How Can I Figure You Out, God, If My Interpretation Does Not Count?
Sermon
Holy Email
Cycle A Second Lesson Sermons for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany
Object:
E-mail
From: KDM
To: God
Subject: Thou
Message: How can I figure you out, God, if my interpretation does not count? Lauds, KDM
Today, we are invited to listen to a longer note from KDM.
Just who is this God of yours?
My God seems to grow more limited each year.
Maybe it's time your God grew in your heart as well as in your head. Is your God only an invention, a projection of one small person? You know, of course, that God can take your questioning.
I know.
You haven't gotten rid of God, then, have you? I'll tell you, God is one tough character.
Okay, I'll tell you about my God. Sometimes my God is near. Sometimes my God is out in space. But, always, my God is.
Remember that when you have doubts about your God.
The God I believe in keeps on creating. But, does God have less influence today? Is God fading, becoming an absentee landlord? Why doesn't God do something about the messes in our world if God is so all-knowing and so all-powerful? Does God just stand there crying without tears, too?
Tell me more about this God of yours.
I see God in the peace-making. God and I connect with music. God lives in each germinating seed. My sense of wonder is God-sent. I know God is.
You do trust God, then.
I do.
Then, what is the source of this growing pang?
I have increasingly less to say to God. I want to say to you, God, "No more trouble, God, no more trouble." But I know things don't work that way.
Right. It is called life. Remember that you are right. I will never desert you. I can stand to hear your laments. I can take your no-words for me. I can suffer your hollering. I can endure the aching of your heart. I am as stubborn as you are. I can take it.
Okay, God.
The ways you and I communicate with God take unusual forms like the sort-of-rap, inner discussion type of God-talk we just heard. KDM says in this final e-mail to God, How can I figure you out, God, if my interpretation does not count?
Anyone who has set a jigsaw puzzle out on a card table respects puzzle power. As long as the puzzle remains unfinished, it lingers in an alluring front pocket of the mind. A section of color, a particular configuration of pattern, or a single elusive puzzle piece sends us away in frustration. As quickly, it lures us back.
Figuring out God is like working a jigsaw puzzle. Puzzle power keeps us coming back to address God in the midst of holy growing pangs -- twinges similar to those the disciples must have known at his transfiguration. They were only beginning to understand the weight of their responsibility as Jesus' apostles. At the transfiguration, they must have wondered anew who would believe them.
And now, KDM, with all the pondering and puzzling you have brought to God, and to us, through your e-mail prayers, who says that your interpretation does not count just because it is one person's viewpoint? And who is to say that anyone's modest ideas about the Creator are invalid or sound, stupid or smart? Honest queries are valid wonderings. They yield candid conclusions because we sense the freedom in the first place to be our inquisitive selves.
The life of Jesus happened so long ago, God, we say. You and I were not there, so we have to take someone else's word. If only we could have been eyewitnesses to the power of God's transforming majesty when God gave Jesus the go-ahead.
Like Jesus, you and I are not mere stories flapping in the wind of imagination. We want to move beyond ideas of a possibly illegitimate Jesus toward the legitimate Christ to whom God says, "This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased" (2 Peter 1:17).
For Peter, these words confirm Jesus' authenticity from God's viewpoint. God's approval affirms all that Jesus is. We have only to take witness word. If you and I let it, Jesus' transfiguration will move us nearer to the mysterious possibility of change. This change comes into our being and causes us to be never the same again.
You and I want to make certain that our lives are at one with God's plan for us. You and I want to know that God is pleased with us. We need confirmation that God also blesses us and says, "Yes," to our very being so we might have the courage to say, "Yes," to our uniqueness -- even in the midst of the questions we bark out to God in the off times. We, too, want God to confirm what we already know when we listen to the truth within us.
A neighbor couple were asked why they had not attended the family's church for so long. They said when their daughter went away to the denomination's college she took a class in religion and "lost her religion." So, they said, they too were finished with church.
