Sermon on Sunday, February 28
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”
The Oscars are coming up next Sunday night. I’ve always enjoyed the Oscars, except there are years when I realize I haven’t had time to see any of the movies. This is one of those years—I’ve seen just two of the films receiving any nominations and so watching the Oscars is only sure to confirm that yes, I am currently out of touch with popular culture.
I was an extra in a movie once—nothing to write home about. It was a small, independent film, shot in the house next door to ours when we were living in Austin, Texas. That’s how I got the role, really. They needed people for a scene and so they started asking neighbors. In my six seconds of fame, I’m standing in my neighbor’s backyard, wearing a suit and pretending to laugh at a joke. No Oscar nominations for me that year, I’m sorry to say.
Sometimes I wonder about the “supporting cast” of Scripture. A large group of people, some with speaking parts, who drift in and out of these Bible stories. In most cases, we’re not told what their names are. If the Bible were a movie, the closing credits would include a long list of characters known simply as, “rich young man,” “woman with a withered hand,” “boy with five loaves and two fish.”
There are dozens of them in the gospels alone—these characters who help us understand the message and who, at times, can seem a bit one-dimensional. “The leper,” “the man with dropsy,” “the woman at the well”—they show up in the story, do their job, and go home. It’s left to us to wonder, “Who is this person, really? What is he like? Does she have a family? Dreams? Aspirations?”
The man in our story from John’s gospel this morning is “the invalid by the pool,” and he’s a little more than an “extra.” He’s got a few lines to say, and in terms of his particular condition, he might stand out a bit. Still, it’s easy for him to blend in with that large, unnamed cast of biblical characters, so I wonder if it won’t pay to wonder about him for just a little while.
Jesus goes to Jerusalem and heads over to Bethesda—to this pool which at the time was surrounded by people who were suffering from various sorts of illnesses and disabilities.
Now you need to know that this was no ordinary pool. Legend had it that from time to time, the waters were magically stirred, and when they were, at that moment an angel would appear and heal the first person who got into the water.
Jesus comes to this pool and sees among those waiting by its side, a man who’s been ill for thirty-eight years. He sees him lying there and says, “Do you want to be made well?” The man replies, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
Jesus commands him, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” And at once he is made well. He stands up, takes up his mat, and begins to walk, leaving us to wonder, perhaps, “Who was that guy? Who was he really? What was true about him?”
Once, when Sylvia was just three, we were driving in the car, and she piped up from the back seat, “Dad, I’m going to tell you something, and it’s not true, but it’s very true.” I was instantly curious, of course, ready to hear something profound coming from my daughter. She cleared her throat importantly and said, “Tweety Bird has wings and arms because she can fly and carry things.” Not true, but very true. How true.
I wonder what’s very true about our man lying beside the pool at Bethesda…
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. Bethesda was a depressing place. The architect who designed it had in mind a bright, cheerful spot where families could gather, where children could bathe, where afternoons could be spent with friends lost in conversation sitting by these beautiful pools. But the truth: Bethesda was a depressing place.
Sometimes children—on their way to or home from school—intentionally walked by the pool so they could stare at the people with strange diseases and crippled bodies. And often times adults—going about their business during the day—intentionally avoided Bethesda so they didn’t have to look at the people with strange diseases and crippled bodies.
Bethesda was a dump—literally, a dump. When a person became horribly crippled, or when a baby was born without sight, or when a family member became incurably sick, friends and family tried their hardest to support them. They really, really tried. But, you know, after a while, it got hard. And there were other mouths to feed, and the doctors couldn’t do anything, they said, and taking care of someone who required round-the-clock care became an all-consuming occupation that gradually defeated the caregiver. So people got dumped at Bethesda. Bethesda was a dump—literally, a dump.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Of course, he hadn’t been at Bethesda that whole time. No, in fact, in the beginning, there was great hope for him—that he would get well. He was faithful to his doctor and he did everything that he was told to do. He was the “perfect patient”!
After a couple of years, though, it kind of became clear that he might not get better. So family and friends rallied around him. “God must have a different plan for you,” some said. Others tried to cheer him up with, “You must have gotten sick for a reason. God’s ways are mysterious, you know.” Still others said, “Maybe you did something wrong, and that’s why this happened to you.” One time somebody said (and this hurt the man a lot) “Pray hard about it, and if you have faith, God will heal you.”
“If I have faith?” he thought. “If I have faith?” What kind of crazy talk is that? All I’ve got these days is faith! My body is wearing away before my eyes and you dare to tell me “if I pray hard enough?” What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two years? “If I have faith…”
He continued to try to be the perfect patient. But gradually the man became “difficult.” It happened slowly, some said. At first, the question “How you doing?” was met with a “getting by!” But after awhile the response became, “How do you think I’m doing?” and eventually, “Oh, I’m great! Just perfect! You know, my body’s falling apart and it looks like I’m going to spend the next twenty years of my life slowly dying from this painful, torturous disease God has ‘blessed’ me with, but other than that, I’m splendid! How are you?”
People stopped asking, “How you doing?”
His family tried to keep him at home. They really did. But in the end, they couldn’t. Caring for him, dressing his bedsores, helping him go to the bathroom, trying to figure out what he could eat and keep down, cleaning up when he couldn’t keep it down… it all added up and it all took its toll. They weren’t bad people, you see. It’s just that after 16 years of it all, well, they were burnt out—more than discouraged—hopeless…
And by the time they looked for another place for him to live, their closer friends had had enough, too. For awhile they paid someone to take care of him in her home, but the money ran out, and the work was really too much for her, anyway.
