Despite the title I have given to this blog post, I want to talk about finances for a minute. I realize we don't usually share in public anything about finances, especially personal finances, but I'm going to break that rule for this blog because I think it is often the things we most avoid discussing that are really the most important things to discuss.
So let me start by saying that I am very fiscally conservative in my personal life. I don't "do" debt. I pay off my credit cards each month, I'm big on saving, I don't buy a new car until I can pay for the whole thing up front (hence still having our 2001 Toyota), and frankly, I'm uncomfortable even carrying a mortgage on a house, let alone doing the "shared equity" thing that I am currently doing with my church in order to afford to live here in the Bay Area. I've also had financial help from my parents, on more than one occasion: something I'm not proud of, and something I've worked hard to pay back as quickly as possible. Still, I am so deeply aware that the reason I am able to "not do debt" is because I come from a place of extreme privilege. I have parents who have been able to help me financially, and not in small ways. I'm part of a congregation that had the resources to be able to join me in a "shared equity" agreement on my house. These are gifts that are in no way small. And I therefore understand that other people who do go into debt are usually doing so from a place of less privilege. I have no judgment on that situation, therefore. It truly is because of the advantaged situation into which I have been born (not through any actions or choices of my own) that I can claim the healthy financial situation in which I have lived through my life. There have been huge financial demands that have arisen at various times. The fact that I was able to get through those times - through savings, through equity built up on our house, through the help of family... again, I do not at all take for granted that that came from extreme privilege.
But what I want to focus on in this blog has more to do with times when we came close to having serious financial crisis. I mentioned in the sermon I posted yesterday that there was a time when I had a half time, presbytery-minimum salary position, we had just moved into a three bed-room house from a two, and at the last minute the people who had been buying our old house pulled out leaving us with two mortgages, the shower pan in the bathroom cracked, damaging the floor and walls as well as making the bathroom completely unusable and it was Christmas: a Christmas with three kids who would not receive presents from their parents that year. I didn't tell the end of that story which was that just as we came to the month when all of our savings would have been used up, the old house did sell, fulltime better paying work did come along, enough that we were able to have the bathroom fixed without a problem, and my kids were blessed with so much at Christmas from those around us that they did not feel deprived despite my not having the finances, personally, to buy them gifts. We were cared for. We were okay. That has happened other times as well (needing to pay legal fees of close to $100K for example), where I have come close to needing to go into debt or needing to borrow from family or needing financial help but because of savings or other privileged situations, the money has always appeared, has always been there. When disaster happened in our family, I was able to take on full time work immediately and our finances were never in danger. At all of these times I have recognized our financial well being for the miracles they have been. And this month it happened again. I had personally payed for the building supplies for our church work day (part of my contribution to the church for something I felt very strongly about). But then the car broke down, my mortgage company failed to pay the insurance company out of my impound account and my insurance was about to be cancelled so I had to pay it directly out of my account, and a large medical bill for one of my kids came due. All of it happened at the same time. And when the bills came, I wasn't sure how I was going to pay them. But then today I received two large checks in the mail: one from my insurance company back in Ohio that needed to pay back an overpayment (and a LARGE overpayment) on the house I used to have there, and one for work I had not thought I would be paid for. Neither were expected and the timing of both was, in fact, a miracle. They came exactly in the right amount and exactly at the right time. I felt the hand of God in the timing. I felt truly "taken care of" by the Divine when I was starting to panic and feel financially fragile.
But my next feeling was one of being very disturbed by the miracles, by the timing, by the gifts, by the reality that I have always been so well cared for financially. Why is it that I have been taken care of, again and again in these concrete ways, when there are people starving to death in the world? When there are so many people who cannot meet their bills this month or any month? People truly in desperate need of food, shelter, medicines, who simply don't have them? Does God not care about them equally well? The God I believe in does. I know people who believe that we are taken care of when we help ourselves. But I've known too many less privileged people, seen how hard they work and how desperate they are at times to get their basic needs met, to have any illusions that somehow these financial gifts are due to something I have done or am. Some would claim it's because I have faith. Again, not accurate. Many of the poorest folk I know are people of very deep faith. And I know God loves all people just as much, regardless of what they believe. No, I have been lucky beyond my due; and others have suffered far beyond theirs. So, while I never want to be ungrateful for the well-being and gifts that have come my way, I remain disturbed by the question of why some people receive the miracles they need at a particular point in time while others don't.
To expand this beyond finances, I have read recently about a family whose daughter miraculously survived and overcame a dreadful precondition that should have killed her instantly. She says she was blessed by a miracle from God. People in my congregations have shared miracle stories of children surviving terrible accidents or diseases as well. But I also know wonderful, incredible people who have lost children to death of one kind or another, people of deep faith and love. And the randomness of who is saved and who is lost eludes me. I wonder, for the families who have lost their children, if it is not beyond painful to hear others whose children were saved talking about the miracle of that child's survival. I wonder if they do not scream at God, "If you could save, Jane, why didn't you save Ramon?" And my fear is that we end up blaming the victims way too often. "Maybe their faith wasn't strong enough". Or we come up with other justifications. "Maybe God needed that child in heaven". "Maybe it is the sins of the father being visited down upon the child". NO. None of these reasons work for me. Not one. It still remains the case that miracles happen all the time. But some people still experience in this life much more than they can handle. And they lose children. Or they struggle with unimagined financial stress. Or they literally starve or dehydrate to death. Some suffer torture. Some die in wars. Some die of abuse. Some are killed for no reason whatsoever because of where they live, or their skin color, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It isn't okay. And the randomness of who survives, who receives miracles and who doesn't continues to escape me.
