Do you hear that? Behind the silence, a hum, perhaps. Maybe a vibration, an electricity that prickles the skin, raises the hairs on your arm. I remember sitting in the big old parsonage in Larwill, Indiana, just off the highway, listening to the radio tell us about a tornado sighting not far from town. And we waited. It looked green outside, a strange cast to the coming wind. We didn’t speak, didn’t breathe hardly. Just waited, afraid of the destruction to come. But not able to do anything, just wait.
The calm before the storm. That’s what it feels like this weekend. Let’s be honest, some of us are afraid. A recent poll said a significant number of people are worried about violence after the election. Those who aren’t afraid of violence are probably afraid of the outcome. It seems like so much is on the line. The storm that is coming might sweep us all away.
Too much? Overreaction? Maybe. But overreaction seems to be the theme of year. The political ads tell us if this party wins there will be terror in the streets. If the other party wins there will be the end of truth and the collapse of democracy. No wonder we are scared. No wonder we wait uneasily in our socially distant houses. No wonder we feel abandoned by hope. On the brink of a national election we should feel united, the betterment of the country in mind. Instead we feel broken and alone.
Waiting alone is the worst kind of waiting. We may think that’s what we want, so our fears don’t show. But the fear multiplies when we’re alone. Lying awake in our bed, we stare at the digital clock counting down our uncertainties late into the night. We are hardest on ourselves, particularly when we are alone. We reexamine every decision, every choice. We question every thought or inclination. We doubt ourselves, and become suspicious of everyone else.
This is why it is the modus operandi of those who seek to dominate us try to separate us from one another, to create an us and them; real Americans and our enemies. It’s not a matter of disagreement, of differences of opinion, it is fear and suspicion, division and distrust. The more we are alone, the more we are broken into pieces.
But that aloneness itself is a lie. Oh, it is often our human experience. We feel alone, abandoned, separate. But we aren’t. Sometimes our experience doesn’t reflect reality. There is a deeper truth that we forget. Especially in times of high stress, or threatening times. That deeper truth is that we are bound together by the source of being.
Isaiah 43:1-7 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 4 Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. 5 Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; 6 I will say to the north, "Give them up," and to the south, "Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth - 7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."
There are a bunch of little words that we have to note in this text. Oddly, this time it is the little words that carry the weight of meaning. The first little word to note is “when.” Read verse two again. There are two descriptions of the reality in which we are living. Or so it seems to me. Passing through waters and going through fire. Can you find a better description of 2020? Whether you talk about the pandemic or the racial uprising or the never-ending hurricane season, we’re either passing through deep waters or going through a fire. We are under threat. But notice how the prophet introduces these circumstances. When you pass through the waters, when you walk through fire. When. Not if. Or not “should you be so unfortunate as to find yourself in these difficult situations.” No, he very boldly, and unfortunately truthfully says when you walk through fire. When. It’s going to happen. We might hope we can live free of difficult times, but deep down we know that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. We know that stuff happens, to any of us, to all of us, stuff happens. When.
The second little word makes a world of difference in our difficult circumstances. And that word is “with.” When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and they will not overwhelm you. How do we know they won’t overwhelm us? Because it sometimes feels like I’m about to be overwhelmed, I don’t know about you. How are we to hear this promise? Through that little word “with.” We won’t be overwhelmed because we aren’t alone.
How does that work, exactly? If we could claim this truth, God is with us - we are not alone, then we will find resources that just might surprise us. When we realize that we are not alone, then we look for those who will walk beside us and share our hope and strength and work to change the circumstances that are threatening to overwhelm us. When we claim the presence of God as a given, then we shape our responses around that peace and that love that makes our world a kin-dom like place to live. This is why John Wesley’s supposed dying words were “Best of all, God is with us.”
But you might say, presence doesn’t change anything. On one level that is true. Nothing is changed in terms of the circumstance. But everything has changed in terms of the resources available to respond to the circumstances. When we embrace that presence, when we acknowledge that God is with us because God loves us (another small word in the text above), then our sense of self and our ability to react to the waters that threaten us, to find resources around us and within us expands into the wideness of God’s mercy.
The other truth to read in this passage is the somewhat obscure ending. There is a lot we don’t know about the history of this text. But what is clear is that God promises to gather us together. God says you work better as a community, as a nation unified. So, God says, I will gather you from the separation in which you have found yourselves. You may seem so far apart that you are no longer one people. But God can bring us together, God can overcome that distance. If we are willing to be brought together.
That’s the key. God doesn’t overwhelm our will. If we choose to be separate, if we choose to be alone, we can be. But that is not what God wants for us, or from us. And it begins with the realization that we are not alone. It’s a counter-cultural message to be sure. In our society we value the rugged individual who fights alone against all odds. That makes a cool movie. But it isn’t the way to live in the real world. We’re better, no, it’s more than that, we’re made to be together. To be one. That was Jesus’s prayer for us. That we would be one. One in the way that Jesus is one with God. Intimate, supportive, sacrificial, love alive in our oneness.
The storm will come. We might as well admit it. But it doesn’t have to overwhelm us. If we simply remember that we are not alone. We can then rise to the hope that brings us. Thanks be to God.
Shalom,
Derek
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