The Fulfillment of God’s Will… In Spite of Us! (06/22/08)

The Fulfillment of God’s Will… In Spite of Us!

(Genesis 21:8-21)

Now you’ve probably all heard the expressions: “Truth is stranger than fiction,” or “You can’t make this stuff up!”  Consider the following example.

In yesterday’s AJC there was an article about Gloucester, Massachusetts, a small town up in New England which has been particularly hard-hit by declines in the fishing industry.  Besides the serious economic problems they are facing, it also seems that within the past year seventeen teenage girls have become pregnant out of wedlock.  And town officials were, at first, hard pressed to explain it given that, on average, only four girls per year normally turn up in the “family way” (as they used to say).

Even more disturbing than the four-fold increase in teenage pregnancies, however, was the startling revelation that, apparently, these girls had made a “pact” between themselves to purposely get pregnant, and then raise their babies together!  According to yesterday’s article, this story exploded after Joseph Sullivan, principal of Gloucester High School, was quoted by Time magazine as saying that the girls – all 16 years old or younger –actually confessed to making just such a pact.

In the past, of course, a typical teenage girl who suddenly discovered that she was expecting would immediately worry about what to do next, and how she was going to support this child if she decided to keep it, and whether or not she was going to be able to finish school. But none of these traditional concerns seem to have fazed these young women.

And in trying to understand and explain this startling, sad, and strange episode, Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk noted the recent glamorization of teen pregnancy in pop culture.  Similarly, Sarah Brown, the chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies, suggested that some of the blame lies with the nation’s Hollywood-obsessed culture.  “It’s not surprising,” she said, “that teenage girls can get confused or even seduced by the allure of celebrity pregnancy.”  Which is to say, perhaps, that these girls were merely imitating celebrity examples like Ashlee Simpson or Jamie Lynn Spears…  

Well, just to show you that issues related to pregnancy and family planning are not unknown to the Bible, and that, even in scripture, “truth is often stranger than fiction,” we have this morning’s first lesson as a perfect example.  In fact, after reading through it the first time, my initial reaction was, “You can’t make this stuff up!”  Moreover, you wouldn’t!

And what I mean by that is simply this: if the Bible was pure fiction, and if the writers were just making this stuff up as they went along, I seriously doubt they would have ever written a story that is first so disturbing, and second casts those classic biblical heroes, Abraham and Sarah, the patriarch and matriarch of our faith, in such a bad light!  Yet here it is in living color, out in the open; a troubling and tragic tale…

Now how many of you have ever heard a sermon about Hagar and her son Ishmael (although you may have noticed that he is never referred to by name in our passage this morning)?  I certainly haven’t.  Nor have I ever preached one before (which was actually part of the attraction this time around, I have to confess.)  That’s because I can’t ever remember this passage being part of the lectionary.  As a matter of fact, it’s only the alternate reading even today.

But there was something compelling, albeit troubling, about this particular story when I looked at it again this past week.  Not only do these towering biblical heroes, Abraham and Sarah, come across as being so obviously human, they are also portrayed as utterly lacking the faith and understanding that we normally and automatically ascribe to them.  In other words, not only are they just like us, in some respects they are actually even worse than us!

However, in order to get a complete picture of what we’re talking about here, we have to backtrack a few chapters in the story to see how the events in today’s reading actually came about.

It’s back in Chapter 12, for instance, that we are first introduced to Abraham (then known simply as “Abram”), and learn that God has called him to leave his country and his father’s house, and journey to a land that God will show him.  And it is here, says God, that he will make a great nation of Abraham, and make Abraham’s name great, and, in so doing, also make Abraham a blessing to others.

Now that’s all well and good; but there was just one little problem, wasn’t there?  Abraham, and his wife Sarah, had no children.  Even more than that, they were now too old; for both of them were well beyond the normal childbearing age.  So how was God going to make a great nation from them if they had no offspring and no heirs?

So, therefore, in Chapter 15 Abraham points out the obvious to God, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?  …You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”  Without much luck in the “getting pregnant” department, Abraham naturally begins to assume (and also to regret) that apparently a mere slave is actually going to be the vehicle through whom God will make of Abraham this great nation.

But God immediately takes Abraham outside, and shows him the night sky, and challenges Abraham to count the stars – if he can. And then God simply says to him, “So shall your descendents be.”

Then some more time passes, but still no child.  We can safely assume that Abraham and Sarah, despite their advanced age and decreased stamina, were still having fun doing their best to conceive – it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! – yet nothing.

And so it’s at this point that they begin to lose patience with God and even go so far as to decide to take matters into their own hands.  And by doing so, they actually sow the seeds for what was to come in our lesson this morning.  You see, instead of “hanging in there” and trusting that God would somehow make good on his promise to them, Sarah says to Abraham:  “This just isn’t working.”  And so she convinces Abraham to sleep with her Egyptian-born slave-girl named Hagar saying, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children… it may be that I shall obtain children by her.”

Now this sudden turn of events is completely foreign to us, I know. But it was not at all unusual in the ancient world.  Indeed, these kinds of relationships, such as the one between Hagar and Abraham, were both an accepted and legal custom at that time.

Therefore, it was a perfectly legitimate and reasonable way of supposing that the promise that Abraham would have an heir might be fulfilled.  It just wasn’t what God had planned.

Now do you remember my sermon series back in Lent about the “will of God”?  At that time, using the insights of Leslie B. Weatherhead, an English pastor during World War Two, I suggested that one way of thinking about this is to consider that God’s will is not a single, all-encompassing, master plan, but actually can be broken down into God’s intentional will, God’s circumstantial will, and finally God’s ultimate will.

As we noted at the time, God’s “intentional will” is simply what God intended for his creation from the very beginning.  But because God gave us the gift of free will, and therefore, we have the opportunity, as well as the ability, to resist God’s will, it is also possible for us to talk about God’s “circumstantial will” in which God is forced to respond to the circumstances, we ourselves have created – and not all of them are good.

For instance, Weatherhead dealt with the question of whether Christ’s death on the cross was God’s original intention.  Probably not, he concluded.  Rather, the cross was clearly the result of human rebellion and sinfulness. However, God took these circumstances; that is, the human evil which then led to the cross, and then completely transformed the event bringing victory out of defeat, love out of hate, hope out of despair, and life out of death.  And in so doing, God also brought about, and revealed to us, his ultimate will – which absolutely nothing we do can ever change or deny…

Well, I think Weatherhead’s attempt to understand the will of God in this way is also helpful here.  You see, the Book of Genesis makes it perfectly clear that it was God’s will for Abraham and Sarah to have a child, a son from whom there would descend this great nation.  Not a household slave.  Not even a son born to Abraham and a servant-girl.  But a child born to both Abraham and Sarah.

But, again, when Sarah proposed that Abraham father this child and heir through Hagar, not only were they revealing their lack of trust in God, they were also taking matters into their own hands and creating an entirely new set of circumstances for God to deal with; circumstances that were not a part of God’s original plan.  And the interesting thing for us, now, is to see how God actually dealt with these circumstances.

One more note before we reach today’s lesson itself.  According to Chapter 16, Hagar became pregnant almost immediately which resulted in two things.  Number one, since Hagar had no difficulty getting pregnant it was now obvious that the problem was with Sarah, not Abraham.  And number two, it was pretty much inevitable, then, that Hagar would now hold this pregnancy over Sarah’s head.  “…when she saw that she had conceived,” says the Bible, “she looked with contempt on her mistress.”  (That is, Hagar, herself, is not without blame in these events.)

The irony here, of course, is that all of this was Sarah’s plan – no one else’s, although Abraham was certainly a willing co-conspirator.  She brought it all upon herself, so to speak; she had no one else to blame.  As the Bible says, “what you sow, you shall reap.” And that was exactly the case for Sarah.

Fearing, now, that Hagar might take her own place as mistress of the house, and ancestress of that great nation of God’s people he had promised them, Sarah goes to Abraham to complain, and to his detriment he tells her, “She’s your slave-girl.  Do with her as you please.”  (Abraham’s not such a nice guy at this point either.)

And so Sarah “dealt harshly” with her, says the Bible, forcing Hagar to run away.

Now that might very well have been the end of it.  You see, if Hagar had simply run away and never returned, we never would have had the events which were recorded in this morning’s reading.

