Hidden in the storm--thoughts on the Gospel from the fifth Sunday of Lent

 “Hidden in the storm, I answered you.”

--Psalm 81:8

 

I’ve been thinking about the Gospel reading from John about the woman caught in adultery.  It was the gospel for last Sunday, and it has been haunting me ever since.  On the surface, it is a frightening story.  A woman is grabbed by a mob, dragged through the streets and thrown to the ground in front of some stranger; where she hears the mob prepare to kill her. But first they are going to ask this stranger what he thinks.  Take a moment and put yourself into the scene.  If you were this woman, what would you be thinking? What would you be doing? Caught up in this horrible storm of anger, rage, jealousy… brutality.  You are helpless and know that there is nothing for you but to scream and plead for mercy but clearly there is no mercy to be had. The mob seeks only your destruction. Or so it seems. Because, as the gospel tells us, they bring the woman to Jesus because they want to put Him to the test. I look at this scene and wonder—if Jesus had given them the “wrong” answer, would they have tried to stone Him as well. Would they have accused Him of a different kind of adultery? Adulterating their law, their faith, their God?

 

But, instead Jesus defuses the situation by refusing to engage in their anger, their wrath; by refusing to become fuel for their storm.  Instead, he grows quiet and kneels down and begins to write on the ground.  I love that we don’t know what He wrote.  I love that the author knew enough to leave that out.  To my eye, that seems a sign of divine literary inspiration.  Of course, over the years, many scholars and saints have considered and proposed possibilities.  I think it was Augustine who suggested that possibly Jesus was writing out the sins of the people standing before Him. That seems as good a guess as any; but I prefer the mystery.

 

For me, the most important element here is the example Jesus gives us of not entering into the argument, of refusing to add fuel to the fire.  He gathers the focus of the crowd away from the woman and onto Himself through His silence and his enigmatic action.  They are—in a way—stunned by the unexpected strangeness of what He does.  And then, instead of debating them, He concedes their point, recommending only a minor stipulation:  Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone.

 

Then He returns to His work--writing on the ground.

 

At this point the crowd disappears, dropping their stones and walking away. And Jesus is left alone with the woman, her heart still bursting with fear. And He asks her, Woman, where did everybody go? Is there no one to accuse you?

And she says, No one.

And Jesus replies, Neither do I.  Go and sin no more. 

I love that image of God’s mercy showing up so quietly and so tenderly and so beautifully unexpected.  It reminds me of a verse from Psalm 81:

“Hidden in the storm, I answered you…” (81:8)

In the book of Job the voice of God is literally hidden in the storm; it comes out of the tempest. And in this story from John's gospel we see the presence of God calmly waiting for us in the storm of suffering, the storm of rejection, the storm of confusion. 

Think about it.  We are about to observe Holy Week, Good Friday, the Passion of Jesus, when the whole world came crashing down upon Him. We see it all right there: the storm of the Cross becoming the silence of the tomb…  But, we are blessed to know how the story ends.  

This Easter morning, perhaps you could rise early and step outside into the early morning light; take a moment and just sand there. Listen to the quiet as the day begins, the first hesitant singing of the birds, the stirring of the leaves in the morning breeze; witness the awakening of the world to the Love that does not condemn, the Love that has the power to calm all storms, the Love that died for us that we might live.  As the old hymn says:

 

No storm can shake my inmost calm,

While to that rock I'm clinging.

Since love is lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?

The hurricane and the henhouse

“...Hidden in the storm, I answered you...”

--Psalm 81:7

 William Faulkner told an interviewer that writing a novel is like trying to “nail together a henhouse in a hurricane.”  He said: “You haven’t got time to be thinking about images and symbols.  You’ve got all you can manage without that.”[1] I know what he means.[2]  And what he is saying applies not just to writing, but to life as well.  In the midst of the storm one doesn’t have time for symbols and images and lessons and profundities.  In the midst of the storm you are too busy trying to keep the henhouse together to look for symbols and imagery; for grace and lessons. In the midst of the storm you are holding on for dear life –your own and those of the people you love. But, I think what I heard in Psalm 81 this morning was: if you open your ears –if you really listen—if you train yourself to be open to them –you will discover that they are there.  In the storm He answers us.

When we were at the hospital –in the midst of our storm—I had little time for thinking about symbols or images or meanings.  I was too set on trying to stay awake and by my daughter’s side.  And too worried about what might come next.  Also, I was worried about my wife and my other daughters and about my job and about getting lost in the halls, about the parking garage and what happens if I lose my parking ticket and back in the ICU there were all those monitors and those numbers that kept changing and the beeping and the IVs and the nurses who would come and go at all hours and I couldn’t remember anyone’s name and...  I felt frightened and helpless and overwhelmed.

