Scripture reading: The Apostles' Prayer under Persecution

"As soon as they were released they went to the community and told them everything the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard it they lifted up their voice to God all together. 'Master,' they prayed 'it is you who made heaven and earth and sea, and everything in them; you it is who said through the Holy Spirit and speaking through our ancestor David, your servant

Why this arrogance among the nations,

These futile plots among the peoples?

Kings on earth setting out to war,

Princes making an alliance,

Against the Lord and against his Anointed

'This is what has come true: in this very city Herod and Pontius Pilate made an alliance with the pagan nations and peoples of Israel, against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, but only to bring about the very thing that you in your strength and your wisdom had predetermined should happen. And now, Lord, take note of their threats and help your servants to proclaim your message with all boldness, by stretching out your hand to heal and to work miracles and marvels through the name of your holy servant Jesus.' As they prayed, the house where they were assembled rocked; they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to proclaim the word of God boldly."

--Acts 4:23-31

There may be some of you who read this message title in the newsletter—Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On—and thought that on this weekend of the Monterey Bay Blues Festival I would perform my repertoire of songs by the great Jerry Lee Lewis. That I could do and might do, but it is for another time and place.

The scripture reading for today, and others you will hear shortly, concern our understanding of change and action, including divine action in both the human personality and the physical world. The concept of shaking, disruption, dissolution, cataclysm—whatever you choose to call it—compliments another mode of action, that of smooth, slow, gradual evolutionary change. It is not that one is correct and the other is not. Like yin and yang, both have their place and both are part of the dynamic of our existence. A study of scriptural references increases our understanding of change of the type exemplified in today's reading. This discussion would be a lot easier if it weren't for that Pat Robertson business after the earthquake in Haiti. I'm not really sure if he is as ignorant, callous and uncaring to believe what he said or, like so much of what goes on in trash TV, that it was a cheap publicity stunt to generate ratings. Only he or his producer would know for sure.

In the mental/spiritual realm there is a force of spiritual revelation which is sudden and forces itself upon us. We have all felt those "light bulb" moments when a realization hits us with clear, direct strength, like a glass of cold water in the face. In Hinduism the word is shaktipat—the divine energy or shakti imparting a dramatic and sudden force to the body of the devotee, often producing a physical reaction. In Buddhism there are stories of the student achieving satori, or enlightenment when replying correctly to a koan, a story, dialogue, question, or statement which cannot be understood by rational means, yet it may be accessible by intuition. Satori, it is said, may also occur when the teacher slaps the student on the head with a sandal! This notion of the sudden shock of change is supported by Jewish and Christian scriptures. And, as we will see, it is also validated and supported by natural science and by the historical record.

The first book of Kings describes Elijah's encounter with God. Listen to the account:

"There he went into the cave and spent the night in it. Then the word of Yahweh came to him saying, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?' He replied, 'I am filled with jealous zeal for Yahweh Sabaoth, because the sons of Israel have deserted you, broken down your altars and put your prophets to the sword. I am the only one left, and they want to kill me.' Then he was told, 'Go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.' Then Yahweh himself went by. There came a mighty wind, so strong it tore the mountains and shattered the rocks before Yahweh. But Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake. But Yahweh was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire. But Yahweh was not in the fire. And after the fire came the sound of a gentle breeze. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then a voice came to him, which said, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'" (1Kings 19:9-14)

It is important to note that God was not in the earthquake, or the wind, or the fire. These physical phenomena were manifestations of God's power. God was in the still, small voice, the voice of Yahweh in the quiet, in the center. At this point we should ask if it is possible for the spiritual and physical planes to intersect, to coincide. For those of us who believe in God the creator, sustainer and redeemer of the universe, it took modern astrophysics—hard scientific investigation—to arrive at the Big Bang Theory and to conclude that that is indeed what happened.

Quaking and shaking find their way into the poetry of the psalms as well, here in Psalm 18. I will read from verses 6, 7, and 8:

"In my distress I called to Yahweh

and to my God I cried;

from his Temple he heard my voice,

my cry came to his ears.

Then the earth quivered and quaked,

the foundations of the mountains trembled

(they quivered because he was angry);

from his nostrils a smoke ascended,

and from his mouth a fire that consumed

(live embers were kindled at it)."