I find myself grateful that I am aware that I don't deserve the gifts that come my way and can choose to be humbled and extremely thankful for them. But I still struggle with the bigger questions. Why some and not others?
I've posted this before, but this is what Frederick Buechner says: “God is all-powerful. God is all-good. Terrible things happen. You can reconcile any two of these propositions with each other, but you can’t reconcile all three. The problem of evil is perhaps the greatest single problem for religious faith. There have been numerous theological and philosophical attempts to solve it, but when it comes down to the reality of evil itself they are none of them worth much. When a child is raped and murdered, the parents are not apt to take much comfort from the explanation (better than most) that since God wants people to love God, people must be free to love or not to love and thus free to rape and murder a child if he takes a notion to. Christian science solves the problem of evil by saying that it does not exist except as an illusion of mortal mind. Buddhism solves it in terms of reincarnation and an inexorable law of cause and effect whereby the raped child is merely reaping the consequences of evil deeds it committed in another life. Christianity, on the other hand, ultimately offers no theoretical solution at all. It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene – not even this – but that God can turn it to good.”
I see that. I preach that. But because there really aren't answers, I still struggle with it. While I do see many of the miracles that happen all around every single day, it still hurts to see so many people struggle so much. But when the question of evil arises, it is one of those times when we are called to live into the question. I also hear in the question a call.. where we see need, we are called to be the miracle for those around us. Remembering how we have been blessed and graced, we are called to bring blessings and grace to those for whom the miracles are not as obvious or so forthcoming. So for today, I will take the gifts and the miracles that I am given and do my best to pass them forward.
Showing posts with label God's power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's power. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Sunday's Sermon - Ordinary Miracles or "Can God Defy the Laws of Physics?
9/25/16
Acts 9:1-12
John 21:1-19
When we invited you to write your questions for our interfaith panel, some of them were questions that were more Christian or even Presbyterian in content. I put those off to focus on the questions that were more written for our guests of differing faiths. But over the next few months, I hope to try to answer, from my own perspective, some of the other questions that you asked. Today I want to start by giving my answer to a question that the other panel members did address but which I did not. The question was, “Does God have the ability to defy the laws of physics?”
This is a question about the validity of miracles, whether or not they really take place, but it also goes a step further into the question of the nature of those miracles, in what ways they happen or in what ways they CAN happen. Does God set up the rules in such a way that God never breaks them? Or can God break the very rules God has set up for our world and our universe?
Not to put anyone on the spot, but have any of you seen or experienced a miracle? How about one that defies the laws of physics?
Today we hear a couple different stories about miracles. We hear about Paul’s conversion experience of encountering the risen Christ. And we hear about Jesus’ third appearance to the disciples after his resurrection. We know that throughout the Bible there are many stories of miracles. The parting of the Red Sea, Daniel escaping the lions in the lion’s den, Jesus’ many miracles of healing. It is common to wonder what these stories have to do with us today. Did these miracles really happen? If so, do miracles still happen? If so, why don’t we hear about them? If not, why not? Do the old stories, whether historically accurate or not, still have meaning for us today? And if God gives miracles, why do they happen for some but not for all? Why do they seem so random? And how do they fit in with the world God created with its laws and science? Why have those physical laws if they are just going to be broken on special occasions?
Frederick Buechner, in his book “Wishful Thinking” speaks eloquently for us in his essay on miracles when he says, “A cancer unexplicably cured. A voice in a dream. A statue that weeps. A miracle is an event that strengthens faith. It is possible to look at most miracles and find a rational explanation in terms of natural cause and effect. It is possible to look at Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus and find a rational explanation in terms of paint and canvas. Faith in God is less apt to proceed from miracles than miracles from faith in God.”
Still, even people of deep faith struggle with the idea of miracles. There is great dispute among biblical scholars about the historicity of Jesus’ healings, for example. Some believe these stories of Jesus’ miracles were added later to legitimate Jesus as God’s son. For these scholars, the miracle stories offend, first because they are attempts to “prove” God to a people who are called to trust without proof. Second because again, they call into question why some receive miracles while others don’t. Third, miracles seem to have “dried up,” at least the big ones, which calls into question why God would have done big miracles in the past but allowed atrocities like the Witch burnings and the Holocaust to occur without intervention. I am not telling you this to shock or upset you or even to challenge you to question those miracles. But I am telling you this because I find their reasoning fascinating. Scholars like Marcus Borg and faithful scientists like the physicist Polkinghorn are offended by the idea that God needs to step outside the wonderful, beautiful laws of nature which God has created in order to prove God’s existence or presence, to prove God’s will and intervention in our lives. They ask, what do faithful people really need in order to believe in God’s presence? What kind of signs do we require in order to believe God loves us? Would we still believe that Jesus was the Christ without the miracles we read about in scripture? Isn’t God’s presence and existence more profound, more deep, more intensive and infused throughout all life than a need for “miracles?” And what kind of faith is it that requires stepping outside the laws of physics in order to believe truly in God’s existence or love for us?
