By Steve Hall
With little thought, we readily slide into alternatives. The road ahead has traffic stopped, so we take an alternate route. But God has no backup plan. There is only plan ‘A,’ and that one plan holds fast forever.
Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
Acts 14:19-28
John 14:27-31
At some time in your life, probably when you were young, you held a gyroscope in your hand. You wrapped the string around the center post, gave that string a hard pull, and the caged wheel would rapidly spin. You set it on a pointed cone or on a string-held taunt, and it would hold fast to the plane of the spinning wheel until that wheel lost its momentum. If you held that spinning wheel in your hand, you could feel resistance if you tried to turn it.
Motorcycle stability operates on the same principle. The Spinning wheels resist changes in orientation due to angular momentum, helping keep the bike upright. The cyclist can feel it particularly in cornering.
Change the image: Sometimes during World War II, bomber pilots were scoffed at for reporting making less than expected headway after hours of flying. The laughter and criticism stopped only when the jet stream was discovered.
Change again: The smaller and lighter the boat in the river, the more cautiously must the boat’s operator guide the boat from current to shore. Why? Because the strength of the current will more readily capsize a lightweight boat, particularly one that sits low in the water.
With these images in mind, let’s look at today’s Scripture. In the opening verses, we find Paul being stoned by Jews from Antioch and Iconium. No matter that no reason is offered in the text for the stoning, we know the reason: it is the logic of the gyroscope and the reasoning of the jet stream. The Jews who opposed Paul and stoned him were spinning through life in a particular manner and resisted any effort to change. Nevertheless, Paul and his companions “made a considerable number of disciples,” and were pragmatic about the momentum of the times, the strong headwinds of the culture, and the flow of the current: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”
When we move on to the Gospel, we find that Jesus, too, was pragmatic: “the ruler of the world is coming.” The spinning has not stopped. The headwinds have not diminished. The current has not ceased to flow. These are the facts that will make it “necessary for us (the disciples) to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”
But even before this reminder of what lies ahead, Jesus promises peace. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” If only for brief periods, the world may give us peace from international or national conflict, peace within our communities and families, peace from trials and tribulations, or peace from other forms of conflict. But these never last; they are always short-lived, like a drop of water cast onto a hot skillet. No, the peace of Christ is different; it is the peace of knowing that, no matter what seems to prevail, someone I can trust is in charge of it all. That is why the Father reminds us through Paul: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Romans 8:31-32)
“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
With little thought, we readily slide into alternatives. The road ahead has traffic stopped, so we take an alternate route. But God has no backup plan. There is only plan ‘A,’ and that one plan holds fast forever.
“For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will.” (Ephesians 1:9-11)
When this reflection first began to take shape, Jesus’ words regarding peace were at the forefront, and the image of the river current came to mind. It seems that God’s eternal plan, plan ‘A’ if you will, absolutely resists modification. It is THE plan, the one and only plan, and it inevitably moves toward fulfillment without the slightest of sidetracks. We pray for that fulfillment regularly when we pray “thy Kingdom come.” The Our Father was never intended to be a passive prayer, as if floating downriver on the current was sufficient. It was and is a prayer of action, a prayer of taking up the paddle of the canoe, of actively resisting any alternative force that would turn us aside. But in taking up the paddle, we must be careful, for when we do so, we also take on the possibility of moving out of the current and leaving the plan.
The flow of the water may carry us toward one bank or another, past rocks or sunken trees, and even through turbulence. It may move fast; it may be slow.
Nevertheless, residing in the current provides the kind of peace that the world cannot give. This is the peace that Jesus has promised.
Go with the flow.