They’d heard about the pool, Bethesda. At first, it sounded like a bad joke. “An angel comes and stirs the waters and then the first person to jump in gets healed? Don’t be ridiculous!” But then, as any hope for his health slipped away, it didn’t sound so bad. Finally his brother said, “Lord knows we’ve tried everything else!” The family brought him to Jerusalem. When they first saw the pool, the man exclaimed, “It must be true! Look at all the invalids here! Blind, lame, and paralyzed! They wouldn’t all be here if it weren’t true!”
His family was excited too. “Yes!” they thought, “This could work!” And with renewed vigor, they sat with him by the pool—patiently—waiting for the waters to move. The first time the waters were stirred, they hadn’t really noticed it. It was late in the day and they had been nodding off, so by the time they could stand up and look, thirty or maybe forty people had already jumped into the water to get healed. They weren’t sure that anybody was made well that time, actually. A rumor went around that a man’s arm was strengthened, but nobody was verifying it.
So they waited. And waited. And waited. And they watched that water so closely. Any movement, any ripple, any wave—the angel could come at any time! So they watched and waited. For about a year, the family waited with him. Not all of them, of course. There was still work to be done, mouths to feed. But they took turns, waiting with him by the pool.
They didn’t give up all at once. At first someone came by once a day to check on him, make sure he didn’t need anything. Then it went to a couple times a week—once a week—once or twice a month—once every once in a while… and every once in a while turned into once in a great while. Finally, they stopped coming. And then finally, after a painfully long time, he even stopped expecting them to come. So it was just him with the other invalids. He remembered one day when he was thinking about that word, “invalid.” “I know what that word means,” he thought to himself. “Invalid – in-valid – not valid.”
He smelled. He was hungry. When he wasn’t watching the pool, he was begging for food to eat. And if he wasn’t begging for food, he was begging for someone to wait with him to carry him into the water. He wouldn’t have told you this, probably, but what he really wanted was someone to wait with him. In his mind, maybe, he knew the water wasn’t going to heal him. Perhaps he knew that this whole angel-stirring-the-water-story was a pile of garbage—a hopeful pile of garbage, maybe, but nonetheless, a pile of garbage. What he really wanted was someone to wait with him—to sit with him—to talk with him—to be human with him…
When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me… Will you wait with me? Will you sit with me? Will you talk with me? Will you listen to me?!”
Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” But a story came first. A sometimes hopeful, often tragic story came first.
I may have gotten this guy’s story wrong—I know that. It might not have all happened this way. But you know what, there’s no such thing as a one-dimensional man who’s been sick for thirty-eight years and has found himself hoping in a hopeless pool of healing. There’s more to it than that. There’s always more to it.
Jesus says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Can you imagine what people were thinking when they heard that? This is a pool where the hopeless live! This isn’t a place for real healing! “Stand up? What, are you out of your mind?”
When Jesus tells him to stand up, he does more than heal him—he does more than make him well. He cuts through thirty-eight years of pitiful, self-loathing, downward-spiraling, debilitating sickness. Christ reaches through layers of broken relationships, defeated hopes, and broken promises, and says, “My friend, this is over! Get up!”
This is the gospel, my friends. The gospel is infinitely more than something we believe in. It is hope that the worst parts of our world—the Bethesda pools, even—can be redeemed. We—our lives—we can be redeemed, but also—our world! Our world can be redeemed.
Can’t you feel it? Sometimes it’s like our world is just sitting there by this Bethesda pool. Our whole world—given to war after war after war—unable to stop fighting. Our world—having enough food to feed everybody but somehow not doing it—having the resources to get drinking water to people who need it, but failing…
And what are we waiting for? Some miracle? Some kind of angel coming down to stir the waters and make all the bad stuff go away? Is that what we’re waiting for?
Christ comes. Christ says to us, “Stand up!” Christ says to us, “Pick up your mat!” And Christ says to us, “Walk!”
And that’s what it means to say “Yes” to God! That we stand up and say to ourselves, to God, and to our world, my life will not be defined by this hopelessness! And furthermore, I will not sit idly by while others’ lives are defined by this hopelessness! And so we are people of faith who engage in mission, where we say to others in our world—people who are hurting, people who are without homes, people who are hungry, people who have lost hope…
I will sit with you.
I will stand with you.
I will help you take up your mat.
I will walk with you.
Amen.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Led to Trust - Luke 4:1-13
Sermon on Sunday, February 21
(1) I'm grateful to my good friend Allen Brimer, who shared this image of post-WWII seeds during a call to worship back in our seminary days. It was during Lent when he shared this, and seldom has a call to worship enlivened my sense of place and purpose more.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Today is our first Sunday in this season of Lent. So welcome to that—welcome into the midst of another season of reflection and listening and learning to trust. Lent always has a way of slowing us down, encouraging us all to reflect a little more, to engage life more prayerfully. Lent also runs alongside winter turning into spring. Just as we look forward to the melting of snow and the revealing of tender shoots and bulbs, Lent calls our attention forward to a celebration of resurrection.
