Weather the Weather: Rain, Hail, Shine

(Isaiah 65.17-25; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19)

Some years ago at St Mark’s theological college over the way, we were blessed for a wonderful semester with a visit from a man called Michael McCarthy. Michael was an English priest and poet, and a man of deep spiritual wisdom. In fact it was sometimes a bit disconcerting how he was able to read my inner state of being; and not just mine but others as well. He didn’t say much, but what he did say was almost always spookily ‘spot on’.

For this one semester Michael led the program with our ordination candidates. His subject was prayer and spiritual maturity. At the start of each session he would ask us to sit in silence for a few minutes, and take note of what he called ‘the weather’. He meant our inner weather, the state of our souls, not the weather outside the window. Then we would go round the table and say in a word or two what we felt. It was amazing how revealing a simple weather word could be in locating each of us spiritually. ‘Storm brewing,’ one might say. ‘Gales,’ said another. ‘Hot and dry,’ a third. ‘Sunshine,’ a fourth. Sometimes we would talk in detail about these weather reports, sometimes not. But they were always illuminating in at least three ways.

First, they forced us to pay attention to where we each were at that moment in relation to God, to ourselves, and to our walk of faith. This is important self knowledge. And ignorance of it condemns us to superficial living and unreflective believing.

Second, it showed the diversity of experience in the room. We were all in different states. And if we were to relate to each other at any depth, in conversation and study, it was important to realize and respect this variety. Because all seems sunshine to me, doesn’t mean you feel the same way. If I am not sensitive to that, I’m not going to relate very carefully to you, and vice versa.

Third, we learned that spiritual weather, our spiritual weather, changes. We are not always in the same circumstances. Indeed, across the semester we kept a diary of our weekly weather reports and all of us found that things changed. To be sure, we often saw certain patterns emerge; some of us tended to be more toward the sunny end of things on the whole than others. But everyone noted changes in ‘soul weather’ across time.

Our three scripture readings this morning spell out, in terms more vivid than Michael McCarthy’s, the diverse spiritual isobars that go to make up the climate of faith, the soul weather of our human journey with God. Diverse it is. And changeable it is. And it often just happens. Exactly like the physical weather in which we live our daily lives.

The words of Jesus from the Gospel set out one particular weather forecast. Here are gathering storm clouds if ever there were such. He speaks to his disciples of the pending destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, an event that came to pass in the sacking of the city by Rome in 70CE. A ‘hard rain’s a goin’ to fall,’ to use Bob Dylan’s famous line. And the faithful are going to be caught in the deluge. Persecution, strife, betrayal, trial, death are on the radar screen. And there’s not a great deal they can do about it, anymore than we can ward off a thunderstorm when it builds. What they can do is to take courage; to stick together; to remember the faithfulness of God. ‘By your endurance,’ Jesus says, ‘you will gain your souls.’

Here in Australia, thank God, we do not have to face such a spiritual hard rain; though we know well that in some places in this world our fellow believers meet unmerciful storms. But from time to time all of us enter periods of turbulent weather in faith. It might be our external situation at home, or at work, or in our health, or our relationships. Or it might be more a matter of inner change. We find our soul cast down within us, as the psalmist says. Sorrow batters our spirit. Or a sense of dryness, abandonment or boredom enters our prayer and worship and thought. It can be anything. But, suddenly or slowly, we experience our faith as through a hard rain. And that’s just the way it is.

Down the other end of the soul weather forecast spectrum are the words of the prophet Isaiah. He reports a vision of fair weather faith. Not Jerusalem under siege and a temple in ruins, but the exact opposite. A New Jerusalem, in fact a new heaven and a new earth, is the call. Here is a house we can live in with genuine happiness; here, work we can engage in that is truly worthwhile; here, human relationships and relationship with God that are loving, graceful, affirming, healing. ‘I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,’ says God, ‘and its people as a delight.’ Joy and delight! I’ll want to live to be a hundred in this kind of weather; hurt and destruction are a distant memory in this blessed abode.

