When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion on the floor of an apartment five friends were renting in Dinkytown, in Minneapolis. At one point, we ran out of toilet paper and went through all the napkins, coffee filters and finally, Far Side comics, before someone finally bought more. But whatevs. We were young.
When Andy and I graduated from seminary, we were in our mid-twenties, and were willing to go anywhere in the US to start our next life chapter. Coast? Desert? Mountains? Big City? Tiny town? Sure! Why not! Andy applied to programs all over, and when we moved to Princeton, New Jersey, we packed up all our things in a u-haul and drove from LA for five days across the country. Each day was spent listening to Harry Potter cds and eating sunflower seeds and drive-through fast food. Each night we parked the truck with everything we owned in the world, towing our only car, strategically where we could watch it from our motel window so it wouldn’t get stolen.
There are times in our lives we anticipate upheaval. We expect it; invite it, even. We are totally open to change, happy to cooperate with a little chaos. But I think we think that is supposed to stop. That you will go through your change and chaos phase, and then after that, things are supposed to be predictable and secure.
But life never stops with the turmoil. And upheaval is not an isolated incident. Children, or not, homes gained and lost, illnesses, adjustments—the changes just keep coming. That first friend to get divorced becomes one of many, maybe even yourself. That dream job you pursued falls through, that church you loved falls apart, that person you trusted falls away. And then your book club moves to zoom and eventually stops meeting, and your go-to restaurant goes out of business, and the person who has cut your hair for 20 years retires. The neighbor you love moves away and the new people don’t seem interested in connecting, and that special, lonely spot you found solace as a child has become a sea of strip malls.
And these are just the little changes, the everyday, ordinary, constant disturbances. That is to say nothing of global horrors, war and atrocities, famine and hunger, natural disasters or community violence, nor of the unexpected personal catastrophes and devastating deaths that leave you breathless and disoriented, trying to figure out how life will look in a landscape you did not choose.
Disruption doesn’t restrict itself to phases, and chaos doesn’t play by any rules. Trouble, tumult, terror, and seismic shifts happen in our lives and in the world all the time. From our birth until we die, living with the unexpected and navigating constant change is basically what it means to be human. anything can change at any moment, and everything does, all the time.
And in the midst of all this upheaval, we’re busy. We’re doing so much, and there is so much more we could be doing, and we only have time and energy for a fraction of it, and things are moving so fast who can keep up? But people seem to, so we strive, and reach, and do more, and wonder at our capacity, but keep scrambling to get our footing, racing to catch up, and feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and anxious so much of the time.
In our Jeremiah text the people of God are exhausted by turmoil, unsettled by circumstances, unsure of their capacity. They’d been ripped from home and forced into a life unfamiliar and uncomfortable, with no ease in sight, disoriented, trying to figure out how life will look in a landscape they did not choose.
They don’t know if they have what it takes to live up to their end of their relationship with God. In fact, all evidence from history and experience tells them that if it is up to them to remember and live from the truth of their belonging to God and each other they will fail.
But God says it’s not their job to uphold this relationship. God will make a new covenant, a new bond, not dependent on their ability to remember correctly and teach each other rightly, but written into their very hearts, every one of them. God will be God. They will be God’s people. This covenant can’t be broken because it will be inside them and God will do the heavy lifting. Their belonging, identity, security is from God; God does this. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
They are invited to trade their way of being for the one God is offering. They’re called to trust God and participate with God in a life of freedom and care for others, not when things get easier but right now - despite the upheaval, and right in the midst of their unsettledness. This home God is offering them is not dependent on what happens around them, because it happens within them, and between them.
Lent is a season of repentance. Repent doesn’t mean wallow in your disgustingness and come groveling back to God. The Greek word for repent, means literally “change how you think after being with,” ‘turn around, shift your being in another direction, change your purpose after this encounter.” Essentially, exchange your perspective for God’s, trade your way of being for the one God is offering. Repentance is the wake-up moment, when we say, Oh! I don’t want to live afraid, resentful, stingy, anxious and striving! I want to live connected to God and others in freedom and care.