There is a great deal of reason to be cautious in our understanding, and expectation of miracles. Rev. Kay Landers has been a hospital chaplain for over thirty years. A colleague in ministry asked Kay (through e-mail) about her experiences with miracles and in particular the miracle of healing, and I would like to read to you Kay’s response. She wrote, “I am cautious about using the word ‘healing’ when I pray with and for my patients and their families. There are many ways we are healed. But my own life experience has been that actual healing of bodily ills and wounds is very rare and that those who suffer and are not healed are not deprived of God's presence and that those who experience the miracle of healing have been touched in a way quite unique from the majority of God's children. C.S. Lewis believed that the miracles we seek are rare and come only when God intervenes in the natural order of life….death is the natural order and eventually carries us all away. C.S. Lewis then wrote that miracles are generally only for God's youngest "children" in faith, and as we mature our trust in God grows so that we need to increase our faith in God's presence without an outward, visible sign of God’s constant and true presence, for Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us. There are many times in the Intensive Care Unit at Highland Hospital that family will request that the doctor "do everything" for the dying patient as they "know God will heal their loved one." There are those moments when a patient will slowly experience some form of recovery and, rarely, a recovery of major proportions. However, most are not healed in the way the family desires and that will sometimes turn the family away from God because "God didn't do what we asked." This is a puzzlement to me, especially when those who were strongly committed to "doing everything" no longer visit their loved ones who remain in comas or vegetative states in our Fairmont beds.”
Still, I want to give you a couple examples from my own personal life of what I experience to be miracles. I believe I shared this with you the night before I Candidated here and I know I’ve shared it with our midweek program as well, but for me it remains a powerful story. This was about 9 years ago. I was working at Bethel in a half time, minimum Presbytery salary job. My husband had the full time position but his job had ended and he had not been able to find a new job. Additionally, we had moved recently, buying one house and attempting to sell the other, when the people who were buying our old house pulled out. Our new house sprung a major leak in one of the two bathrooms and needed at least $4000 of repair work before it would be functional. We were, therefore, in the situation of trying to pay two mortgages, with a torn apart bathroom (including the floor that had been ruined by water) letting bugs and the cold into the house, trying to support ourselves on my Presbytery minimum half time salary in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was scared. Add to this that it was right before Christmas, we had to figure out how to make it a good and meaningful Christmas for our three children without spending any money on presents or an elaborate meal, and…well, you get the idea. I finally hit the wall. It is rare in my private prayer time that I pray for specifics for myself and my family, but this was a rare situation in which, driving home from work late one night I found myself praying for a miracle. “God, we just need a miracle. We need to get through this, we need it to all be okay. We just need some kind of miracle.” The next morning I got up as I had for several weeks, grumpy, scared and tired, when suddenly I heard a yell from the front of the house. I ran to see what was the matter, thinking to myself, “What now, O God? Can this really get any harder?” But when I ran to the living room, what I found was a six foot tall Christmas tree sitting on our front porch, addressed to us, with a little note that just said, “Merry Christmas.” While my children squealed with delight, I myself was simply stunned. Was this the miracle I had been waiting for? It certainly wasn’t what I had in mind. But since it did a lot to cheer my children, it set the day in a good way. We got on with our day and I took Youngest to her little community center class that morning. But when I got to class, there was a note pinned to the attendance sheet asking me to come to the office. I went to the office and the secretary started to tell me there was a problem with my class registration. I was beginning to get all worked up when suddenly she reached behind her desk and pulled out a huge bag of presents for our family from “Santa Claus.” At first I thought it must be a mistake, but each present was addressed to a specific member of our family. For the second time that day, we had been given an unexpected and joyful gift. This one was more practical, too, for it contained things like a gift card to the local grocery store and pajamas for all the kids. I was again stunned, and to this day cannot figure out who this gift could possibly have been from. But still, an answer to my prayer for a miracle? We came home from class, with my confusion moving into a sense of awe. I sat on the couch with Youngest and for the first time ever in her 20 months of age (at that time), she reached up, held my face in both of her little hands, and said, “Mama, I love you.” And in those words, in that miracle, I beheld the presence of God. It was with her words that I knew the miracle I had prayed for, had in fact, taken place. Again, not what I had asked for. It wasn’t a job. It wasn’t the sale of our old house. It wasn’t someone volunteering to fix our bathroom issues. But instead it was an overflowing sign of love – from God, from God’s people, a love that has, and continues to sustain us through the hard times because the hard times are always there if we focus on them. And the love is always there to sustain us, if we can just see it when we need it. Miracles, are all around us, every day, if we choose to see them.
One day towards the end of my pregnancy with Youngest, I went to pick up my eldest daughter from school just at the time that her pre-school class was filing in from outside. I found myself caught by the moving traffic of children and I ended up standing just inside the doorway, holding the door open for the kids as they came inside. As I stood there with extended belly, most of the kids were talking to each other, or fooling around, all anxious to get inside to be picked up by their parents or eat their lunches. Yet, one by one, as they passed, each child, without having noticed the other children doing the same, reached out and put their hands on my tummy, quietly, but with intention, with focus, with a moment of silent connection. Not one of those children looked into my face, acted shy about reaching out or in any other way acknowledged me: it wasn’t about me. And for each child, it was just a moment, just an automatic reaching out and touching. But personally, I was awed by the experience, deeply touched, and a little astounded. I felt I had been blessed, that Youngest had been blessed, by the hands of all these little children of God. All these three and four year olds who connected to life at all levels, at deep levels, not knowing why or caring why, but being part of that blessing and connection.
I could go on and on and on about times God’s presence for me has been strong. Times I have heard God through other people, through nature, and on a couple occasions what felt very directly. But none of these events, these miracles that I experience as part of simply living in this world answer the question that was asked, “does God have the ability to defy the laws of physics.” There isn’t a right or wrong answer to that. And sometimes I think living in the question is more important than ever finding an answer, because God is there in the journey, in the question, in the exploration.
