Rolling in the Deep
By The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
May 6, 2012
Text: Psalm 46
There was an air of almost unprecedented interest and excitement. It was one of those rare moments when those who are often at odds come together and share a common conviction or have a common belief. It occurred on April 24th this year - two weeks ago - in the House of Commons in Ottawa. It was a Tuesday. After all the hustle and bustle and back and forth of Question, there was a moment of peace. Whereas it all began with a challenge between the rival political parties to have the upper hand, now there was quiet and a sense of peace.
The Minister of Immigration, Jason Kenny, got up to present a motion to the House. Looking to the East Gallery, there were four men in very strange hats wearing long black gowns seated. They were asked to rise. I was sitting in the Senate seats adjacent to them. I looked over. They were clerics. They were priests. Then, Jason Kenny read this motion, adopted by the entire House and every single political party. The motion read as follows: “ This House is united in expressing Canada's recognition of Andrey Sheptytsky's courageous actions, compassion for his oppressed Jewish Ukrainian countrymen, and enduring example of commitment to fundamental human rights as humankind's highest obligation.”
A member of the Opposition Party seconded the motion. The Floor rose. There was great applause and total unanimity.
It was quite an amazing moment! Why? It was because the person who was being recognized, Metropolitan Sheptytsky, was the Metropolitan Ukrainian Catholic Bishop through most of the major part of the twentieth century. He was the one who had represented the people of God in the midst of very turbulent times. He was recognized for having openness to people of other faiths, for having a strong sense and commitment to human rights, and for having most especially a strong spiritual core and a desire to hold up spiritual values even in the face of civil and military opposition
Even so, then the real reason he was given this recognition was announced. During the Second World War, when many Jews, particularly Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe, were being slaughtered by the Nazis, Sheptytsky took many of them in and hid them. He spoke out against the oppression of a minority people and, as a man of God, he tried to stand between those wanting to vanquish a very small foe. He was known as a man of compassion and a man who wanted to live out his faith in Christ amongst all the people of the Ukraine.
Canada was there recognizing him for two reasons really. One, because as we know many Ukrainians came and immigrated to Canada, particularly in the west, and there is a long history of the relationship between the two peoples, but also because in many ways Andrey Sheptytsky represents what many of us would like the world to be like. It was an incredible moment!
That night, after other meetings that I had on the Hill, I went back to my hotel room and I opened up my Bible and I read Psalm 46. It is an incredible Psalm! The more I read it and the more I thought about what Sheptytsky had done and the fact that the House of Commons and Canada had recognized him, I thought the psalmist must have been saying “Amen!” to all that was being said that day, for indeed, the psalmist, like Sheptytsky, had a high view of the sovereignty of God, a high view of the accountability of all the earth to the almighty presence of God.
In many ways that is flowing against the tide of culture, it is moving against the tide of philosophy and ideals today. Why? It is because so often we try to compartmentalize religion and faith. We give, as a society, a certain place to religion. We are not against it. It is seen to be generally a good thing, but confined, compartmentalized, packaged. Let people of faith worship in their little places, do the things that give them spiritual fervour, allow them once again to come out of their box and to speak, but only to speak so far, and certainly not in a way that would challenge the status quo, so as to be able to have a nice, comfortable place for religion - and to place it on the periphery!
Sheptytsky was the sort of man who in the Ukraine would under no circumstances allow that kind of compartmentalization to take place. The psalmist would never entertain any such compartmentalization of religion. For both, it is a clear call to the sovereignty of God over everything - a high view of God.
This high view of God I think needs to be reclaimed and restated, maybe in a humbler, more modest way, but nevertheless restated for our age and our time. This is the time to say it, and for Christians and people of faith everywhere to believe it. This is because what you see in Psalm 46 is a profound belief in the Lordship of God even over Creation. Last week in my sermon I suggested how important creation is because it finds its genesis in God and the created order is a wonderful thing that should be preserved, and we should be passionate about it. Part of the glory of creation is that it, like us, praises God. It is not the object of worship, but makes God the object of its worship. This, I think, is the biblical understanding of nature.
Nature itself is not a benign thing either. It is not that nature itself is always kind. It is not just about loving furry creatures and the sweet things that make it up. It can be devastating. The psalmist said, though “the seas roar and the mountains fall into the sea, though the earth separates” and here is a sense of a cosmic conflagration - the breaking up of nature. Nature is powerful and an incredible force, and no matter what we build up around it, nature is still a powerful, powerful thing, and it is not always benign.
I noticed when I was trying to get a part for one of my cars that the part was probably not available to me in its current form, in its best form, and I was heartbroken - I had to have a perfect car - and I was told that it was because of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan that the supply from over eighteen months ago has been devastated. God doesn't care about car parts - I am convinced of that - and you probably aren't bothered about them either, but it was just a sign to me of the chaos that is caused by nature at times. That pales compared to the death and the destruction that the Japanese people faced!
