August 24-- Greater Than the Chaos

Passages: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side--let Israel now say-- if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth. –Psalm 124

I thought my husband and I were the last two people on earth who had not seen the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Well apparently I was wrong, because when we went to see it last weekend at the IMAX theater, we were joined by 498 other eager fans. I must admit that it is worth it to see the film on IMAX—when Batman takes a head dive off some tall building, your stomach feels like you’ve jumped off with him. And yes, the film was as good as rumor has it.

Nonetheless, I found the movie to be rather disturbing. The Dark Knight intensely probes the darkness of the human soul, in which the best of men are twisted to evil and doing the right thing means ostracism and loss. Its villains are not the cartoon stock characters of the Adam West Batman days, but dark men who understand and exploit how precariously all human endeavors teeter on the brink of chaos. This is Batman for the post-9/11 world.

And as one who came to maturity in that world, I intuitively understood the randomness and chaos that the Joker and Two-Face represented. I watched news of the Oklahoma City bombings from my middle school library when I was supposed to be doing math problems. I remember participating in intruder drills my senior year of high school after the Columbine High School shootings. And I watched the Twin Towers fall on a television screen in my college dorm lounge. The Dark Knight bothered me because, unlike Jack Nicholson’s clown-like Joker or Tommy Lee Jones’ garishly purple-suited Two-Face, these villains seemed all too close to the chaotic, random evil that inhabits the world I know.

Yet if I think we’re the first generation to be faced with evil we don’t understand and can’t predict, then I haven’t read my Bible very well. Our lectionary Psalm this week uses highly symbolic language to express the same sense of chaos and uncertainty that I saw in The Dark Knight. Here the enemy is a “flood,” “torrent” (v. 4), and “raging waters” (v. 5), who would have “swallowed us up alive” (v. 3) and “swept us away” (v. 4). These labels evoke for the imagination the cosmic waters described in the Genesis creation story (Gen. 1:2), the same waters to which God brings order and light.

Here, too, God brings light and deliverance to those threatened by the chaos. The Psalm, despite its evocative depiction of the larger forces which threaten Israel, ultimately does not sound a note of despair but sings of hope. For the God of the Psalm is greater than the flood, greater than the raging waters, greater than the chaos that pervades the situation. God has provided an escape from the snare, deliverance for the people.

I must confess that I don’t care for the escapist language of this Psalm—I don’t think that God works like the Caped Crusader, sweeping in to rescue us from danger at the last possible second. Nor do I think that God’s being “on our side” (v. 1) means that the Divine Presence will choose between the hot girlfriend or the noble district attorney. What I do think this Psalm attempts to evoke, however, is the final word God has over the forces that threaten to overwhelm us. Death cannot destroy us; the enemy will not engulf us. God, who ultimately sides with all humanity, promises to be present even in the most chaotic, terrifying places and times. And the light God brings cannot be extinguished, even when we fear that the floods have washed it out.

To be able to function in this world—where so often our fears snuff out our love, where our desire for security swallows our zeal for justice—we must be rooted in the knowledge that the God “who made heaven and earth” (v. 8) still works for the well-being of all humankind. And grounded in that good news, we, too, are called to work for the same purposes. For even as the floods seem poised to overwhelm us, God will not abandon us to the chaos.