None the less, I will answer the question from my own perspective and place. When I look back on biblical stories, I don’t know if all of those things actually happened, and I’ll tell you a secret – I don’t actually care if they did or not. To me, those stories, whether historically accurate or not, have deeper truths to tell us and I think that if we focus solely on the historicity of those events we miss the point of those stories, the deeper wisdom and truths that they have to tell us. But regardless of whether each of them happened the way they are described, things do happen that we cannot explain. I think that in many ways we are just at the beginning of our understanding of science. In another 200 years, if humans are still around, we will look back and be amazed at what we thought we ‘knew’ to be true. I believe what we perceive to be miracles do happen, even things that would give the appearance of “defying the laws of physics”. But I believe that, given enough time, we might come to understand how those things could have happened within the scientific universe the way it has been designed. I believe anything is possible because I’ve seen too many things happen that I cannot explain. But I also believe God set up the world in such a way that we have what we need to make it work, and this does not require “breaking” or “defying” what God has set up. We just don’t understand everything yet.
But what is more important to me than if God can defy the laws of physics (and truly, I think God can do anything God chooses. That is, after all, the nature of God), I think the deeper question goes back to how we know God is there and how we know God loves us. Does God still interact with humanity? Does God still play a part? Does God still care about each of us all the time?
For me the answer goes back to my favorite Einstein quote: “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” Perhaps because I choose the later, I see God around me every day. All the time. Our lives are filled with grace, with blessings, with miracles. Because that is the nature of the God who loves us. God set up the laws of physics, however we will eventually be able to understand them, out of love for us, out of an understanding that we need order to help us make sense of our lives. But God is still ultimately in charge of it all. And God’s choice is always for us, for love, for good. Amen.
Acts 9:1-12
John 21:1-19
When we invited you to write your questions for our interfaith panel, some of them were questions that were more Christian or even Presbyterian in content. I put those off to focus on the questions that were more written for our guests of differing faiths. But over the next few months, I hope to try to answer, from my own perspective, some of the other questions that you asked. Today I want to start by giving my answer to a question that the other panel members did address but which I did not. The question was, “Does God have the ability to defy the laws of physics?”
This is a question about the validity of miracles, whether or not they really take place, but it also goes a step further into the question of the nature of those miracles, in what ways they happen or in what ways they CAN happen. Does God set up the rules in such a way that God never breaks them? Or can God break the very rules God has set up for our world and our universe?
Not to put anyone on the spot, but have any of you seen or experienced a miracle? How about one that defies the laws of physics?
Today we hear a couple different stories about miracles. We hear about Paul’s conversion experience of encountering the risen Christ. And we hear about Jesus’ third appearance to the disciples after his resurrection. We know that throughout the Bible there are many stories of miracles. The parting of the Red Sea, Daniel escaping the lions in the lion’s den, Jesus’ many miracles of healing. It is common to wonder what these stories have to do with us today. Did these miracles really happen? If so, do miracles still happen? If so, why don’t we hear about them? If not, why not? Do the old stories, whether historically accurate or not, still have meaning for us today? And if God gives miracles, why do they happen for some but not for all? Why do they seem so random? And how do they fit in with the world God created with its laws and science? Why have those physical laws if they are just going to be broken on special occasions?
Frederick Buechner, in his book “Wishful Thinking” speaks eloquently for us in his essay on miracles when he says, “A cancer unexplicably cured. A voice in a dream. A statue that weeps. A miracle is an event that strengthens faith. It is possible to look at most miracles and find a rational explanation in terms of natural cause and effect. It is possible to look at Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus and find a rational explanation in terms of paint and canvas. Faith in God is less apt to proceed from miracles than miracles from faith in God.”
Still, even people of deep faith struggle with the idea of miracles. There is great dispute among biblical scholars about the historicity of Jesus’ healings, for example. Some believe these stories of Jesus’ miracles were added later to legitimate Jesus as God’s son. For these scholars, the miracle stories offend, first because they are attempts to “prove” God to a people who are called to trust without proof. Second because again, they call into question why some receive miracles while others don’t. Third, miracles seem to have “dried up,” at least the big ones, which calls into question why God would have done big miracles in the past but allowed atrocities like the Witch burnings and the Holocaust to occur without intervention. I am not telling you this to shock or upset you or even to challenge you to question those miracles. But I am telling you this because I find their reasoning fascinating. Scholars like Marcus Borg and faithful scientists like the physicist Polkinghorn are offended by the idea that God needs to step outside the wonderful, beautiful laws of nature which God has created in order to prove God’s existence or presence, to prove God’s will and intervention in our lives. They ask, what do faithful people really need in order to believe in God’s presence? What kind of signs do we require in order to believe God loves us? Would we still believe that Jesus was the Christ without the miracles we read about in scripture? Isn’t God’s presence and existence more profound, more deep, more intensive and infused throughout all life than a need for “miracles?” And what kind of faith is it that requires stepping outside the laws of physics in order to believe truly in God’s existence or love for us?
There is a great deal of reason to be cautious in our understanding, and expectation of miracles. Rev. Kay Landers has been a hospital chaplain for over thirty years. A colleague in ministry asked Kay (through e-mail) about her experiences with miracles and in particular the miracle of healing, and I would like to read to you Kay’s response. She wrote, “I am cautious about using the word ‘healing’ when I pray with and for my patients and their families. There are many ways we are healed. But my own life experience has been that actual healing of bodily ills and wounds is very rare and that those who suffer and are not healed are not deprived of God's presence and that those who experience the miracle of healing have been touched in a way quite unique from the majority of God's children. C.S. Lewis believed that the miracles we seek are rare and come only when God intervenes in the natural order of life….death is the natural order and eventually carries us all away. C.S. Lewis then wrote that miracles are generally only for God's youngest "children" in faith, and as we mature our trust in God grows so that we need to increase our faith in God's presence without an outward, visible sign of God’s constant and true presence, for Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us. There are many times in the Intensive Care Unit at Highland Hospital that family will request that the doctor "do everything" for the dying patient as they "know God will heal their loved one." There are those moments when a patient will slowly experience some form of recovery and, rarely, a recovery of major proportions. However, most are not healed in the way the family desires and that will sometimes turn the family away from God because "God didn't do what we asked." This is a puzzlement to me, especially when those who were strongly committed to "doing everything" no longer visit their loved ones who remain in comas or vegetative states in our Fairmont beds.”
