Creation Series: Peace in the Midst of the Storm

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Our first reading is from the 8th chapter of Proverbs. God created me at the work’s beginning, the first act of long ago. Ages ago I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. When the Creator had not yet made earth in fields of the world’s first bits of soil. When the heavens were established, I was there. When God drew a circle on the face of the deep, made firm the skies above, and established the fountains of the deep. When the sea’s limits were assigned and the creator marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside God, like a master worker, a daily delight, rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Our second reading is from Psalm 148. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens and in the heights. Praise the Lord with all the hosts of angels. Praise the Lord’s sun and moon and all you shining stars. Praise the Lord, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for they were created at God’s command, establishing them forever and fixing their bounds which cannot be passed. Praise the Lord from the earth, you see monsters and all deeps fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling God’s command. Mountains, all hills, fruit trees, and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle creeping things and flying birds, rulers of the earth and all peoples, all the people alike, old and young together. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for the Creator’s name alone is exalted with the glory above earth and heaven. Praise the Lord.

Our final reading this morning comes, uh, is the good news reading from the Gospel of John chapter 6. Then the Jews began to complain about Jesus because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They were saying, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the God who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from Holy Creator comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Creator except the one who is from God. That person has seen the Creator. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that 1 may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven, and whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Amen. The good news.

SERMON

I have lived my entire life in the state of California. No, uh, I love living in California, but one of the things about living in California, at least living in most of California, maybe not all of it, is that we just don’t really have much weather.

I don’t know if you’ve really realized that our seasons are divided by warm and nice, hot but nice, crisp but nice, and then fire weather. Which is just windy and and hot, um and we wish it wasn’t so windy and then occasionally and I kinda always forget this one and then we have earthquake weather which is sort of hot and then sort of cold and so then you have earthquake weather and that’s the weather we have in California.

But I luckily have traveled. I have not just sat here in California, but I wouldn’t complain if the only place I ever traveled was all over and up and down the state of California because this is a huge state, by the way, and we have a lot of interesting things to do. But I’ve been out and about and in fact our family always would gather at Yellowstone National Park for a week or two during the summer as I was in my teen and early adult years and there’s something about leaving the state and learning about different parts of the country and so here we would be in this beautiful, I mean it is gorgeous. Yellowstone is stunning.

But one of the things that happens there is they do have storms, summer storms. Anybody ever experienced summer storms somewhere other than I got 1, I got 2, I got a couple of people. It’s rare here, not so rare other places. And I would remember my grandfather would all of a sudden say, like he just go, there’s a storm coming and you’re like, Blue sky, sunshine, we’re out kayaking, and he’d, he’d look and he’d smell. And then he’d say, You have about 20 minutes. It’s time to get the kayaks back onto the onto the onto the beach.

And I was like, Uh there’s not a cloud in the sky and so we’d paddle our canoes back to the beach and we’d get out and you’d start to slowly see it, but for my grandfather, he smelled it and he knew my grand my grandfather grew up in Canada and apparently there’s weather there. And so we watch it come in. Now, depending on where you are, depends on how quickly my grandfather moves you. So out on the kayaks he wants us off the water, get off the water. That’s the first part for him.

Now we gather your stuff because you wanna make sure your stuff stays dry and get yourself back up to the, you know, we were near the home, so get back up to the house. We were like, OK, occasionally though we wouldn’t be in kayaks and near our home and we would be out doing hiking. Well, that’s a different change and now my grandfather says, go find a big tree and go stand underneath it and we’re like, it’s just water. I got a rain jacket on. My grandfather goes. Go find a big tree and go get underneath that, and you’re like, OK.

And then the hail starts before rain. There’s a couple drops, and then you get this kind of squishy hail, you know, the kind that’s kind of more like snowish and it kind of lands and kinda goes spat and you go, oh, that’s not so bad. I could be roaming around in that. I don’t know, whatever and then it starts to freeze and now they’re they’re like pebbles falling from the sky and you’re like, oh, pebbles from the sky, but the pebbles get harder and they get bigger. And then they’re like marble size. Then they’re like the size of a quarter.

And now you’re hugging a tree and you’re also thinking, lightning, lightning. Weather is a crazy thing anywhere but here and the storms come and they pass so quickly. It’s like you’re hugging that tree and it’s it’s just hailing everywhere and there’s thunder and then poof there’s sun’s back out and you’re like, right, get out to the lake, you know it’s no big deal we’re gonna go hit those kayaks and let’s finish that hike and you’re like, is there another one coming? And he goes, probably. It’s fine. I’ll let you know when it happens and we’re like, OK, thanks, Grandpa.

And it’s sometimes just so very scary and then I go back to my safe space in California where it’s warm and sometimes chilly and the nighttime and you get a breeze, but if you grew up in the San Fernando Valley, there was never a breeze until like I don’t know, December I think we got breezes or they were called San Ana winds it’s a little different, but you have to be from there to understand all that.