During World War II, some European cities were bombed so heavily, there wasn’t much left of some buildings that was recognizable. Homes, shops, and cathedrals that had been standing for decades fell, leaving communities with enormous piles of rubble. But something amazing happened in the midst of that destruction. In some places where a wall might have fallen over, or where a foundation might have been blown apart, seeds had been lying in the soil, dormant for ages. And so after the war, people began to find various plants growing through the cracks in the destruction. And here’s the interesting part: some of them they’d never seen before—beautiful flowers and heirloom varieties of vegetables and herbs. (1)
I love that image of unknown seeds patiently waiting under layers of human construction. Just waiting for the right time and the right conditions—some warmth, a little rain, a crack in the rock above. It makes me wonder what seeds might be lying dormant in my own life—seeds of possibility that are just waiting for my own life to present them with a chance to grow. That’s part of life’s fun and mystery, I think. All of you—all of us—no matter how old we are and no matter how predictable we may think we’ve become, contain within us seeds of potential and promise that no one has yet considered. And when the conditions are right, they’ll grow in us and grace our lives with something new.
I say all this because it’s something of what I see happening with Jesus in our story from Luke’s gospel. At the very beginning of his ministry, life makes some demands of Jesus—perhaps some demands that he wasn’t expecting at the time.
I know that we don’t say this outright, but I think we often picture Jesus as somebody who’s always got things under control, always got his act together, and always knows what to do and what to say in any given situation. That’s pretty much how we tend to picture Jesus, isn’t it? Cool, calm, collected. We forget sometimes that Jesus was human—that Jesus really, really was human. We forget from time to time that Jesus was a real guy—that he got tired, that he might have gotten crabby, that he found some things annoying… We forget that Jesus cried—wept, even—and we forget that Jesus felt pain, feared pain.
Our story in Luke begins, “was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” The language here is worth paying attention to. Some translations say that Jesus was “led by the Spirit.” Others suggest that he was “driven by the Spirit.” Calvin wrote that Jesus was “carried away by the Spirit.” The point is this: Jesus didn’t wake up one day and say to himself, “You know what? I think I’m going to go camping for a few weeks.” He didn’t pack, he didn’t prepare. He was led, driven, carried away. Jesus begins his public ministry as one who is not in charge, but rather as one who’s been dramatically moved by the Spirit against his will—into the wilderness. And we have to keep in mind here that “the wilderness” wasn’t a state park. “Wilderness” was a place beyond the city’s safety where one was subject to the elements and to robbers and thieves. No water, no food, no safe haven—this is where Jesus was taken.
Writer Barbara Brown Taylor’s got a great description of what “the wilderness” might look like in our own lives. “Maybe it just looked like a hospital waiting room to you,” she writes, “or the sheets on a cheap motel bed after you got kicked out of your house, or maybe it looked like the parking lot where you couldn't find your car on the day you lost your job. It may even have been a kind of desert in the middle of your own chest, where you begged for a word from God and heard nothing but the wheezing bellows of your own breath.”
Have you been to the wilderness? The wilderness of the moments after she stopped breathing. The wilderness of too much debt. The wilderness of believing—really believing—that others judge you just as harshly as you judge yourself… Have you been to the blinding wilderness of anger? And if you’ve been to the wilderness, or if you are in the wilderness, a question to consider is this: What tempts you there? How are you tempted in the wilderness of your own life?
The gospel writers understood the devil as the source of temptation. You may or may not think of the devil as literally as they did, and that’s fine. Our problem usually isn’t that we don’t know what to believe about the devil. Our problem is that regardless of our theology, we often fail to take temptation seriously. We often fail to acknowledge and grapple with the powerful, seductive forces of temptation in our lives. So I’ll ask it again: What tempts you in the wilderness?
Are you tempted to believe you can do it all alone? Are you tempted to think you’ve got all the answers? Or are you tempted to believe that life will never be as good as it once was?
See, understanding temptation isn’t always easy. Maybe if the devil himself were the one doing the tempting, we might stand a chance, but so often we’re the ones creating those subtle undercurrents of temptation in our own lives.
Are you tempted to say nothing—because if they knew you, they wouldn’t love you? Are you tempted not to try, because somewhere along the line, a fear of failure took a hold of your life? Are you tempted to expect less of yourself, because it’s easier that way? Are you tempted to trust less, because that way you won’t be disappointed? Are you tempted to never cry again, to never let your guard down?
Temptation isn’t always obvious. But sometimes it is. Are you tempted to keep drinking? Are you tempted to cheat? Are you tempted to lie or steal? Are you tempted to finally blow up? Are you tempted to think too much of yourself? Or are you tempted to doubt yourself? Are you tempted to believe that your worth can be measured by the things you’ve done right? Are you tempted to believe that your lack of worth can be measured by the things you’ve done wrong?
Writer and humorist Sam Levenson once said, “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.” That’s true, I think. We have a way of finding temptations in our lives—temptations to exaggerate our worst fears and to give credence to our baser instincts.
Here’s the good news. And it’s strange news, too, but it’s good news. Jesus was tempted. And maybe that’s hard for us to believe. Maybe we want to think that somehow Jesus couldn’t have known what it’s really like to lose hope, to fear, to be tempted to give up. But Jesus was tempted. If Jesus wasn’t tempted, then what are we to say? That Jesus looked human, but really it was all a façade? That in reality, Jesus was just God parading around the countryside pretending to feel pain, pretending to struggle with life, pretending to fear?
The Lenten season draws us more deeply into an understanding of incarnation—that in Jesus Christ, God was really human, and that it wasn’t an act. Jesus’ temptation was real temptation. Jesus’ tears were real tears. Jesus’ “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” was real fear of death by crucifixion. This is good news because it reminds us that in Jesus Christ, God entered into the true depth of human existence, which can be a nightmare.
