Disturbance Regimes

Easter 5, Year C

May 18, 2025

St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, Shoreline

Readings: Acts 11:1-18; Ps 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

On the morning of Sunday May 18, 1980, over eastern Washington, the sky grew dark and there was an ominous hue to the cloud cover. (No doubt) At least some preachers questioned their choice of sermon for that day as a column of ash was spewing upward then started drifting so as to block out the sun over Yakima, Ritzville and Spokane by noon.

The eruption of Mt St Helens disrupted time and space just as it altered landscapes in mere moments. . . Where were you when the mountain blew?

I can remember for years afterwards stalls in Pike Place Market selling small figurines of hardened ash. Driving out I-90 five, ten years later, I would notice ash still on the topsoil as if it had just blown in. Of course, the one time a friend and I made the trek from Seattle down to the main viewing platform the whole area was blanketed by clouds. (I still haven’t seen the mountain for myself.)

In the language of environmental and ecological studies, a volcanic eruption is known as a “disturbance regime” – a site where an event dramatically alters the natural systems. It changes existing patterns of water and soil, plant and animal life. Other examples of disturbance regimes include fires, floods, droughts, windstorms, even disease epidemics. Disturbance regimes vary in intensity and frequency, from a small landslide along Chuckanut, to the blaze of the Eaton fire outside of L.A.

When it comes to disturbance regimes, Mt St Helens is one that scientists and researchers have found particularly captivating. For one, there were varying zones of destruction—from total and complete obliteration near the crater, to tree stands scattered like “matchsticks,” to forests and waterways saturated by ash. When it came to the recovery process, no one new what to expect.

The mountain has since been a scientist’s laboratory like no other.

Simplified theories of succession that suggested plant and animal life would return in some kind of orderly fashion have given way to near chaos theory. How and where life survived was totally dependent upon the hour of the day, seasonal circumstances, weather patterns and directionality. There were 12 surviving species of amphibians that had been protected under oases of ice and snow. The mountain bluebirds that returned set up condo communities in remaining stands of broken and dead trees. Winds deposited a flurry of insects and spiders that could survive the near barren terrain. And, eventually, as ash washed away from cobbled streambeds, aquatic bugs took up residence which then provided food to the fish that had survived in icy headwaters.

Life finds a way. 

Not all disturbance regimes are the result of a “natural” disaster. Consider the ways that we humans have altered landscapes with our dams and irrigation channels, engineered cityscapes and road systems, mining and extraction industries.

When the Montlake cut was completed in 1916 Lake Washington dropped nine feet, which effectively cut off the eight-mile long Black River at the south end of the lake. Within several hours fish, salamanders and frogs were left stranded as Duwamish and Muckleshoot canoes sank into mud.

In 1957 the Dalles Dam down on the Columbia flooded out Celilo Falls, which had been a critical fishing area for local tribal communities. The river itself went from a wild western waterway to a commercial highway traversed by barges and dotted with ports.

In recent decades we’re learning that even so-called “natural” disasters have a shadowy specter looming behind their increased intensity that comes from human activities and impacts on the environment. For this reason I’ve started to shift my own language away from that of “natural disaster” or (worse) “act of God” to disturbance regime for events both natural and human-inflected, to emphasize the fact that we are on one planet.

On the one hand, to describe something as a “disturbance” sounds like a profane euphemism—particularly when talking about catastrophic events that take the lives of humans and animals. To call such an event a ‘disturbance’ sounds almost absurd.

However the origins of the word (from Latin to French to Middle English – for those who care to know) can be parsed out to mean “complete” “turmoil.” [dis – complete; turbare -  from turba "turmoil", e.g. turbid waters]

A disturbance regime is a regime shift that occurs as a result of complete turmoil. In ecology regime shifts mean that an ecosystem has experienced intense or persistent changes that impact how an existing system had been functioning. Disturbance regimes are not a complete cessation of life—it isn’t death, per se; nor is it possible to go back to the way things were.

Life (re)emerges. 

At this point, you may be wondering, when—O God—will this preacher get to the gospel? Why are we sitting through a science lesson? I beseech you, dear listener, stay with me but a few moments longer, and (I hope) we will arrive at the today’s readings together.

I’ve been describing disturbance regimes as we see them in the world around us so that we can perhaps learn something from the natural world that pertains to ourselves and God. . . As I’ve been describing these phenomena, is there something that sounds, or feels, familiar in your own internal landscape? Have you experienced an event—perhaps, even, a person—that so altered your existing systems, your ways of being and living, that could be described as complete turmoil?

Admittedly, my mind often (always) goes to those disturbances that feel – that were – quite negative. I suspect that many of us have been on this planet long enough that we can think of someone we’ve encountered who threw us into turmoil; and from whom it took some time to recover. Such negative experiences are most often where we turn our attention, because healing takes time.