To be there, by her side, feeling helpless and afraid, was to be in the midst of a terrifying storm; and sitting there by her side –especially in the middle of the night—I felt terribly alone.  And all I could do was keep praying over and over: Lord, help us. Please God, help us. Without realizing I had stopped praying or knowing how long I had been sleeping, I would awaken to see a nurse checking vitals or noting something on a chart or changing an IV bag –tenderly caring for my daughter—and without knowing it, I would fold back upon myself, eyes drooping closed, head slipping exhaustedly down upon my chest, mouth murmuring prayers and in my half-consciousness wondering whether God would ever answer.  Wondering whether the storm would last forever? Would we feel this helpless, this alone forever?  The storm beat us down, physically, psychologically, emotionally.  Even spiritually.  It stopped us in our feet. Everything we were doing, our lives, our work, our plans... all of it stopped. The storm came, and all that busy-ness stopped, and we were forced to put everything else aside and attend to one thing. And the strain, the effort required to focus ourselves in such a way, it was terrible. Exhausting. Utterly consuming.

And yet, looking back, as the storm fades, I can see there was signs.  There were symbols.  Images. 

I wasn’t alone.  There was the friend who spent that first night in the waiting room with my wife, the same friend who invited me the second night to come take a shower and take a break at her house.  After my shower, she and her son sat with me, talked as she peeled a kiwi and sliced it and put it on a plate in front of me. Refilled a glass with water and listened and laughed with me as I repeated stories about the hospital and my daughter, then --for some reason—the conversation wandered off to Dostoevsky and Camus and Marilynne Robinson and carrots. Invite a librarian to come take a shower at your house –see what you have to put up with.  

That was my first break from the hospital; from the storm.  And all I can remember from it is the patience and kindness of this friend and her son.

The next day I took a second break and went home to sleep for a while.  My wife and a friend were at the hospital, and they convinced me that I needed a nap.  I went.  Someone else drove.

At home I stretched out on my bed, certain that I wouldn’t be able to sleep.  Until I woke two hours later worrying about what time it was.  As I got ready to go back to the hospital, the doorbell rang.  It was someone delivering groceries.  Apparently, my oldest daughter had been getting calls from our co-workers and friends asking about what we liked to eat and what we might need.  As she was putting away the groceries she opened the freezer to show me all the frozen meals someone had already brought us. It was crammed full. As I was leaving, the counters were still covered with grocery bags and she was promising me she would find somewhere to put all of it.  Not to worry.  She opened a cupboard and a box of crackers tumbled out. 

“Not there...” she laughed.

Over the next week and a half more groceries would come, even meals from restaurants until our house was overflowing with food... In the back of my mind, I kept thinking how kind people were. How generous.  How blessed we were.  But somewhere deeper inside I was haunted by the thought that none of it mattered. All I really wanted was someone to fix my daughter.  To fix our family. To fix this brokenness. To make us whole again. 

By the end of the week we were home. She was home.  The storm was over. Maybe.  At least it had paused.  And I could breathe again.  I could put the hammer down –so to speak.  Take a long look around and see what kind of hen house the storm had left standing....  so to speak.

The first thing I noticed was all the groceries still on the counters.  The refrigerator full, the cupboards full and even as we were laughing at that somebody was pulling into our driveway with dinner from a Tex-Mex joint: fajitas and queso and chips. 

Still worried about my family, I was starting to get overwhelmed by the abundance.  It felt like one more responsibility to be worried about, one more source of stress, anxiety, and I couldn’t bear it.  But with time and a little distance I began to understand it differently. I began to recognize an image in the cupboards and refrigerator and counters overflowing with food... I began to see twelve baskets overflowing with broken bread and pieces of fish... I recognized in my own life the actuality of the miracle described in Matthew 14.  We were in a lonely place and we felt like we had nothing left; less than five loaves and two fish; and the Lord told us to sit down and suddenly there was more than we needed; the food was literally overflowing.  We didn’t have baskets, so we were putting things in boxes and bags.  But it was clearly a loaves and fishes moment! An image of God’s grace and generosity was lived out before our eyes.

But as Mr. Faulkner says: In the moment, in the middle of the storm, who has time to look for symbols and imagery.  Only when I had come to rest and feel a moment’s calm could I begin to see.  Yes.  The answer was in the storm.  And the answer wasn’t: “Everything is going to be fine.” Or: “Let me fix this.”   The answer we were getting wasn’t words or promises, it was a miraculous abundance of food and it was people dropping by to check on us and staying to have tea and share some of our cookies or crackers or carrots.  It was small acts of kindness and generosity. Acts of love.  Out of the storm God answered us: You are loved.  Your family is loved.  The answer was simple and clear.  And beautiful.

Hidden in the storm we may not recognize God, but He is there.  Hidden in the storm there is an answer, and it is simply this:  Love. 

It’s not an easy answer. And it is very hard to recognize when you are exhausted, and the henhouse seems to be falling apart... but when there is a pause in the storm, perhaps just a calm before the next, take a moment and look around at the signs and the symbols.  Take a moment to reflect; close your eyes and open your heart and listen.  They are there. He is there. And I suspect you will find the answer is always the same:  Love.

Can you hear it?

---

[1] This is quoted in Hugh Kenner’s essay, “The Last Novelist,” in his wonderful book on American modernism: A Homemade World.

[2] I’ve been trying to write a novel for years and every time I think I have a nail in place my hammer disappears!