One more thing about the wilderness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being lost too much. The novelty of being lost wears off quickly for me, especially when I’m late. Now that I’ve got my iPhone, of course, I’ve got instant access to a global positioning system that will tell me where I am on the map at any time. I like that. And it’s not that I like the prospect of never having to stop to ask for directions. I like the security of knowing that I can’t get lost with this device at my side!
Sometimes in this life, though, we get so lost—lost among the temptations we face to believe the lies we tell ourselves—lost among temptations to trust less, believe less, expect less… We get lost in the wildernesses of this world where no gadget can save us—where we’ve got nothing going for us except, perhaps, to trust God.
And the biggest temptation we face, I think, is the temptation to trust ourselves and ourselves alone. When you stop and think about it, this is where most temptations end up—a trust in one’s self at the expense of trust in others. Trusting yourself to stay in control. Trusting yourself to always be right. Trusting yourself to know your limits. Trusting you and you alone to get yourself out of this mess. Now there’s nothing wrong with a good, healthy dose of self-confidence. But when your confidence prevents you from expanding your circle of trust to include others—to include God, you’re in trouble.
The way out of temptation is not avoidance. The way out of temptation is trust.
Shannon, a single mom, lost her job when her kids were four and nine. Work had been steady, but not steady enough, so there wasn’t much in the bank. Rent, groceries, doctor visits, clothes for school. Something had to give, finally. She had family but they were far away, so she and her kids stayed with a friend on the pull-out sofa. “The hardest thing wasn’t making myself believe that I could make it,” she said. “The hardest thing was realizing that I couldn’t make it alone.”
Trust—real trust—is scary because in trusting, we place our lives in another’s hands, sometimes entirely. And friends, we are always tempted to not do that—to keep our lives in our own hands. But this Lenten season, in whatever wilderness you find yourself, could you be led to trust?
(1) I'm grateful to my good friend Allen Brimer, who shared this image of post-WWII seeds during a call to worship back in our seminary days. It was during Lent when he shared this, and seldom has a call to worship enlivened my sense of place and purpose more.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
On Faith and Evolution - Genesis 1:1-8
Sermon on February 14, 2010
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered, “God made a beautiful garden called Eden. God put two people in this garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had lots of children and they had children and that’s where people came from.”
Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”
The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”
Part of what we’re celebrating in church today is “Evolution Sunday”—a chance, really, to think faithfully and critically about faith and science, and to wonder a little about how it all fits together. Of course, today is also our congregation’s “Anniversary Sunday”—a chance to stop and reflect on what 171 years of ministry means, and perhaps to wonder about 171 more. Today is also Valentine’s Day, tomorrow is Presidents Day, and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, thus beginning the season of Lent. You may be wondering this morning, “With Valentines, Presidents, Lent, and our church’s anniversary, did Ben really need to go dig up yet another thing to think about this morning?” Truth be told, I’m not going to say anything about Valentines or Presidents today, and I’m going to leave Lent for next week. But I think it’s entirely appropriate that today, on the anniversary of our congregation’s life, we think about issues of faith and evolution—science and religion. What better way to celebrate the rich, thoughtful, and engaging history of faith and learning at First Presbyterian Church!
I’d like to take a quick moment to explain that “Evolution Sunday” is not a day that I just made up for the sake of a sermon title. Evolution Sunday is a Sunday that coincides with the birthday of Charles Darwin, and it provides an opportunity for people of faith to raise questions about faith and science in the context of worship and Christian education. That’s what we’re doing today.
Churches around the country began holding Evolution Sunday services when, in 2004, a school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin passed a series of anti-evolution policies. Of course, school boards around the country had already done similar things, and so I’m not too sure why it was that Grantsburg provided the impetus for what followed. I do know that at the beginning, a couple hundred clergy from around the state of Wisconsin signed a letter to the school board in Grantsburg. I won’t read the entire letter to you now, but here are a few pieces of it:
“While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook… Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts. We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator… We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”
It started with 200 clergy in Wisconsin, and today that list has grown to over 12,400 signatures—all pastors, preachers, and professional Christian educators adding their “yes” to this statement about faith and science.
Not everyone sees it that way, of course. We all have different ways of thinking through these issues. For some, faith falls apart in light of what science teaches, and for others, science fails to convince in light of what the Bible says.
A zookeeper came across an orangutan reading two books. One was the Bible; the other was Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Why are you reading such opposite books?” the zookeeper asked. The orangutan replied, “Well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m supposed to be my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”
That’s sort of where some folks fall—an understanding of faith and science as opposites, and a belief that, like the orangutan, we need to choose one or the other. So, which is it? Or where do we start? Part of the problem, in my mind, is that we’ve got too many people running around with Bibles trying to disprove scientific discoveries, and at least a few others running around with science books trying to disprove faith. Another part of the problem is that all too often, faith is strictly filtered through the lens of scientific discovery or science is strictly filtered through the lens of biblical teaching.
That being said, there’s also a temptation to say, simply, “Let’s let faith be faith, and let’s let science be science,” and to then never let the two comingle. But then can a Christian take science seriously without dismissing his faith? Can a scientist be a disciple of Jesus Christ without leaving her scientific brain at the door?
Our Scripture reading today from Genesis goes back to the beginning. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”
For some, this is the beginning of all the science they need about Creation. I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Theories and prospects of a “Big Bang” and any evolutionary designs that might have followed are apparently not worth considering. The problem, though, with this literal, simplistic reading of Genesis is that it misses something beautiful about what its author was attempting to say. Take the phrase, for example, “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” For our Jewish faith ancestors, the “wind from God” was God’s Spirit, moving over the waters. Water itself represented chaos, disorder. So the image of Genesis 1:2 is an image of God’s Spirit, hovering over this gigantic churn of chaos and shining a light on it. “Let there be light,” God says, and so we’re given this image of a Divine spark, brining sense and order to Creation.
