The sermon last week was entitled "God's Presence Demands a Reponse", a fitting response to the power of prayer. Then came Sandy. The day after the storm, I drove into Perth Amboy to check the church. And there, in the midst of the debris being cleaned off the streets, boats from the marina piled up onto Front St., power out in 85% of the city, 66% of the state, those words stood out from the church sign.
God's Presence Demands a Reponse.
A day without power makes one feel small, two days and it feels like something off the television. There is a darkness without any lights out that is so different from the electric invasion of the night that we are used to. Shades of dark blue and gray and black are the pallet, not the shadows of streetlamps giving glimpses of the day time in the pools of light they throw out.
For me, it was like God's presence moved into the technology that we so take for granted and, just for a moment or two, the tech was shoved aside for something more primal.
We are a week from the election and, as always, it is so polarized, so ugly, so overwhelmingly negative these last few weeks...then a storm of epic proportions comes in and we, the people, left, right, donkey, elephant, we close ranks to care for one another.
For me, it was like God stepping down from on high and reminding us that elections are good, elections are necessary, elections are the foundation of the best form of government in history, but let us not forget who is really in charge, who can really pull a country together.
People died in the storm, that tragedy cannot be forgotten. And to credit God with the storm is to set responsibility for those who died on Him as well. But how about some perspective? How many shootings? How many homicides? How many other ways that humans have to kill humans far outweigh this event?
It is not my intention to lessen the impact of those who died in the storm, but neither is it my intention to lessen the deaths of any human beings.
All this from a sermon title. Well, a sermon title is supposed to derive from a sermon. A sermon is supposed to derive from the interpretation of God's Word. This time, the Word was not spoken from the pages of Scripture but from the world created by a Word of command.
2 comments:
Good to see you posting my friend. As Senate candidate Richard Mourdock learned the hard way, it is exceedingly difficult (and downright foolhardy in politics!) to engage the question of what God "wills" when it comes to evil or natural catastrophes. But I like your overall point. I think that this storm can teach us all humility, which is something we're not very good at. The power of the storm can reduce the most "powerful" city in the world to a standstill. We can't know God's role in this - I think that yes, God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, etc., but deciding on what God's will and intent is on stuff like this is way beyond my pay grade. And that to acknowledge that, I think, also demands a degree of humility.
So I don't know if God was making a point, but He sure did show us that we aren't in charge.
I was just pointed to the following really excellent reflection on the storm by Walter Russell Mead "Nature and Nature's God".
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/29/nature-and-natures-god/
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