As a matter of course, I want to explain some things about my previous entry, this sermon on suffering. What started out as a class assignment (and not necessarily one I was enthralled with), actually took on a life of its own. As I sat down to write it, it proceeded to write itself. It was, for me, a catharsis of sorts.
And this is at the heart of what I wanted to share here... In writing out this sermon, in examining this short passage of Haggai, and trying to determine what this passage was saying, I had to deal with how do we look at God with eyes of faith, when so-called promises of redemption seem to fall flat. Haggai made some pretty audacious statements at the end of his prophetic work. And little came to pass in terms of its coming to fruition. I not only wondered how the people of God felt, I actually was wrestling with my own issues of disappointment with God, and wondered, what's next?
This sermon allowed me to work through some of those issues. And, as I struggled to understand the text beyond the text, I came to a quiet and silently provacative understanding that ultimately, God calls us to have faith in the silence that follows the text. That is where I am. That is the power of the sermon, at least for me. It ended up being a powerful sermon to preach in class, and as I finished giving it to my class, I knew I had glorified God.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Saturday, December 02, 2006
A Sermon about Suffering
This is a sermon that I delivered to my 'Theology of the Exile' class as an assignment. We had to preach from the text of a Post-Exilic prophet. Hey, I like challenges, so I chose to preach from Haggai 2:20-23, with the focus on how do we deal with disappointment with God? It was one of those inspired sermons. As I sat down to write it, it pretty much wrote itself. It's not perfect, to say the least, and a couple of my class mates felt I rushed too quickly to the "Jesus" answer, but the point is that ultimately, the sermon was written for me, and for that matter, for anyone struggling with God's silence in the face of suffering. So read on ... and let me know what you think ...
Today, I want to invite you to consider life’s roller coasters; to look at the ups and downs of life in general, and our own lives specifically. We’ve all experienced that excitement that happens when words of promise and hope come our way, it’s a difficult thing not to get caught up in the whirlwind, no matter who you are. Think back a couple of years ago. We saw it when the democrats put forth John Kerry as their presidential candidate four years after a disappointing defeat. We saw it when the republicans nominated George W. Bush to a second candidacy, hoping for four more years. We felt it when the Eagles made it to their fourth NFC championship game, and then to the superbowl for the first time in over twenty years. Let’s face it, when people get excited, they really get excited. To be hopeful, to live for something hopeful is, I think, something we are naturally wired for as humans. No one would say that it’s wrong to want or yearn for hope. And in our scripture passage today, we read that the prophet Haggai is delivering a message that is full of such excitement, hope, and promise such as the Jews have not seen in a long time. After all, they had been exiled from their home land. Their lives not only disrupted, but devastated by the events of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem, and the beloved Temple.
Picture it for yourselves… to be under the impression that you are under the protection of the LORD and that He shall always inhabit His Temple, and then the shock of becoming a beaten and subjected people, carried off to a foreign land, wondering what would become of everything you knew and loved. But then hope! Your family has actually made a go of it in this strange land. You’ve been able to prosper. And suddenly, your people find out that the Babylonians themselves have been beaten by a new empire, the Persians. And you wonder, what does this mean? What does it mean when the Persian King Cyrus issues an edict announcing that the Jews in Babylon can return to Judah, to Jerusalem? What does it mean? You return, though not entirely certain, for life was good in Babylon, and not everyone left, even with the promise of rebuilding that old beloved city. And so you go. But when you arrive your hopes are fast to fade. The city is in ruins, a sense of hopelessness, and the first images of devastation grip you firmly as you arrive in the old land of promise. And as you gather your family, that family that has grown and prospered in exile, you wonder if you’ve made a major mistake by returning to Jerusalem. Here you are, and your heart is at a fork in the road, with one direction leading to despair, and the other toward hope. So what are you thinking? What are you going to do? Perhaps these are the questions that many of the Jews who returned to Jerusalem felt or struggled with.
Into this situation of doubt comes the prophet Haggai. Not much is known about this prophet of the post-Exilic period. He seems to have begun his preaching around 520 BC, around the beginning of the reign of the Persian King Darius. It is not known whether he was among those returning, or was someone who had been left behind in the land. We do know that this prophet was very concerned about the future of the people, and he saw their future blessings tied up with the construction of a new Temple. But he was faced with overcoming a lot of disappointment first. After all, you can’t just launch a major building fund campaign when the people aren’t exactly confident of where God has led them. It may have been easy for Jeremiah to have purchased a plot of land so long ago. It may have been easy for the prophet Isaiah to speak about new beginnings and a new exodus. But when it looks like the land of milk and honey curdled or soured a long time ago, you know it’s not going to be easy going.
And here’s Haggai, this walking, talking mystery prophet who challenges the people to harken back to the days of yester year and remember how great it was to have a great Temple to the One True God, and to have a King in the line of David on the throne. And he pushes that button, that button of hope; that the LORD is going to do it all over again. Oh, Zerubbabel may only be the governor of Judah now, but the LORD has plans for him. Consider what the text says: The LORD has promised to shake the heavens and the earth, to overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms, to overthrow chariots and their drivers. This is good. This is just what a Jew coming out of the exile might want to hear. And if that’s not enough, the LORD Almighty has promised to make Zerubbabel His signet ring. Although there’s a great many opinions as to what Haggai means by making such declarations about Zerubbabel, whether he’s speaking of outright political independence from Persia or any other foreign power, or he just means a resurgence of Judah from the ash heap of its last hundred years is hard to say. But how can you not feel the excitement, or not get caught up in the promise of new hope, the promise of a new beginning? This must have sounded like good news to those who had returned from Jerusalem and were questioning the sanity of that choice.
And yet ultimately, we must deal with the realities of life. I think Haggai’s prophecy, for all of its hope, for all of its excitement, for all its promise, is a story that ends on a silent, unwritten post-script: what happened to Zerubbabel? There is no other mention of the governor, … by Haggai, or any other prophet or chronicler. One commentator even says that this passage cannot be adequately explained by its contemporary history. We are left to wonder. And I wonder if it didn’t leave the people of Jerusalem to wonder just what had happened.
It certainly leaves us moderns to wrestle with the implications of this promise that seems unfulfilled. And it leaves us to wrestle with the painful question of what do we do when God disappoints. Oh, this goes far deeper than the disappointment of your candidate for President losing another close race, or your candidate for President winning, but then taking the country in the wrong direction. And it’s oh so much more than when the football team you’ve loved and rooted for all your life finally gets over that final hurdle and then goes onto lose the superbowl.
