THE SPIRIT OF GOD WAS HOVERING

A sermon by George R. Pasley

Genesis 1:-2:4a

Chaos- how do you define it?

If you're of a certain age and remember certain comedic TV shows of the 60s and 70s, you know that KAOS is spelled with a K and stands for the foreign spy service that Maxwell Smart was always trying to foil.

Whenever I visit my married friends, I think that chaos would be 2 adults holding 2 jobs and raising 2 or more kids and trying to keep untold number of appointments, practices, homework assignments, rehearsals and play dates.

Maybe you agree.

But I know of a family who may be in the process of being evicted, and I'm certain that if they are, it is absolute chaos.

I remember a family from 2 summers ago; they lost their apartment and moved into their Ford Bronco, and finally were able to spend the summer living in a tent at Ward Lake.

That was chaos.

Or how about this: If you saw Dave Kiffer's program at Friday Night Insights this winter, you know about the Aleuts who were evacuated from their villages during WW 2. You know they were taken out of an environment to which they had adapted, and placed into one very strange to them. You know they came and were despised by most of our population. You know they came and were given food to eat that they had never even seen before. You know that the changes were so sudden and so hard that many of them died.

That was chaos. So listen close: This story of creation that we read this morning, scholars believe it was added to our scriptures during a time of extreme chaos. In the year 605 b.c.e. King Nebuchadnezzar's army carried a number of leading citizens of Judah away into captivity. There were several more deportations, until the year 586 when the armies of Babylon destroyed the Jerusalem Temple built by King Solomon and carried many more away into captivity in Babylon.

For them it was more than chaos, it was utter chaos. It was unthinkable, but it happened.

But in their Babylonian captivity they found that they were not abandoned by God. God was with them, even in the worst imaginable, totally unimaginable situation.

This story that we have of the creation of the world is their testimony to us:

Wherever there is chaos, God's spirit is there, hovering, and God is busy creating life, beautiful and abundant, out of what is formless and void.

Look close at the words we read: God's Spirit is there, before anything happens.

So we can say to those hundreds of thousands who suffer this morning in Myanmar and in China: God's spirit is there.

We can say to those who feel this morning as if life has ended,

because someone has died

or someone has betrayed them

or because a job has been lost

or because something has gone horribly wrong

YES the darkness is deep

YES the pain is great and true and indescribable

YES to every negative emotion you are feeling this very moment

But YES, God's spirit is there with you, right where you are.

I can say it because I have felt it and known it, when there was nothing at all in life to hold onto, I know that God was holding onto me.

There are many who do not know God and in fact, even in every Christian’s life there are times when we do not understand and we cry out WHY, GOD?

But even in those times, God knows us because the Spirit is there.

The Spirits primary task, according to some, is to bind God to us, bind us to God.

So even when we do not know God,

even when we do not know what to pray

even when we do not know if we can pray

the Spirit of God is praying for us in the very act of binding us to God.

How can this be? All I can say is, the Spirit is God.

Look at verse 26. Every version that you will find says let US make man.

God is one, but God is plural and we know God in three ways, though they are one God. Father Son & Holy Ghost.

So Gods' Spirit is not only present wherever there is anything happening in life, God's spirit is present in us, never far away, but right here, knowing our thoughts before we think them, knowing what we feel even when we do not.

We have this testimony, from those who were led away into exile.

The testimony further states, God is bringing order out of chaos,

life out of death

beauty out of ugliness,

love out of meanness, cruelty, prejudice and hate.

God made the earth and all that is in it,

God delivered us from slavery in Egypt,

and God will bring the day when

these exiles return home.

Now, that is not to say that we can define when God will deliver justice.

That is not to say that we can describe the manner in which God will grant freedom.

That is CERTAINLY not to say that we can prescribe what God will do

After all, God is God and we are not.

But we can say that God is for dignity and hope and love.

That God is opposed to oppression, no matter whether it is an unfaithful spouse

or an abusive spouse

or a disreputable employer

or a foreign power.

God will deal with them, one day.

That is the testimony of those who were exiled in Babylon, and that ought to be our testimony wherever people are suffering, no matter what the reason.

The spirit is with you

God is working God's purposes out.

Hang onto hope because God is hanging on to you.

BUT
there is something more we need to know.

The Hebrew word we translate spirit we sometimes translate as wind- it is ru-ah, spirit, wind.

It is the same in Greek; the word is pneuma, air, wind, or spirit.

Here in Ketchikan we know here what wind does. It moves things around, it stirs things up, and it drives us in search of shelter.

Sometimes it is the very same spirit of God- the same spirit that hovers over chaos bringing order and life- it is that same spirit blowing over what we THINK is order, stirring things up.

Tex Sample is a white American male Methodist preacher and seminary professor, now retired. But I heard him tell this story about something he did while he was fresh out of seminary.

He was part of some group in Boston, and they were active in the civil rights movement, and one night he got a call from his higher ups.

They said, “We need to fill 4 buses with people and get them to Washington DC tomorrow.”

As Tex recalls, it was about 1 in the morning when he got this call, and Tex said, “You mean you want me to call people in the middle of the night?”

The answer was bold and certain: YES!

Tex called the people on his list, every one of them an African American, and none of them complained about being raised up in the middle of the night because they all KNEW that God's spirit was blowing, stirring things up, bringing freedom to people who had been oppressed.

It happened during the time of slavery in Egypt

It happened during the time of slavery in America

It happened during the civil rights movement.

if things are good for us we don't like to make waves! But the spirit makes waves for those who cannot, and those waves sometimes lap onto us and get us wet.

That's the spirit, telling is to stand up and do God's work.

That's the spirit, binding us to the kingdom of God.

Even when we don't like it, maybe even when we are not Christian and maybe

even when we are not religious.

But that same spirit is God in us, shouting shouts of joy, when kingdom comes, when life is created from barrenness, when we look and see that what God has done, is doing, and is preparing to do, and we see that all is very very good.

That's the spirit in us, helping is to laugh for joy and praise God.

That spirit was on Moses, and he led God's people through an ocean into freedom.

That spirit was on Jesus, who forgave sinners, fed the hungry, and died for you and me.

That same spirit was given to the church on Pentecost, and it brought every one of you to this place today.

If you are afflicted, that spirit stands ready to comfort you.

But if you are comfortable that spirit is blowing.

So do not ask which direction the wind is blowing from, because it comes from God.

Instead let’s ask, which direction it is blowing to- and then bound to God’s Kingdom by the Spirit of God, let’s go where we are led.

In the name of the Father, Son & Holy Ghost. Amen.