Is this significant because it says how it happened? Is it true because it gives a literal account of what things really looked like on Creation’s first day? Is this really all the science we need? Or, could it be that what we have here in these first two verses of Genesis really has nothing whatsoever to do with science and everything to do with how we understand the loving nature of God? God—never far from the chaos of life—hovering over it, actually, shining a light on those places in our world and in our lives where the chaos seems overwhelming—calling that light “good.”
The first chapter of Genesis is not a science textbook. It’s poetry. It’s a hymn that may actually have been sung when it was first written—a song of God’s faithfulness to Creation. The second verse goes like this: And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”
Now all this talk of domes and waters might seem confusing. But imagine a person a few thousand years ago standing on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. He looks out at the water. What color is it? It’s blue. He looks up at the sky and what color is it? It’s blue. And what is it that occasionally falls from the sky? Water! What might he naturally conclude about the makeup of the sky? There’s water up there! Another giant sea hovering high above us!
If there’s any science in Genesis, it’s a basic, observational science that concludes that beyond this dome above us called “Sky” there lies yet another chaotic churn of water. And guess what? Now that we’ve flown through our atmosphere, we know that that understanding of the Sky is scientifically wrong. But Genesis is not about science—it’s a poetic love song to God, the Creator. And the author says in Genesis, “Thank you. Thank you, God, for creating this dome in the midst of these waters so that we might have life and breath.”
The purpose of Genesis is not to scientifically explain it all. The purpose of Genesis is to express awe and wonder at the sight of it all.
A creationist would disagree. A creationist would find a way to argue that in spite of everything I’ve said, Genesis 1:1-2 really gives an accurate scientific, historical account of the first two twenty-four hour days of creation. A creationist might also argue that Intelligent Design be taught in public schools as a science, in spite of the fact that there are no peer-reviewed scientific journals publishing empirical data supporting intelligent design. None.
But a creationist would argue that the universe must have a source—that we human beings couldn’t possibly have evolved from primates. Of course, there are a number of problems with this, one of them being that Darwin’s theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the source of creation—it merely explains how it is that various species have come to look like what they look like today.
More conversation about this to come. As I preach today, I have the distinct advantage of knowing that Dave Higgs and I are about to begin a three-week Christian education series on faith and science, beginning today. That frees me to not try and say everything in the context of this particular sermon!
But for now I will say this. I believe that our best faithful minds and our best scientific minds operate in a similar direction. Both attempt to give voice to mysteries of creation and life. Both instill a true reverence for the way things are—for the sky, for fingerprints, and for the fact that our minds are advanced enough to even have this conversation. Both faith and science call us to wonder, to ask questions, and to marvel at universe around us.
Kenneth Miller has written a book, Finding Darwin’s God. In it he writes: “Even as we use experimental science and mathematical logic to reveal the laws and structure of the physical universe, a series of important questions will always remain, including the sources of those laws and the reason for there being a universe in the first place.”
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”
May our best faithful and scientific minds lead us to wonder more and more about God at the source of it all. Amen.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered, “God made a beautiful garden called Eden. God put two people in this garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had lots of children and they had children and that’s where people came from.”
Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”
The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”
Part of what we’re celebrating in church today is “Evolution Sunday”—a chance, really, to think faithfully and critically about faith and science, and to wonder a little about how it all fits together. Of course, today is also our congregation’s “Anniversary Sunday”—a chance to stop and reflect on what 171 years of ministry means, and perhaps to wonder about 171 more. Today is also Valentine’s Day, tomorrow is Presidents Day, and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, thus beginning the season of Lent. You may be wondering this morning, “With Valentines, Presidents, Lent, and our church’s anniversary, did Ben really need to go dig up yet another thing to think about this morning?” Truth be told, I’m not going to say anything about Valentines or Presidents today, and I’m going to leave Lent for next week. But I think it’s entirely appropriate that today, on the anniversary of our congregation’s life, we think about issues of faith and evolution—science and religion. What better way to celebrate the rich, thoughtful, and engaging history of faith and learning at First Presbyterian Church!
I’d like to take a quick moment to explain that “Evolution Sunday” is not a day that I just made up for the sake of a sermon title. Evolution Sunday is a Sunday that coincides with the birthday of Charles Darwin, and it provides an opportunity for people of faith to raise questions about faith and science in the context of worship and Christian education. That’s what we’re doing today.
Churches around the country began holding Evolution Sunday services when, in 2004, a school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin passed a series of anti-evolution policies. Of course, school boards around the country had already done similar things, and so I’m not too sure why it was that Grantsburg provided the impetus for what followed. I do know that at the beginning, a couple hundred clergy from around the state of Wisconsin signed a letter to the school board in Grantsburg. I won’t read the entire letter to you now, but here are a few pieces of it:
“While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook… Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts. We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator… We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”
It started with 200 clergy in Wisconsin, and today that list has grown to over 12,400 signatures—all pastors, preachers, and professional Christian educators adding their “yes” to this statement about faith and science.
Not everyone sees it that way, of course. We all have different ways of thinking through these issues. For some, faith falls apart in light of what science teaches, and for others, science fails to convince in light of what the Bible says.