And I’ll be honest, I never complain about living in California. I tell people all the time I live in the best state ever. But here’s the thing about storms. They are ever present. They are ever present, and they are in our lives in which we are not able to control them. You ever noticed you cannot control the weather. That storm was gonna come whether I wanted to get out of the water and I wanted to drag my kayak back up to the house or not. It was going to come. I could not change that that storm was coming.

I cannot change that there is going to be snow in the hills when I’m driving to go skiing up in Tahoe. I cannot control anything about the weather and neither can any of you as far as I know, but if you can please let us know. That’d be really great information to have.

In fact, let’s think about this. Science is pretty amazing, and science is completely incapable of figuring out how to control the weather. They’re lucky enough they can figure out they’ve got like things now they can tell you it’s coming. Hey, guess what? Big tornadoes somewhere out there might hit your town and you might get a 5 minute warning to get somewhere safe. We have storm trackers everywhere checking to see what’s happening, but nobody, nobody can change the fact that that storm is gonna come.

And what’s interesting is the number of storms that we have now the grandiose size of the storms that come our way now are bigger and longer and stronger and harder than they’ve ever been before. And the truth of the matter, the only thing science knows now to control them is for us to change our own behaviors. For us to change our ways. So isn’t it funny that maybe we do have more control in this than we thought.

Maybe we do have a little bit of control as to whether or not our environment becomes a holy terror. Maybe we do have a little bit of control into figuring out how we can make some changes in which those things that we do, we can change and reverse. It is a fact that some of the ozone that has been depleted has re. Grown itself it is a fact it’s not the whole thing, but it has a slow there’s a slow process things will grow again things can change, but it takes change of our behaviors to make that happen.

But the thing about weather and storms and causation is that storms are going to be a part of our life even if we were to change our behaviors even if we get back to making sure we’re not abusing our our own environment storms are storms they’ve always been around. This is not new. And there’s other kinds of storms that seem to follow us into places and spaces that we cannot get rid of and we cannot avoid.

So how many of us would say in the last 10 years, our lives have gotten easier, less chaotic, and more simple? The last 10 years. Anybody? Becky says in some ways, maybe. You’re thinking, yeah? You’re like, yes. It’s an interesting question to ask because in the last 10 years we’ve had inventions of all kinds of crazy things that are actually meant in some form or another to slow down our lives and to make things simpler.

But I find that all it does is add more things into my day to day life instead of less things. I feel that the addition of all these amazing ways that are supposed to get better we have smart phones, smart cars, smart vacuums, smart everything, everything is so smart now. And yet, I don’t feel like I’m any smarter, and I don’t feel like it’s made my life really all that much more simple because all I notice is that there’s an expectation I should be able to do more.

Right, I should be able to do more like the invention of the and and don’t get me wrong because I love my washing machine and I love my job and I wanna be really clear before I say anything else and I don’t just mean my job here. I love all my jobs that I’ve ever had. I love the fact that I get to go to work and I get to participate in the world around me, but the invention of the washing machine.

Is what made it so that women could go back to the workforce or just be in the workforce, but it didn’t make our lives any easier and it didn’t make our lives any less stressful by being in the workforce because we had a washing machine we just found more ways of things to do. And be more busy. You think Beck Becky, you don’t wanna go down and and just be on the side of the rock cleaning your laundry.

I am grateful for technology. I truly, truly am. I have no desire to go backwards. Um, I’m not one of those people. I, I, I will use all of it, but what I know is that my life hasn’t significantly gotten better per se or easier. Maybe that’s the word. My life has gotten better, but it hasn’t gotten any easier. I should be careful about the words I choose.

Because there are still things that are gonna happen. Even though I can get an Amazon delivery tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. for that thing that I didn’t have at, you know, 6 p.m. and I’m like, oh, you know what, I really wish I had. Oh look, Amazon will deliver it between 4 and 7 tomorrow morning. That’d be awesome. That’ll make my life better, not really gonna make my life better.

In fact, I’m still stressed, we’re still fragile and we’re still lonely people living within this space of our time together and when I say that, I mean, you know, our time together, whatever that is.

Jesus says to us, come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened. And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I wonder if we believe this to be true. Do we actually believe that Jesus will give us rest? You know, rest for our souls. Do we believe that that is something that can happen for each and every one of us. Well, I for one do. Let’s just put it right there. I for one do. I do because I rely on this every single day.

Every single day, I could not get through so many, so many days if I were not able to hold this belief to be true and hold it sacred in my heart. In fact, I believe many of you in this space, all of you maybe in this space also believe it to be true whatever the spaces that you’re in and the reason I know this about you and I feel this about you is because you’re here and you want to hear more about what Jesus has for you.

One of my favorite days of the week and you’re all thinking is today is Sunday, right? Yes, but one of my favorite days of the week is Friday, and I know you’re aala TJIF thank God it’s Friday, and yes, it might be the possibility of a swirl later in the evening. That might be true too, but actually it’s Bible study. Every Friday we have Bible study. It’s a small few who gather, but when we do, it’s one of the most meaningful days of my week.