Of course, Isaiah’s words set out the vision of the final kingdom of God, and in that sense this is a weather report that points beyond human history to the fulfillment of all things in God’s eternal climate. But it’s not just an ideal. It is also a picture that, to varying degrees, is true of weather patterns of the spirit that shape our daily walk. At times we live under sunny skies. Our spirit lifts to the life-giving wind of God’s Spirit as it blows around us. Circumstances are blessed; prayers are full of living sap; songs are odes of joy; and people are kind. Not dogged endurance, but buoyant lightness graces our steps. ‘No sound of weeping, no cry of distress on all my holy mountain’, says the Lord. This, too, is faith’s weather at times.

Then finally, we meet that strange little text from 2 Thessalonians. Different again. Not the hard rain of struggle and storm. And not the bright sunlight of blessing and joy. This is neither the mountain nor the valley. This is the non-descript soul weather which the lectionary calls ‘ordinary time’. The daily round. The common task. Life in the church as we often find it. The Thessalonians are trying to get on with the job. But there’s a drudgery and everydayness about it. Some work at it; some let things slide; and some are just ‘busybodies’, says Paul with exasperation. The Thessalonians are facing no great challenges; but they’re not reveling in wonderful blessings either. They are hanging in there with the ordinariness faith and the routine of prayer and the commonplace of service.

If in face of storms Jesus says, ‘by your endurance you will gain your souls;’ and if in the sunshine of blessing Isaiah says, ‘rejoice and delight’; here, in face of ordinariness, Paul says, ‘do not be weary in doing what it right.’ This third kind of weather we know, too. We’ve been there before; and perhaps we are under its isobaric influence now. Just because it is ordinary, everyday, routine, we probably live this weather most of the time.

Storms, sunshine, grey days. The weather patterns of the soul. I think Michael McCarthy was right. It is helpful to be aware of where I am in the climate patterns of faith. That way I can take appropriate spiritual action—to protect, to enjoy, or to persevere. It is also valuable to be a bit sensitive to each other’s weather; to be aware that though I am in this climate, you may well be in a different one. As a community, we can be present for each other in loving ways if we keep an eye open for the different soul weathers we are living. And we know, too, that weather patterns change. I may be in a typhoon this month, and a hard rain may be falling. But it will change. Other days and other climates will come. Let’s not forget that.

A last point. Often we feel we are just victims of the climate. Soul weather happens, and we are stuck with it. And there’s truth in that. We can’t always control how faith proceeds. But this also is true. The whole climate of faith, with all its variations and unpredictability, is nonetheless within, not outside God’s providential grace. I am struck by how apposite these three diverse readings are to Jesus’ life; especially its climax in the passion.

Good Friday was a hard rain. All Jesus says about the destruction of Jerusalem and the smashing of its temple was true of his Good Friday. He underwent betrayal, prison, trial, injustice, isolation, death. And he endured it for the sake of the great work of God in the redemption and renewal of creation.

But on Easter Sunday he rose in the power of the Spirit, victor over death, injustice and the grave. Spring weather unleashed and unbounded. The light that shone in the darkness was not overcome, it now shines with eternal brilliance. The revelation of this new heaven and new earth, certainly encourages us to ‘be glad and rejoice forever,’ as Isaiah put it.

But between these two, between the hard rain and the eternal light, stands Easter Saturday. The time between Jesus’ suffering and Jesus’ resurrection. Waiting weather; wondering weather; ordinary weather; drab weather. This climate too, is an essential part of Jesus’ work of redemption and renewal.

If these soul climates—hard rain, brilliant sunshine, ordinary weather—are true of Jesus’ life in the world, we should not be surprised if they find echoes in our experience as well. And knowing that, we know also that all our times, and all our weathers—rain, hail, shine—are held within Christ’s overarching climate of redemption of the world in God’s time and in God’s way.

Graeme Garrett

Canberra Baptist Church

Twenty Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

14 November 2010