A zookeeper came across an orangutan reading two books. One was the Bible; the other was Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Why are you reading such opposite books?” the zookeeper asked. The orangutan replied, “Well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m supposed to be my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”
That’s sort of where some folks fall—an understanding of faith and science as opposites, and a belief that, like the orangutan, we need to choose one or the other. So, which is it? Or where do we start? Part of the problem, in my mind, is that we’ve got too many people running around with Bibles trying to disprove scientific discoveries, and at least a few others running around with science books trying to disprove faith. Another part of the problem is that all too often, faith is strictly filtered through the lens of scientific discovery or science is strictly filtered through the lens of biblical teaching.
That being said, there’s also a temptation to say, simply, “Let’s let faith be faith, and let’s let science be science,” and to then never let the two comingle. But then can a Christian take science seriously without dismissing his faith? Can a scientist be a disciple of Jesus Christ without leaving her scientific brain at the door?
Our Scripture reading today from Genesis goes back to the beginning. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”
For some, this is the beginning of all the science they need about Creation. I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Theories and prospects of a “Big Bang” and any evolutionary designs that might have followed are apparently not worth considering. The problem, though, with this literal, simplistic reading of Genesis is that it misses something beautiful about what its author was attempting to say. Take the phrase, for example, “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” For our Jewish faith ancestors, the “wind from God” was God’s Spirit, moving over the waters. Water itself represented chaos, disorder. So the image of Genesis 1:2 is an image of God’s Spirit, hovering over this gigantic churn of chaos and shining a light on it. “Let there be light,” God says, and so we’re given this image of a Divine spark, brining sense and order to Creation.
Is this significant because it says how it happened? Is it true because it gives a literal account of what things really looked like on Creation’s first day? Is this really all the science we need? Or, could it be that what we have here in these first two verses of Genesis really has nothing whatsoever to do with science and everything to do with how we understand the loving nature of God? God—never far from the chaos of life—hovering over it, actually, shining a light on those places in our world and in our lives where the chaos seems overwhelming—calling that light “good.”
The first chapter of Genesis is not a science textbook. It’s poetry. It’s a hymn that may actually have been sung when it was first written—a song of God’s faithfulness to Creation. The second verse goes like this: And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”
Now all this talk of domes and waters might seem confusing. But imagine a person a few thousand years ago standing on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. He looks out at the water. What color is it? It’s blue. He looks up at the sky and what color is it? It’s blue. And what is it that occasionally falls from the sky? Water! What might he naturally conclude about the makeup of the sky? There’s water up there! Another giant sea hovering high above us!
If there’s any science in Genesis, it’s a basic, observational science that concludes that beyond this dome above us called “Sky” there lies yet another chaotic churn of water. And guess what? Now that we’ve flown through our atmosphere, we know that that understanding of the Sky is scientifically wrong. But Genesis is not about science—it’s a poetic love song to God, the Creator. And the author says in Genesis, “Thank you. Thank you, God, for creating this dome in the midst of these waters so that we might have life and breath.”
The purpose of Genesis is not to scientifically explain it all. The purpose of Genesis is to express awe and wonder at the sight of it all.
A creationist would disagree. A creationist would find a way to argue that in spite of everything I’ve said, Genesis 1:1-2 really gives an accurate scientific, historical account of the first two twenty-four hour days of creation. A creationist might also argue that Intelligent Design be taught in public schools as a science, in spite of the fact that there are no peer-reviewed scientific journals publishing empirical data supporting intelligent design. None.
But a creationist would argue that the universe must have a source—that we human beings couldn’t possibly have evolved from primates. Of course, there are a number of problems with this, one of them being that Darwin’s theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the source of creation—it merely explains how it is that various species have come to look like what they look like today.
More conversation about this to come. As I preach today, I have the distinct advantage of knowing that Dave Higgs and I are about to begin a three-week Christian education series on faith and science, beginning today. That frees me to not try and say everything in the context of this particular sermon!
But for now I will say this. I believe that our best faithful minds and our best scientific minds operate in a similar direction. Both attempt to give voice to mysteries of creation and life. Both instill a true reverence for the way things are—for the sky, for fingerprints, and for the fact that our minds are advanced enough to even have this conversation. Both faith and science call us to wonder, to ask questions, and to marvel at universe around us.
Kenneth Miller has written a book, Finding Darwin’s God. In it he writes: “Even as we use experimental science and mathematical logic to reveal the laws and structure of the physical universe, a series of important questions will always remain, including the sources of those laws and the reason for there being a universe in the first place.”
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”
May our best faithful and scientific minds lead us to wonder more and more about God at the source of it all. Amen.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Called, Sent - Isaiah 6:1-8
Sermon on Sunday, February 7
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple...
I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
I want to share three phrases with you today. Just three phrases. The first is, “In the year that King Uzziah died.”
Nobody names their kid “Uzziah” anymore. I don’t know that I’ve ever met an “Uzziah.” But the name, “Uzziah” means, “The LORD is my strength.” And our story from the book of Isaiah begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…”
If you look elsewhere in the Old Testament, you can find bits and pieces about Uzziah’s reign as king. He took the throne when he was just sixteen years old and ruled until he was in his late sixties. For fifty-some years, Uzziah—“The LORD is my strength”—ruled over Judah. In the books of Kings and Chronicles, it is said of Uzziah that he was faithful to God, bringing prosperity to the land.
Uzziah was a famous king. Throughout the region, to the border of Egypt, his name was known and revered. In Jerusalem, Uzziah built fortified towers and raised a massive, powerful army. According to the book of Second Chronicles, “the whole number of the heads of ancestral houses of mighty warriors was two thousand six hundred. Under their command was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, who could make war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging.”
