Further reflections on "Seeking Beyond Our Grasp"

In this week’s sermon, we were invited to be grace-filled as we examine our idolatries and the idolatries of others. From the Acts 17 scripture, it seems that we are asked to take a deeper look at what those idols might reveal about what we were seeking in the first place. Furthermore, pausing to understand that underlying yearning for something bigger than ourselves will also point to the way in which God formed us and made us in such a way that seeking is part of our being. Nevertheless, as I wrote this sermon, there was an issue that was left unarticulated. That was the matter of an all or nothing mentality.

The invitation to a graceful attitude with ourselves and others is in many ways a calling toward journey rather than destination. In the journey, many concerns we encounter can neither be completely understood nor can they be fully solved. However, we live in a culture that tells us that we must fix ourselves, solve problems, and ally ourselves fully with causes… “you’re either with us or against us.”

But much like Luke’s telling of Paul’s encounter in Acts 17 where understanding wins out over shame and guilt, our lives too are rarely made better by the shame and guilt wrought by such a limited posturing. Rather than shaming someone for not yet recycling at home, what would it be like to honor them for recycling while they are at work? Instead of guilting ourselves over participating in unsustainable eating practices, what if we respected the worthy step of eating meat only 5 days a week instead of 7? And in a world of pass/fail schools, what if we celebrated small steps and even intangibles in students and teachers lives?

It is my deepest belief, both theologically and psychologically, that we would be healthier people, a stronger culture, and a more justice filled society if we started by honoring the little steps rather than shaming ourselves and others for what we have not yet accomplished. We would likely be encouraged to take more little steps rather than giving up entirely. And most importantly, I believe that such a way of life is closer to God’s will that we be active partners in the building up of creation.

My hope is that we learn and grow from the times we stumble so that our future steps are more steady. My prayer each day is for sustaining strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other and to honor each and every step along the way.

“Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.” ~ unknown

Seeking Beyond Our Grasp

Seeking Beyond Our Grasp - A sermon based upon Acts 17:22-31

Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you today and share in worship in a different way since I'm usually facing the other direction... And might I say it's quite a different view from this side instead of my rear corner view.

Briefly, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Lavender and I'm a member of St Pauls and being nurtured in the care process of ordination. I'm also a full time chaplain at Children’s Memorial, where I've been for several years now. My seminary training was at Louisville Presbyterian and I graduated 5 years ago this week. And if you can’t tell, in my spare time, I do charity events like the one where I shaved my head 3 weeks ago to raise money for cancer research.

Well, enough about me… How about this scripture? I should say that this passage fascinates me. I mean, here we have Paul walking about Athens, one of the most diverse places in history. And this is a guy who is all about strict adherence to the law so all the idols and shrines throughout the city were truly disturbing to him. But rather than start shaming people and beating them over the head for what he would have judged as sinful, he does something quite different.

Paul says, “I see how very religious you are in every way...” He goes on to honor them for their attempts to seek and understand God even though he believes they have gotten some of it wrong. Next, he connects to a particular shrine the Athenians have built “to an unknown god” and claims that this is the God and creator of all. Then he says that this God actually created us in such a way that we would be compelled to seek the One that breathed life into all creation. Finally, Paul calls for the Athenians to make sure their beliefs are of the Holy when he proclaims that there will come a day that this God of all will judge all.

So, what do we make of this? Well, I think it's safe to say that this passage has much to say to us today. We too live in a culture full of idols and a sense of groping for God. We too need help sorting through what is our idol worship and failed seeking. And we too need to be honored for our attempts rather than shamed and made to feel guilty for being limited.

So, how do we unravel this message? Well, first of all it I think the issue of Paul’s approach is particularly important. He knew that if he were to stand up and condemn the Athenians for what he judged as idolatrous, they would become defensive and shut him out. He knew that it is never through shaming and quilting that genuine change is made. Shame and guilt may coerce behavior but they are not foundations for beliefs. So Paul starts talking to them by honoring their attempts at seeking God and their deep passion around religiosity. He wants them to know that their attempts are worthy and that God has even had grace on our groping and reaching for the Holy even when we come up short.

