“The Eye of the Storm”

Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On November 25,  2001

In this text, the apostle is writing to a Christian community that most scholars think he never visited, a group of Christians that he never knew. But he’s heard of their faith and of the pastor who had nurtured them, and he writes in praise of them and also trying to let them know that he’s praying for them as they are undergoing a period of persecution.

 So from day we heard of it (meaning their faith), we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, and for all endurance, patience, with joy, giving thanks to the thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

       Colossians 1: 11-20

It’s a wonderful text, a kind of hymn, really, which speaks of the kingship of Christ. It speaks of the kingship of Christ as part of God’s governing. It’s an appropriate for Christ the King Sunday, and the verse that I have been focusing on this week and over the weekend is verse eleven: May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy.

Christian Century, which is one of the publications that I read, had a story this year about a television show that most frequently mentioned people going to church. I was surprised to discover that in the top five is The Simpsons. It’s not a particularly theological show, as I envision it, but this show is in the top five of shows that talk about people going to church. The article gave several examples, some of which are kind of ignominious, like Homer (he’s the father who goes “doh!” all the time). He speaks of going to church as something that is kind of a burden for him that his family has to drag him into. He says to his daughter after church one Sunday, “Come and watch football with me on television. It’ll take the unpleasant aftertaste of having to go to church out of your mouth.”

A line I noticed that they had in the article was when the mother has the family pray because of a hurricane that’s coming and she is frightened of it. She gathers them around after church and she prays that the Lord will take the hurricane away, and she says, “If you do, we will be sure to recommend you to all of our friends.”

It’s kind of a hurricane Thanksgiving for me. Sort of stormy weather. I don’t know how it was for you. I hope it was glorious. For me it was kind of a stormy Thanksgiving. Oh, about ten days ago… We have had this chocolate lab, a family pet, for eleven years. Just beloved. Twice, I’m convinced, she has saved the lives of members of my family. Something inexplicably happened that her stomach had gotten twisted and it’s been a grave situation ever since. We have her home from the vet now, but she’s there in the kitchen, in that teetering place between life and death, and we are having to weigh out whether it’s an act of kindness to have euthanasia administered or whether we can prolong any quality of life at all. It’s just a burden.

In the midst of kind of carrying that burden into Thanksgiving, the real hurricane blew in, one that outweighed the other even. It’s no comparison. A young man in our community, a boy named Gary Nix, was killed following an automobile accident. He died in the hospital. His grandmother is a member of this congregation, and his parents needed help. So we had that memorial service here on Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve. It was a very tragic death, because of his young age and the unexpectedness of it, and it affected many members of the community.

It felt like a hurricane to me. All I could think of as I headed into Thanksgiving Eve and the service here, having walked with their family through some of the overwhelming burden of that grief was the grandmother saying, “This is the worst Thanksgiving ever.” It felt that way to me a little bit.

We had Thanksgiving, I know, and I’m trusting that some of you had glorious ones. But have you ever had a holiday like this? I just wasn’t sure that we ought to be doing it at all.

Today we arrive at Christ the King Sunday, the Sunday when we lift up the authority and the leadership of Christ. It seems to me like the right word following the week. The authority and leadership of Christ. One of the problems for the church in trying to figure out how to observe Christ the King Sunday in this day and age is that there aren’t that many people who are familiar with kings any more, despite the depth of knowledge represented by these children gathered here. Americans tend to think of kings as something kind of quaint that we had two hundred and fifty years ago that we got rid of but still have affection for across the water, I guess.

For many people in the world today, a problem with trying to speak to them of the notion of Christ as ruler and all of the negative notions they have about rulers. Think about people who live in Afghanistan. To them, Christ as a ruler is not necessarily a good image at all. Many people in third world countries live with very painful notions of rulers. Despots, really. Some of them have been kings. What does it mean to some of the people who have suffered under torture in Chile, to talk about Christ as the Ruler.

But this is the text we get from the scriptures, the text that speaks to us about Jesus as the king. King Jesus. And the apostle says that in this kingship, God seeks to give us gifts. These gifts come to us by being in relationship with Christ the King. And these gifts are borne as fruit. Fruits in our lives out of our relationships, out of our walk, out of our fellowship, out of the presence of Christ in our lives as King.

Fruits come forward. And amongst these fruits given to us as gifts from the King here in the eleventh verse, is listed endurance and patience and joy. The human character says the apostle is too frail to produce these fruits on its own. If you have these things showing up in your life (endurance, patience, and joy), it’s a gift of the King. It comes to you as a gift from Christ. These gifts, says the apostle, they are not for wonder working. They are not for powerful displays to impress others. These are gifts to help you to be prepared to endure the sufferings that may come to you in this life. Endurance, patience, and even joy, are gifts to help you through the hardships that may come to you.

What does it mean to say “Christ the King”? I tried to share with the children some pictures of the different ways that Christ may act as ruler or leader in our lives. The picture that the apostle lifts up in this eleventh verse is a king who gives us endurance, patience, and joy. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy.

I noticed out of this week two things that seem to fill people with fear. One is dying, or losing someone you love to death. The other is living. Having to live with some of the burdens that come to us in this life.

These gifts that come to us from Christ are meant to help us with both of those experiences. In the experience of dying and death, we are given the capacity for endurance and patience and joy to help us, and endurance and patience and joy to help us with the work of living as we may encounter it with burden.