Moving on to Biblical prophecy, Isaiah 29:5-6 proclaims:

"Suddenly, unexpectedly,

you shall be visited by Yahweh Sabaoth

with thunder, earthquake, mighty din,

hurricane, tempest, flame of devouring fire"

And yet is important to note that this does not negate God's promise or love for us. The destruction of the physical is not the destruction of the spiritual. We are not abandoned, for a few verses later we read

"for the mountains may depart,

the hills be shaken

but my love for you will never leave you

and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken,

says Yahweh who takes pity on you."

When we come to Zechariah 14:5, the earthquake imagery is a part of the prophetic vision, part of the eschatological struggle, the theology and philosophy concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, which are to result in the new order, the Day of the Lord:

"On that day, his feet will rest on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem from the east. The Mount of Olives will be split in half from east to west, forming a huge gorge; half of the Mount will recede northwards, the other half southwards."

More physical manifestations follow in the succeeding verses.

Three of the four Gospels quote Jesus as predicting earthquakes, wars and revolutions as signs of the end times and a predecessor to the advent of the Kingdom. I will quote one of them, Luke 21:11: "There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines here and there; there will be fearful signs and great signs from heaven." It will not comfort you to report that more than fifty new surface earthquake faults have been discovered in California during the past two decades, and the more that scientists study quakes in California, the more faults and dangers they find. Don't tell Robertson.

In Matthew's account of the crucifixion, physical force in unleashed at the very moment of Christ's death: "At that, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom; the earth quaked; the rocks were split, the tombs opened and the bodies of many holy men entered the Holy City and appeared to a number of people. Meanwhile the centurion, together with the others guarding Jesus, had seen the earthquake and all that was taking place, and they were terrified and said, 'In truth this was a son of God.' (Matt. 27:51-54) The old spiritual says, "sometimes it causes me to tremble," and at this moment in history the earth trembled too.

Paul and Silas, it is reported in Acts 16:26, were helped by an earthquake which destroyed the prison in which they were held: "Suddenly there was an earthquake that shook the prison to its foundations. All the doors flew open and the chains fell from all the prisoners."

Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians turns again to a consideration of the end times, where the advent of the Day of the Lord is compared to the pain of giving birth: ". . . .the Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night. It is when people are saying, 'How quiet and peaceful it is,' when the worst suddenly happens, as suddenly as labor pains come on a pregnant woman, and there will be no way for anyone to evade it." (1Thes. 5:2-3)

To complete our survey of earthquake references, our Bible concludes with the four different verses in the book of Revelation. Let these images from the Apocalypse pass before your mind: "In my vision, when he broke the sixth seal, there was a violent earthquake and the sun went as black as coarse sackcloth; the moon turned red as blood all over, and the stars of the sky fell on the earth like figs dropping from a fig tree when the wind shakes it; the sky disappeared like a scroll rolling up and all the mountains and islands were shaken from their places." (Rev. 6:12-14); "There was a violet earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand persons were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors, overcome with fear, could only praise the God of heaven." (Rev 11:13); "Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the Ark of the Covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake, and violent hail." (Rev 11:19); "The Great City was split into three parts and the cities of the world collapsed. . ." (Rev 16:19)

So there you have it, a biblical survey. What are we to make of this shaking and quaking which happens when people pray powerfully, when God is revealed, and in the end times when the Day of the Lord comes upon the people of earth? How may these strange and mysterious teachings be understood in the light of natural science and history? I, like you, have been trying to grapple with this.

Turning to natural science, we live in an area formed by violent geological action. The rugged beauty of our Sierra Nevada could only have been accomplished by these upheavals. Pressure built and built along plates until slippage at the fault occurred. Geological change was accompanied by biological change and climatic change. Glacial ice sheets moved southward, covering a third of the earth's surface, then receding, then moving south again. This happened four times in all. The latest retreat, which began 10,000 years ago, is still continuing today.¹

Regarding the historical record, the history of civilizations is not one of permanence but of rise and fall. Historian Arnold Toynbee chronicled this in his comparative study of civilizations, entitled A Study of History². Across the historical spectrum, all civilizations break down. Will ours be the exception? Is this even possible? Toynbee demonstrated that, as in biology, negative forces gather which produce the death of the organism, in this case the civilization. Reading from the table of contents will give us a sense of some of his main concepts:

Loss of Command over the Environment [physical and human]

Failure of Self-Determination

The Nemesis of Creativity

The Suicidalness of Militarism

The Intoxication of Victory

Schism in the Body Social

Schism in the Soul

The Relationship between Disintegrating Societies and Individuals

The Rhythm of Disintegration.