But even though these were circumstances of Sarah and Abraham’s making, and not God’s; God, nevertheless, intervened in a loving and gracious way.  Knowing that she was unlikely to survive by herself, pregnant and alone in the wilderness, an angel of the Lord found Hagar by a spring of water, and told her to return and to submit to her mistress.  But this angel of the Lord also promised Hagar that she would have a son, and that his name would be “Ishmael” which means “God hears” for “the Lord has heard of your misery.”  And that, through this son, her descendants would be too numerous to count.  Almost the very same promise that God had made to Abraham and Sarah.

In response to God’s mercy and grace, Hagar refers to God as “the God who sees me,” and, in a delightful play on words, she exclaims, “I have seen the One who sees me!”

We are told that Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and now more years go by during which Abraham and Sarah still remain childless.  Finally, one day, God, in the form of three strangers, approaches Abraham’s tent.  And after Abraham feeds them and allows them to take their rest under a tree, they ask about Sarah and then one of them says, “I will surely return to you in due season and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”  Of course, Sarah, listening from just inside the tent, and knowing that this was impossible, given her age, can’t help but laugh at the preposterous idea that she and Abraham might actually become parents after all.

But as Chapter 21 opens, we hear that, in fact, “The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.”  And so Sarah conceived and bore Abraham’s son in his old age. Abraham was now 100 years old.  And Abraham named this son, Isaac, which means “he laughs.”  Sarah laughed at the idea of giving birth to a son in their old age, but God had the last laugh…

And so finally we’ve have reached the point in the story recounted in today’s passage.  As we heard, it was time for Isaac to be weaned, which – in the ancient world – meant that he was now about three or four years old.  And during the party that Abraham has thrown to mark this happy milestone, Sarah suddenly notices Ishmael “playing” with her son Isaac.  So, once again, she goes immediately to Abraham and demands that he now get rid of both Hagar and her son.

“What gives?” you might very well ask.  Granted there has been some bad blood, insecurity, and jealousy over the years; and in the past Sarah has been pretty touchy about anything having to do with Hagar or her son.  But to demand that Abraham kick them out just because Ishmael was playing with his little step-brother?  Come on.  That’s a bit much – even for Sarah.

Yet, as is so often the case, the issue here hinges on a translation – in this instance, the word “playing.”  For example, there are scholars who see the word as referring to some sort of “rough-housing,” and therefore propose that Sarah is merely concerned for her young son’s safety.  Keep in mind that if Ishmael, as previously noted, was born when Abraham was 86 years old, and Isaac when he was 100 years old, and this is some 3 or 4 years later, it would then make Ishmael 17 or 18 years old at this point.  A little too big and strong, especially if he wasn’t careful, to be horsing around with a little pre-schooler.

But the problem with this interpretation, however, is that Sarah’s reaction and remedy are undeniably a little extreme.  After all, all she had to do was simply break it up and then warn Ishmael to be more careful around Isaac.

Probably the best explanation I’ve read comes from Mark Throntveit, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Luther Seminary.  Dr. Throntveit points out that the word translated as “playing” in verse nine, is – in other instances – often translated as “laughing.”  Now that seems pretty harmless as well.  But then Dr. Throntveit reminds us that Isaac’s name, “he laughs,” comes from this very same word.  “We might literally translate ‘playing’… as ‘Isaacing,’” writes Dr. Throntveit, “that is, Sarah saw Ishmael ‘playing the part’ of Isaac, pretending to take Isaac’s place as heir of the promise.  Certainty is impossible,” he adds, “but the view that Ishmael was pretending to be Isaac and usurping his future role would explain Sarah’s actions.”

If this explanation is correct, then Sarah clearly saw Ishmael as Isaac’s rival.  Sarah Buteux has written, “all her old fears and her old hurts rose to the surface.”  And as long as Ishmael remained in Abraham’s household, he would forever be a threat to Isaac’s inheritance.

So Sarah demands that both Hagar and Ishmael be sent away.  And actually her demand was not without precedent.  In her culture, she was well within her rights as the primary wife, now that her son had survived the early years of life.  Furthermore, in some parts of the ancient world, the children of slaves – who were not made heirs – were actually required to be set free in order to give them an opportunity to make a life of their own.  So what, at first glance, seems utterly cruel and heartless on Sarah’s part was not really all that unusual under the circumstances.  Although it still doesn’t make it right.

There’s that word again, though, circumstances. God’s original plan and intent was simply for Abraham and Sarah to have a son from whom there would emerge this great nation that he had promised them.  But they had a problem believing in this promise, they lost patience with God, and they finally took matters into their own hands.  And now they’ve created, not only a complete mess of things, they have also created a set of “circumstances” to which God must, once again, respond.

Because, you see, the simple, undeniable fact is that Abraham loved Ishmael, his first-born son.  What father wouldn’t?  “The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son,” said our lesson in understated fashion.  Another way of putting it is that Abraham was truly torn over what to do.  You see, Ishmael was never second best in Abraham’s eyes.

But Abraham was, nevertheless, being forced to choose.  There was Isaac and Sarah and God’s promise on the one hand, and then Ishmael and Hagar and the love he had for them on the other.  And apparently Abraham simply wasn’t able, or willing, to choose between them.

But then, as we heard, God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed… whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you.”  In other words, even though Abraham and Sarah have made a complete mess of things, God now repeats his promise to Abraham and reminds Abraham of his ultimate will – and that not even these unfortunate circumstances can, or will, change it.

And yet God’s words to Abraham are not without grace as well.  Ishmael must go, it is true, but “I will make a nation of him also,” says God, “because he is your offspring.”

So Abraham rises early in the morning, either to simply avoid Sarah or to perhaps give Hagar and Ishmael a head start while it was still cool out, and he sends them away.  And once again, just as we saw earlier, it all could have ended right here.  In fact, Hagar actually feared and, frankly, expected that it would.  After wandering aimlessly in the desert, she and her son ran out of bread and water.  Leaving Ishmael behind under some bushes, she then walked away from him so that she would not have to watch him die.

But once again, God heard the cries of Hagar, and the voice of Ishmael, whose name, remember, means “God hears.”  And God opened Hagar’s eyes to a well of water, and she gave her son a drink.  And then God, we are told, “was with the boy and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.  He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.”

As Sarah Buteux has written, “And so, in Hagar (and Ishmael’s) story, as awful and tragic as it might be, we actually find hope.  Hagar brings us face to face with our God, a God who sees us, a God who hears us, a God who does not, who can not, who will not turn away from our pain.  We know, through her experience, that our cries do not go unheeded.”

We also see in this story the fulfillment of God’s will… even, at times, in spite of us.  God’s intended and ultimate will was for Abraham and Sarah to be the parents of his chosen people.  It was an honor for which they were hardly prepared, and, as we saw this morning, completely unworthy.  But that’s the nature of God’s grace.

And it is also the nature of Gods’ grace that when we lose patience, and take matters into our own hands, and totally screw things up, that he will respond to the unfortunate, and sometimes tragic, circumstances we create with love and with mercy and with caring.

Amen

 

Sunday of the Passion: Discerning the Will of God (03/16/08)

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

 

God’s Ultimate Will (03/09/08)

LENT 5A: God’s Ultimate Will

(Job 42:1-3; Romans 8:28-30; John 2:13-22)

The following story is told about Earl Weaver, former manager of major league baseball’s Baltimore Orioles. It seems that Weaver had a longstanding team rule that no one could steal a base unless he (that is, Weaver) had given the steal sign.

This upset Reggie Jackson, one of his star players, however. You see, Jackson, a veteran player (who had a bit of an ego, as well), felt that he knew the pitchers and catchers in the league well enough to judge who he could, and could not, steal off of. So, one game, he decided to test his manager’s rule and steal without Weaver’s sign.

He got a good jump off the pitcher and easily beat the throw to second base. As he shook the dirt off his uniform, Jackson smiled with delight, feeling that he had justified himself and proven to his manager that he knew what he was doing. But, unfortunately, the following batters in the order were not able to advance him beyond second base. And so Jackson ended up being stranded there and the Orioles did not score any runs that inning.

