Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
You have three ways to hear his weekly message:
- Read Pastor Jack's GODblog.
- Listen now to an audio of the scripture reading and Pastor Jack's sermon.
- Listen anytime. You choose the time and place. Download Pastor Jack's GODcast to your MP3 player.
Monday, June 26, 2006
When God Takes a Nap
Psalm 9:9-20; Mark 4:35-41
A violent storm came up on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus' disciples were sure their boat would sink and they'd wind up dead in the briny deep. What did Jesus do? He slept through the whole thing. They shook him awake with the question "Don't you even care?!" Ever feel that way yourself? All on your own, with God off somewhere taking a divine nap?
Listen to the GODcast!
_______________
My granddaughters graduated back-to-back recently, one into middle school, the other into high school. Grampajack attended both ceremonies and breathed in the youthful enthusiasm like spiritual oxygen.
The meetings were brimming with pride and joy, fulfillment and anticipation. The speeches vibrated with hope for a future filled with these young people's accomplishments and talents working to make the world a better place.
I listened with both optimism and pessimism.
Optimism, because that kind of young faith in human potential is just the thing that keeps us all moving forward into good new possibilities. These kids are tomorrow's teachers, inventors, healers, potential saints -- our very future in tender flesh and blood.
But pessimism, too, wondering how grounded in reality my optimism could possibly be. For I saw, even in the bright springtime sunlight, a shadow of uncertainty across those kids and their happy guests. It was the shadow of September 11, 2001 -- that terrible dividing line between confident assumptions and terrified suspicions.
In five years we've grown so used to wondering where another terrorist attack might come from. By whom... when... and for what reason? I was grateful the children seemed unfazed by all this. But my heart went out to them for the dark world they're inheriting.
Throw in global warming, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Add droughts and plagues, insurgencies and civil wars on most every continent. Doubts and fears are standing by to take your call.
I believe we tremble most at life's external threats when we're already troubled internally about some very real personal threats.
It's hard to feel strong and confident about this morning's headline news when last night you had a fierce argument with your husband or wife. Or when your teenager, finding his or her sea-legs for stable adult life, treats you like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of this planet.
You're licking your wounds, wondering how to patch up your relationships with the most important people in the world. And now you're supposed to do something about deaths and maimings and assorted acts of Congress?
Does your faith have what it takes to help you now? And where is God in all of this? Asleep? Aware? Does God really care?
And so we come to the disciples, on the edge of capsizing and drowning in a fierce sea storm. Jesus lies sleeping in bone-tired exhaustion, at the end of a long day's work doing what Messiahs do.
They shake him awake, yelling, "Don't you even care about us?! Do something, man! And do it now!!!"
And he does. No wasted effort, no long speech. Like a 5th grade school teacher, he stands front and center and simply says, "Shush." The gale force wind, the slashing rain, the hard rocking waves, all sit down with folded hands. Peace. And amen.
Even if God did take naps while life's storms rage around and inside us, it would only be because God knows everything is ultimately under control. But God doesn't really do that. God is always on the job.
Even though God is not above random miracles here and there, I'm convinced the way God usually works in this world is through average people who believe enough in God's way with the world that they're willing to partner up with God to get it done right.
None of us on our own will change the pessimistic problems of the world. All of us together will never turn them all around or wipe each one out, either. But we have no realistic option but to do our own small part in creating righteousness and peace, truth and justice every way we can.
The Talmud says it like this:
"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:31 AM
<< Home
|
|
 |
|
|