Endurance is the capacity to continue under duress. The capacity even in the midst of trouble to have faith. The capacity of being able to continue to follow the Christian way of living in spite of troubles. The capacity to continue to live with hopefulness even when there is tragedy around you. That you are able to do these things at all, that’s a gift from the King, says the apostle, the gift of endurance.

Patience is the capacity to wait. The capacity to wait without anxiety, even in the midst of fear. Even without knowing what the future may hold. Patience is the capacity to wait, sometimes without acting, to wait until you have a clear discernment to act. If you can wait like that, says the apostle, then that’s patience as a gift to you. That’s a sign of Jesus. King Jesus in your life.

When you stumble onto joy, especially in the hurricanes that may come about, well that’s a sign that Jesus is at the eye of the storm. Whenever you discover joy in the midst of trouble, the realization of God’s goodness and presence (that’s what joy is), then that’s a sign that the King is giving you gifts.

These gifts, endurance and patience and joy, perhaps unexpected in the midst of the storm, are a fruit of the faith in Christ. They are an affirmation and a sign that Christ is King and Jesus is Ruler, that God is in charge. And when the storms come, we can find in them a place of calm and order, and even peace, with the promise of God’s future. And that place is Jesus Christ.

I’ve been looking for the eye of the storm this week. I read a story about a writer named James Paul that I think was a gift of God to me. Some of you may have read some of the writings of James Paul. He’s a psychiatric analyst, a Jungian, and he’s written for quite a while. In 1991, at the age of 57, he had a stroke that paralyzed him so severely that he had to be taught again how to swallow. He still can’t speak, but he communicates via a keyboard, and he spends his time mainly within the walls of his Dallas home. Yet in an interview that was published in a book he wrote, he says this: “Life for me now, since the stroke, if anything is more interesting than before I was disabled.”

Now what’s important, I think, for you to remember about this, is this is the kind of story that the preacher would choose to use for an illustration, but it’s not a story I’m making up. This is the affirmation of the man, paralyzed with a stroke that prevents him from speaking or moving, saying about his own life:  “Life since the stroke, if anything, is more interesting for me than before I was disabled. I find that I don’t worry so much now. I worry less about things like reputation. I worry less about things like my career achievements. I worry less about money. With essentially nothing to lose, I have found a new kind of openness to living. Even a new kind of boldness that I think is a gift to me from God. I am much more open about what I think.”

After the stroke, Paul converted to Catholicism. When asked if he believes if God could heal him, he replied, “Yes, I do believe that God could heal me. But God has not physically healed me. In the deepest sense, I am not sure that there is anything to heal me from. Obviously, I could use physical healing to restore me to my previous level of functioning. But I think I am psychologically healthier than I have ever been before.”

It’s clear, I think, of a man who has found in Christ the eye in the midst of the storm. Endurance and patience and joy.

There have been some signs of the presence of Christ in the storm for me this week. Sitting on the floor in our kitchen, Emalee and I are grieving over this beloved pet. We begin to remember some of the happiness that she has brought us in our lives. I remember something I had forgotten, a conversation with Dr. Marion Avery I had with him before he died, where we talked about whether or not we thought it was possible for an animal to exist in any kind of life to come. It was a wonderful conversation to have with a veterinarian, a Christian one at that. Do you know what he said? From his own sickbed, he said to me, “Well, that is a very interesting question that I have pondered over often. It is not a question that in this life we are going to be able to answer fully. But I’ll tell you,” he said, “the scriptures tell us that God is the Creator, and animals are a part of God’s creation. And the scriptures tell us very clearly that God is love. And I am telling you as a veterinarian that I have known animals who love me and who love their owners. When I hold those things before me in my mind, it seems to me not only possible but even likely that God might sustain their love into eternity. And I’ll tell you,” he said in a kind of Averyism, “there sure are some animals I’d rather meet in heaven than some of the people I’ve known.”

It was a kind of an eye in the midst of the storm.

I found some colleagues this week, as I came to the church, who had been there ahead of me. All kinds of things that I had had nothing to do with, they had done. The Giving Tree was up, not just in one place but in three, blooming here. And the Bloodmobile was coming, and I didn’t even know we had planned for it. Next week it’ll be here, for you to give blood as an act of Christmas giving. The Faith Café was opening up with little input from me. But it was a sign to me of the presence of Christ in the midst of the storm. Christ, I said, is Lord over the church. Christ, I said, as I thought of the story of Dr. Avery, sitting next to my dog, is King of all creation.

And then I gathered around Patty Moses and around Allisa and Steven, and I remember after the service as we gathered with that large crowd out in the courtyard here, standing back and watching the people gathering around Patty, Alissa and Steve, hugging them. Each from their different communities. It was clear to me in the midst of their grief that there were people who loved them and cared for them, who were praying for them. Who were seeking to bring them even a sense of joy in the midst of their lives. Something whispered to me, “Christ is Lord, even over death.” Christ is Lord over death and life.

We have a child’s chalkboard at my house. Thanksgiving morning when I got up, a day that I had had no time to make any preparations for, I discovered that some child, (heaven only knows which one, because there are so many of them from the neighborhood that come in and out of the house), some child had written on that chalkboard in beautiful script, “O glorious, glorious Thanksgiving Day.”

I thought of verse eleven, keeping and strengthening me. Verse eleven, saying, may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for endurance and patience and joy.

© John T. DeBevoise, 2001