When Jackson returned to the dugout, Weaver pulled him aside and explained why he hadn’t given him the steal sign. The first reason was that the very next batter was Lee May, the team’s best power hitter and RBI man, other then Jackson. When Jackson stole second, first base was now left open, so the other team simply walked May intentionally, effectively taking the bat out of his hands.

The second reason was that the player following Lee May in the batting order had, throughout his career, not had much success against this particular pitcher. Now Weaver was famous for keeping track of “who had done what” against particular opponents in the past. And because of this batter’s previous lack of success against this pitcher, Weaver then felt compelled to send up a pinch hitter, instead, in order to try and drive home Jackson and May. When the pinch hitter failed to do so, not only had the Orioles failed to score, but Weaver was also left without valuable bench strength for later in the game, since now both the player he had replaced in the order and the pinch hitter could not return to action.

The problem here, of course, was that Jackson saw only his relationship to the pitcher and the catcher. He was focused solely on his own situation. His manager, Earl Weaver, on the other hand, was watching the whole game; the bigger picture. And he had made, or not made, certain decisions based on that bigger picture.

Well, the same is also true, I believe, when we think about God and God’s will for our lives. There is a bigger picture that only God can see. And it is also true that, sometimes, we do things that force God to respond to a new set of circumstances that we, ourselves, have created by the exercise of our own free will.

In our story, for instance, Reggie Jackson thought he knew better than his manager when it was appropriate to steal a base and when it wasn’t. What he didn’t realize, however, was that there were at least two reasons why Earl Weaver didn’t want him to steal in that situation. In ignorance, then, Jackson broke a team rule and disobeyed his manager, and the net result was that the Orioles missed out on a golden opportunity to score some runs that inning.

His manager’s original intentions, reflected in a batting order that had the power-hitting Lee May coming up right after Reggie Jackson had been interfered with. By Jackson stealing second, and the resulting intentional walk to May, Weaver now had an entirely different set of circumstances to work with than he had originally intended and planned for…

And that’s precisely the point that Leslie D. Weatherhead tried to make in his classic book The Will of God. To summarize, once again, Weatherhead believed that we should break down the phrase: “the will of God” into three parts:

1. The intentional will of God, or God’s “ideal plan” for human beings.
2. The circumstantial will of God, or God’s plan within (or in response to) certain circumstances. (The way, for instance, that Oriole manager, Earl Weaver, had to respond to Jackson’s unexpected steal of second base.)
3. The ultimate will of God. The ultimate will of God is God’s “final realization” of his gracious purposes.

In the case of Earl Weaver, even though he was a Hall of Fame manager, he did not have final control over who won or lost a particular game, including the one in our story. In fact, I don’t even know who won that game. It is entirely possible that Weaver made all the right managerial moves from that point on to pull out a victory. But it’s also entirely possible that, despite all of Weaver’s subsequent decisions, the team still lost.

For God, however, the final outcome is never in doubt. In our first reading this morning, Job says to God, “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” And it’s precisely this verse that Weatherhead quotes to begin his discussion of God’s ultimate will. From the very outset, then, Weatherhead wants to be perfectly clear that, while God may indeed have to respond at times to various circumstances brought about by free will and human sinfulness, nevertheless absolutely nothing can interfere with the full and final realization of God’s purposes.

Once again, Weatherhead turns to the cross as the supreme example of what he’s talking about here. According to Weatherhead, the intentional will of God was not that Jesus should be crucified, but that he should be followed. The circumstantial will of God, God’s will in the circumstances which human evil provided, was that Jesus responded by accepting death – not in weak resignation, but in a positive and creative way. Which, of course, then resulted in God’s ultimate will, namely the redemption of humankind, winning human beings back to God, not in spite of the cross, but using the cross, born of human sinfulness, “as an instrument to reach the goal of God’s ultimate will.”

He writes, “Christ did not just submit to this dread event of the Crucifixion with… resignation. He took hold of the situation. Given those circumstances which evil had produced, it was also God’s will that Jesus should not just die like a trapped animal, but that he should so react to evil, positively and creatively, as to wrest good out of evil circumstances; and that is why the Cross is not just a symbol of capital punishment similar to the hangman’s rope, but is a symbol of the triumphant use of evil in the cause of the holy purposes of God. In other words, by doing the circumstantial will of God we open the way to God’s ultimate triumph…”

Or as we heard Joseph say to his brothers in last week’s lesson, “You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good, in order to preserve the lives of many people who are alive today because of what happened.”

Certainly evil was plotted and then perpetrated against Jesus.

And if Weatherhead is correct, this was obviously not God’s will. However, scripture also tells us that God nevertheless used those circumstances, and was able to turn that evil into good. God turned the cross, from a symbol of death, into a symbol of life. And through the evil that was the cross, God was once again able “to preserve the lives of many people who are alive today because of what happened.”

“The picture in my mind,” writes Weatherhead, “is that of children playing beside a tiny stream that runs down a mountainside to join a river in the valley below. Very little children can divert the stream and get great fun out of damming it up with stones and earth. But not one of them ever succeeds in preventing the water from reaching the river at last…”

“In regard to God, we are (like those) little children,” he writes. “Though we may divert and hinder his purposes, I don’t believe we ever finally defeat them… When we say, then, that God is omnipotent, we do not mean that nothing can happen unless it is God’s will (or intention)… We mean that nothing can happen which can finally defeat him.”

In today’s gospel, for instance, we heard Jesus’ verbal sparring with those who took offense at the way in which he had cleared the moneychangers from the temple. “What sign can you show us for doing this,” they demanded.

Jesus, who generally refused to give in to such demands for signs, nevertheless responded, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Their immediate reaction was one of disbelief. “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?”

“But he was speaking,” says the gospel, “of the temple of his body.”

Once again, it is clear that God, and God alone, is in control. Those who decided to oppose Jesus – instead of following him – were obviously able to further exercise their free will by seeing to it that he was put to death on a cross. But, like children trying to divert a stream, they were totally unable to divert or hinder God’s ultimate purposes; even though they had seemingly accomplished this with the crucifixion of God’s Son.

That’s because, on the third day, the tomb where Jesus’ lifeless body had been placed was now empty. They had killed Jesus, but death could not hold him. Neither they, nor death itself, could resist God’s ultimate will for the world.

And the disciples, of course, took note of this. “After he was raised from the dead,” says today’s gospel, “his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scriptures and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

Paul put it this way in our second reading this morning, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” In other words, no matter what happens, in the end God’s ultimate will cannot be thwarted or resisted.

But then Paul goes on to seemingly talk about predestination and such, which would appear to contradict everything we’ve been talking about up until now. “For those whom he foreknew,” writes Paul, “he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

So which is it, then, free will, or predestination? Is God simply “in control” or “controlling”?

The story is told of a group of theologians who were once discussing the tension between predestination and free will. Things became so heated, in fact, that the group broke up into two opposing factions.

But one man, not knowing which side to join, stood for a moment trying to decide. At last he joined the predestination group. “Who sent you here?” they asked. “No one sent me,” he replied, “I came of my own free will.”

“Free will!” they exclaimed. “You can’t join us! You belong to the other group!”

So he followed their orders and went to the other side of the room. And there someone asked him, “When did you decide to join us?” The man replied, ”Well, I didn’t really decide – I was sent here.”

“Sent here!” they shouted. “You can’t join us unless you have decided by your own free will!”

The problem, of course, is that these two groups believed that it had to be either one way or the other; either everything is under God’s control or it isn’t.

But Paul is not saying here that God is a micro-manager, and that we’re simply his puppets acting out a prearranged script. Nor is he saying that our free will can circumvent God’s ultimate purposes, either. Rather, the point that Paul is trying to make here is that the only thing we can depend on in this life is God’s initiative and grace – not our own efforts or response. To say that God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified is simply to say that it all depends on God – not us! And that, again, nothing can ultimately resist or thwart God’s gracious will for our lives.

Weatherhead closes his chapter on God’s ultimate will with the poignant example of a young woman, widowed in an accident.

Her husband has been killed and she is now left alone to raise her two young children by herself. “How can God ever bring about his ultimate will?”, she wonders. God’s intentional will was clearly that she have a husband and a happy home and family. But now all that has seemingly been lost and destroyed.

