Lesson, Acts chapter two, the story of Pentecost, the birthing moment of the church of Jesus Christ. The followers of the resurrected Christ were together, and the rush of a wind around them was so mighty it even filled the house where they were gathered. Hmmm. Big wind. Picture that primeval wind that blew across the waters of chaos, the Spirit of God.
What is that creative wind up to now? Tongues of fire were upon each one of them in such a way that they were able to speak in new languages. Women and men from every known part of the earth were suddenly able to understand each other in their fervent desire to tell of the awesome deeds of our wondrous God. And they together were amazed and perplexed, saying, “What does this mean?”
I’ll tell you what it means. At Pentecost God reverses the chaos of Babel. God is redeeming this earth, just as God did in creating this earth, routing the powers of chaos, letting the forces of order carry the day. When I say “order”, I’m not talking about any imperial order. I’m not talking of one ethnicity keeping others down. I’m not talking the few having a cash cow to build up a big pile of money. That is often what the world means by the word “order”. I’m talking about the order Jesus saw in saying, “the kingdom of God is at hand.” The reign of God has arrived. The rule of heaven is now breaking forth. Mercy and grace. Healing and recon-ciliation. Truthfulness and justice. Abundance for all meaning scarcity for none.
What are the signs? Peter, who by the fire that night Jesus was arrested, couldn’t even claim Jesus as his friend, is now preaching like William Sloane Coffin. Peter told them: God’s Spirit will be heard speaking through everyone, not just those in charge. (You didn’t know Peter was a Congregationalist, did you?) Through this inspired speech of the many as opposed to the few who run things, the wonders of heaven will be revealed. And anyone who calls on God’s name will be saved.
Not everyone is impressed. And I love this part. Some onlookers observe all of the commotion and observe mockingly, these so-called Christians must be drunk.
Why are they not impressed? I’ll tell you why. God’s attempts to subdue chaos look like an even worse form of chaos: from that rush of the mighty wind, to the hovering tongues of fire, to the rewiring of the divided people’s linguistic habits. Is this order or is this a worse form of chaos? Then Peter stands up to preach and says, we are not just going to hear from the men anymore, we are also going to hear from the women. We’re not just going to let the usual elders call all of the shots, we are going to hear from the young. We are not just going to hear from the experts, we’re going to hear from everyone open to God’s ways on the earth.
Doubtless many said, if this is your idea of godly order, then I’d hate to hear what you call chaos. But the difference was that now the risen Christ ruled to hold it all together; to backstop us as we doubt.; to lift us up as we despair. Without him, all of this is madness. With him, all of it holds together and becomes a holy temple.
So hear the good news, friends. If you despair that chaos rules absolutely over your family life, your financial life, or your spiritual life, God is equal to that chaos.
God faced down that chaos before God before the foundations of the world. God responds to this chaos still, redeeming us from the pit of our worst slippage fears.
Of course, if we won’t heed God, like the families of the earth leading up to Noah; if we won’t honor God, like the builders of the Babel tower, stuck on themselves, God may use chaos to get our attention and turn us back to God. We spoke of that last week with the dilemmas that God threw at Saul, Ian, and others. Do you recall? God wants to take us apart in order to put us back together again to equip us for the joy God wants for us. And what takes us apart better than chaos? Re-member, ours is a God who used a cross for good. God has a genius for bring-ing good out of evil. There is nothing God can’t use. God can and will use chaos.
I know God meant us to move into this beautiful new sanctuary on this Sunday. Because we were meant to hear the Pentecost story in the context of occupancy. Does anyone recall the chaos of redesigning of Dennis Union Church? At first we could hardly grasp the floor plan, so Jesse built a model. Just as we thought we had cinched the design, a host of new voices were raised. And so that design evolved and evolved. And this church is better for it. But that chaos was not easy.
Then there was a six-week interval when we finished the capital campaign, set the budget, passed the budget, and were procuring the permits. The rush of that wind made my head swim. Then after Easter, 2007 we were finally ready to build. But we waited idly for three tortuous weeks as authorities sat on the paperwork.
In the midst of chaos, it is hard to trust God to bring good things out of it. That is the front and center test of our faithfulness. But you have all passed with flying colors. Well-done, good and faithful servants! Ten days ago I chatted with Terry, on-site construction manager. I asked if he had ever built at a church site before. Yes, he answered. But never one quite like this. How so? I asked. Everyone has a point of view. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody has to make their perspective heard. It makes me crazy, he said, referring to the chaos of our way. Actually, it sounds a lot like the promise fulfilled of that first Pentecost Sunday.
How do you lead here? he asked about our grass roots decision-making. Leader-ship is no problem so long as you don’t want to be a boss, I said. Just as it’s a good thing that as pastor I’m reminded this is not my church, but Christ’s, it’s also good for me to remind laypeople who imagine that the true church reposes in the personal DNA of their ideas and circles and experiences of the same thing. They hear this is not their church, but Christ’s. As we leave room for the Holy Spirit, as we trust Christ to hold it all together instead clinging to our illusions of being in control and possessing all the answers, it all balances out quite nicely. This way even if we are not all completely speaking exactly the same language, we’re still speaking the same language. Actually, that also sounds a lot like Pentecost, too.
Our Creator God subdued the waters of chaos at the dawn of creation. Our Re-deemer God reversed the deathly power of chaos as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That doesn’t mean we are done being tested by chaos. Now we must face into the chaos of moving in and sorting through a lovely unfamiliar space. Rather it means chaos is neutralized and even turned for God’s purposes. Aut of chaos that so often makes no sense an emerging new order rises that is of God’s will and way. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Eternal Spirit of the universe, swooping over the primordial waters of chaos from the beginning, and hovering in heartfelt ways over the chaos of our lives today, we thank you we’re not alone to face the world. You put your saving words within us and offer us the order of your dreams for this world to fulfill your design for us.
Give us courage and commitment to let your winds blow through us and to let your life be revealed among us. Empowered by your Spirit, we have come this far by faith to occupy this space, more beautiful than we could have imagined it. Empowered by your Spirit, we pray for ourselves in the next stages: moving, organizing, occupying, and then celebrating with all who have accompanied us.
Empowered by your Spirit, may we preach your word and break bread with joy, praise you in the midst of chaos for the directions you will make clear to us, and care for the needs of all people: most especially the many thousands in Myanmar who grieve the loss of loved ones, as we receive an offering on their behalf, and also Leo O’Brien, who after fighting off pneumonia now has infection and pain.