To me, this is an amazing insight. I mean Think about our own lives… If Paul were to walk into our church, down our streets, and into our homes, what kinds of idols would he see? I dare say that he would see many that span our attempts at seeking something greater than ourselves. Our cars, job titles, the famous people we’ve placed on pedestals, the monuments to ideals that are not quite holy… they are everywhere in our lives. We might be tempted to dismiss many of those idols as ones that represent greed or selfishness. But should we dismiss how they came to be idols? Maybe we should look at what we saw in them that made us lift them up in the first place.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that even though our idols reveal much about our failings and brokenness, they also reveal much about our attempts to fill a God sized void in our lives. If it is that the accumulation of wealth or monuments to immortality are all some of us can claim, then it’s because the appetite for God is so great rather than so small. So, starting from Paul’s model for addressing idolatry in our culture, we would do well when looking at our own lives and the lives of others to start with some grace. We should honor that the emptiness in us is that of a deep yearning for God. Even when we’ve claimed false idols, it was because we wanted so badly to see something greater than us… something bigger and timeless. Guilt and shame won’t reveal God’s true presence but grace and honor sure will.

The second thing I think this passage has for us today is tied up in that yearning and search for God that all too often results in the creation of idols rather than the worship of the holy. Paul tells us “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands… From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”

This is a powerful message to us. The whole reason we need to be grace filled and honor even our failed attempts to search for God is because it is actually God who implanted in us that desire. This passage says we were made in such a way that our whole experience would be marked by the search for God… and that sometimes we would even catch a glimpse or two.

And the way Paul frames this whole thing by connecting them to one of their very own shrines is pretty amazing too. He refers to the shrine “to an unknown god” and tells them that God doesn’t live in things built by our hands because the God that breathed life into all creation is just beyond our grasp and yet never far away.

So if we are made to yearn for and seek God but struggle to do so because it’s somehow beyond our abilities, what does this mean for our lives? Well, it may serve as some good guidance for us in our search. A marker of an idol rather than the Holy might be to realize that our glimpses and experiences of God can never be fully captured and pinned down. If we are somehow trying to recreate an encounter of God or claim a particular path to experiencing God, then we are probably missing the fullness of God.

Also, if God is both beyond yet near, another lesson for our daily lives might be that if someone else has experienced the Holy in a different way, we might do well to seek understanding rather than judgment. With God so full of mystery, there’s likely a whole lot that we just don’t understand but someone else just might. So another marker of our seeking should be humility.

This brings me to a closing point I think this passage is telling us today. Somewhat wrapped up in the first point, Paul proclaims that there will come a day that God will judge us for our searching and what it has yielded in our lives. Now given the recent botched prediction of some sort of rapture or second coming, I think it’s safe to say that we need not concern ourselves with what this judgment will look like or when it will be but rather we should hear the call to be vigilant and continue our journey of seeking here and now.

It is not our job to judge but God’s. Our job is to seek, to journey, to join together in creation, to respect that deep calling of God, and to honor the glimpses of the Holy that we do encounter. Our job is to uphold that desire in one another that is yearning and seeking for something more. We should do this in such a way that even when we get it wrong, we can take that experience and journey with greater clarity rather than being mired in shame and guilt.

Sisters and brothers, today’s scripture passage calls us to be grace-filled with one another when we see the fruits of our yearnings for God rather than shaming of our failings. It calls us to know that God is both beyond our ability to pin down and yet oh so very close. In the midst of that presence, we are invited to be humble in our experience and honor our paths and the paths of others. And we are called to be ever vigilant to weed out idols and false beliefs that would take up the place of God in our lives.

As we leave here today, our calling is to identify those ways we fill our lives with idols, look at what led us to believe in them, and use that yearning to find what is truly Holy. Our calling is also to help others in their attempts to seek and catch glimpses of God. And you know what, I suspect that if we are truly engaged in that work and those relationships, we’ll see God more than we have in a long time. Amen.

What is Real?

What is Real? <-- Audio file link. 
A sermon based upon Romans 5:1-11.

Good morning. On this 3rd Sunday of Lent, we’ve now made it half way to Holy Week and that’s no small task. I hope you’re finding this Lent meaningful in whatever way you need but particularly in the ways God wants for you. I know I am.

And today’s scripture text is one that may offer us different kinds of support and hope depending upon where we are in our journey and what we need. There are many ways to dig into Romans chapter 5 and unearth blessing. But today, we’re going to focus in on the first part of the scripture passage and talk about the character and quality of life in Christ.

You see, last week we said that the phrase “eternal life” is not just about the hereafter. To live eternally is also about our life here and now. It is about abundant life. Yet, it’s one thing to talk about it and another thing to live it.

I say that because life is messy. It’s not always full of joy. In fact it has a good deal of tragedy. And sometimes we find it hard to feel love at all due to physical or emotional pain and suffering.