There is no easy or simple answer to such a circumstance, concedes Weatherhead. But what he offers in response is this:

“On Good Friday night eleven men, in the deepest gloom, felt like you. They said in their hearts: ‘We trusted him, we followed him. It was his will to establish his kingdom. He told us so. And evil has been allowed to take him away from us. It’s the end of everything.’

“But they were wrong,” writes Weatherhead, “weren’t they? It was only the end of their mistake and the beginning of the most wonderful use of evil which God has ever effected. And if you give way to despair, you are wrong too! …Are you certain, standing where you stand, with your limited human vision, that God cannot fulfill (his will for your life) by any other route?

“Big words these,” Weatherhead continues, “but underneath them is the conviction of all the saints and the supreme evidence of the Crucified, that God is a Father, that the ultimate meaning of the whole universe is Love, and that God will never fail with one of his family unless that one opposes him forever…

“Trust God,” he concludes. “Rest in the nature of God. He who began this strange adventure we call human life will also control the end. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.’

We cannot see or understand, from today’s vantage point, how God’s gracious and ultimate purposes will eventually be worked out. But this much is certain: “The last word is with God…” Amen.

 

God’s Circumstantial Will (03/02/08)

God’s Circumstantial Will

(Genesis 50:15-20; Romans 5:6-11; Luke 22:39-42)

As you know from some of my recent sermons, our daughter Kristyn is studying in London this semester. In fact, just the other week I talked about how Jeanette and I decided to get our own passports just in case there would be a need, like an emergency, to go over while she was still there.

Well, this past week just such a need did arise. After working hard in preparation for midterms and also a major presentation in the Czech Republic (where Kristyn was her team’s project manager just like on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice), and not eating right, or drinking enough fluids, or getting enough sleep, and becoming a little overwhelmed by all the stress and pressure, Kristyn got sick on the flight home from Prague. To make matters worse (in some ways), their spring break began immediately upon their return to London. So this meant that most of her fellow students, as well as their professors, were taking time off for sightseeing and travel, leaving Kristyn and her roommate, Shelby, behind – pretty much all by themselves.

Now Kristyn and Shelby had also made plans of their own; to visit Paris and then the French Riviera. But when Kristyn got sick, of course, she didn’t feel up to traveling and Shelby chose to stay with her – out of concern – rather than try and go alone, even though this meant that they both lost all of the money they had invested in tickets and overnight reservations.

We first became aware of Kristyn’s situation, I guess, on Wednesday, and naturally we were concerned. Especially when we learned that one of her friends had looked into getting Kristyn some medical attention and, having their phone call routed to a nurse at a local hospital, was told that unless Kristyn “passed out” there was really nothing they could – or apparently would – do for her. (I had certainly heard criticisms about the health care in England, but I didn’t realize until then that you virtually had to be unconscious before they’d help you!)

Later that day Jeanette got a chance to look at Kristyn, via Web-cam, and didn’t like what she saw. Moreover, it was becoming clear that being sick and alone, far away from home, was beginning to play on Kristyn’s mind a little. And when Kristyn woke us up with a telephone call at 5:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, Jeanette asked her, point blank, “Do I need to come over there?” It wasn’t the first time Jeanette had asked. But this time Kristyn finally answered, “Yes.”

To make a long story short, we then immediately took John Calhoun up on a previous offer to use one of his “friends and family” discount certificates from Delta to fly standby, and barely 12 hours after receiving Kristyn’s phone call, Jeanette was waiting in line to go through security at the airport here in Atlanta. And a mere 24 hours later, she was arriving safely in London. In fact, it turns out that she shared the flight with former heavyweight boxing champ, Evander Holyfield.

The point here is simply this: as parents, there are sometimes circumstances when we are willing to literally drop everything in order to come to the aid of our children. When we realized that Kristyn wasn’t getting any better on her own, and that she was also having difficulty getting medical attention, and maybe was even a little frightened and overwhelmed by this whole experience, our parental instincts kicked in. Even if we had had to pay the full price for the airline ticket at the last minute, nothing was going to stop one of us from going over there when our daughter needed us.

It was quickly apparent, to me at least, that Jeanette’s maternal instincts were actually in overdrive! I saw the determined look on her face and could tell that not only was she was genuinely concerned, but she was also not happy that her daughter was having such problems accessing medical care. Now, I’ve been married to Jeanette for 27 years now. And let me tell you, you do not (I repeat do not) want to do anything to harm or mistreat one of her children… because you will live to regret it. And I mean that in all honesty. As the Walter Brennan character used to say on that old TV western, “No brag, just fact.”

You’ve all seen, I’m sure, those National Geographic specials that show how protective a lioness in the wild can get when one of her cubs is threatened?… Well, believe me, that lioness has nothing over Jeanette when it comes to protecting her young!

Actually, I remember thinking, after dropping her off at the airport, that someone in the health care system over there had better respond when Jeanette arrived, or they were going to have a big problem on their hands. In fact, if they weren’t careful, chances were pretty good that someone coming over on that Delta flight was going to give them a good whuppin’ and I’m not referring here to the “Real Deal” Holyfield! …In addition, the British Army might also live to regret not bringing home more troops from Afghanistan than just Prince Harry!!

Now the good news is that Jeanette got Kristyn the medical care she needed yesterday, and is seeing to it that she gets the rest and nourishment she needs as well. It turns out that, in addition to just really being run-down, she actually was sick, and needed some medicine, which, in Great Britain of course, she received free.

(So I guess I take back my earlier comment about the health care system over there.)

Again, the point I’m simply trying to make here is that, at times, circumstances; unplanned, unexpected, unfortunate circumstances – beyond our intentions or control – nevertheless require our intervention; in other words, a response and some sort of action

on our part. Now, in this instance, for example, did we plan on Kristyn getting sick over there in England this semester? Did we want it to happen? No, of course not! (Although we certainly anticipated the possibility by seeing to it that we got our passports in the event that if it did happen and she needed us, we could quickly come to her aid; which is exactly what took place this past week.)

Well, the same thing, then, is also true for God, says Leslie D. Weatherhead. Again, his classic little book The Will of God is,

as I said last week, the “jumping-off point” for this sermon series, because I believe he has something important and worthwhile

to say about this age-old issue. And to briefly summarize Weatherhead’s thesis here; he felt that we often use the term, “the will of God,” too loosely and indiscriminately. Therefore, what he proposed instead, was to break that phrase down into three parts.

The intentional will of God (which we looked at last week) refers to what God intended for us from the beginning of time; in other words, from creation. That is to say that God is a loving and caring God who wants only the very best for us (not unlike a human parent), and who created a world for us that was good. Indeed, as the account of creation in the book of Genesis reminds us, it was very good. So when bad things happen (Weatherhead reminds us), they do not happen because God intentionally willed them, or because God somehow wanted them to happen.

Some bad things happen simply because of the nature of God’s creation. Natural disasters, for instance: tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, and the like, occur because of the way in which this planet was created, and also because of the laws of nature instituted by God. And human beings, because we’re mortal, are prone to injury, disease, and ultimately death. So when a natural disaster takes place, or someone gets sick and perhaps even dies, did God intentionally and directly cause this? No, of course not.

In fact, the very opposite may actually be true. Much of human suffering and illness is the direct result of our own misguided will, not God’s; and the result of human sinfulness, not God’s intentions.

This even includes some natural disasters. For instance, consider the current drought which threatens the southeast, especially those of us here in Georgia. Is God to blame? Or is it simply the result of nature’s fluctuating weather patterns, which are then exacerbated by human shortsightedness evident in our lack of conservation, our wastefulness, an exploding population, and a failure to plan for and build more reservoirs?

In other words, it’s a mistake (and a very dangerous one as well), to confuse God’s will with the gift of free will. God gave us the gift of free will, which means that we are perfectly capable of refusing to act in accordance with God’s loving intentions for our lives. (Not unlike a rebellious child who deliberately chooses to disobey his/her parents.) And that’s usually when we get ourselves into trouble, isn’t it? As we even acknowledge each week in the confession we’ve been using here in our worship during Lent: “Rock of our salvation, we confess that we live in opposition to your gracious will for us.”

So where does that leave us? I guess it leaves us with the realization that in this life, and in this world, bad things can and do happen, even if they are not the will of God. But then the bigger question is this: What, if anything, does God do about it?