And yet, the beauty of looking to creation, to the natural world for teaching and learning, is that we can see where disturbance regimes occupy a space of ambiguity. They can be catastrophic in their destruction and elimination of life; and, they can be just enough turmoil to halt potential (and actual) harms—disease, an invasive insect, a malicious fungus; (or,) an internal monologue perpetuating guilt or shame, a message that dehumanizes oneself or another.

With all this talk about destruction, disturbances and catastrophes that occur in nature, I would like to be clear about one thing before we move on. Environmental disasters that result in immense loss of life are not God’s will. I believe along with other scholars, that all creation groans for, yearns for, the full revelation of God’s children—the whole family of God to be made whole. This relates to the vision of new creation: a new heaven and a new earth (as we read in John’s revelation). Until the triune Creator comes to dwell among us mortals, we exist to love one another and to encourage life to flourish.

As individuals we encounter disturbance regimes among our fellow humans and in our social systems. We could even say that, collectively, we are experiencing a pretty major disturbance regime in our political life right now.

Life seeks community.  

The story of the early church as we read in Acts is one of disruption, turmoil, scattering, and persistent gathering. The book of Acts (which is a companion work to the gospel of Luke) is, at its heart, a story of the Spirit. Thus far during Eastertide : the Holy Spirit has been identified as a witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus, sent Ananias to Saul, and given Peter the power to resurrect Tabitha.

Much of this story follows Peter, which is where we are today.

The first reading today from Acts is a recap of where Peter has been and what he’s been doing during the prior week(s). We read this because, frankly, his colleagues in Jerusalem are concerned—very concerned—about where Peter has been and what he’s been doing and, specifically, with whom he has been.

The story of the Spirit includes today’s story of two visions, two visitations—the first, a clear vision received by Cornelius, a Roman officer in Caesarea, who is told where (exactly) to find Peter in Joppa, and what (specifically) to ask of him; the second, Peter receives a dream-like vision while in a trance, that upends Jewish food codes.

Peter is then told that whatever God makes clean is in fact clean and no longer profane. Fullstop. No further laws or practices or provisions required.

So, after Peter receives his vision, he goes with the men sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer, to the city of Caesarea—a city constructed by Herod (yes, that Herod) to impress Caesar. To say that there is tension between Jews and gentiles there is a gross understatement. But because of the vision, Peter begrudgingly enters the home of Cornelius, who represents Rome, the occupier and political oppressor of the Jewish people. But he is ‘a God-fearer’ / as in, he follows some Jewish practices and worships the God of Israel. For the details of Peter’s response—which is not exactly gracious at first—I recommend going back and reading ch 10.

With Cornelius, Cornelius’s household, and probably extended family, along with whoever else was invited, Peter starts to share the story of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. . . Suddenly! The Holy Spirit interrupts his speech, causing complete turmoil, falling upon these gentile believers in a baptism of fire and Spirit. What option did Peter have, he recounts, but to baptize them (with water) into the community of Jesus followers?

Peter must answer to his colleagues in Jerusalem. Why did you enter, and remain in, the house of a gentile? Why did you come into prolonged contact with those who do not follow the ‘correct’ codes for eating?

In Peter’s defense, for the Spirit to fall upon gentile believers means that they, too, belong to God in Christ. As one scholar notes, “People of the Spirit are God’s eschatological people, with whom eating constitutes no scandal.” This means that, for Cornelius, and for all who received the outpouring of the Spirit, their status as gentile persons no longer segregates them from people of the covenant. Old dividing lines and boundaries have been obliterated by the purging fire of the Spirit. Previously existing patterns and relationships have been so dramatically altered, that the social landscape is virtually unrecognizable.

When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

If only the matter of full inclusion had truly been settled then and there. . . .

This story takes center stage in the story of the Spirit and the fledgling community because it is a pivot point between the first Jesus followers and the man who would become the apostle Paul. It is in the book of Acts that we hear the story of Saul, who (arguably) was himself disturbance incarnate to those first disciples. While that is a different story for a different day, what we read here about a Roman officer, Cornelius, and Peter, and how the Spirit went rogue – all this is a setup for Paul’s ministry.

It is also an example of how religious establishments and the church itself can perpetuate harmful divisions, or maintain debilitating flows of energy and power, unless or until the Holy Spirit erupts in the midst of it all.

The Spirit, who is Life, seeks all persons.

I mentioned earlier that disturbance regimes can be ambiguous. Depending upon the size, scale, timing, and location of an event, such turmoil can go so far as to obliterate a landscape; or, it can halt harmful patterns and flows of energy and power.

If we pause to consider the landscape of our interior lives, our garden of faith, our communal life together as Christ’s body, what patterns have we perpetuated? Are we truly seeing clearly? . . . . how might we allow the Spirit to move, like the flame of a controlled prairie fire, or the felling of hollow timber by a strong wind? Are there inherited belief systems chafing around your heart? Or perhaps you keep coming up against a boundary that no longer makes sense. What might the Spirit say about such constrictions? What might we allow her to do?

Who are we that we can hinder God?