Because we want God's stamp of approval when we doubt, disagree, or are skeptical, we hesitate to make our questioning known. However, where any one person is on the religious journey at a particular time is the right place for that person at that time.
Sometimes we hear ideas about God that we neither agree with nor understand. This need not indicate that our own ideas are faulty. Because the path of faith is each one's unique journey, no one else can tell us what to believe about God. We have a right to the struggle and joy of owning our own beliefs. Only then can we stretch in spirit.
As you and I mature in spirit, our ideas about God change. As long as we continue to grow in spirit, we will shed some former, outgrown religious beliefs. Our spiritual growth can lead to bringing discovery and depth to others.
No matter our age, as long as we are alive in spirit, faith and hope will thrive as issues for us. We continually encounter change, and changes set us to puzzling. Even when doubt overtakes our faith, something within us still expects a sign of hope. Even when we write God off as too distant, a piece of inner faith draws us to trust that God still hears every word, perceives all thoughts, and rejoins each sigh -- so close to us is God.
How do we deal with challenging ideas? When we are not ready for them, we may miss them. If they come to us as an ill-prepared jolt, they may provoke a drastic recoil. When, however, we are ready for the invitation to grow in spirit, these same ideas stir something within us that wants to respond. A certain willingness to try on the idea overtakes us. A new spirit within us lets us loosen our hold on the old so we might expand our faith. The spirit within us lauds the leap.
We need to lose, or outgrow, our religion regularly in order to find and claim our faith. Hope is the bridge across this awkward time. The writer of Second Peter anticipates these struggles of pondering. The writer has heard the cleverly devised myths about Christ. The writer of Second Peter has wondered also what is imagined and what really happened that day on the mountain top. Second Peter wants us to know that Jesus is not mere story, not an isolated myth, but Jesus acknowledged, confirmed, and blessed by God at transfiguration.
Through the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit, God continually re-introduces us to ourselves. In essence, Second Peter encourages us to go ahead and try on our faith. When we are ready, it will fit. We can dare to hold onto the truth of empowering change until we see for ourselves when, "the day dawns and the morning star rises in [our] hearts" (1:19).
From: KDM
To: God
Subject: Thou
Message: How can I figure you out, God, if my interpretation does not count? Lauds, KDM
Today, we are invited to listen to a longer note from KDM.
Just who is this God of yours?
My God seems to grow more limited each year.
Maybe it's time your God grew in your heart as well as in your head. Is your God only an invention, a projection of one small person? You know, of course, that God can take your questioning.
I know.
You haven't gotten rid of God, then, have you? I'll tell you, God is one tough character.
Okay, I'll tell you about my God. Sometimes my God is near. Sometimes my God is out in space. But, always, my God is.
Remember that when you have doubts about your God.
The God I believe in keeps on creating. But, does God have less influence today? Is God fading, becoming an absentee landlord? Why doesn't God do something about the messes in our world if God is so all-knowing and so all-powerful? Does God just stand there crying without tears, too?
Tell me more about this God of yours.
I see God in the peace-making. God and I connect with music. God lives in each germinating seed. My sense of wonder is God-sent. I know God is.
You do trust God, then.
I do.
Then, what is the source of this growing pang?
I have increasingly less to say to God. I want to say to you, God, "No more trouble, God, no more trouble." But I know things don't work that way.
Right. It is called life. Remember that you are right. I will never desert you. I can stand to hear your laments. I can take your no-words for me. I can suffer your hollering. I can endure the aching of your heart. I am as stubborn as you are. I can take it.
Okay, God.
The ways you and I communicate with God take unusual forms like the sort-of-rap, inner discussion type of God-talk we just heard. KDM says in this final e-mail to God, How can I figure you out, God, if my interpretation does not count?
Anyone who has set a jigsaw puzzle out on a card table respects puzzle power. As long as the puzzle remains unfinished, it lingers in an alluring front pocket of the mind. A section of color, a particular configuration of pattern, or a single elusive puzzle piece sends us away in frustration. As quickly, it lures us back.