Now the very antithesis of a God who controls and causes everything to happen in this world, even the bad things is, of course, a God who does absolutely nothing at all. I remember reading years ago, for instance, that many of our founding fathers were actually deists, which means that, even though they believed in a God, they didn’t necessarily believe that God intervened in human or earthly affairs. Instead, these folks believed that God was more like a giant “watch-maker” who designed the world, set it in motion, and then stepped away to simply let it run its course. Which begs the question: what’s worse, a God who causes bad things, or a God who just lets them happen?

Fortunately, there’s a third possibility. A God who doesn’t cause bad things; but, if and when they do happen, a God who will actually intervene on our behalf. That is, just as it was for Jeanette and me this past week, when circumstances dictate, a God who is clearly willing to come to the aid of his children.

Which reminds me of the old story about the religious fellow who was caught in rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of his house and trusted God to rescue him. Soon a neighbor came by in a canoe and said, “The water will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.” And the religious man replied, “No thanks. I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me.”

A short time later, the police came by in a boat. “The water will soon be above your house,” said one of the officers. “Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.” Once again, the religious man replied, “No thanks. I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me.”

Finally, a Coast Guard helicopter came and hovered overhead. They even let down a rescue line and shouted to the man, “The water will soon be above your house. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly you to safety. But again the religious man replied, “No thanks. I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me.”

All this time, of course, the floodwaters continued to rise until they completely covered the man’s roof and he was swept away by the powerful current and drowned. When he arrived in heaven, he immediately demanded an audience with God. Ushered into God’s throne room, he said, “Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me! I trusted you to save me from that flood!” And God said, “Yes, you did my child. And I sent you a canoe, a boat, and a helicopter. But you refused them all!”

Whether we actually take advantage of God’s intervention (in whatever form it takes) is of course an entirely different question. But this story, nevertheless, reminds us of what Weatherhead would refer to as the circumstantial will of God. Or what he calls “God’s plan within certain circumstances.” Or, another way of putting it is, how God responds to events in our lives and in the world.

One of the classic examples in scripture, and one of my all-time favorite bible stories as well, is the final showdown between Joseph and his brothers at the very end of the book of Genesis;

our first reading this morning. A story that has been running for some fourteen chapters now has finally come to its climax. If you remember, Joseph had the good fortune, or perhaps misfortune, of being his father Jacob’s favorite son. And, in response, his older brothers grew increasingly jealous and resentful of him, and eventually did the unthinkable – they sold him into slavery, took his coat and covered in goat’s blood, and then showed it to their father who naturally assumed that Joseph had been devoured by a wild beast.

Clearly, his brothers were guilty of an evil and sinful act. And they were solely to blame – not God. But here’s the thing, God had a response to that evil; that is, it did not go unanswered.

Joseph, of course, ended up a slave in Egypt. But because of his God-given ability to interpret dreams, he rose all the way to a position of some power and prominence in the pharoah’s government. Later, in that position and because he was able to successfully interpret one of Pharoah’s own dreams, Joseph was able to store grain during years of plenty, and so prepare for the famine which then followed. And because of these preparations, many lives were saved – including those of his own family. In other words, Joseph’s brothers did a bad thing, but in response God was able to turn the situation completely around and bring some good out of it.

And, as we heard, that’s precisely what Joseph told his brothers, who were fearful that he would, at long last, try to exact some measure of revenge. However, the NRSV translation we heard this morning obscures this a bit. The wording, you see, is ambiguous enough that it’s kind of hard to tell exactly who intended what. A better rendering perhaps is found in the Good News Translation which reads, “You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good.” Or the New Living Translation which has, “As far as I’m concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil.” And The Message puts it this way, “Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now – life for many people.”

In other words, Joseph’s brothers did an evil thing which created the circumstance out of which God, nevertheless, brought something good. And therefore, according to Weatherhead, it’s important that we make a distinction between the “intentional”

will of God and the “circumstantial” will of God. God’s “intentional will,” again, reflects what God wants for us.

But because of our own free will, we can certainly choose to

reject God’s intentions for us – and often do. And, then, it’s these circumstances which subsequently require and trigger God’s response.

“When we look at the Cross of Christ,” writes Weatherhead, “we can see, I think, the necessity of such a distinction. Was it God’s intention from the beginning,” he asks, “that Jesus should go to the cross? I think the answer to that question,” he writes, “must be No. It was not the intentional will of God, surely, that Jesus should be crucified, but that he should be followed… The discipleship of men (and women), not the death of Christ, was the intentional will of God, or, if you like, God’s ideal purpose… If the nation had understood and received his message, repented of its sins, and realized his kingdom, the history of the world would have been very different. Those who say the Crucifixion was the will of God should remember,” he points out, “that (instead) it was the will of evil men.”

Now here we have the very heart, and logical center, of Weatherhead’s argument. And the piece which is, perhaps, the most controversial as well. Because many of us simply assume that the cross was God’s intended will for Jesus from the very beginning. And are also then offended when anyone suggests otherwise.

I even stopped, and thought long and hard about this one myself. And the more I thought and reflected and prayed about it, the more I realized that, if all God had wanted was Jesus’ death, then he wouldn’t have bothered with the three years of preaching and healing which preceded it. If it was just about a sacrificial death, then why even bother preaching about repentance and changed lives. No – I finally concluded – when you read the Gospels, it’s clear that Jesus isn’t just “going through the motions.” He genuinely hoped that people would truly hear what he was saying and would then respond in a positive way. And sometimes they did. This, then, was undoubtedly God’s “original intention,” or “ideal purpose.”

Jesus, himself, hinted as much when he told the parable of the wicked vinedressers. In that parable, you may recall, Jesus spoke of a man who had planted a vineyard, and then leased it to tenants before leaving for another country. When it came time to collect his share of the produce, he sent a slave, but they seized and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And so they did to the rest of the slaves he sent, as well; some they beat, others they even killed. Finally, he sent his beloved son, saying, “(Surely) they will respect my son.” But, instead, they also seized and killed him, and then threw him out of the vineyard.

Well not only was Jesus foreshadowing his own death here, but wasn’t he also pointing out that this death was clearly not God’s intention or will, but rather the evil doings of rebellious people? And the gospels even tell us that when the chief priests, and scribes and elders, to whom Jesus told this parable, heard it – they immediately realized that “he had told this parable against them…”

And so, in the end, Jesus really had no other choice, did he? As Weatherhead writes, “when Jesus was faced by circumstances brought about by evil and was thrust into the dilemma of running away or of being crucified, then in those circumstances (and only in those circumstances) the Cross was his Father’s will. It was in this sense that Jesus said, ‘Not what I will, but what thou wilt.’”

…When we heard, earlier this week, that our daughter Kristyn was

ill and needed us, we responded immediately. Nothing was going to stop us from coming to her aid, and we were willing to do whatever it took to make that happen. We didn’t intend for Kristyn to get sick. But when it occurred, we quickly responded to this situation or circumstance

In the same way, while God never intended for the evil or the suffering it causes in our lives, nothing was going to stop God from coming to our aid either. God, too, was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen – even more so! Because he was even prepared… to have his beloved Son die on a cross for us. Now the circumstances may have indeed occurred outside of God’s intended will, or ideal purpose; but they did not go unanswered. In the end, God’s will, God’s circumstantial will was

done, just as Jesus had prayed for in the garden. Amen.

 

God’s Intentional Will (02/24/08)

The Will of God: God’s Intentional Will

(Genesis 1:26-2:3; 1 Timothy 2:1-4; Matthew 18:10-14)

There was once a man who loved to eat. And one of the ways he would indulge this desire was to pick up fresh donuts from the local bakery for his office every Friday morning. He’d come in with a couple dozen donuts, still warm from the oven; one dozen for his co-workers, and another dozen for himself. And typically, by the end of the day, there were more donuts left over in the box he bought for his co-workers, than there were in the box he had purchased for himself.

After a trip to the doctor for his annual physical, however, he was sternly advised to significantly alter his eating habits, and to lose some weight. So, frightened by the prospect of health problems brought on by overeating and excessive weight, he reluctantly decided to change his lifestyle. Among the first of these lifestyle changes was a decision to stop picking up donuts for the office every Friday morning. His co-workers missed the donuts, of course, but they understood the reason why, and tried to support his new, healthier, lifestyle.

