Wonder in the Chaos - First Sunday of the Season of Creation
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
September 07, 2025
Three weeks ago, just in time for this Oceans and Rivers
Sunday, Scientific American reported dozens of new deep-sea species discovered
in an underwater gorge nearly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, located off
the coast of Argentina. In case you missed it, a couple of the highlights are
Barbie Pink lobsters, a see-through squid with horns and a starfish said to
resemble Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants. While I doubt God had Barbie or
SpongeBob SquarePants in mind, who says God doesn’t create for the fun of it?
I confess to you, usually when I think of deep-water
creatures, I imagine things more like a viper fish with giant jaws, or sharks
with three rows of teeth or a legend like the Loch Ness Monster. The Bible
gives us a deep-sea creature called Leviathan.
If you Google “Biblically accurate Leviathans” you will
find a collection of images that depict creatures that are part dragon spewing
flames; part octopus with flailing tentacles; part massive serpent with a tail
and rows of scales like armor; part giant bird with talons and wings and part
demon. None of that sounds like giant creature created by God for the sport of
it to play in the sea. Instead, “Leviathan” sounds more like something out of
JK Rowling’s Fantastical Beasts or 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea for us
oldsters. People of Hebrew Scripture imagined Leviathan as this ancient force
of chaos- think “when God creates the world God creates order out of chaos.”
Think “symbolic enemy of God” whose seven heads will be ultimately vanquished.
They envision a creature whose name means “coiling and twisting,” a dragon of
the sea that will strike terror as fire streams from its mouth. Over time, they
even decided Leviathan existed before creation and God had to tame it. What?!
How could something exist before creation?
Someone got lost.
Why am I doing a deep dive about this creature other than
being stuck on the couch the last couple weeks?
The myth of such a sea creature existed in other parts of
the world we call the Ancient Near East, thousands of years before the people
of the Hebrew Scripture. Imagining primordial chaos monsters was common. And so
its not surprising the writers swam in that water too.
What was unique to the Hebrew people was adding that the
slaying of this creature somehow became victory. That’s going to show up again
in the book of Revelation as well.
With that background, let’s turn and think about what’s
going on today in our reading from the book of Job and Psalms, and to some
degree what’s going on with Jesus in the gospel. We don’t have enough time for
me to tell you all the whole story of Job, but to sum it up, life had become a
traumatic mess of thing after thing. He was hurting, fearful, grieving and weary, surrounded by people with lots of ideas about why that was or what to
do. And in such a space, given everything that’s happened, it like only
swimming in a world of darkness and extinction. He felt overwhelmed by a
different kind of chaos monster. Maybe we can relate.
Our passage which refers to waterways is a part of a much
larger back and forth with Job and God and a shift from seeing the world as bad
and God as mad to seeing God and creation truly. Heck that’s every week of our
lives. Job’s give and take is less “question and answer” session, and more a
poetic description of our world and our Creator, according to Robert Alter in
his book, The Art of Biblical Poetry. When we allow parts of scripture
to be in conversation with each other, we get a much fuller picture. God’s
response to Job, and the inspiration for our Psalm today, reveal an intimacy
that we do not often easily grasp or embrace with God. God is not chiding Job
asking, “who do you think you are?” Rather God asks, “who is this that darkens
your counsel in words without knowledge?” That’s the place we can end up
depending upon the culture in which we swim.
This question, “who darkens your counsel?” can help us
embrace God for ourselves, others, our fellow creatures and all of creation.
God answers Job, not with fearful darkness but with
images of birth, Earth and sea, rain, animals, and light present too. God uses the same images as Job, but with
larger meaning. Where Job has cried out, “he flattens nations and pours out
scorn!” God responds with “have you ever commanded the morning, appointed dawn
to its place to seize the Earth’s corner that the wicked be shaken from it?”
That’s a different take. God asks, “where were you when I created? Tell me if
you have understanding.”
God, knowing we don’t, goes on to guide, “I’m the one who
determined the measurements and stretched out the line and put down the
foundation constructing the Earth. And the morning stars sang and everything in
the sky shouted for joy! I’m the one who shut in the sea and made the clouds
and stopped the waves that you call “chaos.” Have you been down into the deep
that Leviathan calls home? Have you seen the whole of creation?”
In contemplating the vastness of God’s creation, we might
see that our chaos monsters are not the only thing there, and maybe sometimes
they are not real. Maybe even faintly we remember the psalmist praising,” How
many are your works, O Lord, in wisdom you have made them all. The Earth is
full of your creatures, the sea so great and wide, teems with countless
creatures!” And then we hear what we relate to, “there go the Ships.” If the
sea was really an unending chaos, unable to be tamed, no ships would go there,
and our God would not be God. Sometimes it helps to stop swimming and do a
reality check.
Reality check #1:
there go the ships. It’s not total chaos. Reality check#2: That
Leviathan? I formed it. Why do you imagine a creature before me? I know it’s
wild looking, but I made it for fun and so it could play. So, might God reshape
your perspective? Probably true for more than deep water creatures.
As often happens, we’re influenced by the voices around
us. That was true for the people crafting the oral history of the people of
Israel just as it is with us.
A give and take with God’s word helps us perceive God’s
world- revealing to us the story of God interacting with us, amidst of what
swirls around us, both factual and mythical. Our world is beautiful and deep,
but without God to guide us, we can get caught up, swept away by the power of
our susceptibility when we are hurting, fearing, or in crisis. We can listen to
voices that tell us that the world around us is ready to encompass us like a
stranglehold, that we must control everything, and that that which we do not
understand must be subdued. Or that creation is disposable. We can allow
ourselves to be deceived even as we feel like we are drowning. Imagining chaos
monsters is still common.
But…can we conjure our God?
God asks Job, “where is the way the light dwells?” Where
Job lands is the same place as the disciples in the gospel out on the sea all
night who haven’t caught a thing until Jesus shows up. Job’s words could be
theirs, “I told, but did not understand. There are wonders beyond me that I did
not know.” Those words could be ours.
Where is the way the light dwells? Job’s encounter with a
loving God wasn’t easy, but it transformed him. The disciples’ encounter
transformed them so much they dropped everything to change but they’d need a
repeat lesson time and again in the world of choppy waters and empty nets. Yet
here is the God of all creation, the God of Leviathans and Barbie pink
lobsters, and of us all, continuing to guide our ongoing transformation, both
within our own hearts and troubled places. There are wonders of God’s creation beyond what we know. They are there. In the shallows and the deep,
may we choose to swim in the place of wonder and love even when it feels like
chaos.
AMEN
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2025 All
rights reserved. May not be reproduced
in whole or in part without written permission.
Sermon Texts: Job
38:4-18; Luke 12:22-31
Psalm 104:5-13, 24-26
5 You
set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.
6 You
cover it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At
your rebuke they flee;
at the sound of your thunder they take to
flight.
8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys,
to the place that you appointed for them.
9 You
set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the
earth.
10 You
make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills,
11 giving drink to every wild animal;
the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By
the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of
your work.
24 O Lord,
how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, great and wide;
creeping things innumerable are there,
living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships
and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
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