Discerning The Will of God

(Matthew 26:14-25, 36-50, 57; 27:1-8)

During the Second World War, Leslie D. Weatherhead, an English pastor serving in London, gave a series of talks (or sermons) on the “will of God” to his congregation. The church he served, the City Temple, had been gutted by incendiary bombs early in the war and the congregation was forced to meet, thereafter, at the nearby St. Sepulchre. And it wasn’t until the 1950’s that they would return to their rebuilt church. Therefore, these people knew firsthand about the ravages of war, and, like many who suffer, they also struggled with the concept of God’s Will amidst so much evil and destruction.

Fortunately, for all who have come after – especially those who have suffered and struggled to understand God’s will in their own lives – Weatherhead’s sermons were preserved and later published in a slim volume entitled “The Will of God” which has now become something of a Christian classic. And in the very first paragraph of that book, he explains his reason for pursuing this theme:

The phrase ‘the will of God’ is used so loosely (he writes), and the consequences of that looseness to our peace of mind is so serious, that I want to spend some time in thinking through with you the whole subject. There is nothing about which we ought to think more clearly; and yet, I sometimes think, there is nothing about which men and women are more confused.

For the past several weeks, and now culminating this morning

on the Sunday of the Passion, I have led you through my own discussion of “the will of God” using Weatherhead’s book as a jumping-off point. We learned, for instance, that Weatherhead believed it was easier and better to understand God’s will by dividing it up into three parts. First, was what he called the “intentional will of God.” For Weatherhead, this represented God’s ideal plan for human beings. In terms of Christ, God’s intentional will, or ideal plan, was clearly for us to follow Jesus.

Second, however, was what Weatherhead called the “circumstantial will of God.” This represents God’s plan within, or in response to, certain circumstances resulting from humanity’s exercise of its free will – most notably those circumstances brought on by our sinfulness. Christ’s death on the cross was not part of God’s original plan, Weatherhead believed. Rather, it was God’s positive and creative response to the tragic sinfulness and evil which had led to the crucifixion.

Finally, there was for Weatherhead the “ultimate will of God,” or the final realization of God’s gracious and loving purposes; purposes which not even human sinfulness or evil could possibly defeat. Thus, the final realization of God’s purposes was, as Weatherhead wrote, “the redemption of man, winning man back to God, not in spite of the Cross, but using the Cross, born of man’s sin, as an instrument to reach the goal of God’s ultimate will.”

Perhaps another way of trying to understand this is to consider the game of chess. As Scott Higgins writes, “One of the more difficult concepts for us to grasp is how God can be said to be in control of his world.” Now is he the author of a play, writing the script for our lives? Or is he, instead, simply a member of the audience, watching us write our own script? The first possibility, as Higgins notes, appears to rob us of our freedom. The second one, however, completely eliminates the possibility of God’s involvement.

“Perhaps a better image,” Higgins writes, “is of a game of chess between a chess master and a novice. The novice moves his pieces around the board. He follows some basic strategies he has read about in a book. Some of his moves are foolish.

“The master” (on the other hand) “responds with great expertise and wisdom. His moves are not pre-programmed, but (rather) a response to the moves of the opposing player. Without even knowing it, the Master weaves the novice’s moves into his game plan. And, of course, the outcome of the game is never in doubt.

Higgins concludes, “Perhaps God is the Master and we are the novices. We make our choices freely, sometimes very foolish and harmful choices, but the Master responds with wisdom, reacting in such a way to ensure that our moves are coordinated into his overall strategy. And, of course, the outcome – a new world – is never in doubt.”

Weatherhead believed that it was only such an understanding of God’s will that could ever bring any peace to us in this life, filled as it is with so much pain and sorrow. While there is not enough time for us this morning to describe this peace in any detail, it is important to note that, for Weatherhead, there were three reasons for this sense of peace.

  1. We lose the fear of getting lost. (In other words, understanding the will of God leads us back home to him.)
  2. The fear and dread of carrying the full responsibility of what happens in our lives, and in the world, is removed. (We may make mistakes, even tragic mistakes, in our lives, but we are nevertheless assured that, in the end, absolutely nothing can finally thwart God’s gracious and loving purposes for us.)
  3. Our conflicts are resolved. (Or as Weatherhead wrote, “The guiding principle ‘I will do God’s will as far as I can see it’ is one that answers a great many of our conflicts and therefore brings us peace and strength.”)

Of course, doing God’s will implies that we somehow know and understand God’s will. Which leads us, then, to this morning’s final theme: “Discerning The Will of God.”

Now discerning God’s will is often difficult. Sometimes it is pronounced with such great confidence only to be replaced by acute embarrassment. Over a century ago, for instance, an esteemed bishop of the church, a Bishop Wright, pronounced from the pulpit and in the periodical he edited that “heavier-than-air-flight” was both impossible and also contrary to the will of God. The great irony was that this Bishop Wright had two sons… Orville and Wilbur!