Several weeks went by, in fact, without any donuts. But then

one Friday morning, he showed up a half hour late for work

and in his arms were two boxes of donuts just like before. His co-workers noticed and immediately asked him what had happened. “Well,” he said, “as I was approaching the donut shop on my way to work this morning, I was having a conversation with God about whether or not I should stop and buy some. And I said, ‘I’ll take it as a sign from you, God, as a sign of your will for my life – that I should stop and buy some donuts – if there’s an open parking space directly in front of the donut shop this morning. And, lo and behold,” he told his co-workers, “there was!”

But then someone asked him the obvious question, “So why were you a half hour late?” And the man responded, “Well, I had to drive around the block eight times before God showed me that open parking space.” (!)

The late Joseph Sittler, one of the leading Lutheran theologians

of the 20^th century, once wrote of a somewhat similar experience having to do with the will of God… and parking spaces. “Once

at a church where I was interim pastor,” he writes, “there was a woman who used prayer as a kind of personal lubricant to everything she wanted. She worked at a hospital in Chicago, and she used to tell me, ‘Every morning when I drive from my house to the hospital, I pray to Jesus that he will find me a parking space. And you know, pastor, he always does.’

“I kept asking myself,” says Sittler, ‘What kind of God-relationship is built on this parking-space-finding Jesus’…?”

Will it “sustain this woman in profound deprivation and tragedy? Is it enough?”

“One Sunday morning,” Sittler writes, “I said to her, ‘Emma, suppose there is another woman driving in the second lane on the highway taking a sick child to the hospital, and you drive right in to the parking space that Jesus found for you, and this woman who is frantic with a sick child can’t find a space. How about her?’

“She just didn’t pray hard enough,” was the quick response. “That really stumped me,” he says. “So I tried to think of how to correct her, but she was immune to argument.

“Well, finally I found one,” writes Sittler, “and I am sinfully proud of it; I think it was a straight gift. The next time I saw her, I said, ‘You know this speech you give me about Jesus finding you a parking space, Emma? What do you suppose Mary was praying about… jogging along on that donkey on her way to Bethlehem?’

“Emma never mentioned the topic again. If Mary couldn’t find a parking space in which to have a baby, particularly that baby, then there must be something wrong with the parking-space-finding Jesus,” he concluded. In other words, there’s something obviously wrong with trying to understand God’s will in this way.

Now these stories, humorous and somewhat inconsequential though they may be, nevertheless point us to a far more serious and critical issue. And that’s simply this: What do we mean when we use that oft-spoken phrase, “The Will of God.” In other words, what exactly are we implying here? Are we saying, for instance, that absolutely everything which happens in this life is somehow part of God’s plan? That nothing happens in this world unless God preordains it? Certainly those who believe that God will find them a parking space in response to their faithfulness and prayers (and in order to make their lives a little bit easier, I might add!), must apparently feel this way.

But what about those terrible things that also happen in life: war, famine, disease, and disaster (both natural and man-made)? Are they ordained by God as well? Does God intend for them to happen in order to serve some hidden, yet useful, purpose?

I guess my own struggle with this issue goes back at least several years to when we were living in New Jersey and I happened to be watching the news on TV. That particular evening there was an especially sad story on the news about an eight year old boy who had been killed in New York City just several days before in a drug-related drive-by shooting. It was another senseless tragedy. This young boy had been out playing on the sidewalk in front of his house one afternoon when he got caught in the crossfire of a turf war between rival drug gangs.

Now the story, itself, was bad enough. But what really bothered me was the clip of this little boy’s funeral service earlier that day which had been attended by several hundred mourners from all across the city. In the brief clip which was broadcast on the evening news, the family’s pastor had the audacity to say that the boy’s death had been the will of God.

Because this little boy had had the misfortune of growing up in such a bad neighborhood, said the preacher, full of drugs and crime and violence, God had simply decided to take his life early, in order to spare him any further suffering or pain later on. After all, if he had lived, speculated the pastor, he would have likely grown up to enter the world of drugs and crime himself as well, and would have ended up, as so many do in that poverty-stricken community, either in prison or dead from a drug overdose. But because God loved him, said the preacher, he had mercifully spared him such a fate.

By having him shot and killed on the sidewalk in front of his house while he was playing!? An innocent eight year old boy? What kind of God would do such a thing?”

Several weeks ago, in one of the sessions of my pastor’s class, after I had just related this story of the little boy shot to death in front of his house, Susan Larson mentioned to us a book that she had once read entitled “The Will of God.” It was written by an English pastor just as the Second World War was coming to a close. His name was Leslie D. Weatherhead and he had apparently given a series of sermons to his congregation, the City Temple in London, which were intended to focus on this very question. These sermons on the will of God were then later turned into a book of the same name which quickly became a classic, although somehow I had never heard of it before. Susan, though, loaned me her copy, and after reading it several times, I went out the next day and bought one for myself. And, soon after, I further decided that the topic was worthy of my own sermon series.

You see, having just lived through the suffering and carnage that was the Second World War, with all of its destruction and death; tens of millions on the battlefield, millions more in the concentration camps; countless others maimed and/or left homeless, the question of what exactly was the will of God was undoubtedly a critically pressing one for Weatherhead and his congregation, and indeed the entire world at that time.

In other words, how could God, a loving God, have allowed all of this to happen? Or far worse, had purposely intended for it to happen? All of that death and destruction. And how could the evil and grisly horror which had been the holocaust have possibly served some useful purpose?

Well, this morning, and for the next three weeks as well – right through Palm Sunday – I am going to use Dr. Weatherhead’s classic book (well over a million copies have been sold to date) as a sort of “jumping off” point for our own discussion of this critical theme. Because, even in our own time, and especially as we journey through this season of Lent, we talk a lot about God’s will – as well we should. But it would be helpful, I think, to know exactly what we mean – or perhaps should mean – when we use that powerful, yet problematic, phrase.

Weatherhead, in fact, opens his book by saying, “The phrase

‘the will of God’ is used so loosely, and the consequence 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.”

He then goes on to offer the following illustration. The wife of

a friend of his had recently died. And after her death, the friend had remarked, as we so often do, “Well, I must just accept it. It is the will of God.” But Weatherhead then immediately points out that this friend was also a doctor, and for weeks had actually been fighting for her life with every drug and every treatment he had available to him. However if, asks Weatherhead, her death was “the will of God” then was he all that time fighting against God’s will? And yet, if she had recovered, would he not have also called her recovery the will of God as well?

It made me stop and think about the recent death of my cousin Lynn Clifford. Since the first of the year, you may recall, we had been praying for her as she struggled against a particularly virulent form of leukemia. Her doctors had also been doing everything in their power to help her. Lynn’s mom, my Aunt Olga, told me that when Lynn was admitted to the hospital she weighed 122 pounds. But by the time she died, just several weeks later, she weighed 152 pounds from all the drugs, and so forth, that they had been pumping into her to keep her alive. To the very end, her doctors had been trying to save her. But, unfortunately, her death was an excruciatingly painful one. Her legs, said my aunt, had swelled from the treatments to become like tree-trunks. “Eddie,” she said, “they felt like they were made from concrete. And she was in so much pain.”

And so, I ask the question. What was the will of God in this instance. When I spoke with my aunt on the phone after Lynn’s death, she was resigned, as many of us are in such circumstances, to simply trust in faith that it was somehow God’s will and part of God’s plan. But, again, what if she had survived?

“(S)urely we cannot have it both ways,” wrote Weatherhead. A person’s recovery and a person’s death cannot equally be the will of God in the sense of being God’s intention.”

Or to use another example… While our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not on the same scale as a World War II, what do we say to the parents of the soldier or the Marine killed by a roadside bomb? That it was the will of God? “No,” Weatherhead would say. It was the will of our enemy, of terrorists, of the evil forces we’re fighting over there. But it is not the intention, or the will, of God.

If you want a sermon text for this, wrote Weatherhead, you’ll find it in the 18^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the 14^th verse,

“It is NOT (I repeat, NOT) the will of your Father in heaven, that one of these little ones should be lost.” Other translations use here the word “perish.”