We talk about our lives and we share the things that are happening in our lives and, and we’re kind of dissect what’s happening and that’s that place of relationship and two. We study God’s word together. We study the word we go deep and we we contemplate what it means today when we hear God’s word like we can talk about like, oh, I was watching the news and it just, that just resonated with me like what I watched on the news and what was happening during this time.

And how things just they don’t change all the time that people don’t always change or how can we take that reading and then remind ourselves of how amazing it is to have a God who loves us so much that would be willing to do the things that Christ did to come into this place in this space to be with us.

Friday’s stretch me and then they grow me and then they spark me and they keep me grounded. Bible study does that, and I love those opportunities of being there and in the word and with others who want to be in the word with me. And to challenge me and ask me questions that as a pastor, I often go. I don’t know. I’m not sure. And sometimes I get to go, 000, I know the answer to that. That one I know. I remember reading about that when I was going through seminary. I know the answer to that.

These are the things that we do and the ways of which we grow, and the way that we remind ourselves, we’re just never alone. We’re just never alone. And sometimes even in a room filled with people, we can feel that way, but Christ’s presence goes with you everywhere and all times.

We were never created to be alone, we were never created to be by ourselves, right? And we, we talk about how there’s going to be storms in our lives. There are gonna be so many we cannot count them. There will be so many storms in our lives, we can’t count them all. And don’t. And don’t count them all. Count your blessings instead, right?

Don’t count all the storms because there will be so many. They come on like waves on the beach sometimes they’re soft and they’re gentle, and they roll along and they spin back out and sometimes they come crashing in with little to no room for you to even breathe in between them. Storms come, winds come and sweep us off our feet from the place that we thought we had a stronghold to the earth, and they knock us down into places and spaces we are not prepared to be in.

But we do have Jesus who is our ever-present savior. And sometimes in the midst of storms, that’s the one thing that grounds us, that holds us in place.

I’ve been singing this song in my head the last couple of days and I kicked myself when I realized we were not singing it today, kicked myself, my own fault we’re not singing it today. And so I’m gonna, I’m gonna sing the words or I’m gonna sort of sing the words and then anyone can join in when I start if you know them because someone’s gonna know them. And the beginning of the song goes like this

if my heart is overwhelmed and I cannot hear your voice,
I’ll hold on to what is true, though I cannot see.
If the storms of life, they come and the road ahead gets steep.
I will lift these hands in faith. I will believe.

This, the storms of life are going to come. And we will be tossed to and fro.

And like we heard from last week’s reading from Luke 8, Jesus was with his disciples and they were out on the lake, and he was taking a nap. He was probably tired and he probably really, really needed a nap. And a storm arose, probably much like the storms that I experienced when I was at Yellowstone, the ones my grandfather goes. There’s a storm coming, and there’s nothing you can do to change a storm coming, and the storm arose and the boat became tossed about. There was wind and there was rain, and Jesus slept. He just slept through a crazy storm.

The disciples came and they woke him saying, Master, master, we will drown. And Jesus got up, probably groggy, tired, looking at each of them like, oh come on, I needed a nap so bad. And he gave the command to the wind and the waves, and they stopped. And it became calm. And Jesus said to his followers, where is your faith?

We have a choice when the storms come. We can choose to go it alone. Do it. We have, you know, we’ve been taught how to be ever present, do our thing by ourselves, make it happen. I am strong. I don’t need anyone. We can do it by ourselves or we can choose other ways and we can ask Christ to guide us to be the one who comes because it’s Christ is the only one who apparently can calm a storm.

So far I’ve tried many times to calm things and it never really works and in fact my own life. Doesn’t really work. So if the one thing we can hear in our scriptures is that Jesus can come a storm, why would we not want Jesus to be in our back pocket at all times or our heart? Why would we not go there first? Why would we not rely upon the fact that in all things and in all spaces, Christ is with us.

And I’m not talking about that Christ is there to control every storm that comes your way because it’s not about, it’s not about changing the chaos so that it never happens, cause that’s not gonna happen. Storms are gonna come. But what does change is how you deal with the storm.

What does change is that when the storm comes and you rely on Christ and you say, you know what, I’ve got a storm and it’s a brewing and I can see it’s coming and it’s heading my way and it looks like it’s gonna be big. You can get underneath the tree, give it a big hug, and remember that there’s something there who’s gonna walk with you and remind you that I am your ever s steady present.

In your life, always steady, present, you can come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you peace. I will grant you the things that you need which are peace in your heart and strength to go through the next day. And that’s all you really need most days. Peace in your heart to have strength for the next day, cause the next day, guess what you’ll get. Peace in your heart and strength for the next day. That’s what you asked for over and over. That’s what we get.

And so while you’re sitting in spaces and places that are chaotic, the things you cannot control in your life, which is, by the way, everything pretty much that you can’t. You have hectic schedules and demands of family and friends and work and your own health. I just wanna say this. Stop

And lift your hands and say, no, not Kalgan, take me away, but say Jesus, I know you are with me and you will walk with me through every turn and every step, for my heart is weary, but your hands are great, and I ask for you for your peace and your strength today right now to get me to the next, and the storms will continue to come, but the peace is always in that midst. And it is yours to be had.

Amen. Amen.