No, this is real life. This is the deepest, heartsick notion of disappointment with God that we must wrestle with today, because it is a place that too often we as Christians tread, and at the same time, it is a place too many of us deny having been. Let’s face it, who wants to hear a sermon on disappointment, let alone disappointment with God; who wants to be confronted by the dashing of one’s hopes and joys upon the rocks of disappointment? And yet, that is where we tread this morning because we carry disappointments, and many of us have walls up between us and God, and between us and one another.
And so, what is your disappointment? Author Philip Yancey says that disappointment occurs when the actual experience of something falls short of what we anticipate or expect. How do we gauge the effects of a failed marriage?; of getting fired from a job?; of receiving a devastating medical diagnosis?; or of losing a pastor to sin? What do we do when we’ve prayed for healing and it doesn’t come? How do we deal with God’s “promise” not coming to pass? What are we to feel and think when we believe, or think God has let us down – that God has disappointed our hopes?
Disappointment is quite possibly one of the oldest of human experiences. It must have been present when Adam and Eve buried their youngest son after his murder by his older brother. After bargaining with God to spare Sodom, did Abraham feel disappointed when the LORD wiped out that city? And consider the many Psalms of disappointment, such as Ps. 44: 23-24, “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” Did Haggai feel this way? Have you ever felt this way? Has God ever left you to wonder if He’s rejected you? I think many of us have. And perhaps, as you sit here listening, you are even now, wrestling with such feelings in your hearts.
As I bring you this word, I can testify to its challenges and difficulties, because I too am struggling with disappointment with God. I am in the midst of trying to make sense of what God has allowed to happen, or has not kept from happening in my life of late. I have spent tearful times in prayer lately, asking God to make it all right, to bring me vindication and justice. I have told God that I am thoroughly disappointed with Him, and that my faith in Him has taken a beating. And to be brutally honest, I have found little relief - - - There is no wonderful Christian triumphal celebrating in my story so far. I bring you this word this morning amidst my personal disappointments. I bring you this message of disappointment from a place of dark uncertainty. And I can tell you that even as I struggle with my disappointment with God, I am brought lower in my struggle by being disappointed with myself, with the guilt I feel due to what seems to be my egregious lack of faith and trust in the God who has shown Himself faithful and trustworthy so many times before in my own past. And I have to admit, both to God and to myself, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have the strength to keep on keeping on. Does this sound familiar to your own story of disappointment?
So I ask, what do we do now? So what that we are being honest. Yes, we hurt, we admit it. But now what? I offer you no trite or plastic offerings of hope this morning. They are meaningless to me, and I will assume they would be equally meaningless to you, too.
And yet, as if to contradict myself, I will say there is hope, true hope. And paradoxically, we find it by going back to those same four verses of Haggai. For in the same way that we found a strange silence following such excitement, we must look to this text and allow what it says in and of itself to have the integrity to stand on its own. I said just a moment ago that I offer nothing trite, so please do not misunderstand what I say here: I have discovered that there is only one answer to disappointment, and that is hope. We must hope, even when the only evidence we have for such a thing is found in the ancient writings of some far away people and place. As we read the last verses of Haggai, we should ask such questions like what happened? Why didn’t God make good on His promise? - - - But to get mired and stuck in this… this disappointment, is to ultimately miss the point of Haggai’s words to the people of Jerusalem as they dealt with the disappointment of returning to that haggard land. It is exactly in these words of hope and promise that God’s people must find hand-holds and foot-holds for our faith. It is only in these words that we can sufficiently understand what God is offering, ironic and empty though they might seem.
Yes, perhaps nothing came of these grand promises. After all, Zerubbabel disappears from the pages of history. Whether he had second thoughts and cold feet, and dropped out of the limelight, or was forcibly pulled off history’s stage by nervous Persians who saw the potential for further unrest in their empire has yet to be decided - - but we know that nothing happened. And if we leave it at that, we have every right to be mired in our disappointments. BUT there is more. For Haggai’s words are not meant to hold us in the doom and gloom of the present, but rather, to look to the future, to look to God.
Haggai’s prophecy of hope may have been rooted in Zerubbabel, but we must look well beyond the scope of the text, knowing that God’s work reached well beyond that: that the promise was made good in the incarnation of His own Son, Jesus.
Sometimes, many times, I think that the very thing we think God offers us as the hope we’ve longed to see fulfilled is merely a signifier for something even far better than what we can hope for or imagine. Yes, Haggai prophesied in the name of the LORD, and nothing seemed to have come to pass, and yet it was not the end of the people of Israel. Yes, disappointment after disappointment was met by the supposed people of God, and yet, even after 400 some years of silence, the people of God were still a part of God’s story, and heard the voice of one calling in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord. I think it is fair to say that when we read Haggai, when we hear those words of hope and promise read aloud, we must admit to the disappointment of their unfulfillment. But we must also look at and listen to those words, and see where they are pointing, because ultimately, they are not pointing at Zerubbabel, but at the LORD, the one who is the source of hope and promise.
We may not be able to make such connections between the person we’d like to see in the White House, or the team we’d like to see in the superbowl, or the relationship we want to see repaired, but through Haggai’s words, we can wrestle with our deepest disappointments and still discover hope. The overcoming of our disappointments is not so much found in our finally getting what we wanted in the first place, but perhaps they’re found in realizing that what we hope for, what we so desperately cry out for is not so much what we need as much as we really only need the One to whom we cry. What we hope for is never enough. For the One in whom we hope is the only answer to the silence that follows Haggai, and the silence that empowers such disappointment as we struggle with. I offer this wrestling match to you this morning, not because I make light of anyone’s disappointments, but because I, too, struggle this morning. This sermon is for me as much as anyone else. Only in dragging this beast out of the dark recesses of our hearts and minds, even now kicking and screaming, can we see our disappointments in the perspective of the light of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. In His light, we receive His grace that gives us even just enough hope to keep on keeping on.
I hope that in the midst of this roller coaster, you have received even a small nugget of that grace this morning. There are no easy answers, no easy solutions, no magic spells to make things the way we think or want that they should be. But better than all of that, God offers Himself in the place of our broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes. And that is the best promise of hope in the face of disappointment. Amen.