Rather, God is a God who saves; not a God who kills. God is a God who goes in search of the lost one leaving the ninety-nine behind; a God who cares that much. And such a God would never willingly afflict or grieve anyone, as we read in Lamentations 3:33

I also included for us this morning, 1 Timothy 2:4 which reminds us that God our Savior… “desires EVERYONE to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

And, in fact, if you go all the way back to the very beginning, to creation; everything that God made, every plant and tree, every beast of the earth and bird of the air, every thing, in short, that has the breath of life – including humankind – was created good. As we heard, when he had finished with creation on the sixth day, “God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” That was God’s intention. That was God’s will.

Which is simply to say that, whenever we see suffering and pain and death and tragedy in our world, they are, in most cases, NOT the will of God. The exception, of course, is that as human beings it is true that we were created by God to be mortal. And certainly, in that sense, we are not somehow immune to disease or death, or to pain and suffering. But we can also safely say that these things were not intended by God to serve any useful or necessary purpose. They are simply a fact of life; a part of the human existence; an element of the created order.

And, actually, if and when they come, they may very well be, instead, the result of human disobedience and sinfulness, as opposed to our God-given mortality and finitude. That is, they may be real, and they may be an inescapable part of life, but they are not a part of God’s plan for us; especially when we bring them upon ourselves…

Because of all this confusion over the will of God, Weatherhead’s thinking resulted in a division of the subject, as he puts it, into three parts:

• First, there is what he calls the intentional will of God

that we have been talking about here this morning. The

realization that everything God created, including human

beings, was good. And, furthermore, that it is not the will

of God for anyone to perish, but rather God desires everyone

to be saved.

• Secondly, Weatherhead, believed in the circumstantial will of God. This is what we’ll be looking at more closely next week. For Weatherhead, the circumstantial will of God is God’s response to human evil and sinfulness. God’s intention may have been one thing, but often we ignore or rebel against God’s intentions. So how God reacts, and what God does in response, to these circumstances is what Weatherhead meant by the “circumstantial” will of God.
• And finally, there is, says Weatherhead, the ultimate will of God. Here he means God’s ultimate goal – the way in which God still achieves his gracious purposes despite our rebellion and disobedience; and despite the evil that may exist in our world. As Weatherhead writes, “God cannot finally be defeated – not that everything that happens is his will, but that nothing can happen which finally defeats his will.”

There are, however, two difficulties inherent in this line of thinking, Weatherhead readily admits. The first, he writes, may be put like this, “People get a lot of comfort from supposing that their tragedies are the will of God.” I think, again, of my Aunt Olga, who tries to find some comfort in my cousin Lynn’s death by trusting that there is some plan at work, or greater purpose being served, that we are just not able to see as yet.

Weatherhead responds, “Admittedly there is a time when things can be said and there is a time when they cannot be said, however true they may be. If you are standing in the presence of some great tragedy, there is little you can say about the will of God. But I would go on immediately to add this,” he writes, “there is never any final comfort in a lie.” In the end, he argues, this lie will let

us down because it doesn’t offer us any true hope.

Because, inevitably, we will be confronted with the horrific realization that either God is a supposedly loving God who purposely inflicts us with pain and suffering. Or, the only other logical possibility; namely, that God therefore is not a loving God at all, but some kind of monstrous fiend instead. And neither possibility is, ultimately, very satisfying or acceptable.

There is also, says Weatherhead, a second objection that may be expressed in this way: It is all very well to keep the phrase ‘the will of God’ for the good and joyous and healthy and beneficial things that happen to people, but isn’t it true that some of the greatest qualities in people are discovered through suffering, and, therefore, is not that suffering itself the will of God?

We all know of stories where people emerged from great suffering and tragedy with a new-found strength and sense of purpose. Could it not be said, then, that God intended for this suffering, or this tragedy, to happen in order for this transformation to take place? Weatherhead uses the example here of the courage that many men and women discovered during the Second World War. (We might say the same of those fighting in our current conflicts in the Middle East.)

The problem, he says, is that there is a flaw in this logic, as well as a false implication for theology. Simply put, “If we say that the suffering caused by an evil is essential because of the qualities evoked, then logically we must assume that God (somehow) needs evil (in order) to produce good; that he could not produce such a thing unless an evil, like war, demanded it.” Furthermore, he argues, by that same flawed logic, Jesus was actually removing something essential to the soul when he went around healing people during his earthly ministry. In other words, Jesus was indeed taking away their opportunity for growth and development.

Instead, argues Weatherhead, “The grand qualities in human nature are not given birth by evil. God creates them, and they are sometimes revealed by the right reaction of good (people) to evil, but they do not depend for their origin on evil, for they can be evoked by a response to the good (as well).” So, “let us be very, very careful how we use the phrase ‘the will of God,’” he concludes…

Martin Luther, of course, often talked about the hidden and the revealed will of God. The hidden will of God is that which forever remains mysterious and unknown to us in this life. The revealed will of God, however, is what God has demonstrated for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There is great suffering in our world. There are those who, like my own family, mourn the deaths of loved ones. But God did not intend for this suffering and sadness; it was not his will. Rather, God’s gracious will was demonstrated for us on a cross, where his Son took all that suffering and pain, and all that evil – even death itself – and forever broke it’s chokehold on the human race. God’s gracious will was also demonstrated for us in an empty tomb on the third day; and the promise of forgiveness, not judgment, of joy, not sorrow, of life… not death. Amen.

 

The Life of Faith: It’s a Journey, not a Destination (02/17/08)

The Life of Faith: It’s a Journey, not a Destination

(Genesis 12:1-4a)

As many of you know, our daughter Kristyn is studying in London, England this semester. It’s a special program, offered by Susquehanna University, for their business students. As part of this experience, she’ll also be traveling to Prague, Stockholm, and Rome, as well, in order to observe, firsthand, just how corporations function in other parts of the world, specifically (in this case) Europe.

She’s been planning and saving for this semester abroad, in fact, ever since she learned that Susquehanna offered it. Indeed, one of the reasons for her choosing Susquehanna in the first place was that they offered this London experience. And now that she’s there she’s enjoying it immensely. For which, her mother and I, of course, are very happy.

Now before she left, we had a few “casual” conversations with her about the possibility of Jeanette and me flying over to visit her sometime during the semester. But, quite frankly, I never took those conversations very seriously because, for one thing, neither of us had a passport, or had even applied for one yet. And for another, such a trip isn’t exactly “inexpensive.”

But shortly after we took her last month to meet her fellow students at Newark International Airport in New Jersey for the flight over to England, Jeanette and I decided that we had better get our passports, just in case there would be some reason – like an emergency – for us to have to go over there. So we did, and late last week our passports finally arrived in the mail. And with their arrival, I might add, one of our excuses for not being able to go over for a visit was now eliminated.

Upon hearing this news, Kristyn then began to talk even more about one, or both of us, flying over. In fact, it soon seemed as if every e-mail from her, and every telephone conversation with her, now centered not on if we would come, but rather when.

And so what had started out – in my mind at least – as a mere possibility, not likely to go anywhere, had suddenly become… a foregone conclusion! What had merely been a suggestion up to this point was now a formal request. And what had previously been simply an opportunity, had now taken on the appearance of an official summons! We were being called, if you will! And Kristyn wasn’t taking “no” for an answer…

Well it’s also at this point that Jeanette “conveniently” backed out. (At least that’s my take on it. She’ll probably tell you otherwise.) After all, she argued, it was very difficult for her to take any time off from her public school teaching job. And it wouldn’t be worth all the expense for her to merely fly over for the weekend. And she wouldn’t enjoy it if she felt so rushed. And so on, and so forth… I think you can probably see where this is leading.

But I, on the other hand, she noted, was much more flexible – at least after Easter – which was conveniently when Kristyn just happened to have a free weekend! Furthermore, argued Jeanette, I was the one who had concentrated in English history as part of my undergraduate major, and I was also the one who had an aunt and

a cousin (whom I had not seen in a number of years) living in England. So, to make a long story short, guess who got elected, by family consensus and popular decree, to make the trip over to England? As the French would put it, “c’est moi.” It is I…

Now to say that I have some mixed feelings about this is a bit of an understatement. My ambivalence stems from the fact that – while I would dearly love to visit my daughter (truly), not to mention my 90 year old aunt and her daughter, as well as England itself (actually to do so has always been a dream of mine) – I am not too sure, however, about leaving my own country, the rest of my family, not to mention familiar surroundings and routines behind in order to make such a trip! There are a lot of unknowns here.