It is incredible to think about the power of Creation, but the Psalmist has a sense that even this Creation is somehow in the end subject to God, and that God, even in the midst of its devastation will still be with us. The Psalmist writes this so beautifully. He describes God as “a mighty fortress” a very present help in trouble, and though in fact “the earth quakes and the seas roar” we will not fear, because “our Lord, our God, is our refuge.” This is of course a hope. It is something that points to the future, but it is the recognition that even this world in all its glory and power is still a world that has a power above it, transcendent from it: God is the Lord of the Earth.
God is also the Lord of history and of peace. I love Psalm 46. It talks about God as the God of peace, a God who sees the conflagration between nations and sees the wars and the conflicts that exist, but someday will break the bow and the spear, and will put an end to it all. There is a hope that this God will do great things, and God will in fact bring the earth to himself and the nations. I love the line “God's voice speaks and the nations listen.”
Israel hadn't always listened. Israel in its early days had been quite violent. It had to defend itself against minorities. As a fledgling nation, it had taken on the bastions of war to protect and maintain itself, but the prophets came along and the psalmists came along, and there was a realization that God wanted something more for the people, not only for Israel, but for the nations, that the nations might live at peace under the sovereignty of God, and that God would put an end to the wars and conflicts. This is something for which we wait and we hope.
On the very same night of April 24th there was another event in Ottawa, held by Rabbi Reuven Bulka, the Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox Jews in Canada and certainly in Ottawa. I have known Reuven for some time, but the event was, and this is amazing, to bring to people's attention not to the persecution of Jews, but the persecution of Christians. Along with Members of the Houses of Parliament and with other religious leaders, he went from a meeting in his synagogue to a meeting at the Chateau Laurier. There, in a speech, he said the following words: “There is a crescendo of attacks on the Christian community the world over. We must stand together against the persecution of Christians.”
He went on to say that he decries and condemns the persecution of Christians. He decries the persecution of Jews or Muslims or Tibetan Buddhists. “We stand together for all these people under God” he said.
In a speech that very same night, the Minister of Immigration, Jason Kenny, got up and spoke and he said the following: “In our tolerant society too many are saying that Christians are getting what is coming to them. This is a new form of blood libel. It must be repudiated at every opportunity.”
Then they went on, and at another presentation told us that over 100,000 to maybe 160,000 Christians are martyred in the world every year, and since the middle of the twentieth century that number has grown every year.
In other words, my friends, religious persecution and strife occurs in many places, and it occurs when God is compartmentalized and when we box God in and when we marginalize him, then there is no accountability to a higher power. But when God is seen as the author of history, the creator of the world, then the peace of which the psalmist speaks becomes real. Rabbi Bulka knows this. Some of the Imams were there who know that. We, as Christians, know that. The psalmist is right: the Lord is our refuge, therefore we will not fear.
He is also the Lord of peace in an even more profound way. There is a sense in which the psalmist understands that everything is based on our faith. The famous words, one of the most famous phrases of all time is right here in this Psalm. We have heard it a thousand times: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
I have been listening to a song that has absolutely risen to the top of music charts, by the English singer, Adele. Adele has this Number One hit called Rolling in the Deep. She is someone from London and her language isn't always the purest, but then again, if you knew that part of London, you would understand why that is the case. But she is an amazing singer. I wondered why her song had become so popular and I realized as I read the words more carefully and listened, it is not just that searing voice of hers in its bluesy sound but something more: it is the sentiment she expresses from the pain in her heart. These are the words from one of the stanzas:
There is a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it is bringing me out the dark
The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we must have had it all
The scars of your love they leave me breathless
I can't help feeling we could have had it all
Now I'm going to wish you had never met me
Rolling in the deep tears are going to fall
We could have had it all
And, as the song goes on, pity the poor bloke who caused her such misery is all I can say! She is hurt!
Human conflict does hurt, it causes chaos and pain. It doesn't matter what the broken relationship might be. It doesn't matter whether it is in a marriage or a relationship. It doesn't matter if it is in a home or school, or a church, or an organization. It doesn't matter. When there are broken relationships, there is chaos, and I think the psalmist was feeling that. I think the psalmist, at the end of the Psalm, had clearly encountered something that had terrified him, something that had been broken. He hopes and he prays for a river of peace and that Jerusalem, the high city, will be spared above all the torment of the waters foaming below. But more than that, in his heart he wants stillness.
How does that stillness come about? How does that peace come about? He gives the answer, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Even in our own lives, God's sovereignty is often in the stillness. The psalmist, I am sure was waiting for a day when this would manifest itself in a really profound way. We see it in Jesus of Nazareth, the way, and we do so recognizing no matter how the world or history or the nations or the people might be rolling in the deep, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Amen.