Forgive this out of time issue of the Late Night Bible Study. It is always an out of time issue, I guess, since it isn't late night anymore. But it is pretty regularly a Saturday thing. But this Saturday I will be driving back from Tennessee and won’t get back in time to write this. So I brought my laptop (upsetting La Donna who is doing final prep for Mission U - ask her about it, and then back up a bit. No, just kidding she is calm. Sort of) and decided that I would see if I could get it done while away.
Yes, I said Tennessee. Which means that this bible study is not just out of time, it is out of place. I’m not in my home office, with the crazy dogs announcing every passerby and leaf out of place. I’m not there getting ready for worship the following day, filled up with the Presence longing to be shared with the congregation to whom I am privileged to preach about that Presence week after week. I am out of place.
News was not good from Tennessee, at least as far as I was able to understand it. There were too many questions that I couldn't answer. Too many concerns that weren't being resolved. I was troubled but feeling helpless. Too far away to feel connected, too busy to make the trip. Just troubled. But unable to effect any change or soothe troubled waters.
Pouring oil on troubled waters. What an odd kind of phrase. It wasn't too long ago that we watched with growing concern oil spewing forth into the waters of the Gulf and it didn't soothe anything. We recoil from such an idea, despite the colloquial nature of the phrase. Pouring oil on troubled waters. But a long time ago and for a long time in history, there was the commonly held belief that indeed a small vial of oil could bring smoother waters for sailing. Most ancient ship’s captains carried such vials, hoping never to have to use them. But they clung to the belief that if needed, the vials would indeed calm the seas.
Like any proverbial truth, there were skeptics over the years. Even Ben Franklin, apparently, conducted a series of tests and was convinced there was nothing to it. But others claimed to have seen the effect of a small amount of oil on a large expanse of water. There is even a YouTube video of an experiment with a spoonful of cooking oil and small pond rippled by the wind. The oil does indeed smooth out the ripples for a time. Maybe the experiments of Franklin and others had too much trouble, or not enough oil. The millions of gallons spewed into the Gulf didn't do the trick, it wasn't smooth sailing for a long time afterward. How much oil is enough?
Micah 6:6-8 "With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
How much does it take to buy off God? To soothe the troubled waters of our lives or the lives of those we love? Thousands of rams, then thousand rivers of oil? Of course, put that baldly we know better. We know that God isn’t bought off by our promises, by overwhelming devotion, by hours of prayer and pew sitting. We know that, and yet with the waters of our lives are troubled we often turn to bargaining. If I promise to do this, then God will you do that? If I offer this offering, and then up the ante every chance that I get, will God be so impressed that my desire, my hope, my desperate plea will be granted by the awed God?
Micah says don’t be ridiculous. You can’t impress God. You can’t out-give God. You can’t even come up with an amount that will pay off the debt you owe. Ten thousand rivers of oil? A drop in the bucket. Thousands of rams? Who already owns the sheep on a thousand hills? My child? My flesh? Already God’s from before you were formed in the womb. Already ransomed. Already forgiven.
Done and done. You can’t buy off God, because God has already given you your heart’s desire. You can’t get in God’s good graces because you never left. You can’t have God bend the laws of time and space because they've already been bent in your favor. Done and done.
But I want! I want so much. I want more than I deserve, more than I can imagine. I want for my mom to be healed, for example. Already done. Wait, what? No, she is here beside me. Broken and lost and confused and unable to function as she used to function, unable to respond as she used to respond, unable ... unable to be the mom I remember and suddenly need again. Don’t give me your mumbo jumbo about pie in the sky and sweet by and by. I want you to fix this, God.
Already done. He has told you, O mortal, what is good. What is good. What I want is good. It is right, it is fair, this isn't fair. This isn't right. This isn't good. Not by a long shot.
Listen again, my child. God has told you what is good. Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. A trilogy of living in this world. Three actions, three poles around which life revolves. The divergent behaviors that send us scattering around the world, around the community, around the room in the nursing home trying to do justice.
I came down to do justice. To get things right. Things weren't right and someone had to pay. Someone had to fix them. We weren't getting the information we needed, we weren't being assured that the right care was being given. I came, with the fire of God in my bones, to do some justice work down here. Except that I found care was being given. Provision was being made. They genuinely were trying to do what mom needed done. Yeah, it wasn't what I wanted, but it seems now to fit best. Here we are in right places with right relationships. Justice.
I came down because I loved kindness. I wanted to do something. Something to relieve the pain, something to relieve the hurt. I wanted an act of kindness that would fix what had gone wrong. But there was nothing to do. But to sit and to smile and to be present. Just walking in the door made all the difference for a time. Love kindness, not always to do but sometimes to be (Pastor Chris texted me that as I drove down on Wednesday. Thank you, Chris and all those who urged me to come down, even though I wasn't sure I could.)
I came down and learned, again, to walk humbly with God. There is nothing wrong with mom. She is different, she struggles, she isn’t who I remember. But she is who God remembers. And God is so present in this room it brings tears to my eyes every time I walk in. I can’t explain it, I just know it. I just feel it. I just see it. In her, from her, in the care that is provided. She is held in those loving arms and every now and then when her mind lets her, she relaxes a little bit and leans back. Oh for grace to lean back.
Turns out oil, even a little bit, spreads out so thinly over the surface of the water, and yet surface tension remains strong enough to counteract the ripples that would rise up and become troubled waters. It becomes like skin holding back the disturbance. It works, to a degree, oil on troubled waters. Skin holding back the pain, the hurt, the disruption. When mom is most agitated what works best is a hand on her shoulder. Skin holding back the disturbance. Incarnation. That’s why I came, though I didn't know it at the time. I came to do, but was needed to be. I came, as Christ came, to hold back the disturbance with my skin, for a time, a moment at best. So that we could all be reminded that healing has already happened.
The other thing I learned is that Micah doesn't give us three things to do, but one. It is all one. Jesus said to Martha, one thing is needed. Justice is kindness and humility before God is justice and kindness is to see the God in each one and to walk alongside. I came to walk alongside my mom who walked alongside me for all those years. Her skin wrapped about me, made me, her skin is in my skin and together we hold back the disturbance.
If it would have helped I would have packed ten thousand rivers of oil to come and smooth these waters. But all that was needed was my own skin. Here it is. Here I am. Send me.
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment