Trinity Episcopal Church-October 2007

October 2007

There was an old man sitting on a porch. A girl came up and asked him, "What's the secret to long life?" He said, "I smoke 3 packs of cigarettes a day, drink a case of whiskey a month, I eat fatty foods and never exercise." The amazed girl asked, "Wow, how old are you?" He said, "I'm Twenty-six."

I love stories about people on quests: King Arthur and the knights of the round table---devoted to justice, chivalry, their noble hearts, all the while on a quest for the holy grail; Frodo and Sam on a quest to middle earth, struggling and striving: why do they do it? "for all that is good and worth fighting for" Sam says.

A quest is giving yourself to something bigger than you are. It's the call to sacrifice by not following the masses.

This morning in the gospel we hear the call of the Christian quest; the risky, costly, faith-fought, adventure of following Jesus."

Like in all quests, there are life changing events; times of closeness to God and times of feeling distance; times of great courage and times of sorrow; times of faith and times of doubt; of clarity and confusion.

Times when we lift our hands in praise and times when we shake our fight at heaven. It's all part of the quest. -Go to any book store and you'll find lots of items pushing the warm fuzzy Jesus and a kool-aid (watered down) kind of the faith, but little about the hard challenges of living out the Christian faith in a tough, broken world.

What are you spending your life on? What is worthy of your devotion? What is your quest? Is it to hurry through life or is it to find meaning as you devote yourself to something bigger?

When I was younger, I loved to watch the old Disney movie called The Love Bug. The hero, the one I became most attached to, wasn't Dean Jones, or his comic sidekick Buddy Hackett, but it was the race car Herbie.

Herbie was cool; a thinking car, with a racing stripe down the middle, and Herbie didn't take any guff from anyone, and drove really fast, and it seemed he won every race.

I had a jersey shirt with #53 (Herbie's #) and when I got in our family car (wh. was a pokey, 5 speed Opal the color of old bananas) I would pretend it was Herbie, and I'd balk if we didn't squel our tires around all the corners.

If anyone even thought about passing us on the road Herbie wouldn't stand for it; I lived for speed; every moment was a race; I was Herbie! I was 38 years old!

Now I find that life is hard when you live like Herbie.

Life can become exhausting; life can be fleeting when we hurry through it. You know what? You don't always win.

Before you know it your 40 and you stop at that point in your life and ask, "What am I doing here? What am I all about?"

The next thing you know your 60 and again you stop and ask, "What have I done with my life? What significant thing have I accomplished?" Have I made a difference?

The next thing you know you're retired, and all the kids have moved out, the house is empty, and you look at your spouse and you both say, "All right! What do you want to do?" You buy a camper.

I saw a bumper sticker on a camper the other day and it read, "We've been thru a lot together through the years...and most of it was your fault!"

I've talked with lots of people recently about events that have changed their lives. I asked them, "looking back, what kind of things affected you and directed you on your life-long quests. Name a life-changing event."

I heard events like the birth of a child, and marriage, the Marines, but most of the life-changing events were hardships.

Someone said one word "divorce" but the pain in his eyes spoke volumes. Someone else said "when they got seriously sick", and another said "the loss of someone they love."

---all these hard things that nobody wants to go through, looking back, are the very past events that have affected our lives most profoundly, an event from which we can more deeply draw strength today.

And I thought about my life, and as much as I don't like to admit it, the adversity and struggles are the very things that have given my life meaning.

If we lived a life with no struggles or adversity or suffering, our lives would be boring and not worth living. You might say, well I'd like to try it. But the truth is life is difficult.

If we had a piano up here, I could call Cheryl up front and ask her to play "Jesus loves me" using the white keys only. You might recognize it (perhaps because you knew what it was before hand).

Then I would ask her, "now use the black keys too." The music becomes full, richer and undeniably beautiful; you recognize it..."Jesus loves me."

You know what they call the black keys? Sharps and flats. Ouch! Like knives and hammers, the sharps and flats in our lives hurt, but they give our lives identity, and meaning, and we learn to trust, and we find the real Jesus loves us.

I do not believe God sends trials our way to test our faith. He's not a Zeus-like god aiming thunderbolts on the wretched humans below.

I don't know a God like that. Every person on earth lives out their own unique journey, including hardships; loneliness, physical disabilities, childhood abuse, prejudice, illness, addictions...

I don't know why God allows affliction and suffering to enter our lives, but I do know how God feels about it. I know when I cried, God cried too; I know when my heart broke, God's heart broke too.

Jesus' entire life shows us what God feels for us. Jesus preached peace, not violence; Are you a victim of violence? God did not want that for you.

Jesus preached healing and wholeness to the sick. Are you sick? God does not want that for you.

Jesus preached compassion, not selfishness; gratitude, not greed; Jesus preached a message of love, not hate. Jesus preached about life, not death.

Ask me life's big question "why" and I'll say I don't know. If knowing answers to life's questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables.

Ask me how to live and I'll say day by day with God. In the Free Press article I mentioned the age old "Why" question. Jesus struggled with the "why" question.

Remember when Jesus was in Gethsemane? Three times he prayed, "My soul is overwhelmed in sorrow..." speaking about his imminent death, ..."if it is possible may this cup be taken away from me..."

On the cross what did Jesus call out? "God why?" Why have you forsaken me?" Why do I feel abandoned? Why have you left me in the dark?

Has your soul ever been overwhelmed? You have a savior who understands. Have you ever felt abandoned? Lost in the dark? You have a God who understands. The God I know.

This is the first lesson I learned in my own suffering. Jesus came to identify with me, to convince me that 1. God is with me---in good times and especially in difficult times...He understands.

Do you know, that is the most repeated verse in the whole bible? "I am with you." It's the Bible's central theme. Not heaven, not sin, not rules, but I will be with you.

When God came to earth as a baby, his redemptive name was Immanuel---God with us.

And if we look for God with us, we will find Him in tough situations and seemingly hopeless places. As long as we aren't like Herbie rushing through life.

We will find Him, moments of reassurance. In Him we can hold it together.

I remember when my niece asked me why I was so sad (after the tragedy in my life) and I wondered, how do you explain grief and loss to a 7 year old girl? So I told her I lost my whistle. "You lost your whistle?" she said. "Yeah, and I don't know if I'll ever find it again." She paused with that thought for a moment and said she hoped I find it and then ran off.

I did find my whistle! Being with God you can find healing in brokenness; being with God helps bring life out of death. Knowing God transforms even the worst tragedy into a new beginning.

(and as I walked away from the pulpit, I whistled...)

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October 2007