Still, I want to give you a couple examples from my own personal life of what I experience to be miracles. I believe I shared this with you the night before I Candidated here and I know I’ve shared it with our midweek program as well, but for me it remains a powerful story. This was about 9 years ago. I was working at Bethel in a half time, minimum Presbytery salary job. My husband had the full time position but his job had ended and he had not been able to find a new job. Additionally, we had moved recently, buying one house and attempting to sell the other, when the people who were buying our old house pulled out. Our new house sprung a major leak in one of the two bathrooms and needed at least $4000 of repair work before it would be functional. We were, therefore, in the situation of trying to pay two mortgages, with a torn apart bathroom (including the floor that had been ruined by water) letting bugs and the cold into the house, trying to support ourselves on my Presbytery minimum half time salary in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was scared. Add to this that it was right before Christmas, we had to figure out how to make it a good and meaningful Christmas for our three children without spending any money on presents or an elaborate meal, and…well, you get the idea. I finally hit the wall. It is rare in my private prayer time that I pray for specifics for myself and my family, but this was a rare situation in which, driving home from work late one night I found myself praying for a miracle. “God, we just need a miracle. We need to get through this, we need it to all be okay. We just need some kind of miracle.” The next morning I got up as I had for several weeks, grumpy, scared and tired, when suddenly I heard a yell from the front of the house. I ran to see what was the matter, thinking to myself, “What now, O God? Can this really get any harder?” But when I ran to the living room, what I found was a six foot tall Christmas tree sitting on our front porch, addressed to us, with a little note that just said, “Merry Christmas.” While my children squealed with delight, I myself was simply stunned. Was this the miracle I had been waiting for? It certainly wasn’t what I had in mind. But since it did a lot to cheer my children, it set the day in a good way. We got on with our day and I took Youngest to her little community center class that morning. But when I got to class, there was a note pinned to the attendance sheet asking me to come to the office. I went to the office and the secretary started to tell me there was a problem with my class registration. I was beginning to get all worked up when suddenly she reached behind her desk and pulled out a huge bag of presents for our family from “Santa Claus.” At first I thought it must be a mistake, but each present was addressed to a specific member of our family. For the second time that day, we had been given an unexpected and joyful gift. This one was more practical, too, for it contained things like a gift card to the local grocery store and pajamas for all the kids. I was again stunned, and to this day cannot figure out who this gift could possibly have been from. But still, an answer to my prayer for a miracle? We came home from class, with my confusion moving into a sense of awe. I sat on the couch with Youngest and for the first time ever in her 20 months of age (at that time), she reached up, held my face in both of her little hands, and said, “Mama, I love you.” And in those words, in that miracle, I beheld the presence of God. It was with her words that I knew the miracle I had prayed for, had in fact, taken place. Again, not what I had asked for. It wasn’t a job. It wasn’t the sale of our old house. It wasn’t someone volunteering to fix our bathroom issues. But instead it was an overflowing sign of love – from God, from God’s people, a love that has, and continues to sustain us through the hard times because the hard times are always there if we focus on them. And the love is always there to sustain us, if we can just see it when we need it. Miracles, are all around us, every day, if we choose to see them.
One day towards the end of my pregnancy with Youngest, I went to pick up my eldest daughter from school just at the time that her pre-school class was filing in from outside. I found myself caught by the moving traffic of children and I ended up standing just inside the doorway, holding the door open for the kids as they came inside. As I stood there with extended belly, most of the kids were talking to each other, or fooling around, all anxious to get inside to be picked up by their parents or eat their lunches. Yet, one by one, as they passed, each child, without having noticed the other children doing the same, reached out and put their hands on my tummy, quietly, but with intention, with focus, with a moment of silent connection. Not one of those children looked into my face, acted shy about reaching out or in any other way acknowledged me: it wasn’t about me. And for each child, it was just a moment, just an automatic reaching out and touching. But personally, I was awed by the experience, deeply touched, and a little astounded. I felt I had been blessed, that Youngest had been blessed, by the hands of all these little children of God. All these three and four year olds who connected to life at all levels, at deep levels, not knowing why or caring why, but being part of that blessing and connection.
I could go on and on and on about times God’s presence for me has been strong. Times I have heard God through other people, through nature, and on a couple occasions what felt very directly. But none of these events, these miracles that I experience as part of simply living in this world answer the question that was asked, “does God have the ability to defy the laws of physics.” There isn’t a right or wrong answer to that. And sometimes I think living in the question is more important than ever finding an answer, because God is there in the journey, in the question, in the exploration.
None the less, I will answer the question from my own perspective and place. When I look back on biblical stories, I don’t know if all of those things actually happened, and I’ll tell you a secret – I don’t actually care if they did or not. To me, those stories, whether historically accurate or not, have deeper truths to tell us and I think that if we focus solely on the historicity of those events we miss the point of those stories, the deeper wisdom and truths that they have to tell us. But regardless of whether each of them happened the way they are described, things do happen that we cannot explain. I think that in many ways we are just at the beginning of our understanding of science. In another 200 years, if humans are still around, we will look back and be amazed at what we thought we ‘knew’ to be true. I believe what we perceive to be miracles do happen, even things that would give the appearance of “defying the laws of physics”. But I believe that, given enough time, we might come to understand how those things could have happened within the scientific universe the way it has been designed. I believe anything is possible because I’ve seen too many things happen that I cannot explain. But I also believe God set up the world in such a way that we have what we need to make it work, and this does not require “breaking” or “defying” what God has set up. We just don’t understand everything yet.