Figuring out God is like working a jigsaw puzzle. Puzzle power keeps us coming back to address God in the midst of holy growing pangs -- twinges similar to those the disciples must have known at his transfiguration. They were only beginning to understand the weight of their responsibility as Jesus' apostles. At the transfiguration, they must have wondered anew who would believe them.
And now, KDM, with all the pondering and puzzling you have brought to God, and to us, through your e-mail prayers, who says that your interpretation does not count just because it is one person's viewpoint? And who is to say that anyone's modest ideas about the Creator are invalid or sound, stupid or smart? Honest queries are valid wonderings. They yield candid conclusions because we sense the freedom in the first place to be our inquisitive selves.
The life of Jesus happened so long ago, God, we say. You and I were not there, so we have to take someone else's word. If only we could have been eyewitnesses to the power of God's transforming majesty when God gave Jesus the go-ahead.
Like Jesus, you and I are not mere stories flapping in the wind of imagination. We want to move beyond ideas of a possibly illegitimate Jesus toward the legitimate Christ to whom God says, "This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased" (2 Peter 1:17).
For Peter, these words confirm Jesus' authenticity from God's viewpoint. God's approval affirms all that Jesus is. We have only to take witness word. If you and I let it, Jesus' transfiguration will move us nearer to the mysterious possibility of change. This change comes into our being and causes us to be never the same again.
You and I want to make certain that our lives are at one with God's plan for us. You and I want to know that God is pleased with us. We need confirmation that God also blesses us and says, "Yes," to our very being so we might have the courage to say, "Yes," to our uniqueness -- even in the midst of the questions we bark out to God in the off times. We, too, want God to confirm what we already know when we listen to the truth within us.
A neighbor couple were asked why they had not attended the family's church for so long. They said when their daughter went away to the denomination's college she took a class in religion and "lost her religion." So, they said, they too were finished with church.
Because we want God's stamp of approval when we doubt, disagree, or are skeptical, we hesitate to make our questioning known. However, where any one person is on the religious journey at a particular time is the right place for that person at that time.
Sometimes we hear ideas about God that we neither agree with nor understand. This need not indicate that our own ideas are faulty. Because the path of faith is each one's unique journey, no one else can tell us what to believe about God. We have a right to the struggle and joy of owning our own beliefs. Only then can we stretch in spirit.
As you and I mature in spirit, our ideas about God change. As long as we continue to grow in spirit, we will shed some former, outgrown religious beliefs. Our spiritual growth can lead to bringing discovery and depth to others.
No matter our age, as long as we are alive in spirit, faith and hope will thrive as issues for us. We continually encounter change, and changes set us to puzzling. Even when doubt overtakes our faith, something within us still expects a sign of hope. Even when we write God off as too distant, a piece of inner faith draws us to trust that God still hears every word, perceives all thoughts, and rejoins each sigh -- so close to us is God.
How do we deal with challenging ideas? When we are not ready for them, we may miss them. If they come to us as an ill-prepared jolt, they may provoke a drastic recoil. When, however, we are ready for the invitation to grow in spirit, these same ideas stir something within us that wants to respond. A certain willingness to try on the idea overtakes us. A new spirit within us lets us loosen our hold on the old so we might expand our faith. The spirit within us lauds the leap.
We need to lose, or outgrow, our religion regularly in order to find and claim our faith. Hope is the bridge across this awkward time. The writer of Second Peter anticipates these struggles of pondering. The writer has heard the cleverly devised myths about Christ. The writer of Second Peter has wondered also what is imagined and what really happened that day on the mountain top. Second Peter wants us to know that Jesus is not mere story, not an isolated myth, but Jesus acknowledged, confirmed, and blessed by God at transfiguration.
Through the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit, God continually re-introduces us to ourselves. In essence, Second Peter encourages us to go ahead and try on our faith. When we are ready, it will fit. We can dare to hold onto the truth of empowering change until we see for ourselves when, "the day dawns and the morning star rises in [our] hearts" (1:19).
