Trying to Find Order Out of Chaos.

Imagine being married for 13, 14, 15, maybe even 20 years or more……   and thinking that things were generally pretty good between you and your spouse. There were occasional ups and downs, like every marriage. And then, out of the blue one day your spouse comes to you and says, "I've filed for divorce." “I’m leaving you permanently non-negotiably.” After the shock wears off, you try marriage counselling for a time, to try and patch things up, to understand what the problem is...but nothing works and a year or so later, you are divorced. Some of you may not have to imagine it. For some of you, this may be your reality.

Or, imagine working for a large, multi-national corporation for many years, giving your time, your effort, your ingenuity, thinking that this large, secure, wealthy corporation will always have need of such fine employees as yourself. But then, when you are in your mid-50s, the corporation alters its organizational structure so that one Friday afternoon, without any warning, you receive a letter informing you that in less than a month your services will no longer be needed. You feel unwanted, rejected, bitter, and without any hope. You then find yourself out on the street, over-skilled in a bad global economy. Some of you may not have to imagine it. For some of you, this may be your reality.

I could give many examples but here is one last example. Imagine that for one reason or another you have just moved from one part of the country to another or to another country. You have left behind friends, neighbours, maybe family, but also routines, schools, churches, favourite restaurants, and the cleaners who know just how you like things done. In your new "home" you have no friends and only a handful of acquaintances. Your neighbourhood seems cold and distant. The grocery stores don't carry favourite brands. People talk funny all around you. You can't find anything good to say about your new "home," in fact, it hardly feels like home at all. Some of you may not have to imagine it. For some of you, this may be your reality.

I could give many examples but here is one last example. Imagine that for one reason or another you have just moved from one part of the country to another or to another country. You have left behind friends, neighbours, maybe family, but also routines, schools, churches, favourite restaurants, and the cleaners who know just how you like things done. In your new "home" you have no friends and only a handful of acquaintances. Your neighbourhood seems cold and distant. The grocery stores don't carry favourite brands. People talk funny all around you. You can't find anything good to say about your new "home," in fact, it hardly feels like home at all. Some of you may not have to imagine it. For some of you, this may be your reality. 

We do this by a variety of methods: family, work, recreation, money, to name a few and we attempt to keep chaos at predictable and safe. We throw ourselves into work hoping to be rewarded with money and respect. We pursue hobbies and vocations thinking they will make us better people or that they will fill a void in our lives. We gather as much wealth as we can, fooled into believing that life can be care-free. However, we choose to order our lives that order will at some point break apart.

No family is going to bring enough love, no job is secure enough, no amount of money is great enough to distance us from the given of chaos. Family relationships often disappoint. We may find ourselves in a dead-end job, or be laid off, or "down-sized." Money solves nothing; each income bracket produces its own problems and challenges. Chaos happens, whether we are rich or poor, young or old, living in the city, suburb, or country, our carefully ordered existence will, at some point, disintegrate, resulting in disorder.

This moment of chaos which follows the collapse of order is an experience of crucifixion. Like Jesus, who did not seek the cross neither do we seek chaos. It is painful. We suffer in it. It feels like we have died. When our lives are being built up, God is with us. When they fall apart, and we crash, God is with us as well. The Christian community is not a self-improvement society where we work to get just a little bit better each day of our lives. We are prepared for things to get ugly and nasty and neither do we fear death, for out of death emerges new life. As slowly and quietly as dawn emerges on a still, spring morning, so the new life, a new order, a new creation emerges out of the chaos.