The opening line of Psalm 46, sum up the theology of the whole book of Psalms in these words: God is our refuge and strength. God is our safety. A very present help in trouble. Not a helper in the midst of trouble but Help itself. Very present help. Right here. Right now. Right in the midst of it. Therefore we will not fear.
But I fear a lot. I am a very skilled fearer. I’ll let you in on the secret to my success: I practice fear by worrying. What if, what if, what if… My favorite time to do this is when I would really like to be sleeping. When I am finally still, at the end of the day, I’ve stopped rushing and outrunning my anxiety, then it all catches up to me and I let buckle down and get to my worry workout, what if… what if.. what if…
I would love to trade my worry for trust. I would love some ease and trust, To not feel tossed about by chaos and upheaval but grounded in God’s care. But if it’s up to me to remember my belonging to God and each other I will fail. So what does repenting even look like, and how do we do it?
It turns out, repenting is less something we do than what we stop doing.
Be still. Psalm 46 goes on to say. Be still and know that I am God. Be Still. In Hebrew, it means “put down your hands”- cease striving. Quit doing stuff. Stop overestimating your own power to fix, change, control or escape things. Quit your fleeing and flailing and wait for God to act.
In scripture, Be still is not a soft invitation to a spiritual spa moment. Be Still! is a command for the chaos. For the impossibility. For the crisis, and the injustice and the division and the shame. Be still appears as a command two places in scripture. One is here, in our Psalm, where it comes after telling us this doozy: Nations are in an uproar! kingdoms totter! God raises his voice and the earth melts....Be still and know that I am God.
The other place is 1000 years earlier than where we met the exiled Israelites today, when their ancestors have been delivered out of Egypt, but Pharoah has changed his mind, and has sent his entire army after them to destroy them. There they are, at the edge of the Red Sea, the chaos of waters blocking their way forward, and Pharoah's whole army bearing down on them from behind. They are trapped, hemmed in by danger, facing sure and certain death, and the command comes, Be still! The Lord will fight for you.
At the very moment when it seems like you should be scrambling and grabbing, and mustering all your resources, put your hands down. Right in the middle of chaos and the tumult, when you’re uprooted from home and stuck in a place you do not choose to be, when you’re trapped, with nowhere to go, and certain death bearing down on you, Put down your hands.
Stop moving. Stop doing.
You are not God. Let God be God.
When things feel overwhelming. Be still.
When fear threatens to rule you. Be still.
When you’re unsettled and lost. Be still.
When the whole world seems to be convinced that we are about to be destroyed, Be still.
Be still and know I am God.
When we’ve stopped rushing and outrunning our anxiety, when it all catches up to us, when we surrender our grabbing for control, God meets us here and takes us in another direction.
God-- who breaks the bow and shatters the spear and burns the chariot and raises his voice and the earth melts and finds us when we’re lost and makes a way where there is no way and brings us home in love wherever we are—this God answers worry’s incessant what if, what if, what if, with the steady and unwavering heartbeat of Love, holding us close, “Even though… Even if… Even when…” Even then.
Even though the earth changes. And mountains fall into the sea, and tsunamis and storms and whirlwinds roar through our world, and the very ground seems to shake beneath our feet and turmoil and tumult overwhelm us. Even when the divisions between us seem insurmountable, and the constant voices around us urge urgency, and the judgment within us is loud and unceasing. Even if we’re between jobs with no prospects yet, or we’re staring down a diagnosis we can’t yet get our heads around. Even when the state of the world feels precarious and dangerous, or our precious kids that we’ve been so focused on raising are suddenly off adulting half-way across the country. Even then. Not because these things don’t or won’t happen, but because they will, and do. Even now.
We will not fear.
God is our refuge and strength.
God’s salvation meet us just exactly how we need to be met, to heal us where we are sick, and mend us where we are broken, and release us where we are caged, and find us where we are lost, and be our refuge in tumult, and give us a stability and security not dependent on what happens around us, because it happens within us, and between us, not by what we do but by mighty hand of God.
Our belonging, identity, security is from God. God does this. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, God says, “and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
We are God’s people. Always. No matter what.
May we rest in trust.
Amen.
Portions of this message were adapted from a chapter of Receiving This Life.
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