Scripture: Psalm 74:13-14 – “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.” (NRSV)
I was cleaning out my home office this week. I had stacks of books on the floor and piles of papers from who knows when. I even found some things from a decade ago that I thought I had lost. It got me thinking: how did my office get so messy? After all, when I moved in, everything was tidy and organized. How did things get so chaotic such that I did not even want to use my office?
In this I was reminded of the great beast Leviathan. Beyond its biblical origins, a leviathan is a large sea beast or anything similarly unwieldy. But the ancient Israelites were not thinking of a whale or shark. To them and their neighbors in places like Canaan and Mesopotamia, the ocean was a place of shifting turmoil, and the sea creatures were mighty dragons representing the forces of chaos. In some of these neighbors’ myths, the sea dragons were defeated by a mighty warrior god like Baal who then established the order of the world.
Psalm 74 mentions Leviathan, but not to express the military prowess of God or God’s followers. Instead, it calls back to a time of order, one that has been lost. The psalm seems to have been written after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the exile of the people. It says, “Your foes have roared within your holy place… They set your sanctuary on fire; they desecrated the dwelling place of your name, bringing it to the ground.” The world of the Jewish people has fallen into chaos and ruin. So, the psalmist begs God to remember how in ages past the terrible powers of cosmic chaos, like the sea dragon Leviathan, were overcome so the world could be a habitable place for the creatures of the world. “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.” The psalmist believed that if God could overcome mighty beasts of old, God could save the people now.
Of course, as with my office, chaos does not always come from outside. My setting aside a book next to my desk to pick it up later during my writing often meant that the book stayed there when I was done. Placing various tchotchkes and printer ink on shelves meant that I stacked other books or papers on the floor because I did not want to spend the time to adjust everything to make room on the shelves. The messier things became the less motivated I was to fix things. And so, everything fell into ruin.
I think similar things happened in ancient Israel and continue to happen in our own lives. We let chaos encroach on our lives until we are so overwhelmed, we do not know what to do.
So, what do we do? We can start by asking God for help, as the psalmist did. We remember that God wants our lives to be happy and whole. So, leaning on the power of the God who created the order of the universe, let us remember our strength and press on. Not only in cleaning our houses, but in fixing neglected relationships which over time can also fall into disrepair. Help us clean our towns of both garbage and indifference. Prayer will help begin the process of getting things back to the way God wants them to be.
Prayer: God who created the world from chaotic atoms, help us slay the monsters of turmoil and indifference so that the love we have together might shine forth to all. Amen.
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