Since God’s will is not always completely self-evident, Weatherhead observed that there are any number of sign-posts to give us some direction:

  1. Our own conscience; that is, the inner voice which tells us that something is either right or wrong, and that which is right is invariably God’s will.
  2. Simple common sense, which is in itself , also a gift from God.
  3. The advice of friends; another way in which God can work. Talking over one’s difficulties with a wise friend, because he or she can see the matter from a different angle, can view the pros and cons dispassionately and is outside the emotional setting of the problem, can often give us, observes Weatherhead, some of the most helpful advice.
  4. The minds and wisdom of others, especially as they are found in scripture. The Bible, notes Weatherhead, was written from a unique point of view – namely, that of the will and purposes of God. Clearly, the very best guidance we can possibly have, then, is the guidance that God gives his children in his holy word.
  5. The voice of the church. Often God can use the church itself to help in the discernment process. Something which is built-in to our Lutheran understanding of a “call to ministry,” for example, is the belief that God’s call is not simply a personal matter or experience. Instead, in our church, the personal sense of call must also be confirmed by others, by the church, who alone have the authority then to ordain. In other words, the are no “self-ordained” ministers in the Lutheran church.
  6. Finally, notes Weatherhead, there is what our Quaker friends call the “Inner Light,” or the belief that God can also speak directly to the human soul, and show his will to those who seek him.

The story is told of a farmer who was lying on his back out in a field one spring day, lazily looking at the clouds overhead in the sky instead of working. He quickly sat up, however, when he noticed that the clouds had suddenly formed themselves into two recognizable letters: a “P” and a “C.” Immediately, the farmer discerned for himself that it was God calling him to the ministry; the “PC” standing, undoubtedly, for “Preach Christ.” So he went and sold his farm and all of his equipment in order to become a preacher… The only problem was that he was terrible.

So finally, he went before a pastoral review board who asked the man, “Tell us how you were called into the ministry?” And the man responded with his story about lying out in his fields one spring and seeing the letters “PC” in the clouds overhead, and discerning that this must be a message straight from God himself. So he got up and sold his farm and became a preacher.

After a few moments of silence, a grizzled old pastor cleared his throat and said, “Young man, I believe you when you say that you saw the letters “PC” in the clouds, and that you believed them to be a message directly from God… However, did it ever occur to you that what he was trying to say to you that fine spring day while you were lying on your back out in your field instead of working was, “PLANT CORN!”?

Bob Mumford offers some thoughts, similar to those of Weatherhead, to further help us in discerning God’s will for our lives. In his book “Take Another Look at Guidance,” Mumford compares discovering God’s will with a sea captain’s docking procedures. A certain harbor in Italy, apparently, can only be reached by sailing up a narrow channel between dangerous rocks and shoals. Over the years, many ships have been wrecked, and navigation is hazardous. To guide the ships safely into port, three lights have been mounted on three huge poles out in the harbor. When the three lights are perfectly lined up and seen as one, the ship can then safely proceed up the narrow channel. If the pilot sees two or three lights, however, he knows that he’s off-course and in danger.

God has also provided three “beacons” to guide us, argues Mumford. The same rules of navigation apply, he says – these three lights must also be lined up before it is safe for us to proceed:

  1. The Word of God. (Again, the role of scripture in the discernment process.)
  2. The Holy Spirit. (Here I would include what Weatherhead called the advice of others, the voice of the church, and what the Quakers refer to as the “Inner Light.”
  3. Life’s circumstances. (To me, this involves the role of the individual conscience and plain-old common sense.

Again, if these three beacons: God’s Word, the guidance of

the Holy Spirit, and our personal conclusions regarding the circumstances facing us, are perfectly lined up, then perhaps we can have some confidence that we are discerning the will of God for our lives properly.

But Weatherhead acknowledged that one of the challenging questions we face in the discernment process is simply this, “Do I really want to discern God’s will, or do I (simply) want to get his (approval) for my own? He then goes on to tell a story that I had heard before, but never knew where it originated. Now I know that Weatherhead, himself, was the source.

It seems that a pastor once received a call to a new church at a salary which was four times what he was currently earning. Being a very devout man, however, he of course spent many hours in prayer, seeking to discern the will of God for his life, and for his family.

The next day, one of the neighborhood boys encountered the pastor’s young son playing outside in the street. Since word of this new call was one of the poorest-kept secrets in town, he asked him, “Well, what’s your father going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said the little boy honestly. “Father’s upstairs praying… but mother’s downstairs packing.”

The father, offers Weatherhead, was saying to God, “What will you have me do?” While the mother, no less good-intentioned, was saying to God, “This is what I am going to do. I hope you’ll approve.”

But for Weatherhead, discerning the will of God truly means “putting ourselves out of the picture,” at least as much as humanly possible. However, it does not mean, he notes, choosing the most unpleasant way – simply because we assume this to be the most “self-less” choice, and, therefore, the most godly. Nor does it mean that we should go to the other extreme and say, “This is what I am going to do. Please approve, because I want so badly to do it.” Perhaps, as in most things, even the will of God is likely to often be found somewhere between the polar opposites of absolute selfishness, on the one hand, and absolute selflessness, on the other.

