Chaos
When I was growing up, I had to learn the importance of cleaning my room. My wife might tell you that the lesson might not have taken completely. In the minds of my parents, it was messy and chaotic. But in my mind, it was organized chaos. I still knew where everything was, even if I had to move things around. My father would tell me that I would feel better if I started my day off with a clean room. Of course, he was right, and I would like to think that I have amended my ways, mostly.
These days, my life is filled with enough chaos that I spend my day trying to bring order. I think this is the case for us all. There are always dishes to do, laundry to clean, children to tend to, a stack of bills to pay, and messes to pick up. About six years ago, we bought a house in Pennsylvania that we had to renovate. We lived in a construction zone until we sold the house. We slept one night in a finished house. And every day, there was a sense of stress brought about by the chaotic environment of a work site. Even these past two weeks, while construction was going on at the church, things seemed a little chaotic; items were disheveled, and parts of the church were blocked off from use. It is from this negative vantage point that we often understand chaos. Chaos is what you try to avoid; it is in opposition to order and the way things are supposed to be. A cursory glance at Scripture affirms this view, too.
In Genesis 1, the waters are described as “the watery deep” and a place of “darkness”, a place that has not yet been ordered into dry land and sea. It is this primordial chaos that needs to be tamed and rightly ordered in Creation. Water continues to have this depiction of chaos throughout the Bible; think of Jonah in the storm or Jesus in the boat during the storm.
The wilderness has a similar connection with chaos in Scripture as well. The wilderness is the place the scapegoat was sent, where Israel wandered due to their disobedience. Likewise, the wilderness is where Jesus went when he was tempted by Satan. It is a place where beasts live, a place of the unknown, and a place of judgement.
Yet, there is another way to understand chaos than in a purely negative light. In the midst of chaos, God creates. From the chaos of the waters, the Spirit of God hovers and brings about order. In the chaos of the storm in the depths of the water, God rescues Jonah through a whale. And during the storm, Christ calms the waves and the wind. Likewise, the wilderness is where God meets his people and where he purifies them.
The places of chaos are figures of our own souls, places in need of ordering. In the incarnation, Christ takes on our body, mind, and soul to redeem us. The image of Christ going into the wilderness to be tempted is also an image of the incarnation, that he came into our midst and “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15).
Just as when I was renovating our house, or as we have been renovating the church here these past two weeks, there is a creative chaos, an ordered chaos, that seeks to bring about redemption. Chaos, in the hands of God, reminds us that he is at work. This is our hope, that Christ enters into our chaos and rescues us and recreates us. That he is the master builder who is building his kingdom in the world and in our own hearts. Chaos is a reminder that we are not in control and our hope is yet to come.
If you ever look closely at the hem of my cassock, you will notice that there is a fringe. Now, there is a practical reason for this, as it potentially helps the ends not to fray as they come into contact with the ground. However, there is a deeper symbolism, namely, that there still exists the social fringe, and the disordered chaos at the edges of the world where God is at work. This is where we see Christ, with those on the fringes of society, seeking to bring his kingdom into all of the world. This, too, is where we see his work most deeply in our own lives, those dark and deep places of the soul that we have not yet relinquished to God, where he is still at work.
When we come to worship, it is right that our worship should be ordered; after all, it is an image of heaven. God might work in the chaos, but it points us to his redemption being wrought in our own lives. So, when chaos enters our midst during worship through the cries of an infant, or the disobedience of a toddler, a phone that was not silenced, or even a medical emergency, let it lead you to reflect on the work that God is still doing in the world and in your own life. This, too, is the work that we join in, both in the worship service, where we proclaim Christ crucified and sin and death destroyed, but also as we are sent out into the world and to its fringes to proclaim Christ.
So, the next time you experience chaos in your life and things are not the way they are supposed to be, when you find yourself behind in your chores, your health is failing, your children keep interrupting your prayers, or whatever may be happening, I hope you might not just see it as simply a bad thing but a reminder of the work of God. And that in those moments, you might seek to meet him in the midst of chaos. That you might enter into these interruptions and places of brokenness as an act of prayer and worship, expecting to see Christ at work.
God's Peace,
Fr. Aaron