Been thinking about idolatry a lot.

Psalm 115:8 says that those who make them (idols) are like them. So, I wonder if we can say that the inverse is true too: If you want to know what you are like, take a look at your idols.

Even before I stumbled across this verse in the readings I'd been thinking about the idolatry of smooth sailing, the near worship of keeping everything going along all nicely and without ranker. And yet we know what Jesus said about his real mission; setting one against the other, overturning the dominant paradigm. We know that Jesus did not get up out of the hold of the boat to tend to a clam sea but a stormy one, he did not walk on still waters but raging ones. Somehow, and this is a little baffling, we now think that the presence of God is quiet and peaceful, free from all strife. How did we get to that?

Three things I imagine. Probably more. But, here are three: Lack of knowledge, lack of faith, and wrong focus

What we need to know is that God's Peace - Shalom - is not about smooth sailing. Shalom is written with a Shin, a Lamed, and a Mem. Lamed, the biggest of the Hebrew letters and one of the middle letters is clearly an anchor for us as well as a center. But, the big comfortable center is preceded by the fire of Shin -- uncontrollable, unpredictable, burning, purifying fire -- and the water of Mem -- engulfing, raging, crushing water. So, you see that the Peace of God may be -- well, it IS -- surrounded by chaos. It is out of our control. And it is difficult... Not smooth sailing.

It is easy to have faith when things are going along smoothly. Thus, the temptation. But, real faith says that God is God even when I am not in control, even when the flames are licking at my heels and the waters are up to my neck.... I am going down. In our parishes and businesses and lives, we want to believe that we are in the center of God's peace -- right on the Lamed. We want others to believe that about us too. But, the truth is that most of us are too scared to even face the fire and water that might get us there at all. It is a pure, and understandable, lack of faith. Fear.

Since I've been in Texas I've heard a lot about just gathering around the foot of the cross and bowing our sinful heads before the stricken Jesus. Egad! There is certainly merit in meditation on the cross, not disputing that at all. What I am saying is that it's the wrong focus. When people are gathered at the foot of the cross they've missed the resurrection, Pentecost, Epiphany, and the rest... And, perhaps worse, at the foot of the cross people may look down, they may look at Jesus, but they almost never look at one another. A community gathered round a table, on the other hand, knows that it is living in the resurrection era with all the attendant hope of the Kingdom of God. And people look at one another. They are unafraid of rough seas, hard times. They confront difficulties. They love despite everything because they've been raised up from down under the cross into a new way of living and the love of God is inside of them carried by bread and wine and hope.

The real presence of God, I am convinced, is in the rough seas and the fiery chaos beyond my control.

I am not sailing on smooth seas, nor am I afraid.