The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

It is common for gods to be linked with the natural world; the ancient Greeks had gods of thunder and earthquakes; gods of the sun and the wind; gods of childbirth and harvest and alongside them gods of wisdom and the arts. The God in whom we believe is different in that he is one and his singleness is his characteristic that he emphasizes most. Following the terrifying display on Mount Sinai, which we heard described in our first reading, God will deliver his commandments to his people and the first will be that they are to have no other gods before him- with the next two, prohibiting idols and protecting his name, as supplementary rules, enforcing his oneness. The narrative moves from the display of Gods power in the natural world and his unapproachable holiness, to God as law giver, who establishes man’s relations with Him and the rules for human society. It is only after, and as a consequence, of the proper relation with God, that human relations can be regulated, in the following commandments enforcing respect for property, marriage and life. The divine, natural and human orders follow from one another.
But as the smoke and thunder and quaking of Mt Sinai tell us God is first the God of nature, invested with all the power and might of the natural world. While the gods of the Greeks and the Norsemen explained natural phenomena by conflict or harmony between their differing personalities; the God of the Jews is alone the creating and ordering force of the world. His Word is, a preconceived scheme which makes and structures everything .
As the god of the natural world, our God explains its predictability and order, in the days and seasons. The order of the world is recognized in an underlying structure on which we may rely, as we plough, and sow and reap, but which may also go disastrously wrong, when for some reason the balance is upset. Parallel with the natural order is the social ordering of the Law, governing where we stand with God and with one another. Just as God sees that the natural world he has created is good, so the ordered human world can be happy and fruitful while it respects the Law.
It is a two way relationship as there also a sense that the natural order reflects the human social order. The stars and planets are named; the trees and plants have a place and animals their position within a society in which man is the top. All are governed by the same law and it is the underlying principle of wisdom but equally underpinned by love, as God sees his creation as good and wants it to be happy and successful.
But as love implies the possibility of anger, so wisdom and order imply the existence of folly and disobedience. Man, created in God’s image has the power to choose. In some ways he man has done quite well, particularly in the enhancing creation in the worship and exploration of its Creator. Religious art is not the only great art. In another sermon I might try to argue that all great art has something of the divine in it, but now it’s enough to point to the obvious fact that some of the most wonderful and moving buildings, paintings and music have been made expressly to glorify God or capture some aspect of the divine.
On the other hand especially since the industrial age we have seen too what a terrible mess our ingenuity and greed can make of the intricacy, beauty and above all delicate balance of the World. Although the scale and the consequences of the damage are far greater, we shouldn’t forget that the first civilisations grew out of the ability to control the world’s most powerful rivers, which no doubt changed habitats and weather patterns, although not with the potentially terminal consequences that our misuse of hydrocarbons threatens. This misuse, the disrespect for creation, ultimately our disobedience to divine law stem back to the Fall; eating the forbidden fruit had unavoidable consequences. The sin which follows from that disobedience is manifest principally, or most obviously, in our relations with each others, as Cain murders Abel, but also in our relations with God as overweening men build a tower to challenge God. Our despoiling of our natural environment has gone hand in hand with a passion for instant gratification, at cost what may, which impoverishes and starves so many of our fellow human beings. Asour folly has exacerbated the consequencesof natural disasters, and even contributed to their causes, we have demonstrated the awful reality of the single Law which underlies the natural world and the human social world and their inextricable  relationship with each other and with their creator.
This sorry story of corruption of a perfect world is one which we can readily recognize; as I have suggested however, it’s not all depressingly bleak. The mess we are in has come about because we have abused our god-like power to control and shape our environment. That power can also be used to enhance and beatify the world we live in. Let us hope we have the time and confidence in God’s grace to bring ourselves back from the brink of self destruction. The vital point for us to grasp is that our relations with the physical world, with our natural environment are just as much a matter of morality as our relations with our fellow human beings, and underlying both are our relation with God, our creator.
The Gospel story of calming of the storm and the healing of the demoniacs take up these themes. Water was an especially potent symbol of danger in the Jewish tradition; one has only to think of Noah’s Flood and the crossing of the Red Sea. Calming and ordering the chaotic waters was God’s first creative act. The disciples’ reaction recognizes Jesus’ power “What sort of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” They seem to be referring to passages like that in Psalm 65 which speaks of God stilling the roaring of the Sea and the tumult of the people; the natural and human worlds are as one to God and Jesus is the incarnation of the ordering and creating God.
We should, however, remember too that he is also the God who intervenes in nature, in a deeply disordered way. Miracles are by, definition, events that are out of the expected order. We should see this disordering as more a re-ordering outside our experience, and impossibly paradoxical in terms of the real world, but nevertheless inspirational as visions, like that of Isaiah as he sees predator and prey playing on the Holy Mountain and as a toddler sits harmlessly on a snakes nest . Many of the miracles- not perhaps, yet stilling the storm – are examples, or inspirations for what man can achieve- and does, in healing diseases, feeding millions, and to some extent, controlling the natural forces of the world. They are perhaps also a reminder that despite our immense powers the world is more complicated and more wonderful than we can perceive.
But it is one world and one organized I believe, by one benign creative force. We cannot easily- or perhaps at all- control the wind and the sea, but it is clearly within our power to rearrange and reorder society more justly. Abolishing greedand selfishness and their causes is an ambitious but not impossible agenda. It would be a start in re-establishing the reign of wisdom and love. And it’s that I believe which the miracles inspire us to do. Amen