Today, I want to invite you to consider life’s roller coasters; to look at the ups and downs of life in general, and our own lives specifically. We’ve all experienced that excitement that happens when words of promise and hope come our way, it’s a difficult thing not to get caught up in the whirlwind, no matter who you are. Think back a couple of years ago. We saw it when the democrats put forth John Kerry as their presidential candidate four years after a disappointing defeat. We saw it when the republicans nominated George W. Bush to a second candidacy, hoping for four more years. We felt it when the Eagles made it to their fourth NFC championship game, and then to the superbowl for the first time in over twenty years. Let’s face it, when people get excited, they really get excited. To be hopeful, to live for something hopeful is, I think, something we are naturally wired for as humans. No one would say that it’s wrong to want or yearn for hope. And in our scripture passage today, we read that the prophet Haggai is delivering a message that is full of such excitement, hope, and promise such as the Jews have not seen in a long time. After all, they had been exiled from their home land. Their lives not only disrupted, but devastated by the events of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem, and the beloved Temple.
Picture it for yourselves… to be under the impression that you are under the protection of the LORD and that He shall always inhabit His Temple, and then the shock of becoming a beaten and subjected people, carried off to a foreign land, wondering what would become of everything you knew and loved. But then hope! Your family has actually made a go of it in this strange land. You’ve been able to prosper. And suddenly, your people find out that the Babylonians themselves have been beaten by a new empire, the Persians. And you wonder, what does this mean? What does it mean when the Persian King Cyrus issues an edict announcing that the Jews in Babylon can return to Judah, to Jerusalem? What does it mean? You return, though not entirely certain, for life was good in Babylon, and not everyone left, even with the promise of rebuilding that old beloved city. And so you go. But when you arrive your hopes are fast to fade. The city is in ruins, a sense of hopelessness, and the first images of devastation grip you firmly as you arrive in the old land of promise. And as you gather your family, that family that has grown and prospered in exile, you wonder if you’ve made a major mistake by returning to Jerusalem. Here you are, and your heart is at a fork in the road, with one direction leading to despair, and the other toward hope. So what are you thinking? What are you going to do? Perhaps these are the questions that many of the Jews who returned to Jerusalem felt or struggled with.
Into this situation of doubt comes the prophet Haggai. Not much is known about this prophet of the post-Exilic period. He seems to have begun his preaching around 520 BC, around the beginning of the reign of the Persian King Darius. It is not known whether he was among those returning, or was someone who had been left behind in the land. We do know that this prophet was very concerned about the future of the people, and he saw their future blessings tied up with the construction of a new Temple. But he was faced with overcoming a lot of disappointment first. After all, you can’t just launch a major building fund campaign when the people aren’t exactly confident of where God has led them. It may have been easy for Jeremiah to have purchased a plot of land so long ago. It may have been easy for the prophet Isaiah to speak about new beginnings and a new exodus. But when it looks like the land of milk and honey curdled or soured a long time ago, you know it’s not going to be easy going.
And here’s Haggai, this walking, talking mystery prophet who challenges the people to harken back to the days of yester year and remember how great it was to have a great Temple to the One True God, and to have a King in the line of David on the throne. And he pushes that button, that button of hope; that the LORD is going to do it all over again. Oh, Zerubbabel may only be the governor of Judah now, but the LORD has plans for him. Consider what the text says: The LORD has promised to shake the heavens and the earth, to overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms, to overthrow chariots and their drivers. This is good. This is just what a Jew coming out of the exile might want to hear. And if that’s not enough, the LORD Almighty has promised to make Zerubbabel His signet ring. Although there’s a great many opinions as to what Haggai means by making such declarations about Zerubbabel, whether he’s speaking of outright political independence from Persia or any other foreign power, or he just means a resurgence of Judah from the ash heap of its last hundred years is hard to say. But how can you not feel the excitement, or not get caught up in the promise of new hope, the promise of a new beginning? This must have sounded like good news to those who had returned from Jerusalem and were questioning the sanity of that choice.
And yet ultimately, we must deal with the realities of life. I think Haggai’s prophecy, for all of its hope, for all of its excitement, for all its promise, is a story that ends on a silent, unwritten post-script: what happened to Zerubbabel? There is no other mention of the governor, … by Haggai, or any other prophet or chronicler. One commentator even says that this passage cannot be adequately explained by its contemporary history. We are left to wonder. And I wonder if it didn’t leave the people of Jerusalem to wonder just what had happened.
It certainly leaves us moderns to wrestle with the implications of this promise that seems unfulfilled. And it leaves us to wrestle with the painful question of what do we do when God disappoints. Oh, this goes far deeper than the disappointment of your candidate for President losing another close race, or your candidate for President winning, but then taking the country in the wrong direction. And it’s oh so much more than when the football team you’ve loved and rooted for all your life finally gets over that final hurdle and then goes onto lose the superbowl.
No, this is real life. This is the deepest, heartsick notion of disappointment with God that we must wrestle with today, because it is a place that too often we as Christians tread, and at the same time, it is a place too many of us deny having been. Let’s face it, who wants to hear a sermon on disappointment, let alone disappointment with God; who wants to be confronted by the dashing of one’s hopes and joys upon the rocks of disappointment? And yet, that is where we tread this morning because we carry disappointments, and many of us have walls up between us and God, and between us and one another.
And so, what is your disappointment? Author Philip Yancey says that disappointment occurs when the actual experience of something falls short of what we anticipate or expect. How do we gauge the effects of a failed marriage?; of getting fired from a job?; of receiving a devastating medical diagnosis?; or of losing a pastor to sin? What do we do when we’ve prayed for healing and it doesn’t come? How do we deal with God’s “promise” not coming to pass? What are we to feel and think when we believe, or think God has let us down – that God has disappointed our hopes?
Disappointment is quite possibly one of the oldest of human experiences. It must have been present when Adam and Eve buried their youngest son after his murder by his older brother. After bargaining with God to spare Sodom, did Abraham feel disappointed when the LORD wiped out that city? And consider the many Psalms of disappointment, such as Ps. 44: 23-24, “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” Did Haggai feel this way? Have you ever felt this way? Has God ever left you to wonder if He’s rejected you? I think many of us have. And perhaps, as you sit here listening, you are even now, wrestling with such feelings in your hearts.