So, this is where we find Paul’s letter to the Romans today. Paul was a very realistic guy. He knew that just because we have been reconciled to God through Christ didn’t mean that babies would stop dying, poverty would go away, and all war would end. He knew that we would live in the midst of real life but that we might be able to live into it differently… with hope.

Let’s re-read part of this text. Paul tells us, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand…”

You see, Paul wants us to hear that part of life in Christ is one of faith where we trust and don’t have to worry about whether we are okay in our relationship with God. This is not like a relationship with a fickle friend who gets mad when we didn’t say the right thing about her or his new car and doesn’t speak to us for weeks. Rather, “we have peace with God” is what the scripture says. Peace is a gift of never having to wonder if the relationship is solid because it always will be. And in Paul’s mind… and hopefully in our lived lives, this peace frees us to live more abundantly.

But if our justification or atonement is complete in Christ, why is it that we have such a hard time feeling that peace? Why do we struggle so to feel and experience the presence of God? Why are our lives often more full of turmoil than a sense of reconciliation? I suspect as did Paul that it might be because we confuse God’s love and blessing with the absence of suffering.

We are quick to talk about God’s love and bountiful blessing when things are going well for us but when life gets hard, we quickly retreat into “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And I don’t say that to shame us because even Jesus sank into such sorrow on the cross as the pain overtook him. So clearly that response is part of our human nature. But Paul is asking us to live into a more divine nature because of the love poured out on us.

When we read further in this passage, Paul says, “… we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Paul has just in some ways summed up a lifetime of wisdom but it’s wisdom that needs some unpacking. First of all, let’s look at this word “boast.” The way this word is being used when we look at the original Greek is not about bragging. Paul has already stated earlier in this book that bragging is not the way we should handle ourselves. In this case to boast means something that doesn’t quite translate into a single word. It means that we won’t be shamed in our hopeful orientation toward life. This hopeful and confident life is a lived expression bursting forth in us. This is what Paul is getting at.

So what does all this mean that we live confidently in the face of suffering? I ask because it’s important that we understand what is really being talked about here. You see, I’ve heard an abusive husband justify his abuse by saying that his wife needed to suffer so that she would grow stronger. And I’ve heard a politician justify his inaction on issues of poverty by quoting this passage and saying that the poor would be made rich by their sufferings. And in our everyday lives we often have an inner voice that says, “God won’t put more on us than we can handle.” But are these the things Paul meant?

I feel that I can confidently say no. No, suffering in abuse and oppression is not what God wants for us. And though it’s a popular saying in Christian circles, “God won’t put more on us than we can handle” isn’t actually biblical. Such notions suppose that God is doing these things to us rather than the reality that we suffer under the brokenness and falleness of humanity.

Paul is actually just being realistic. We do suffer under the brokenness and falleness of humanity. We do encounter sickness, death, depression, poverty, war, racism, and all manner of pain and oppression. It is simply a characteristic of the lived life. But Paul is telling us that God’s love is not only in the times of peace. God’s love is poured out on us at all times. And if we will recognize God’s presence, the gift is that even in times of suffering, we will grow in endurance, character, and hope.

So what does all this look like? Well, when I read this passage, I can’t help but think of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and the passage about “What is real?” If you don’t know the book, the story opens with a boy receiving lots of toys for Christmas. He received toys with wind up springs and fancy clock works. And he also received a simple velveteen bunny. That bunny made friends with the wise old rocking horse and they would talk at night in the nursery while the boy slept. So, if you will, I’d like to read to you from The Velveteen Rabbit so that maybe we catch a glimpse at what this real life is that Paul wants for us.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

The book goes on to tell the story of love between the boy and the rabbit. It was a love so full that it transcended all the bad things that happened and the bunny became real. This is a story of abundant and eternal life.

And I think Paul is talking about living a real life too. A real life is one that springs from abundant love but contains both peace and suffering. Does becoming real hurt? Sometimes. Is it a process? Most definitely. Can it make us the worse for wear? Quite possibly but “once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”

Sisters and brothers, God loves us abundantly. The character of that love is not in how easy a life we have. Rather, the quality of that love is made full by being present with us even when things are difficult. God is with us in the dark places just as much as in the light. Our calling is to carry the peace we have in God with us so that we trust in that love. Our calling is to live the life of love in such a way that we are made real and help others to become real too. This is not a life without struggle but it is life where we can cultivate hope.

As we continue our sojourn through Lent, may we love and receive love in ways that makes God’s abundance manifest all around. Amen.