12th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Storms and Torrents
Three of today’s readings – Job, the Psalm and the Gospel, speak of storms. Most of us have a memorable storm experience we can relate: mine concerns a drive along the backroads between Stroud and Newcastle in NSW… it was blowing hard, and a torrent of water lashed my little Lancer. Suddenly it all stopped. Amidst an eerie silence I noticed the extraordinary stillness, but the trees growing close on either side were shedding great quantities of leaves, just dropping them silently… as I watched in awe and wonder, and before I had time to think, the wind struck again, lifting the Lancer and shifting it across the road, where it plonked me down, and I, hands still holding the wheel, drove on into heavy rain and wild wind, the trees writhing and tossing their heads once more… What a ride!
Job, the hero of the Biblical book that carries his name, endured calamity after calamity, and in reply to his pious friends he accused God of ‘turning cruel to me. You lift me up on the wind… and you toss me about in the roar of the storm’. We heard today a small section of God’s rebuke, delivered from a whirlwind: ‘…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 said ‘This far shall you come, and no further, and here shall your proud waves be stopped?’ Here God is portrayed in feminine terms as Mother, giving birth to the sea, clothing it and wrapping it in swaddling bands, and like all good mothers, setting clear boundaries, preventing it from going too far. Now God reprimands Job for his audacity in claiming the right to judge the Creator, the Source of all power. As Ecclesiastes reminds us – no-one has power over the wind. Psalm 62 declares, Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God,
Across the world there’s a growing sense of being tossed about in the roar of a storm, as our planet is battered by fierce storms and proud waves, dried to a crisp under the merciless sun or burnt to a frazzle by raging fires, and all the while COVID19 continues its deadly rampage. When God, the Source of all Being, created the chaotic waters of Earth, she controlled them; setting limits to allow space for the mountains and plains, deserts and forests that would become home to humanity and other creatures.
If you heard Soul Search on the ABC last week you will have heard Meredith Lake interview Dr Meg Lowman, Executive Director of the Tree Foundation, about the Church Forests of Ethiopia, a country where humanity has breached its God-given boundaries, destroying about 97% of its forest cover: the last 3-4% is preserved in little patches around the churches – tiny oases of habitat for animals, insects and plants. With her help, priests and congregations are preserving and expanding the forests, aiming to restore a balance between nature and humanity. Dr Lowman remarked ‘The priests are the stewards of all of God’s creatures as well as the human spirit”. These words cut me to the heart: I knew it already, but to hear a secular scientist express it so clearly really brought it home - and not only priestly responsibilities - for one of our Baptism vows asks ‘Do you renounce Satan and all evil?’ Surely it is evil to destroy the work of God’s hands; and in so doing, destroy the livelihood of other people, and the habitat of countless other creatures?
Psalm 107, in describing the saving power of God in history recalls some ancestors in ships when ‘he [God] commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths…their courage melted away…’ It sounds a bit like the Disciples experience on Galilee, with the great waves swamping the boat, and them losing hope – “Do you not care that we are perishing?”
He does care, of course.
St Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Christians live no longer for themselves but for others, and it is in this context that I speak today in regard to the Gospel, never forgetting that Jesus’ unfailing compassion means he is continually available to individuals in need. I, and probably most people present can recall stormy times when Jesus has restored peace and given strength to go on in response to our entreaties.
Today I take a more collective perspective. “He waka eke noa” We are all in this canoe together. Every word and action of ours affects others. If the Church Forests of Nth Ethiopia are protected and enlarged the whole world benefits.
The great chaotic sea with its proud waves despises boundaries. On every beach at high tide the waves rush forward, reaching as far as possible onto the sands, grasping loose objects and carrying them away. Roaring with rage, and drawing back to gather strength, they recklessly hurl themselves against rocky cliffs, or any obstacle standing in their path. Sometimes they successfully break through onto land, bringing destruction and disaster.
God placed limits on human power, as he did on the sea. God did not give us the earth, it is not ours. God gave it into our care to till and tend, and enjoy – in return the earth feeds, clothes, warms and shelters us. But we want more, we want power over every creature, control over every inch of land; we take what belongs to others, we take more than we need, we take and take and consider it our right to take more… And so, we’ve overstepped our boundaries. As tsunamis destroy all in their path; and the viral spillover known as COVID19 turns the world upside down; so humanity’s appetite for power brought us to this point where we’re calling Jesus to wake up! See the towering waves of disaster! Don’t you care that we are perishing? No matter that we have brought it on ourselves… Jesus cares alright, and he is the one whom even the wind and the sea obey.
As storms, floods, fires and droughts batter this wide brown country, we cry out to Jesus. And as I call him I remember something Teresa of Avila said:
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
God’s peace be with you. Pirrial