As I bring you this word, I can testify to its challenges and difficulties, because I too am struggling with disappointment with God. I am in the midst of trying to make sense of what God has allowed to happen, or has not kept from happening in my life of late. I have spent tearful times in prayer lately, asking God to make it all right, to bring me vindication and justice. I have told God that I am thoroughly disappointed with Him, and that my faith in Him has taken a beating. And to be brutally honest, I have found little relief - - - There is no wonderful Christian triumphal celebrating in my story so far. I bring you this word this morning amidst my personal disappointments. I bring you this message of disappointment from a place of dark uncertainty. And I can tell you that even as I struggle with my disappointment with God, I am brought lower in my struggle by being disappointed with myself, with the guilt I feel due to what seems to be my egregious lack of faith and trust in the God who has shown Himself faithful and trustworthy so many times before in my own past. And I have to admit, both to God and to myself, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have the strength to keep on keeping on. Does this sound familiar to your own story of disappointment?
So I ask, what do we do now? So what that we are being honest. Yes, we hurt, we admit it. But now what? I offer you no trite or plastic offerings of hope this morning. They are meaningless to me, and I will assume they would be equally meaningless to you, too.
And yet, as if to contradict myself, I will say there is hope, true hope. And paradoxically, we find it by going back to those same four verses of Haggai. For in the same way that we found a strange silence following such excitement, we must look to this text and allow what it says in and of itself to have the integrity to stand on its own. I said just a moment ago that I offer nothing trite, so please do not misunderstand what I say here: I have discovered that there is only one answer to disappointment, and that is hope. We must hope, even when the only evidence we have for such a thing is found in the ancient writings of some far away people and place. As we read the last verses of Haggai, we should ask such questions like what happened? Why didn’t God make good on His promise? - - - But to get mired and stuck in this… this disappointment, is to ultimately miss the point of Haggai’s words to the people of Jerusalem as they dealt with the disappointment of returning to that haggard land. It is exactly in these words of hope and promise that God’s people must find hand-holds and foot-holds for our faith. It is only in these words that we can sufficiently understand what God is offering, ironic and empty though they might seem.
Yes, perhaps nothing came of these grand promises. After all, Zerubbabel disappears from the pages of history. Whether he had second thoughts and cold feet, and dropped out of the limelight, or was forcibly pulled off history’s stage by nervous Persians who saw the potential for further unrest in their empire has yet to be decided - - but we know that nothing happened. And if we leave it at that, we have every right to be mired in our disappointments. BUT there is more. For Haggai’s words are not meant to hold us in the doom and gloom of the present, but rather, to look to the future, to look to God.
Haggai’s prophecy of hope may have been rooted in Zerubbabel, but we must look well beyond the scope of the text, knowing that God’s work reached well beyond that: that the promise was made good in the incarnation of His own Son, Jesus.
Sometimes, many times, I think that the very thing we think God offers us as the hope we’ve longed to see fulfilled is merely a signifier for something even far better than what we can hope for or imagine. Yes, Haggai prophesied in the name of the LORD, and nothing seemed to have come to pass, and yet it was not the end of the people of Israel. Yes, disappointment after disappointment was met by the supposed people of God, and yet, even after 400 some years of silence, the people of God were still a part of God’s story, and heard the voice of one calling in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord. I think it is fair to say that when we read Haggai, when we hear those words of hope and promise read aloud, we must admit to the disappointment of their unfulfillment. But we must also look at and listen to those words, and see where they are pointing, because ultimately, they are not pointing at Zerubbabel, but at the LORD, the one who is the source of hope and promise.
We may not be able to make such connections between the person we’d like to see in the White House, or the team we’d like to see in the superbowl, or the relationship we want to see repaired, but through Haggai’s words, we can wrestle with our deepest disappointments and still discover hope. The overcoming of our disappointments is not so much found in our finally getting what we wanted in the first place, but perhaps they’re found in realizing that what we hope for, what we so desperately cry out for is not so much what we need as much as we really only need the One to whom we cry. What we hope for is never enough. For the One in whom we hope is the only answer to the silence that follows Haggai, and the silence that empowers such disappointment as we struggle with. I offer this wrestling match to you this morning, not because I make light of anyone’s disappointments, but because I, too, struggle this morning. This sermon is for me as much as anyone else. Only in dragging this beast out of the dark recesses of our hearts and minds, even now kicking and screaming, can we see our disappointments in the perspective of the light of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. In His light, we receive His grace that gives us even just enough hope to keep on keeping on.
I hope that in the midst of this roller coaster, you have received even a small nugget of that grace this morning. There are no easy answers, no easy solutions, no magic spells to make things the way we think or want that they should be. But better than all of that, God offers Himself in the place of our broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes. And that is the best promise of hope in the face of disappointment. Amen.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Rarely Early, Never Late, and Always on Time
The title refers, of course, to the fact that with my church severance (ooops, I meant to "say" compensation) package about to run out in the next couple of weeks, God came through for our family. After many months of prayers, our own and many friends, the Lord provided a full-time position for my wife, at the company she's been working at for the last ten years (almost eight as p-t), within her department, at the same pay rate. All I can say is, "PRAISE GOD!!!"
This is BIG. I will admit to several things. First, I was really hoping she was going to get this position back in September so we could start paying off all of our credit, and still have some money to put into savings. Second, as time went by, I was starting to sweat some bullets and honestly was wrestling with some profound doubts about what God was doing with me and my family. And third, the Thursday a week before Thanksgiving was like a night of spiritual burn-out for me, and I was so gosh-darn angry at God over what seriously felt like His shoving my face in dog-dookie not at all of my own making. And then, just like that, it was as if we had turned a corner. I saw it that night, and took it in, but I was nervous to acknowledge that it could be so.
Yeah, we turned a corner. I felt it; sensed it. But I was afraid to say it aloud. Fearful that my Job-ian experience wasn't quite finished. After all, where were three "good" friends to tell me what a bad person I was (wait, I had already heard from them back in the church back in June!), and was still waiting to have God humble me profoundly. He did. But this time it was through the generosity of His Saints, the real church. A group of unnamed and unknown brothers and sisters (at least to me - certainly not to God) got together on three separate occassions, and provided for us out of their pockets for our material needs - which of course go far to help sustain our spiritual needs (can you tell I don't buy into a false bifurcation of spiritual and material?). In truly taking care of our needs out of love instead of some false sense of obligation, the people of the church subversively showed the impotency of certain individuals who think they represent God as leader in the church. It's a great moment of irony that will somehow miss the pages of the next edition of Church History, but it's a great read none the less for its potency in the face of such pathetic impotency.