But what is more important to me than if God can defy the laws of physics (and truly, I think God can do anything God chooses. That is, after all, the nature of God), I think the deeper question goes back to how we know God is there and how we know God loves us. Does God still interact with humanity? Does God still play a part? Does God still care about each of us all the time?
For me the answer goes back to my favorite Einstein quote: “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” Perhaps because I choose the later, I see God around me every day. All the time. Our lives are filled with grace, with blessings, with miracles. Because that is the nature of the God who loves us. God set up the laws of physics, however we will eventually be able to understand them, out of love for us, out of an understanding that we need order to help us make sense of our lives. But God is still ultimately in charge of it all. And God’s choice is always for us, for love, for good. Amen.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Sunday's Sermon - Authority and Right Behavior
Deuteronomy 18:15-22
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
We start today with the passage from Deuteronomy that calls us to be careful, especially as leaders in the church, of what we say, of what we teach. We are then led to the Corinthians passage which calls us to be mindful of everything that we DO so that we are not leading people astray or down a bad path. And finally we come to the Mark passage in which Jesus’ authority is made clear. He both teaches and acts with an authority that astounds and shakes people up.
Of course Jesus’ authority shakes people up. He got it RIGHT. He was able to do what he set out to do. He was able to cure and exorcise demons. He was able to speak in a way that people heard differently. He spoke, as we are told, “with an authority that was not like the legal experts.” Have you ever been in a place where someone was speaking and the words touched you with an authority that shook you? Where the words felt like they went all the way into your heart in a way that was different from what we usually hear or the ways we usually hear? Have you ever heard someone speak, even to a group, and know that somehow the words that were coming out of that other person’s mouth were spoken FOR you and TO you even if the person saying them wasn’t aware of it?
Several years ago, I was helping out in Youngest’s classroom. I was walking with the children to their computer lab when we passed the school janitor. Youngest’s teacher said hi to the man and he responded, “Just Keep believing”! But as he said it, he turned to me and locked eyes with me for just a moment. And I had that feeling, that feeling of being hit by lightning, that feeling of having heard a message just for me, that feeling of having met an angel, a messenger from God who had something that I needed to hear in that moment. If this stranger had actually spoken these words to me directly, I doubt that I would have taken them in the same way. I would have heard them as trite, or would have felt “preached at”. He was the janitor, someone some people might dismiss. But through his voice in that moment and at that time, I heard God. In that moment he spoke with authority. I don’t know if he was even aware of it, but that doesn’t matter. He spoke with authority in that moment to me.
This has happened for me other times as well. A couple months ago at one of our praise services we read a scripture passage from James 3 and 4 that I had prepared to preach on ahead of time. Mostly it focused on not judging others, but there was one verse in the passage, “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” And while it was one verse among many and not the verses that I had focused on when I was preparing the sermon, when the scripture was read that evening, those passages spoke to me. They spoke to me differently. They spoke with authority to me about our relationships with God. Are we in relationship with God so that we can get what we want from God? Do we pray so God will bless us and our lives with abundance? Some preachers preach this idea with a theology called “prosperity gospel” in which the message really is that if we just do x, God will give us y. It is all about what we can get from God and that is the call they use to bring people into faith. But this passage from James says something different. Do we do all of this for ourselves? Are we here in this place because it will make us happier? Or do we worship and pray because God calls us to pray, God calls us into a life of faith because God wants us to live lives that serve OTHERS? Do we ask, how will this benefit me? Or do we ask, how will this serve God and God’s people? That verse in James hit me in that moment with great authority, with truth, with depth, with God’s presence.
Sometimes I have been talking with one of you, or more, have been part of a conversation with a bunch of people, and one of you will say something that, similarly, hits me differently. It will go into my heart in a different, new way as if the words were spoken with authority, as if God God-self had commanded that they be said. When we hear something spoken like that, when we hear God’s voice behind the words, it is amazingly powerful, and it shakes us to the core.
In today’s passage from Deuteronomy the prophets are being warned. They are being warned to only speak God’s truth or they will die. But the reality is we all die. And perhaps that is in part because we all mess up, there are times even the prophets got it wrong and get it wrong. We know this because we believe there was only one who got it right ALL the time and that was Jesus. We also know it from the stories of the prophets themselves. Jeremiah got it wrong by thinking he couldn’t do anything because he was too young. Moses got it wrong thinking that because of his speech impediment, he could not lead the Israelites. Jonah got it wrong over and over again – first by running from God and then by being angry that God did not destroy Nineveh. The prophets were all human and so sometimes they got it wrong. We are the same. No matter how faithfully we strive to follow God and to speak what God would have us say, sometimes we get it wrong. Mostly I’m not even sure we know it when we get it wrong. We could be preaching with great conviction and still be totally misguided in our understanding. Sometimes we know we’ve got it wrong after the words escape our lips, and the only thing we can do is apologize. At my last church I had to do the memorial service for a stranger who was the adult son of a couple of my parishioners and who had committed suicide. After the service, the father of the deceased man came up to me and said, “That must have been a really hard service to do.” I looked at this parishioner, a man in his 80s at the time, someone whom I deeply loved and respected and the words flew out of my mouth, “It wasn’t as hard as it will be to do yours.” The second I said the words I knew they were just the stupidest, most insensitive thing I could have said. I meant to communicate care to this man whom I really did care about. But sometimes we just get it wrong.
