Dec 19, 2001

Donald Tuttle, Corpus Christi

FIRE

I am not much for poetry, but a few years ago I was at a conference where theologian Leonard Sweet quoted a poem by W.B. Yeats. It was entitled "the Second Coming" and was written in 1921. The opening lines are these:

Turning and turning the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Now when I heard the third and fourth lines—

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world—

It was an epiphany. What Keats had captures was the reality most all of us experience. It is the coming apart, the spinning out of control, of our world. It is that point at which what we thought was immoveable—be it our health, our marriage, our job, our nation, whatever—gives way. And nothing will ever the same. It is the unraveling of life as we have known it.

BRIDGE

But have you noticed that different people respond differently to such experiences.

Randy and Geneva Culp were farmers. Like many farmers, they lived close to the financial edge. A few years of bad weather and bad crops ultimately pushed them over it. The farm credit company from which they had been borrowing money foreclosed. It took their land, their equipment, their home and their savings—and still left them owing more than $100,000. To make matters worse, two weeks later Randy lost his job as a ranch foreman. He and Geneva found themselves working odd jobs, including a stint in a fast-food restaurant, to pay their debts. So little was left at the end of the each week that they often had to depend on the generosity of others for groceries and living expenses. Yet through all, they persevered. They kept getting up in the morning. They found even times in which to laugh.

Around the same time, there was another couple—friends of the banker who had foreclosed on the Culps. They made a few bad investments, a few bad decisions, and like the Culps, they lost everything. Their world spun out of control—and so did they. In the end, he became angry and bitter. She overdosed on sleeping pills.

Two couples—both had the center of their lives give way. One makes it; one doesn’t. One perseveres; one collapses. One knows calm; the other chaos. What is the difference? What makes it possible for one to know peace while the other knows only pain?

POINT

During Advent we have been exploring just that question. Our readings from the prophet Isaiah have suggested various answers—various essentials for peace. We have looked at the need to know and obey God’s word, to practice justice and to experience God’s healing. But there is a fourth essential for peace, one that makes all the difference. That essential is faith.

I am not talking about "faith" as some vague notion that all will be well just because we have no choice. I am talking about "faith" as an active, bet-my-life confidence in the God revealed in Scripture. It is knowing that because of who God is and what God has done through Jesus that God we can trust God with our lives and futures. That kind of faith makes it possible to be at peace when one’s world comes undone.

EXAMPLES

That faith is what Ahaz was lacking.

Ahaz was the king of Judah. That was not a bad thing to be. It meant that he was an heir of Israel’s great King David. It meant that God had promised him care and protection. It meant that he oversaw the holiest of places, Jerusalem, the city of God.

Yet the crown rested uneasily on Ahaz’s head. Assyria was the lone superpower at the time and Ahaz had been able to keep peace with it. But two other nations—Syria and Ephriam—had decided to team up against Assyria. They wanted out from under its control and they thought they could attack and make it happen. And they wanted Ahaz to help. In fact, they threatened that if he didn’t join them, they would overthrown him first.

Of course, you see the problem. His nice, secure world is starting to spin out of control. Side with Assyria and Syria and Ephriam will attack. Side with Syria and Ephriam and Assyria could well come and destroy him. All the time, the prophet Isaiah is saying, "Remain neutral. Trust God. Have faith."

But Ahaz couldn’t. Even when God gave him a sign—told him that the threat would pass before the pregnant woman’s child was old enough to eat curds and honey—Ahaz couldn’t do it. He lacked the faith to believe that God could be at work in his out of control world.

Now compare that to Joseph. He was engaged to Mary when his world spun out of control. Before they had begun to live together, before they had consummated their relationship, Mary became pregnant. Such a thing suggested shameful behavior on her part. It would have been a terrible embarrassment to a man like Joseph. And so he prepared to do the only thing he could do, break the engagement, in effect, divorce her before they were even married.

But as Joseph prepared to do that, an angel appeared to him in a dream. It told him the child was from God, that it was to save God’s people from their sins. It told him to remain with Mary and rear her son. Could you do it? Could you believe that God was at work in such a situation? Joseph could and did—not because he was a good and righteous man, but because he was a man of faith. He trusted God and found peace even in the midst of a life spinning out of his control.

It was two years after the Culps lost everything that the telephone rang. It was the banker who had foreclosed on their farm. He wanted to meet with them. They agreed and offered to take a day off from the hunting lodge they now managed to visit him in town. But he insisted on driving the hour or so out to meet them.

When he arrived, they went into the lodge, sat down over coffee and made small talk for a while. Finally, the banker got to the point of his visit. He old them about the other couple, his friends, the ones who had lost everything and had been destroyed by it.

"We’ve noticed at the office that the two of you have handled what happened better than most. How have you done it? What’s your secret?"

And Randy and Geneva told him. They told him that they believed in the God of the Scriptures—a good and faithful God. They told him that he was Lord of their lives. They told him that they believed God was in control. While what had happened hurt, they had faith. God would, they knew, had been and was at work in their lives.

SO WHAT?

Near the end of the movie "Twister," the lead characters, Jo Harding and her soon-to-be ex-husband, Bill, are fleeing the granddaddy of all tornados. It is cutting through the farm where they have become stranded, and they find themselves dodging everything from farm machinery to the pickets that have been ripped from the houses white fence. Finally, in desperation, they enter a small out building. Inside is a well with its pipes going deep into the earth. As the world around them literally spins wildly, the grab some leather straps left by the farmer and belt themselves to the pipe. As anarchy is loosed upon the world, as things fall apart, it is that center that will hold. It is the one thing that will not give way in the storm.

That is find in God. Through faith we strap ourselves to our Lord. Through faith we hold on to the one at the center of the universe, knowing that while the world may indeed spin out of control our lives are held in the hands of its Creator. And with that faith, there comes peace. Amen.