But that's God. He's good. All the time. And though He wasn't early, He wasn't late; He was right on time! And I praise Him for His loving kindnesses. May we turn this corner together, and give God the glory. Amen and Amen.
This is BIG. I will admit to several things. First, I was really hoping she was going to get this position back in September so we could start paying off all of our credit, and still have some money to put into savings. Second, as time went by, I was starting to sweat some bullets and honestly was wrestling with some profound doubts about what God was doing with me and my family. And third, the Thursday a week before Thanksgiving was like a night of spiritual burn-out for me, and I was so gosh-darn angry at God over what seriously felt like His shoving my face in dog-dookie not at all of my own making. And then, just like that, it was as if we had turned a corner. I saw it that night, and took it in, but I was nervous to acknowledge that it could be so.
Yeah, we turned a corner. I felt it; sensed it. But I was afraid to say it aloud. Fearful that my Job-ian experience wasn't quite finished. After all, where were three "good" friends to tell me what a bad person I was (wait, I had already heard from them back in the church back in June!), and was still waiting to have God humble me profoundly. He did. But this time it was through the generosity of His Saints, the real church. A group of unnamed and unknown brothers and sisters (at least to me - certainly not to God) got together on three separate occassions, and provided for us out of their pockets for our material needs - which of course go far to help sustain our spiritual needs (can you tell I don't buy into a false bifurcation of spiritual and material?). In truly taking care of our needs out of love instead of some false sense of obligation, the people of the church subversively showed the impotency of certain individuals who think they represent God as leader in the church. It's a great moment of irony that will somehow miss the pages of the next edition of Church History, but it's a great read none the less for its potency in the face of such pathetic impotency.
But that's God. He's good. All the time. And though He wasn't early, He wasn't late; He was right on time! And I praise Him for His loving kindnesses. May we turn this corner together, and give God the glory. Amen and Amen.
Friday, November 17, 2006
A Sermon of Compassion
I wrote this "sermon" for my "Church as a Community of Compassion" class at Palmer. As of now, I've not given it, but I hope a time will come and soon when I can share this with the people of my congregation...
The front “page” of the New York Times web site this past Wednesday was filled with top stories of the ongoing war in Iraq. Interestingly, that same day, the Philadelphia Inquirer web site’s top story was about a fourteen year-old girl with cerebal palsy who wasted away and died due to supposed neglect by Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services. Two very different stories with two very different images. Two very different locations, concerns, and people effected. And yet, both strike at the very core of our shared humanity. Both of these stories are more than just the words on the proverbial page. Both of them have to do with life and death, and that which is between the two, the palpable tension of suffering versus compassion. What we have here in these stories are representative images of a world that is constantly struggling with the effects of that day in the garden when forbidden fruit was chosen over obedience and trust in a loving God. And my friends, we are still paying the bill for that choice.
I want you to consider this question, why is life so full of suffering? As much as it started in that garden, those two people, the first man and woman, have not been responsible for everything that has gone on since; that goes on to this day, today. And a second question that must be engaged lest anyone walk out of here feeling invigorated by a purely philosophical question: what does God expect of you and me in light of this suffering? Our focal text today is taken from Mark 9:14-29. Picture this story in your sanctified imagination. Jesus, Peter, James, and John are just returning from a night’s stay on a large hill top where the disciples experienced Jesus’ transfiguration. As they rejoin the rest of the group, they find the other disciples engaged in an argument with teachers of the law, all surrounded by a large crowd. Something of import and interest is going on here. Jesus is immediately brought into this event, when, as the scripture says, “As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him” (v.15). The people are overwhelmed with wonder, and upon seeing Jesus, they abandon the disciples, they abandon the teachers of the Law, and they run and greet Jesus. Something has happened that is beyond the scope of the disciples and the teachers. It is something that crowd understands or intuitively knows only Jesus can deal with.
Upon inquiring as to what’s going on, a man in the crowd speaks up and tells Jesus that his son is possessed by a spirit that is trying to kill him. He had gone to the disciples, but they were unable to drive out the spirit. Jesus did not need to read a newspaper to find a story of suffering. It found Him out. Unlike the priest, the Levite, and the teacher of the Law in Luke’s parable of the Good Samaritan, He did not walk around this man, his son, or their suffering. Curiously, Jesus speaks words of frustration at a crowd that is both quarrelsome and unbelieving before He engages the suffering of the man’s son. Remember, he engages. He does not jump in and just heal the boy. He engages with questions: “How long has he been like this?” (v.21a). “From childhood,” the man tells him (v.21b). When one is nervous, full of anxiety and fear, one tends to the extremes of either shutting down and not speaking, or talking too much. This man keeps on talking: “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us” (v.22b). I wonder at the look on Jesus’ face when this man said this. Jesus’ reaction is swift, “If you can? Everything is possible for him who believes.” (v.23). Everything is possible for him who believes. Everything is possible for those who believe. What is Jesus thinking as He says this? Is He thinking, “Man, you brought your son to me, and now you’re wondering IF I can do anything?” Jesus’ words prick the man’s own fears and desperation, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (v.24). And Jesus heals the man’s son, even as the spirit seems to take the very life out of the boy, leaving him looking as if dead. Jesus, of course, knows this boy is not dead, and personally reaches out and takes the boy’s hand and helps him onto his feet. This engagement is what I believe we need to focus on. There are several nuggets with which we must wrestle in order to address our earlier questions.
It is telling that as soon as Jesus shows up, the crowd disperses from the antagonists, and heads straight to Jesus. We must remind ourselves that these disciples are pre-Pentecost, therefore, they are not yet full of the Holy Spirit; they are not yet emboldened for the kingdom of God. But people know, they can tell oft times who is able to help and who is not; they can sniff out a phony. Whatever it was they were arguing about, the disciples and the teachers of the Law were no closer to responding to the boy’s suffering then than they were at the start of this episode. And while some crowds seem to thrive on controversy and suffering, in this case, this crowd was caught up in the desperation of the man. And why should they not be? Were they not his neighbors? Did they not know this man; know his son? He was one of their own. They knew the suffering that has been going on, well predating that day’s theological or methodological debate, for they themselves were overwhelmed. And they wanted resolution. And they came to Jesus because He was their last best hope. As an aside, it strikes me as telling that after a night of spiritual high on the proverbial mountain top, both Jesus and His disciples come down to this challenge, almost a test to see if their faith is rooted in mere experience or reflection, or is their faith a real faith rooted in a real God working in a real world. In coming to Jesus with the man, they reveal they themselves are looking for an end to this suffering; they are together looking for compassion.
