"Gifts of the Dark Wood: The Gift of Being Thunderstruck" - Sermon, March 22, 2020
Community UMC, Quincy
“Gifts of the Dark Wood: The Gift of Being Thunderstruck”
Rev. Andrew Davis
March 22, 2020
Job 37: 2-5
John 11: 1-45
I love a good thunderstorm, although I know that thunderstorms can be a bit unsettling for some. Growing up in the Sacramento area, thunderstorms are not that common, although this is the time of year we would get some. During my first few weeks in Washington, DC at Wesley Theological Seminary, one of the student organizations on campus, Wesley Fellowship sponsored a moonlight walk around the monuments, starting at the Washington Monument, then working our way to the Jefferson Memorial. During my first year, the usual date had to be postponed because of thunderstorms. When we did venture out a week later, little did we know what it would be like to be thunderstruck. About halfway between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, a group of us got caught up in a thunderstorm and in the pouring rain, finding refuge in a restroom block. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning cracked above us, startling us, while leaving some of us in awe along with the loud clap of thunder. Besides being a bonding moment, it was something I will never forget. Each time there would be a thunderstorm the rest of my time in DC, I would watch (a safe distance from the window) and be in awe, a sense of being thunderstruck.
As we gather virtually once again this morning, or whenever you are watching this message, we are taking a little time to get away from the news, get away from our worries, get away from our fear and anxiety to worship God together. On Wednesday when I was coming into the sanctuary to see if the heat had been turned down, which it had been, I felt a sense of sadness and emptiness of not gathering face to face. It was a moment of being thunderstruck, struck by the reality of what’s going on and trying to stay safe and healthy. But the truth is, I miss everyone. Yet, there was an assurance from God that I felt, and a deep sense of peace. It brought this morning’s message to light around “The Gift of Being Thunderstruck” as we continue our series around Gifts of the Dark Wood by Rev. Dr. Eric Elnes. I don’t know if God had a sense of humor in my prayerful discernment of preaching this series, but it is very relevant that we find ourselves in the Dark Wood right now. As many of us are staying in our homes, it is a time to consider these gifts of the Dark Wood and practice our spiritual disciplines during this season of Lent. Eric Elnes explains that as we continue this journey and get a little deeper into it, “the Dark Wood is that inner terrain you negotiate more through intuition, imagination, and indirect ways of knowing than direct perception.”[i] Perhaps this time at home is a time to turn to our inward terrain and focus on our interior spiritual lives.
One of the ways of hearing God’s voice in a number of scriptural passages is thunder. When we look in Exodus and witness Moses’ encounters with God on the mountain, there is thunder and a great cloud. Or, particularly in our reading from Job 37, as Job’s friend Elihu is trying to explain to Job how God speaks through the thunder, which is awe inspiring and frightening in the same breath. Nonetheless, like many religious traditions in the Ancient Near East who believed that God or a deity spoke through the thunder and lightning, “the purpose was not to explain where lightning and thunder come from but to explain where the voice of God comes from, and more important, how it comes to us through intuition.”[ii] Having studied Greek Mythology through my undergraduate degree in humanities, I would often joke that Zeus is sending some thunderbolts, but that can be a way of seeing the full majesty of God at work too, just like the rain, the sunset, the ocean waves, as it says in Job 37: 5, “[God] does greater things than we can comprehend” (NRSV). Look at the amount of snow we received here in Quincy over five days, after the driest February on record in California. Talk about a thunderstruck moment.
Likewise, “when the ancients spoke of the deity flashing lightning and chasing it with claps of thunder, they meant that the voice of the divine often comes through momentary flashes of intuition or awareness that trigger sensations that reverberate like thunder” such as an ‘aha moment’ or “moment of clarity.”[iii] When we embrace the gift of being thunderstruck, “we feel drawn to move in this direction because it calls to our deepest self and feels most natural.”[iv]
Like last week’s discussion about the cross drawing us in, our Gospel lesson from John is one that can draw us in the direction of new life that we are journeying towards with Jesus, the new life and resurrection at Easter. This is one of my favorite passages because Jesus is showing us about what it means to believe, that believing in him gives us life by following him, and can leave us thunderstruck. In one of his seven “I Am” statements in the Gospel of John, Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live,” which is usually the very first words said at the beginning of a memorial service, like we had for Rose Marie earlier this month (John 11: 25, NRSV). At the same time, the whole story is one of death and resurrection, as Jesus’ good friend Lazarus has died, leading Jesus to weep. Except his action of raising Lazarus from the dead is a moment that leaves everyone thunderstruck, and can leave us thunderstruck too as we consider what following Jesus is about. However, Jesus is foreshadowing his own death and resurrection, as Lazarus will eventually die, although nothing is impossible when we follow Jesus. Even while life is interrupted right now, we have new life we can look forward to when we follow Jesus.
While on this journey through the Dark Wood, we all know that following Jesus is not the easiest to do, as we still have struggles, fears, doubts, and failures, even more pertinent right now. One of the most thought-provoking sections in “The Gift of Being Thunderstruck” is how Eric Elnes talks about junk food and how we enjoy it, which I’ll admit I tend to eat more of it during a snowstorm (or as my friend Rev. Dr. Mary Kay Totty calls, ‘storm vittles’) and as we face a lot more time of being in our homes and not out and about, might be indulging a little more in these days. Sometimes, we will have these momentary spiritual highs, which the late theologian Phyllis Tickle would ask, “was that the Holy Spirit talking or the pizza I just ate?”[v]Eric Elnes counters that “one of the hallmarks of an authentic spiritual experience, however, is that it continues to repeat itself – like thunder and lighting in a good storm – long after the pizza is gone.”[vi]
Likewise, it’s easy to be tempted into taking the leap of faith, which Eric Elnes calls “junk food of the spiritual realm.”[vii] Now sometimes, it has worked out when taking a leap of faith, although when we put too much into it, a leap of faith can backfire and lead us feeling like we’ve failed and may cause us to question our own faith or feel angry at or betrayed by God.[viii] On the other hand, God’s call can take us on what feels like a leap of faith, ultmimagely leading us into new life. I know in my own journey, it initially felt like a leap of faith leaving a relatively stable, nine-year career at Raley’s grocery stores to attend seminary, serve as a music director at a Presbyterian Church in Maryland for a much smaller salary. Yet almost eight years later, I wouldn’t be doing this, even in the moments I ask God what God was thinking in calling me into this work, as we’ve been through a fire that could have destroyed our town in 2017, and now a pandemic that has led to a global health crisis. Yet, here we are, still here as the church, each answering God’s call in one way or another, even when the building is closed. As Eric Elnes says, “rarely does a calling only involve something we do, though it does always prompt us to do something.”[ix]
While we may not be here in the physical space of the church, this call to do something is the call to BE the church. We have members of the church council checking in on various people in our congregation and dividing up the care of the congregation by checking in on everyone. We have several people who have volunteered to make grocery runs for anyone who does not want to try and navigate the store. While we aren’t audibly hearing God’s voice in the thunder and lighting all of the time, these are all flashes of intuition, of how we can be God’s hands in our world right now. And even though the world feels like it’s at a standstill, let’s try and make the best of it. Use this time to read books you haven’t read in a while. If you play a musical instrument, use this time to connect with God through music as I have been doing at my piano. Pick up the phone and call folks around you, checking in and helping alleviate some of the loneliness that this social distancing might be causing. And as we follow Jesus, let us remember that he is “the resurrection and the life.” Let each of these things we do leave us thunderstruck as we continue journeying with Jesus through the Dark Wood to Jerusalem, the cross, grave, and resurrection. Offered to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let the church say Amen!!
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