Well, now, let’s see if we can bring a close to our discussion this morning, and tie-up any loose ends, by briefly applying Weatherhead’s understanding of the will of God to our gospel readings this morning…

In our processional gospel, the account of Jesus’ exciting and acclaimed entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we observed the “intentional will of God”; namely God’s intention that the people would gladly welcome and then follow his Son. But as the week wore on, of course, other forces and agendas came to bear. Those who opposed Jesus, who ignored and defied the intentional will of God, and who let their own desires and prejudices cloud their judgment, began to conspire against Jesus. And in Judas Iscariot, they found a willing accomplice.

But there is a belief on the part of some scholars, one that I personally find quite plausible, that Judas betrayed Jesus not because he wanted to hurt him, but because he was frustrated by Jesus’ behavior, and simply wanted to try and force Jesus’ hand and make him lead a revolution against the Romans, which is what many, including Judas, wanted. Perhaps that’s why Judas even chose to betray Jesus in the manner he did, with a kiss, not because the religious leaders couldn’t identify Jesus on their own. After all, by his own admission, he had been teaching in the temple day after day. No, Judas, instead, wanted to be there to see the “fireworks;” to see Jesus rise up and defend himself and defeat the Romans. If this was true, then tragically Judas mistook his own will for God’s.

The circumstances, created by the tragically sinful actions of Judas and the religious authorities, led directly, then, to the “circumstantial will of God” in which Jesus did not run from the danger, but instead faced it head on. And it was in the Garden, as we heard, where Jesus wrestled with this surprising turn of events (for us, at least) and prayed for discernment, revealing the answer he was looking for with the words, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it… your will be done..” And in so doing, God took that evil which was plotted and planned against Jesus, and turned it into something good. Like a master chess player, God took the foolish and harmful moves of misguided novices, and wove them into his own gracious game plan. And so God then took the cross, a symbol of torture, hatred, and death, and turned it into a symbol of redemption, hope, and new life…

Now the assumption has always been, even seemingly in today’s gospel, that all of this – including Judas’ betrayal – was all part of God’s original plan and purpose. But let’s stop and think about that logically for just a minute. Can we somehow reconcile our understanding of God, gleaned from thousands of pages of scripture, and two thousand of years of church history, that consistently proclaim over and over again that our God is a God

of love and mercy and forgiveness – can we ever reconcile this picture of God with a God who supposedly, from the very beginning of time, purposely chose and destined for Judas to be Jesus’ betrayer and, therefore, to be damned for all eternity? If God could be so unpredictable, and so cavalier about the eternal soul of just one person, is there any possible assurance then that he might not do the very same to the rest of us as well? And if that’s so, it’s a terrifying thought!

Or… does it make much more sense, especially given what we do know about God from scripture and from the history of the church, that Judas made this stupid, and tragic, and sinful choice of his own free will and volition? In other words, that no one was to blame, except Judas himself. As Weatherhead writes, “…though God may use an instrument for the achievement of divine purpose, if that instrument is human, he has to pay for his sins. God used the Cross, we said, as the instrument of a divine purpose, but that did not stop our Lord from saying of Judas,” (and as we heard this morning) “It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”

Notice, Jesus never says that God planned from the beginning of time for Judas to be his betrayer. Instead, that choice – again tragically – belonged to Judas alone. In trying to discern God’s will, Judas made a horrible and regrettable mistake. Which is why Jesus could say, with more than a twinge of sadness, “It would have been better for him not to have been born.”

But, believe it or not, that’s not even the worst of it! Could Judas have been forgiven? A Lutheran pastor, Brian Stoffregen, points out that in Matthew 19:28, shortly after the second prediction of his passion (in other words, the cross, again, may not have been the intentional will of God, but like a master chess player who can literally visualize all the succeeding moves on a chessboard, Jesus undoubtedly had foreknowledge of what was to come), in this verse Jesus indicates that when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of glory, those who followed him will also sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus says twelve here, not eleven. And Judas, of course, was one of the twelve. Which leads to the question: Could Judas have been forgiven and restored, if only he had repented – in much the same way as Peter was rehabilitated after denying Jesus three times?

Sadly, we’ll never know. Because our gospel tells us this morning that when Judas finally realized what he had done, that Jesus was now condemned to die (and did not rise up to defend himself), Judas repented. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he said. But as Stoffregen notes, Judas went to the wrong people

for forgiveness. Instead of going to the other disciples, to the Christian commuity, he went back instead to the religious leaders. In other words, to those who did not have the power to forgive in the name of Jesus Christ! And when there was no absolution forthcoming from these religious leaders, Judas, again tragically, went out and hanged himself.

The only unforgivable sin, Jesus once said, is to reject the Holy Spirit. In other words, to reject the gifts of faith and forgiveness that we receive through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. In his despair, Judas turned away from the only one who could have helped him. And without any hope or possibility of that forgiveness, he took his own life and thus sealed his eternal fate…

And it’s on that painfully sad note that our gospel ends this morning. But it’s not the end of the story. For that, however, we must wait another week. But we do so secure in the knowledge that God has the final word, and that the ultimate and gracious will of God can never be defeated.

Amen