But Jesus is not just a miracle worker. By speaking His frustrations out loud, His own humanity and divinity are expressed mutually – His humanity cannot be silent regarding the fogging of the real issue here; His divinity cannot understand the disbelief that is present. By engaging the man in questions, Jesus incarnates God into this man’s pain, and here-to-fore, his hopelessness. By challenging the man’s lack of belief, Jesus is challenging the man to get rid of the hopelessness he has lived with for years, and make room in his heart for hope. In his response, the man confesses both his disbelief and his fear, and his desperate need for the power to overcome those shackles. While Jesus also speaks a word of command to the spirit in casting it out, I find it more important for these purposes to examine the after-effects. That is, the spirit leaves the boy with much theatrics – to the point where the crowd, and probably the father, thought he was dead. This is no small detail to be overlooked. If he is dead, then Jesus is no better than the disciples or the teachers of the Law who showed themselves impotent to do anything more than argue with one another rather than risk failure. If he is dead, then there is the risk of ceremonial uncleanness, and I imagine that the teachers of the Law at this point probably moved to the back of the crowd so as not to accidentally risk breaking their own purity laws. And then there is Jesus. The only risk Jesus takes is not waiting to see how the crowd will respond. Jesus reaches out, seemingly a risky move, and takes the boy by the hand, and lifts him up to his feet, and as Luke adds in his gospel, gives him back to his father.
What are we doing here this morning, my friends? – If all we can do at the end of this story is just say how wonderful Jesus is, we miss the point of today’s reading. Let us turn back to the first question: Why is life so full of suffering? I hesitate to give any answer that will sound of hubris, for I know there are many here who are engaged in the act of suffering, and sadly, many are doing so privately and silently. This is not a question to be dealt with lightly or in a trite manner, with either well-meaning intentions, nor petty hallmark card-like sayings. Indeed, the answer I want to offer for your consideration today is less about the origins of suffering, but rather one that contends that it is real, and it is here among us. My answer looks at each of us sitting here, individually, and as a collective. And my answer may be bothersome and uncomfortable, but I think it is honest, and it is the best I can offer you this morning. Why is life so full of suffering? Because on one level, we often find it safer to debate and argue over the causes of suffering, or the methodologies of resolving it, rather than risk ourselves (that is, our own comfort, our own time, our own resources, and maybe even our own lives) by entering into the fray. And the second is like unto the first, as we more often than not see the risk as exposing us to failure and our disbelief over God’s power at work within us, rather than as opportunities to give God room to be glorified in us and through us, for the beneficial comfort and/or healing of the Other. And what might be worse is that we will not admit it; not to others, not to God, and not to ourselves. As long we are talking about it, praying about it, and have money to give toward it, we are dealing with it. But are we? That leads us to deal with the second question.
What does God expect of you and me in light of this suffering? Again, I cannot speak an over-arching meta-answer. But what I will suggest, much to my own discomfort, is that God expects us. Yes, us. Not a particular game plan, though that may be needed. What is God’s expectation? Us. You and me. All of us, who are the body of Christ. I think it is because of our culture’s lust with individuality that we struggle, resist, and choose to be ignorant of belonging to one another, and in recognizing the face of Jesus, the imago dei, in the face of the Other who is suffering. And we do not reach out. We stand before one another indicted by the fact that we are guilty of the sin of omission. I’m not asking you to go up to a person who is suffering and play God. Jesus did what He did because He was God incarnate. But I am saying to you, to myself, that we must believe in the wake-up call that Jesus gave to the father, “Everything is possible for him who believes," and then act on that belief. But rather than be as honest as the father, we ignore or push down our own suffering, we prevent others from knowing of our suffering, or we ignore the suffering of those who inhabit the pews of life. We lean toward denial because we think it easier than risk the pain. I’m not saying that we need to turn worship into one big circus-like episode of Dr. Phil. Most of us already know we need to just stop acting like stupid lemmings running towards the cliffs of life’s bad decisions. Instead, we must call out to Jesus to claim belief, and ask Him to help us overcome our unbelief. This comes from living out of our faith, and not our fears. It means we acknowledge the brokenness of others and ourselves. It means we read that story from Mark 9, and realize that it is a call to pick up where Jesus left off, and continue the story of compassion that Jesus showed the father, his son, and yes, the crowd. It means we are called to risk all for the Other because we are the Other that Jesus risked for. It is His example, and His power, at work in each of us and all of us together. As we engage as Jesus engages, we will risk who we are and become more like Jesus. It will be painful and unpleasant at times, but if we have hope in all that Jesus promises, then we can believe that this journey of compassion will bring us a joy that is hidden on this side of suffering. As we leave here today, I ask you to prayerfully consider what God is calling you to do, and what He is calling us to do, that would bring compassion into this world of suffering. It is a challenge. But I say Amen. And I invite you to do the same.
The front “page” of the New York Times web site this past Wednesday was filled with top stories of the ongoing war in Iraq. Interestingly, that same day, the Philadelphia Inquirer web site’s top story was about a fourteen year-old girl with cerebal palsy who wasted away and died due to supposed neglect by Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services. Two very different stories with two very different images. Two very different locations, concerns, and people effected. And yet, both strike at the very core of our shared humanity. Both of these stories are more than just the words on the proverbial page. Both of them have to do with life and death, and that which is between the two, the palpable tension of suffering versus compassion. What we have here in these stories are representative images of a world that is constantly struggling with the effects of that day in the garden when forbidden fruit was chosen over obedience and trust in a loving God. And my friends, we are still paying the bill for that choice.