Pretty depressing stuff, if you ask me. Turning to our own society, we are more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Congress and state legislatures are frequently at a deadlock, with votes which cancel each other rather than work to a solution through compromise. Meaningful debate has been replaced by sound bites and smear campaigns. Fasten your seat belts. We have a lot more of this to go until November.

In the short time we have I am going to try to give you a very short personal opinion of what is happening here: Our once mighty industrial society has become a banking society. The bottom line rules all, and it is a race to the bottom. And if you are heading to the bottom, bank charges, hidden fees and punitive interest rates will get you there even faster. Corporate greed and excess exports jobs, destroys small businesses which are the heart of the economic engine, and widens the gulf between the poor and the wealthy. Consumption continues, as it must, but at an increasing trade imbalance which makes China, one of the worst violators of human rights and environmental protection, the major holder of our national indebtedness, which is only made worse by an expenditure of lives and money in a war which seems endless. The so-called Patriot Act and what I call "Homeland Insecurity" have made us less free and have achieved what Bin Laden alone could never do. U.S. economic policy is also at fault, and has caused the crisis to spill across our borders. Think what you will about illegal immigration, this final part is just the facts: The North American Free Trade Agreement has resulted in the largest surge ever in legal and unauthorized Latin American immigration to the U.S. After its passage in 1994, an average of 500,000 have migrated each year, compared to 28,000 in the prior year. They arrived, in large part, due to the influx of cheap subsidized grains from the U.S. which have destroyed at least two million small farmers. Every hour Mexico imports $1.5 million in food. NAFTA subsidized corn is sold at prices 30 percent below the cost of production in Mexico.³

Most disturbing of all, social mobility is threatened. This is important. This is, or at least was, the promise of America. We will always have the rich and the poor, but with social mobility one who is poor today may become rich and one who is rich may become poor, but of course may become rich again. To remove social mobility, a sense of fairness, a level playing field, a just and equitable society, removes hope, and the death of hope is the key to failure, and to violent social upheaval. A permanent underclass is social dynamite, and the human earthquake of gang violence (with which we are all too familiar) or revolution is usually the result. The Old Testament prophets would join us in bearing witness to the demands of this justice in order to avert the judgment of God, which is really a judgment we have brought upon ourselves. It would do us good to read them. Can we survive, or more important, can our children and grandchildren? Look at the kind of world are we leaving them.

Our circumstances in the Twenty-first Century are humbling indeed. We are being humbled, we are being judged, yet this is the only way in our destructive tendencies can be stopped. The Hindu scriptures speak of Shiva, the god of destruction, who creates chaos. Whether Shiva is real is not the point—the force of destruction is real—this is what Toynbee described. This culture, this way of life, is destined to be broken. But the possibility of regeneration, of revitalization, is there too. New generations, new civilizations, can and do rise from the ashes of the old. Our Master reminded us that the meek shall inherit the earth, for it is humility that enables us to see and live anew, to escape the pride which always leads to a fall.

Scriptural humility is supported by truth from our own evolution, and this is an insight which gives us hope. I will close with a paraphrase from a fantastic passage I read in a book entitled The Development of Life. It is a message of promise which is contained in our very genetic being: It is probable that mammals have survived and succeeded since the age of the dinosaurs not in spite of but by reason of their very weakness and obscurity, their smallness in a world dominated by giants, their nakedness in a world of armor plate—in particular, by their fear and sensitivity and awareness in a world of unperceiving, insensate brutes. Proud of his intellectual equipment, man has often tended to underestimate his other legacies—a puny, hairless, wingless, shivering, unarmored, slow-footed pygmy in an arena of superior physical specimens. Yet it is true that man's supreme heritage is his brain—that mysterious and convoluted mass of soft tissue which enables him to perceive the world around him with unique acuity and respond to its stimuli with a subtlety and self-consciousness that sets him apart from all other living things. It invests him with a power which no other creature ever possessed—to modify his environment, to govern and alter the course of evolution for all forms of life, including his own.⁴

For the mountains may depart,

the hills be shaken

but my love for you will never leave you

and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken,

says Yahweh who takes pity on you.