Jesus' words and behavior showed us a great contrast to this for he spoke with wisdom, love and authority at all times. He acted with wisdom, love and authority at all times. His words and his actions caused even the demons to speak who he was and to be afraid. His words and his actions touched people and shook them to the core. His words and his actions caused people to ask why and how he spoke with authority. And that authority stemmed from love. That authority came from the place where Jesus cared more about healing others through giving them God’s word and God’s healing than he cared about his own life. That authority came from the place where Jesus was all about serving and loving US, to the point where he was willing to be killed because of how much he loved us.
In the Corinthian passage we are called to act with that same care. Yes, we are told, we have been given freedom in our faith, a freedom to live more fully. But if we enact that freedom in a way that confuses, or misleads another, or worse, causes another to fall away from God, then we have misused the freedom that God has given us. Does that mean that we are called to make some sacrifices? Absolutely. But more, it means we are called to notice. What are we doing that helps and uplifts others and what are we doing that causes others to turn from their faith, from living their lives as wholly and fully as they can? What are we doing that brings faith and joy and love to others and what are we doing that causes others to stumble? And are we willing to give some things, not because we have to but because it is the loving thing to do for the sake of those other people whom God also loves? Are we willing to live lives that demonstrate love for even those people who make us uncomfortable, even those people we may hate, because we love God? Are we willing to focus on the other, and on God, more than on ourselves? We have to think about this not only by our actions but by our words as well. There is a saying that we should THINK before we speak. Each of the letters in the word “THINK” stand for something. Is what we are about to say True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? And is it Kind?
We won’t always get it right. We don’t have the authority, the wisdom or the love of Christ. But the more we strive to live as Christ, the closer we become to the people God calls us to be. Amen.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
We start today with the passage from Deuteronomy that calls us to be careful, especially as leaders in the church, of what we say, of what we teach. We are then led to the Corinthians passage which calls us to be mindful of everything that we DO so that we are not leading people astray or down a bad path. And finally we come to the Mark passage in which Jesus’ authority is made clear. He both teaches and acts with an authority that astounds and shakes people up.
Of course Jesus’ authority shakes people up. He got it RIGHT. He was able to do what he set out to do. He was able to cure and exorcise demons. He was able to speak in a way that people heard differently. He spoke, as we are told, “with an authority that was not like the legal experts.” Have you ever been in a place where someone was speaking and the words touched you with an authority that shook you? Where the words felt like they went all the way into your heart in a way that was different from what we usually hear or the ways we usually hear? Have you ever heard someone speak, even to a group, and know that somehow the words that were coming out of that other person’s mouth were spoken FOR you and TO you even if the person saying them wasn’t aware of it?
Several years ago, I was helping out in Youngest’s classroom. I was walking with the children to their computer lab when we passed the school janitor. Youngest’s teacher said hi to the man and he responded, “Just Keep believing”! But as he said it, he turned to me and locked eyes with me for just a moment. And I had that feeling, that feeling of being hit by lightning, that feeling of having heard a message just for me, that feeling of having met an angel, a messenger from God who had something that I needed to hear in that moment. If this stranger had actually spoken these words to me directly, I doubt that I would have taken them in the same way. I would have heard them as trite, or would have felt “preached at”. He was the janitor, someone some people might dismiss. But through his voice in that moment and at that time, I heard God. In that moment he spoke with authority. I don’t know if he was even aware of it, but that doesn’t matter. He spoke with authority in that moment to me.
This has happened for me other times as well. A couple months ago at one of our praise services we read a scripture passage from James 3 and 4 that I had prepared to preach on ahead of time. Mostly it focused on not judging others, but there was one verse in the passage, “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” And while it was one verse among many and not the verses that I had focused on when I was preparing the sermon, when the scripture was read that evening, those passages spoke to me. They spoke to me differently. They spoke with authority to me about our relationships with God. Are we in relationship with God so that we can get what we want from God? Do we pray so God will bless us and our lives with abundance? Some preachers preach this idea with a theology called “prosperity gospel” in which the message really is that if we just do x, God will give us y. It is all about what we can get from God and that is the call they use to bring people into faith. But this passage from James says something different. Do we do all of this for ourselves? Are we here in this place because it will make us happier? Or do we worship and pray because God calls us to pray, God calls us into a life of faith because God wants us to live lives that serve OTHERS? Do we ask, how will this benefit me? Or do we ask, how will this serve God and God’s people? That verse in James hit me in that moment with great authority, with truth, with depth, with God’s presence.
Sometimes I have been talking with one of you, or more, have been part of a conversation with a bunch of people, and one of you will say something that, similarly, hits me differently. It will go into my heart in a different, new way as if the words were spoken with authority, as if God God-self had commanded that they be said. When we hear something spoken like that, when we hear God’s voice behind the words, it is amazingly powerful, and it shakes us to the core.
In today’s passage from Deuteronomy the prophets are being warned. They are being warned to only speak God’s truth or they will die. But the reality is we all die. And perhaps that is in part because we all mess up, there are times even the prophets got it wrong and get it wrong. We know this because we believe there was only one who got it right ALL the time and that was Jesus. We also know it from the stories of the prophets themselves. Jeremiah got it wrong by thinking he couldn’t do anything because he was too young. Moses got it wrong thinking that because of his speech impediment, he could not lead the Israelites. Jonah got it wrong over and over again – first by running from God and then by being angry that God did not destroy Nineveh. The prophets were all human and so sometimes they got it wrong. We are the same. No matter how faithfully we strive to follow God and to speak what God would have us say, sometimes we get it wrong. Mostly I’m not even sure we know it when we get it wrong. We could be preaching with great conviction and still be totally misguided in our understanding. Sometimes we know we’ve got it wrong after the words escape our lips, and the only thing we can do is apologize. At my last church I had to do the memorial service for a stranger who was the adult son of a couple of my parishioners and who had committed suicide. After the service, the father of the deceased man came up to me and said, “That must have been a really hard service to do.” I looked at this parishioner, a man in his 80s at the time, someone whom I deeply loved and respected and the words flew out of my mouth, “It wasn’t as hard as it will be to do yours.” The second I said the words I knew they were just the stupidest, most insensitive thing I could have said. I meant to communicate care to this man whom I really did care about. But sometimes we just get it wrong.