I want you to consider this question, why is life so full of suffering? As much as it started in that garden, those two people, the first man and woman, have not been responsible for everything that has gone on since; that goes on to this day, today. And a second question that must be engaged lest anyone walk out of here feeling invigorated by a purely philosophical question: what does God expect of you and me in light of this suffering? Our focal text today is taken from Mark 9:14-29. Picture this story in your sanctified imagination. Jesus, Peter, James, and John are just returning from a night’s stay on a large hill top where the disciples experienced Jesus’ transfiguration. As they rejoin the rest of the group, they find the other disciples engaged in an argument with teachers of the law, all surrounded by a large crowd. Something of import and interest is going on here. Jesus is immediately brought into this event, when, as the scripture says, “As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him” (v.15). The people are overwhelmed with wonder, and upon seeing Jesus, they abandon the disciples, they abandon the teachers of the Law, and they run and greet Jesus. Something has happened that is beyond the scope of the disciples and the teachers. It is something that crowd understands or intuitively knows only Jesus can deal with.
Upon inquiring as to what’s going on, a man in the crowd speaks up and tells Jesus that his son is possessed by a spirit that is trying to kill him. He had gone to the disciples, but they were unable to drive out the spirit. Jesus did not need to read a newspaper to find a story of suffering. It found Him out. Unlike the priest, the Levite, and the teacher of the Law in Luke’s parable of the Good Samaritan, He did not walk around this man, his son, or their suffering. Curiously, Jesus speaks words of frustration at a crowd that is both quarrelsome and unbelieving before He engages the suffering of the man’s son. Remember, he engages. He does not jump in and just heal the boy. He engages with questions: “How long has he been like this?” (v.21a). “From childhood,” the man tells him (v.21b). When one is nervous, full of anxiety and fear, one tends to the extremes of either shutting down and not speaking, or talking too much. This man keeps on talking: “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us” (v.22b). I wonder at the look on Jesus’ face when this man said this. Jesus’ reaction is swift, “If you can? Everything is possible for him who believes.” (v.23). Everything is possible for him who believes. Everything is possible for those who believe. What is Jesus thinking as He says this? Is He thinking, “Man, you brought your son to me, and now you’re wondering IF I can do anything?” Jesus’ words prick the man’s own fears and desperation, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (v.24). And Jesus heals the man’s son, even as the spirit seems to take the very life out of the boy, leaving him looking as if dead. Jesus, of course, knows this boy is not dead, and personally reaches out and takes the boy’s hand and helps him onto his feet. This engagement is what I believe we need to focus on. There are several nuggets with which we must wrestle in order to address our earlier questions.
It is telling that as soon as Jesus shows up, the crowd disperses from the antagonists, and heads straight to Jesus. We must remind ourselves that these disciples are pre-Pentecost, therefore, they are not yet full of the Holy Spirit; they are not yet emboldened for the kingdom of God. But people know, they can tell oft times who is able to help and who is not; they can sniff out a phony. Whatever it was they were arguing about, the disciples and the teachers of the Law were no closer to responding to the boy’s suffering then than they were at the start of this episode. And while some crowds seem to thrive on controversy and suffering, in this case, this crowd was caught up in the desperation of the man. And why should they not be? Were they not his neighbors? Did they not know this man; know his son? He was one of their own. They knew the suffering that has been going on, well predating that day’s theological or methodological debate, for they themselves were overwhelmed. And they wanted resolution. And they came to Jesus because He was their last best hope. As an aside, it strikes me as telling that after a night of spiritual high on the proverbial mountain top, both Jesus and His disciples come down to this challenge, almost a test to see if their faith is rooted in mere experience or reflection, or is their faith a real faith rooted in a real God working in a real world. In coming to Jesus with the man, they reveal they themselves are looking for an end to this suffering; they are together looking for compassion.
But Jesus is not just a miracle worker. By speaking His frustrations out loud, His own humanity and divinity are expressed mutually – His humanity cannot be silent regarding the fogging of the real issue here; His divinity cannot understand the disbelief that is present. By engaging the man in questions, Jesus incarnates God into this man’s pain, and here-to-fore, his hopelessness. By challenging the man’s lack of belief, Jesus is challenging the man to get rid of the hopelessness he has lived with for years, and make room in his heart for hope. In his response, the man confesses both his disbelief and his fear, and his desperate need for the power to overcome those shackles. While Jesus also speaks a word of command to the spirit in casting it out, I find it more important for these purposes to examine the after-effects. That is, the spirit leaves the boy with much theatrics – to the point where the crowd, and probably the father, thought he was dead. This is no small detail to be overlooked. If he is dead, then Jesus is no better than the disciples or the teachers of the Law who showed themselves impotent to do anything more than argue with one another rather than risk failure. If he is dead, then there is the risk of ceremonial uncleanness, and I imagine that the teachers of the Law at this point probably moved to the back of the crowd so as not to accidentally risk breaking their own purity laws. And then there is Jesus. The only risk Jesus takes is not waiting to see how the crowd will respond. Jesus reaches out, seemingly a risky move, and takes the boy by the hand, and lifts him up to his feet, and as Luke adds in his gospel, gives him back to his father.
What are we doing here this morning, my friends? – If all we can do at the end of this story is just say how wonderful Jesus is, we miss the point of today’s reading. Let us turn back to the first question: Why is life so full of suffering? I hesitate to give any answer that will sound of hubris, for I know there are many here who are engaged in the act of suffering, and sadly, many are doing so privately and silently. This is not a question to be dealt with lightly or in a trite manner, with either well-meaning intentions, nor petty hallmark card-like sayings. Indeed, the answer I want to offer for your consideration today is less about the origins of suffering, but rather one that contends that it is real, and it is here among us. My answer looks at each of us sitting here, individually, and as a collective. And my answer may be bothersome and uncomfortable, but I think it is honest, and it is the best I can offer you this morning. Why is life so full of suffering? Because on one level, we often find it safer to debate and argue over the causes of suffering, or the methodologies of resolving it, rather than risk ourselves (that is, our own comfort, our own time, our own resources, and maybe even our own lives) by entering into the fray. And the second is like unto the first, as we more often than not see the risk as exposing us to failure and our disbelief over God’s power at work within us, rather than as opportunities to give God room to be glorified in us and through us, for the beneficial comfort and/or healing of the Other. And what might be worse is that we will not admit it; not to others, not to God, and not to ourselves. As long we are talking about it, praying about it, and have money to give toward it, we are dealing with it. But are we? That leads us to deal with the second question.