As you can tell, I’m not too sure about all of this. After all, my international travel experience, to date, consists mainly of viewing Niagara Falls from the Canadian side!

Well, Kristyn called again on Friday, while her mother was at school (just so I had to talk with her, I think!), and she started discussing with me her plans for connecting with each other once my flight arrived in England, as well as how we would then spend our time together over the next 3 ½ days. She also proceeded to lecture me about the importance of researching just where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to see, during my visit. I don’t even have a ticket yet, and she’s already organizing my itinerary!

“What airport will you be flying into?” she asked. “You mean there’s more than one?” I replied. “I’ve only heard of Heathrow,” I added. “Well, there’s also Gatwick,” she said. (That’s where Joe, her boyfriend, is flying in the week before, on Easter.)

“Now if you fly into Gatwick,” she continued, “they have an express train which leaves like every 15 minutes that will take you directly to Victoria Station. It costs about 16 pounds each way. (Now there’s my first concern – the money is different over there.) “And once you get to Victoria Station,” she went on without taking a breath, “you can either wait there for me to come pick you up after I get out of class, or I can give you directions for the “tube” (That’s another thing – the language! You realize, of course, that they speak English English over there, not American English. Jeanette’s parents are currently visiting with us and they enjoy those English comedies on cable TV. But I can hardly bear to watch them because I have absolutely no idea what they’re saying half the time! Anyway, the “tube,” in case you don’t know, is apparently the “subway.”).

“And once you get off the tube,” Kristyn proceeded to tell me, “it’s about a 15 minute walk, or so, to my “flat” (or for us, an “apartment”).

After trying to digest all of this, I paused, and then asked, “And how about if I fly into Heathrow?” Without missing a beat, she said, “Well if you do that, then you don’t have to take the train but you can go directly on the tube, it’s a little cheaper, but it takes longer because you have to stop at every station.”

And all this time I’m thinking to myself, “Am I really going to do this?” Here I am already getting nervous just thinking about how I’m going to find my way from the airport, and try to figure out a completely different currency, all the while trying to communicate with people who don’t talk like we do. After all, I thought moving to Georgia and southern accents were enough of a challenge!

But you know – despite all my concerns and misgivings – I’ll probably go. Why? Mainly because my daughter wants me to. She’s “calling” me, and I know it would mean a lot to her.

But also because I trust her. In a role reversal of sorts – the kind that start to happen when you wake up one morning and suddenly discover that your child is now an adult – I trust, I believe, in other words, I have faith that she will be waiting for me over there, and will then help and guide me once I arrive.

You see, I have been asked to take a journey to somewhere I’ve never been before, to a place which is very different from my own home and familiar surroundings, and to leave my friends and family behind. It’s bound to cause some anxiety, some apprehension and trepidation.

But I’ll make the trip. Just as Abram, as we heard in our first reading this morning, (who later had his name changed by God to Abraham) also made a trip to a completely new and different place…

Approximately 4,000 years ago, Abram also made a journey into the unknown. God was calling him from his own country and birthplace, from family and friends, and from all his familiar surroundings and routines, and sending him to a new place. As Angela Askew writes, “It is a call to, and promise of, new life – but Abram has to leave the world of his ancestors, break the ties of kinship, and follow wherever this promise takes him…”

Dan Clendenin adds, “Abraham’s departure is a story about more than a change of geography. In leaving for Canaan, Abraham left all that was familiar – all custom and comfort, family and friends, all the regularity and rhythm of his life… He journeyed from present clarity into a future of profound ignorance. Abraham journeyed from what he had to what he did not have, from the known to the unknown, from everything that was familiar to all things strange.”

Abram, as we heard in that first reading, went “as the Lord had told him.” In other words, he ventured out in faith. The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews would later comment on Abraham’s response in this way (11:8-9), “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.”

And in our second reading this morning, the Apostle Paul would similarly observe, “For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendents through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” Paul was talking here about the need for all of us to respond to God’s calling with nothing more than faith – not our own efforts; to simply trust that God will lead and guide us on our journey through life.

Lent, of course, is that time when we especially reflect on this journey of faith. Even as we listen to those scripture passages that recount for us our Lord’s final journey to Jerusalem and to the cross, we’re reminded that the life of faith (for us as well) has always been and always will be a “journey” – from what we have to what we do not have, from the known to the unknown, from everything that is familiar to everything that is new, and different, and even a little strange.

But in order to respond with faith, in order to trust in God and in his promises, we have to let go; let go, very often, of all that is familiar and routine in our lives. Angela Askew, again, writes, “Abraham and Paul had to trust not in family values, or the tried and true habits of their ancestors, but in new ways of thinking and living revealed to them in their new relationship with God. They broke with their experiences of the past, and moved into an unmapped future…”

However, letting go of the past, and of the familiar, is not easy.

Especially when we lose sight of the fact – which we often do, by the way – that life itself is a journey, and not a destination.

In the last century, a tourist from America visited a famous Polish rabbi by the name of Hofetz Chaim. The tourist was surprised to see that the rabbi lived in one simple room filled with just books, plus a table and a bench. “Rabbi,” asked the tourist, “where is your furniture?” The rabbi answered, “Where is yours?”

“Mine?” replied the puzzled American. “Why, I’m only a visitor here. I’m only passing through.” The rabbi looked at him, smiled, and then said quietly, “You’re only a visitor? You’re only passing through? Well, so am I. So am I.” (Edward Chinn, The Wonder of Words, page 69)

In our own lives, as well as in the life of the church, we often forget this. We often forget that we are only “passing through” and, instead, we try to create a sense of permanence in our lives and even in the church.

As I was talking with Kristyn this past Friday, and beginning to get a little anxious about navigating my way from the airport to where I would eventually meet up with her, I made the comment that I would probably try to travel light, just one suitcase, besides my two carry-ons, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about lugging so much stuff around with me in an unfamiliar place.

(By the way, Kristyn responded that I would need to travel even lighter than I was already planning – in order to leave room in my suitcase to bring some of her stuff home with me!)

And the point here is simply this: we need to travel “light” through life. Not only will too much stuff bog us down, but old habits and old ways of thinking will as well.

In the most recent issue of The Christian Century, Wilma Ann Bailey observes, “Abraham is being called to father a new way of thinking, a new religious expression, and a new people. He’s told to leave behind land, birthplace, and the house of his father – all the things that make it difficult to do something new – because he can too easily say, ‘But this is the way we have always done it.’

(Ever heard those same words in the church?)

Perhaps a new perspective will emerge,” Bailey suggests, “only if he is exposed to a new environment in which the old patterns no longer work.”

And therein, I believe, lies an important lesson for the church, and for all who would call themselves Christian. Because, far too often, we stubbornly cling to the past and to the “old ways” simply because they’re comfortable and predictable. But sometimes – maybe even most of the time – we can only gain new perspectives on our lives and on the life of the church when, as Bailey noted, we leave the old and familiar behind. That is, when we think primarily in terms of a “journey” and not a “final destination.”

After all, that’s what Abraham was called to do. That’s what Paul was called to do. And when we reflect briefly on today’s gospel, that’s also what Nicodemus was called to do. To see things in a new light and in a new way. And then to be changed because of it.

So what things from the past are you clinging to in your life?

In what ways are you struggling to stay in the comfortable and predictable instead of following God into that which is completely new and unknown? In what ways are you afraid (as I am perhaps over this possible trip to England) of simply striking out in faith, and trusting that (in this case) God will see you through?

And in what ways have the church, and even this congregation, also been guilty of clinging to the past when God has actually been calling us into the future? An unknown future, to be sure. But a future, nonetheless, of God’s own making,

As Dan Clendenin observed, not all faith journeys involve a change in geography. What they do all have in common, however, is leaving behind all that is familiar, and comfortable, and predictable, for the sake of gaining some new understandings and perspectives. What they do all have in common is the unavoidable element of faith; of trusting in God to lead and guide us along the way, and then also trusting that God will be there waiting for us when we finally arrive. Amen.