Uzziah was powerful and organized. He ruled Judah with vision and with authority. For most of Uzziah’s reign as king, his name was synonymous with prosperity and prestige. But then, as the story unfolds, Uzziah’s reign did not end well. In his strength he became prideful, says the writer of Chronicles, and his pride became his downfall. His crime? He attempted to elevate his status to that of high priest. Apparently, the power of kingship wasn’t enough for Uzziah, and so he barged into the temple and assumed the role both king and priest. As the story goes, he was immediately struck with leprosy for defying God’s will in this way.
For his last ten years as king, Uzziah was shut away in a separate house, shunned from any real power. His son, Jotham, ran the kingdom in his place. Finally, Uzziah withered away and died, and because of his leprosy, was buried alone—not with the former kings of Judah. It was sort of a pathetic end to a once mighty and prosperous kingship.
Our story today begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…” But I’d like to rephrase that. “In the year that King Uzziah died” means, “In the year that ‘The LORD is my strength’ died…”
The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year we wondered if our best days were long gone,
The year we wondered if we’d been blessed or just lucky,
The year King Uzziah’s earthly power and fame finally shriveled to nothing,
The year we had to accept that even the best of us could fall so low…
History has a way of forcing moments like these upon us—moments when we question God’s presence, when we question all that we thought we knew about our strength and sense of security. Isaiah chapter six begins with the people of God wondering, “What now, God? What next?” And perhaps it should evoke in us all those times and places when we simply could not see a way forward.
The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the economy dropped out from under us,
The year he lost the job,
The year we lost the house,
The year she got sick,
The year the marriage finally fell apart…
The year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the earth shook,
The year a hurricane took our city away,
The year the towers fell,
The year we lost faith,
The year we questioned everything…
It’s not so often that I spend so much time on just seven words, but the phrase, “In the year that King Uzziah died” is loaded. More than a simple historical marker, it says something of the human condition—that from time to time we find ourselves questioning God, questioning ourselves, questioning our future… and that so often life itself gets carried away to the point where we’re not sure who’s in control anymore, if anyone.
In the book of Isaiah, it is in the midst of this anxiety and uncertainty that a new prophet is born. It is in the context of turmoil and fear and doubt that God’s voice is heard again and in a new way. This brings us to our second phrase: “The hem of God’s robe filled the temple.”
In our story, Isaiah is not a prophet yet. But he’s in the temple and he sees God “sitting on the throne, high and lofty.” It’s a pretty fantastic scene, with six-winged seraphs flying around and singing and smoke rising up everywhere. It’s a vision of God on a massive scale—so massive, in fact, that just the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.
Some interesting things about this description of God. If you wanted to read it all literally, you might say, “Well, that settles it—God must wear a robe—a really, really big robe! With a big, big hem.”
Or we might say instead that nothing in this world can contain God. God is always bigger than the temple, bigger than the church, bigger than our understanding. Our words can’t contain God, our beliefs can’t contain God… even our religion can’t contain God—nothing can! God cannot be contained! God is God, and perhaps the visions we have of God are but fragments of a much, much larger whole.
“In the year that King Uzziah died,” Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lofty, and “the hem of his robe filled the temple.” In other words: In the year everything fell apart and we began to question everything, we saw God and God was bigger than all we could see.
The third phrase is a question: “Whom shall I send?” In light of the first two phrases, I marvel at these four words: “Whom shall I send?” The world is falling apart—Uzziah, “The Lord is my Strength,” has died. But still, God is still God—a God so big, even the hem of God’s robe fills the room. And yet, God’s question for humanity is not what we would expect it to be. God does not say, “How can I help now that your king is dead?” or “What can I do to restore your faith?” Instead, God’s question is, “Whom shall I send?”
We’d often love to have a Superman God—a God who swoops in when the going get rough—a God who makes everything ok. So often we’d love to have a God who makes it easy to believe, easy to trust, easy to not worry about the things that fall apart in this world. But God doesn’t ask, “How can I make everything ok?” Instead God asks, “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”
This is the nature of God. God—bigger than our understanding, always bigger than our imagining. But not a “Superman God”—rather, a God who is always asking, “Who will go for me? Who will speak for me? Who will move with my Spirit and love with my love?” Even when the world seems to be falling apart, crumbling in the midst of war and poverty and brokenness, God is whispering into the ears of would-be prophets like you and me: “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”
The faithful response, then, is not to understand it all, or even to know the way forward. The faithful response is to daily summon the will to say, “Here am I. Send me.”
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple...
I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
I want to share three phrases with you today. Just three phrases. The first is, “In the year that King Uzziah died.”
Nobody names their kid “Uzziah” anymore. I don’t know that I’ve ever met an “Uzziah.” But the name, “Uzziah” means, “The LORD is my strength.” And our story from the book of Isaiah begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…”
If you look elsewhere in the Old Testament, you can find bits and pieces about Uzziah’s reign as king. He took the throne when he was just sixteen years old and ruled until he was in his late sixties. For fifty-some years, Uzziah—“The LORD is my strength”—ruled over Judah. In the books of Kings and Chronicles, it is said of Uzziah that he was faithful to God, bringing prosperity to the land.
Uzziah was a famous king. Throughout the region, to the border of Egypt, his name was known and revered. In Jerusalem, Uzziah built fortified towers and raised a massive, powerful army. According to the book of Second Chronicles, “the whole number of the heads of ancestral houses of mighty warriors was two thousand six hundred. Under their command was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, who could make war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging.”