What does God expect of you and me in light of this suffering? Again, I cannot speak an over-arching meta-answer. But what I will suggest, much to my own discomfort, is that God expects us. Yes, us. Not a particular game plan, though that may be needed. What is God’s expectation? Us. You and me. All of us, who are the body of Christ. I think it is because of our culture’s lust with individuality that we struggle, resist, and choose to be ignorant of belonging to one another, and in recognizing the face of Jesus, the imago dei, in the face of the Other who is suffering. And we do not reach out. We stand before one another indicted by the fact that we are guilty of the sin of omission. I’m not asking you to go up to a person who is suffering and play God. Jesus did what He did because He was God incarnate. But I am saying to you, to myself, that we must believe in the wake-up call that Jesus gave to the father, “Everything is possible for him who believes," and then act on that belief. But rather than be as honest as the father, we ignore or push down our own suffering, we prevent others from knowing of our suffering, or we ignore the suffering of those who inhabit the pews of life. We lean toward denial because we think it easier than risk the pain. I’m not saying that we need to turn worship into one big circus-like episode of Dr. Phil. Most of us already know we need to just stop acting like stupid lemmings running towards the cliffs of life’s bad decisions. Instead, we must call out to Jesus to claim belief, and ask Him to help us overcome our unbelief. This comes from living out of our faith, and not our fears. It means we acknowledge the brokenness of others and ourselves. It means we read that story from Mark 9, and realize that it is a call to pick up where Jesus left off, and continue the story of compassion that Jesus showed the father, his son, and yes, the crowd. It means we are called to risk all for the Other because we are the Other that Jesus risked for. It is His example, and His power, at work in each of us and all of us together. As we engage as Jesus engages, we will risk who we are and become more like Jesus. It will be painful and unpleasant at times, but if we have hope in all that Jesus promises, then we can believe that this journey of compassion will bring us a joy that is hidden on this side of suffering. As we leave here today, I ask you to prayerfully consider what God is calling you to do, and what He is calling us to do, that would bring compassion into this world of suffering. It is a challenge. But I say Amen. And I invite you to do the same.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A Noble Saint
Okay, I know I've not written in almost two months. Let's just say that it's just where life is right now. Classes are going well, but they are incredibly busy; especially for a Type-A academic personality as myself. But anyhow, I want to share this reflection on a person from my church.
You see, not too long ago, I was reminded of the wonderful grace that God gives us through those noble saints whose personal witness of the presence of God in their own lives is like a gentle reminder for the rest of us. Their witness is in and of itself a proclamation of the reality of God. But it is also much more. It is a living witness to the living God who comes to us and seeks us out. His revelation through Christ is reinforced and reformed through their grace-born fidelity to our Lord. Reinforced in that their words, their actions, and their spirit, though all imperfect, carry within the essence of God (He is truth and love, not as artificial categories, but as the very definitions and realities of those words themselves), and they allow us to experience them afresh, being built up and built together. Reformed in that no one experience, whether it be the same place, same time of day, same day of the week, with the same people, is ever the same, but in that it is the same revealer, that which is being revealed (the revealer Himself), is being expressed in a new and yet familiar manner; one that builds up and builds together.
All of this is to say that when Betsy Noble, a wonderful, older saint in our congregation came over to have lunch and catch up with my wife, she brought with her that sweet aroma of Christ that bears witness to her desire to witness to him in thought, word, and deed. Not as some theological construct (as I am guilty of “writing” above) mind you, but as her own personal way of living out her faith, her way of being a living revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ. This noble saint was a real blessing to us. Kind words that sought to encourage, build up, and empower us to continue our own faithfulness as living witnesses were her primary ministrations to us. And yet, she also incidentally found a way to add to her kindness and blessedness by asking to take care of something so mundane as getting my bible recovered, and paying for it. What does this mean? What should it mean? Simply put, God’s grace is from God, something only He can give, and when He does, it is a sharing of Himself. When His saints give grace, they give from what God has given them, and in a sense, they are sharing from themselves.
I write this not because I feel the need to come up with some artificial explanation, or some “impressive” theological explanation (though I do want to understand who God is, and how I can appropriate His presence in my life). Really, I write this story and these thoughts because I want Betsy Noble, a noble saint, to be known by you so that you, too, may be encouraged to live out Christ faithfully as she herself strives to every day. And I don’t want to forget, either.
You see, not too long ago, I was reminded of the wonderful grace that God gives us through those noble saints whose personal witness of the presence of God in their own lives is like a gentle reminder for the rest of us. Their witness is in and of itself a proclamation of the reality of God. But it is also much more. It is a living witness to the living God who comes to us and seeks us out. His revelation through Christ is reinforced and reformed through their grace-born fidelity to our Lord. Reinforced in that their words, their actions, and their spirit, though all imperfect, carry within the essence of God (He is truth and love, not as artificial categories, but as the very definitions and realities of those words themselves), and they allow us to experience them afresh, being built up and built together. Reformed in that no one experience, whether it be the same place, same time of day, same day of the week, with the same people, is ever the same, but in that it is the same revealer, that which is being revealed (the revealer Himself), is being expressed in a new and yet familiar manner; one that builds up and builds together.
All of this is to say that when Betsy Noble, a wonderful, older saint in our congregation came over to have lunch and catch up with my wife, she brought with her that sweet aroma of Christ that bears witness to her desire to witness to him in thought, word, and deed. Not as some theological construct (as I am guilty of “writing” above) mind you, but as her own personal way of living out her faith, her way of being a living revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ. This noble saint was a real blessing to us. Kind words that sought to encourage, build up, and empower us to continue our own faithfulness as living witnesses were her primary ministrations to us. And yet, she also incidentally found a way to add to her kindness and blessedness by asking to take care of something so mundane as getting my bible recovered, and paying for it. What does this mean? What should it mean? Simply put, God’s grace is from God, something only He can give, and when He does, it is a sharing of Himself. When His saints give grace, they give from what God has given them, and in a sense, they are sharing from themselves.
I write this not because I feel the need to come up with some artificial explanation, or some “impressive” theological explanation (though I do want to understand who God is, and how I can appropriate His presence in my life). Really, I write this story and these thoughts because I want Betsy Noble, a noble saint, to be known by you so that you, too, may be encouraged to live out Christ faithfully as she herself strives to every day. And I don’t want to forget, either.
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