Jesus' words and behavior showed us a great contrast to this for he spoke with wisdom, love and authority at all times. He acted with wisdom, love and authority at all times. His words and his actions caused even the demons to speak who he was and to be afraid. His words and his actions touched people and shook them to the core. His words and his actions caused people to ask why and how he spoke with authority. And that authority stemmed from love. That authority came from the place where Jesus cared more about healing others through giving them God’s word and God’s healing than he cared about his own life. That authority came from the place where Jesus was all about serving and loving US, to the point where he was willing to be killed because of how much he loved us.
In the Corinthian passage we are called to act with that same care. Yes, we are told, we have been given freedom in our faith, a freedom to live more fully. But if we enact that freedom in a way that confuses, or misleads another, or worse, causes another to fall away from God, then we have misused the freedom that God has given us. Does that mean that we are called to make some sacrifices? Absolutely. But more, it means we are called to notice. What are we doing that helps and uplifts others and what are we doing that causes others to turn from their faith, from living their lives as wholly and fully as they can? What are we doing that brings faith and joy and love to others and what are we doing that causes others to stumble? And are we willing to give some things, not because we have to but because it is the loving thing to do for the sake of those other people whom God also loves? Are we willing to live lives that demonstrate love for even those people who make us uncomfortable, even those people we may hate, because we love God? Are we willing to focus on the other, and on God, more than on ourselves? We have to think about this not only by our actions but by our words as well. There is a saying that we should THINK before we speak. Each of the letters in the word “THINK” stand for something. Is what we are about to say True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? And is it Kind?
We won’t always get it right. We don’t have the authority, the wisdom or the love of Christ. But the more we strive to live as Christ, the closer we become to the people God calls us to be. Amen.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Christmas Peace
Today is Christmas Eve. And I find myself anticipating...well - busyness, chaos, lots of singing, acting, music, eating, presents, noise, family, friends, joyful sounds, excitement, driving and, again, busyness. Our sanctuary is filled with poinsettias and Christmas banners and nativity scenes, candles and words. We will have 2 vocal choirs, 3 small music groups, bells, a brass choir, organ and piano solos as well as traditional Christmas carolling. We will have preservice music, then a service, then more preservice music, and another service. Two pastors, two congregations, two organists, two music directors, lots of volunteers, Santa, Jesus, children, adults, readers, singers, etc, etc, etc all joining together in joyful, planned, full worship. And it will be glorious and fun. We will end it all with candles and quiet, only to be awaken from that by a rousing postlude of "joy to the world". It's the happiest time of the year.
But...
Under it all, I find myself anticipating something else. I strive to sit in quiet each day for at least fifteen minutes during all of this busyness. It doesn't always happen, but that is my goal. To sit. To listen. To breathe. And as I do that I find that underneath the anxiety, the stress, the worry, the joy, the planning, the activities and the anticipation of more movement and business, that there is something more. Something that is waiting. When I am still I find myself waiting, watching, praying, and hoping. I find myself searching for, and anticipating forgiveness, reconciliation, healing... peace.
I can't make those things happen. But I know that God can. And I know that God chooses those things as well. God, too, wants forgiveness, reconciliation, healing within each person, between individuals, between communities, around the world. Our Prince of Peace wants those things for all of us. Often we can be part of creating those things, often we are necessary to be part of creating those things. But sometimes the most we can do is choose to enter the world with peace in our hearts, and choose to be open and offering at all times of those things to all we encounter, and even to the spirits of those we never meet face to face. We can welcome into our hearts forgiveness, reconciliation, healing... peace. And pray to embody those things in the world.
Sometimes these qualities are things I only strive for and not characteristics or ways of being in the world that I easily embody.
But this Christmas Eve I wait, watch, search for and anticipate their coming. I trust that God is bringing them. And I will look with eyes open for ways to be part of that, in my own life and in the world.
But...
Under it all, I find myself anticipating something else. I strive to sit in quiet each day for at least fifteen minutes during all of this busyness. It doesn't always happen, but that is my goal. To sit. To listen. To breathe. And as I do that I find that underneath the anxiety, the stress, the worry, the joy, the planning, the activities and the anticipation of more movement and business, that there is something more. Something that is waiting. When I am still I find myself waiting, watching, praying, and hoping. I find myself searching for, and anticipating forgiveness, reconciliation, healing... peace.
I can't make those things happen. But I know that God can. And I know that God chooses those things as well. God, too, wants forgiveness, reconciliation, healing within each person, between individuals, between communities, around the world. Our Prince of Peace wants those things for all of us. Often we can be part of creating those things, often we are necessary to be part of creating those things. But sometimes the most we can do is choose to enter the world with peace in our hearts, and choose to be open and offering at all times of those things to all we encounter, and even to the spirits of those we never meet face to face. We can welcome into our hearts forgiveness, reconciliation, healing... peace. And pray to embody those things in the world.
Sometimes these qualities are things I only strive for and not characteristics or ways of being in the world that I easily embody.
But this Christmas Eve I wait, watch, search for and anticipate their coming. I trust that God is bringing them. And I will look with eyes open for ways to be part of that, in my own life and in the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)