Words from the Whirlwind

Scripture Readings

O LORD, how manifold are your works!

in wisdom you have made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

Hallelujah!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have spent quite a few hours immersed in Ken Burns’ epic documentary series about our national parks. From the couch in my living room, I have been carried away to our nation’s most pristinely beautiful places, and I have continued to be amazed by the majesty of our country’s landscape. I’ve also been interested to discover the personalities behind the creation of many of these parks, in particular that of President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt harbored a passionate love of nature, one that he indulged at every opportunity and one that held deep religious significance for him. After sneaking away from a state dinner once to camp out in the wilds of Yosemite with the conservationist John Muir, Roosevelt later described that experience. “Lying out at night under those sequoias was lying under a temple built by no hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build,” he said. Roosevelt was once described as having a “distance in his eyes,” a habit of looking at the world around him with wonder and reverence.

Our scripture readings today speak to the importance of reverence. Job and the disciples James and John are all trying to comprehend the actions of God in the world around them. Poor Job has recently lost all of his possessions and everyone he loves, and he has no explanation for why this has happened. In a previous chapter, he has made a petition to God, politely pointing out his untarnished record of faithfulness and uprightness. In the case of James and John, these two have witnessed a lot of confusing things leading up to today’s gospel passage – the transfiguration, Jesus’ command to a rich young man to give up all his possessions, and most recently Jesus’ third dire prediction of what will happen when they reach Jerusalem. The disciples are confused and scared and so, like Job, they have laid out their case, pointing out, just for the record, that they are pretty nice guys and asking for just one little bitty favor to reassure them.

In both of these stories our friends receive answers, but not the ones they were expecting. In answer to Job, God appears in a whirlwind and says, in essence, “What do you know about being God? Have you ever tried to create and run a world?” And in answer to his faithful disciples, Jesus speaks out of his own whirlwind. Instead of promising them eternal glory or even explaining what is going on, he tells them that uprightness and faithfulness are not enough to cash in on a throne in heaven. His answer sounds a good bit like God’s answer to Job: “What do you know about being God? You have a lot to learn.”

Job, James, and John all know firsthand that sometimes the actions of God are beyond our understanding, but they are learning in these passages that the first step toward comprehension is being put in our place. This isn’t something that is meant to diminish our experience or ignore our questions. After all, both God and Jesus take time to deliberately address these petitions. God’s answer to Job points him to a litany of the wonders of the created world, one that is echoed in our psalm today, and it reminds Job of his place in the grand design of creation. It reminds him of what is bigger than him. It reminds him that a God who can create the magnificence of this world and who created him must have other designs that are beyond his comprehension. Job learns to live his life without all of the answers, and, strangely enough, this brings him a sense of resolution and peace, though I don’t want to spoil the ending for next week. So too James and John start to see that what is about to take place in Jerusalem might be part of a larger plan that they cannot yet understand, part of a world where leaders suffer and sacrifice, part of the kingdom of God.

That sense of feeling dwarfed by something bigger than ourselves, of recognizing that we are pieces of a much larger and more magnificent puzzle, the feeling of reverence, is an important first step in figuring out that we can’t figure everything out, and we’re not expected to. It has been said that reverence is the virtue that keeps people from trying to act like gods. Barbara Brown Taylor speaks of reverence as an exercise, something that can be cultivated, by practicing what she calls “knowing your rank in the overall scheme of things.” For her, this mostly involves taking God’s advice to Job, making time to observe the world, both in its grandeur and in its particularities. But being able to see these things requires slowing down, being willing to detour from the map of our daily plans that so often blind us from the things that would make us tremble with awe.

I learned the practice of reverence from my dad. He grew up out West, hiking in many of the beautiful landscapes Ken Burns has documented, and my dad is always prepared to marvel. A common refrain in our car growing up was, “Let’s take the scenic route!” even if we were just driving across town. Dad is visiting me this weekend, and it took him two and a half days to get here – a drive that normally takes about ten hours. His spontaneous detours inevitably add time to a trip, but they have always introduced me to things I otherwise wouldn’t have seen, and I have grown up to be a big fan of the scenic route. This is often frustrating for my husband, who is a pretty big fan of getting from point A to point B on a straight line via the interstate. But reverence doesn’t necessarily involve a physical detour. It can be as simple as pausing for a few moments to ponder what is right before you, whether that is the Grand Canyon or the spider spinning an intricate web on your front porch. It mostly involves acknowledging what you never could have orchestrated yourself. When we gaze on something that reminds us of the magnificence of this creation and our places in it, we remember that we are not gods, and we remember that we rest in the hands of a skilled creator who listens and answers. The answers may not be the type we expect – after all, St. Augustine said: “We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, we are not talking about God.” And God may not physically appear to speak to us out of a whirlwind, but we can learn, like Job, to look all around us for the answers. And we can give thanks to God that we are part of this marvelous world.

The conservationist John Muir became a good friend and ally of President Roosevelt, and these two men can be seen today as pioneers who inspired a whole generation of Americans to begin the work of preserving our nation’s most beautiful natural treasures. But Muir’s work was a constant battle for the landscapes he loved, and he lost his last and greatest battle to save the Yosemite Valley from being dammed to provide drinking water for the city of San Francisco. Like Job and the disciples, he found himself in his life’s darkest moment of doubt and confusion, but as always Muir turned to the wilderness around him to remember that he was not God or expected to be God and to note with reverence the enduring wisdom of God’s world. Because the God who made those mountains also made him and made you and knows exactly where each of us fits. “THIS is the morning of creation,” Muir would cry. “The whole thing is beginning now. The mountains are singing together.” He saw God’s whirlwind all around him and we can too. So slow down. Look around. Give thanks.

O LORD, how manifold are your works!

in wisdom you have made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

Hallelujah!