Uzziah was powerful and organized. He ruled Judah with vision and with authority. For most of Uzziah’s reign as king, his name was synonymous with prosperity and prestige. But then, as the story unfolds, Uzziah’s reign did not end well. In his strength he became prideful, says the writer of Chronicles, and his pride became his downfall. His crime? He attempted to elevate his status to that of high priest. Apparently, the power of kingship wasn’t enough for Uzziah, and so he barged into the temple and assumed the role both king and priest. As the story goes, he was immediately struck with leprosy for defying God’s will in this way.
For his last ten years as king, Uzziah was shut away in a separate house, shunned from any real power. His son, Jotham, ran the kingdom in his place. Finally, Uzziah withered away and died, and because of his leprosy, was buried alone—not with the former kings of Judah. It was sort of a pathetic end to a once mighty and prosperous kingship.
Our story today begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…” But I’d like to rephrase that. “In the year that King Uzziah died” means, “In the year that ‘The LORD is my strength’ died…”
The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year we wondered if our best days were long gone,
The year we wondered if we’d been blessed or just lucky,
The year King Uzziah’s earthly power and fame finally shriveled to nothing,
The year we had to accept that even the best of us could fall so low…
History has a way of forcing moments like these upon us—moments when we question God’s presence, when we question all that we thought we knew about our strength and sense of security. Isaiah chapter six begins with the people of God wondering, “What now, God? What next?” And perhaps it should evoke in us all those times and places when we simply could not see a way forward.
The year King Uzziah died: the year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the economy dropped out from under us,
The year he lost the job,
The year we lost the house,
The year she got sick,
The year the marriage finally fell apart…
The year we questioned the LORD’s strength...
The year the earth shook,
The year a hurricane took our city away,
The year the towers fell,
The year we lost faith,
The year we questioned everything…
It’s not so often that I spend so much time on just seven words, but the phrase, “In the year that King Uzziah died” is loaded. More than a simple historical marker, it says something of the human condition—that from time to time we find ourselves questioning God, questioning ourselves, questioning our future… and that so often life itself gets carried away to the point where we’re not sure who’s in control anymore, if anyone.
In the book of Isaiah, it is in the midst of this anxiety and uncertainty that a new prophet is born. It is in the context of turmoil and fear and doubt that God’s voice is heard again and in a new way. This brings us to our second phrase: “The hem of God’s robe filled the temple.”
In our story, Isaiah is not a prophet yet. But he’s in the temple and he sees God “sitting on the throne, high and lofty.” It’s a pretty fantastic scene, with six-winged seraphs flying around and singing and smoke rising up everywhere. It’s a vision of God on a massive scale—so massive, in fact, that just the hem of God’s robe fills the temple.
Some interesting things about this description of God. If you wanted to read it all literally, you might say, “Well, that settles it—God must wear a robe—a really, really big robe! With a big, big hem.”
Or we might say instead that nothing in this world can contain God. God is always bigger than the temple, bigger than the church, bigger than our understanding. Our words can’t contain God, our beliefs can’t contain God… even our religion can’t contain God—nothing can! God cannot be contained! God is God, and perhaps the visions we have of God are but fragments of a much, much larger whole.
“In the year that King Uzziah died,” Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lofty, and “the hem of his robe filled the temple.” In other words: In the year everything fell apart and we began to question everything, we saw God and God was bigger than all we could see.
The third phrase is a question: “Whom shall I send?” In light of the first two phrases, I marvel at these four words: “Whom shall I send?” The world is falling apart—Uzziah, “The Lord is my Strength,” has died. But still, God is still God—a God so big, even the hem of God’s robe fills the room. And yet, God’s question for humanity is not what we would expect it to be. God does not say, “How can I help now that your king is dead?” or “What can I do to restore your faith?” Instead, God’s question is, “Whom shall I send?”
We’d often love to have a Superman God—a God who swoops in when the going get rough—a God who makes everything ok. So often we’d love to have a God who makes it easy to believe, easy to trust, easy to not worry about the things that fall apart in this world. But God doesn’t ask, “How can I make everything ok?” Instead God asks, “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”
This is the nature of God. God—bigger than our understanding, always bigger than our imagining. But not a “Superman God”—rather, a God who is always asking, “Who will go for me? Who will speak for me? Who will move with my Spirit and love with my love?” Even when the world seems to be falling apart, crumbling in the midst of war and poverty and brokenness, God is whispering into the ears of would-be prophets like you and me: “Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send? Whom shall I send?”
The faithful response, then, is not to understand it all, or even to know the way forward. The faithful response is to daily summon the will to say, “Here am I. Send me.”
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Come Alive - this week's E-votional
Every week I try to send out an "e-votional" to folks at the church. Sometimes it's just a little quote or a poem; sometimes it's something of my own making - a thought or two, a prayer... This week's e-votional features a quote by Howard Thurman that I like a lot:
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Isn’t that a powerful thought? I think so. So many needs around us, and often we’re tempted to meet them all. A question to consider, though, is “What makes me come alive?” And perhaps our answers to that question really do lead us to the places where we’re most needed.
Leaning towards this Sunday, I'm preparing to preach on that text from Isaiah 6: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" "Here am I; send me!" At this point, I don't know if Thurman's quote will make it in the sermon or not, but I'm wondering more and more about a "coming alive" that goes along with saying "yes" to God's call in our lives. We'll see. Blessings until then!
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