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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
24 October 2004“Praying For Rain”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Last summer will be remembered for its terrible hurricanes. While residents of Florida and the Caribbean suffered the worse, many others had their lives disrupted. We in the Northeast endured damaging winds and of torrential rain; Incarnation's fragile roof sprang new leaks and we need to make costly repairs.
Fortunately, thanks to weather satellites and computers, we at least knew the hurricanes were coming. Imagine what it would have been like if we had had no warning.
Think of what our forebears faced. Imagine you were a farmer in Florida a hundred years ago. You were hoping for a little rain to water your crops. One day, the sky was sunny and bright. The next day, the clouds thickened, and the winds swirled — and the sky dropped four inches of rain in a single day!
No wonder that, in earlier times, weather was a serious topic of conversation. People then didn't have warnings to evacuate in the face of a storm. They were, as the saying went, "at the mercy of the elements."
Such terrifying events naturally led people to think of religion. Pummeled by the elements of the weather, people begged for God's mercy.
So the prophet Jeremiah writes, in today's First Lesson:
| "Lord, you are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us! Can any idols of the nations bring rains? Or can the heavens give showers?" |
Modern Christians, though, may have trouble understanding such passages. Today, we know from meteorological science that rain comes as the result of rays from the sun and evaporation of water from the ocean and millions of other discrete events that seem to proceed as a matter of course — without any apparent intervention from God.
Modern people also doubt that God spends his time guiding the weather! (Residents of Florida might add that if this is what God does, he's not very good at it!)
Thus, Christians today tend to accept the scientific reality that rain comes and goes. No one is in control of the weather; it just happens.
Even so, if modern Christians don't rely on God for help with the weather, we do recognize that we are much better off than our ancestors. We can, to some extent, predict what the weather will bring. We know when the hurricane is coming.
Life is very different for us than it was for our forebears, who had no Weather Channel — who had to get their weather report by looking out the window.
As a result, modern people are less dependant on mother nature. Not only do we often have warnings of catastrophic weather, but we have cars to escape the storms. We even have sports stadiums with roofs so that games can be played in the rain.
That said, though, we still have a lot in common with our ancestors. Our scientific knowledge of what the weather will be tomorrow doesn't allow us to choose whether we'll have rain or sunshine. As the Florida hurricanes demonstrated, we're still "at the mercy of the elements." Jeremiah's words are a helpful reminder of human vulnerability.
And thus like the ancient Hebrews, we can get a spiritual lesson in Jeremiah's text, a lesson that's confirmed in today's Psalm. For the Psalm also refers to rain — the rain that provides drinking water.
In Psalm 84, we read,
|
"Happy are the people whose strength is in you! Whose hearts are set on the pilgrims' way. Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, for the early rains have covered it with pools of water." |
But the Psalm is about more than the need for water to preserve life. Notice that the verse says, "Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs."
As I read this text, it shows us a response to the divine different from the "primitive" ideas of people who prayed to pagan gods for rain. For the pilgrims who follow the Lord will find that even the desert for them is "a place of springs."
God knows our vulnerability, and God also insures that we will find our way.
We can accept the modern understanding that God doesn't provide rain in response to prayer — and we can still believe God's way for us will be a place of springs. We can believe that God has set his creation on a course that allows for human freedom, and God's plan still follows.
This means that we human beings on our own can work with the skills that we have been given: using our freedom we have discovered how to conserve water in reservoirs or, as the nation of Israel is doing today, to make drinking water from the ocean.
We have used the same human intelligence to find ways to forecast the weather and protect ourselves from damaging storms.
Yet even with this idea of freedom, we can still agree with Jeremiah. We can agree that God cares for us and responds to our needs; the only difference is that modern people have a larger vision of how God works.
Thus we can combine a mature understanding of human freedom with a recognition that God remains intimately involved in his creation.
There is an old joke that perfectly illustrates this idea. (If you have heard this joke, listen for the theology in it.) Appropriately for us, this joke also involves rain, in fact, torrential rain.
|
A town is beset by days of storms until it is flooded. As the flood waters rise, one man climbs to the roof of his house. A rescue boat comes by and offers to save the man. He declines, saying, "That's all right, God will save me." A second rescue boat comes by and makes a similar offer. Again the man declines, saying, "God will save me." Then a third boat appears. By this time, the man is on the top of his house and the waters are still rising. The rescuers beg the man to come with them, but he still refuses to go, saying "God will save me." Unfortunately, the waters continue to ascend until the man is swept off his roof and drowned. The man then appears in Heaven and he asks God, "Why didn't you save me? I prayed to you!" God answers, "What did you want? I sent three rescue boats!" |
So, then, we should use our freedom under God wisely, as God's stewards of the earth and the environment. And we should also look for the plan in creation God has for each of us, using our freedom to do God's will, and at the same time, looking for God's peace amidst the tempests of life.
As the Psalmist said,
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"Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs. "They will climb from height to height, and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion." |