Chaos -- a blessing? -

Chaos — a blessing?

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Chaos can be a blessing from God. This is one of the primary messages of the Scriptures.

The term ‘chaos’ is first used at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. It means that the earth prior to God’s creative act is depicted as formless, a void, and concealed deeply under dark waters (Gen 1:2f). In the mind of the book’s writer, the word also describes the state of the people in the Babylonian exile: wanderers lost in denial, despair, malaise, desolation, depression, hurting, benumbed and burdened with guilt. To overcome this sad state, God decides to breathe, and with that, chaos begins to give way to meaning and hope.

Likewise, in other parts of the Scriptures, the word ‘chaos’ is synonymous with a barren wasteland (Deut 32:10), emptiness, nothingness in general. But, as in the Genesis story, this emptiness and nothingness is itself potentially creative. Through God’s creative power, mercy, and with human cooperation, new and vigorous life can spring up. New order and meaning can return to life.

Take Psalm 88, in which the author describes the feeling of absolute abandonment at the time of his grave sickness: “You have plunged me into the bottom of the pit, into the dark abyss…” (v.7) To this day, one can feel the terror of the author in the midst of his desolation. Yet there is hope in the darkness. God will answer, for the psalmist acknowledges the depth of his pain, and his absolute dependency on him. In hope, he knows that God will breathe new life into the afflicted man.

Always, if chaos is to be a catalyst for hope, we must acknowledge the chaos within and outside ourselves. We are in constant need of God’s mercy and his creative love, for it is God who leads us “out of darkness into this wonderful light” (1 Pet 2:9). From chaos to order, from weariness to rest, from suffering to joy, from sinfulness to justice – the theme runs constantly through the Scriptures. But, always with the pre-condition: we must acknowledge in all its depth our desolation, our chaos. The more we acknowledge the weariness of our chaotic journey in life, the more we are open to the incredible mystery of God’s energizing love.

The supreme example of this surely our Easter celebrations, the re-living of Christ’s experience of desolation, his cry of dependency on the Father, and the gift of his resurrection.

It is fascinating to see how the secular world of business is confronting our contemporary economic crises. A renown economist, Tim Hartford, has recently published a book called Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure. The message: do not hide from the chaos. The chaos of failure, if acknowledged, can be the catalyst for a burst of creative thinking and action. One Japanese professor of industry has even told his audience that “introducing chaos is one way to combat stagnation and regimentation” in Japanese industry.

Earlier, Tom Peters authored a highly successful book, Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution. He argues that we will never again, if we ever did, live in a stable and predictable world. Everywhere and every day we confront shattering and accelerating change. We cannot survive in the world of business, he says, unless we face up to reality. We must acknowledge the chaos, radically adapt in innovative ways. If not, we organizationally die! No other options!

Today, not only is there political, economic and social chaos in our world, but there is chaos also in our church. This is inevitable, because the church is both human and divine. How are we to respond? Try to hide, become grumpy, bitter, scapegoating innocent people for the chaos? No, that is not the message of the Scriptures. It is not the message of Easter.

Like all people trapped in social and political disintegration, the Israelites in the Old Testament time are tempted to escape nostalgically into the past, to hide within the comforting memories of God’s past achievements. The prophet Isaiah warns: “No need to recall the past…See, I am doing a new deed…Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness” (Is 43: 18f).

So, the choice is ours: to hide uselessly from the chaos or to struggle in hope to discover new ways in Christ to live and preach the Gospel in a chaotic world. “No need to recall the past…”

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Gerald A. Arbuckle, sm, an anthropologist is the author of several books, including Out of Chaos: Refounding Religious Congregations (1988) and Laughing with God: Humor, Culture and Transformation (2008).