Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
  

I.       You’ve often heard me say that the lectionary speaks to us in mysterious ways

A.  It just seems to hit you square between the eyes, as if it knew what was going on in our lives

B.  That’s not the case today

1.    OT reading from Habakkuk

a)    One of only two times he appears in the Sunday lectionary

b)    We don’t know who he was, or when he lived

c)     But he tends to be a bit on the dark side

2.    Gospel reading

a)    “Some sayings of Jesus”

b)    Wrapping things up

c)     2 chapters away from the Triumphal Entry

C.  But these readings did hit me between the eyes the last time I preached on them, 3 years ago

1.    26 days after September 11, 2001

2.    Eerie to read the words of Habakkuk

Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour.

They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward …

They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it.

Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god!

3.    I was tempted to use a revised version of that sermon this morning – especially on a call weekend – but it doesn’t seem appropriate

a)    Like the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote, Time to weep, time to laugh

b)    And today is a time to rejoice, most especially because Lucy has joined our church family

D.  At the same time, there are lessons to be learned and applied, in optimism and hope, as much as sadness and mourning

1.    I volunteered for some overnight shifts at Ground Zero

a)    Talked to many rescue workers

b)    Expected tough questions

c)     After all, we were in a church, I was wearing a collar

“Why did this happen?” “Why didn’t God prevent it?” “If God is so powerful, why does He allow things like this to happen?” 

d)    First person didn’t ask them: I was relieved

e)     Not second, nor third: began to get worried

f)      Nobody ever asked, nobody brought God into it

(1)  God was irrelevant

(2)  It was an evil human act, and we humans would respond to it

g)    They were saying that God didn’t care, because if He did care, He’d be on the hook for not preventing it.

In their silence they were acknowledging God’s apathy, His freedom from suffering, even His inability to suffer.  The idea that God does not suffer, that God does not feel, has been passed down from Plato and Aristotle to the philosophers of the Enlightenment and, ultimately, to us.  But that God bears little resemblance to the Biblical God – the God who was moved by Abraham’s desperate pleas to save Sodom if there were but a handful of righteous people there; the God who wept at the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus, even though He knew Lazarus would live again; the God who sought companionship and solace in Gethsemane on the eve of His betrayal; the crucified God who cried out in agony and anger from the Cross, feeling utterly forsaken. 

2.    It’s funny, though, that when we talk about God’s apathy, it’s always in terms of God not being able to suffer

a)    But apathy really means an inability to feel

b)    So when we look at God as apathetic, unchanging, high and mighty, we not only eliminate any possibility that God might weep with us when we suffer, but also any possibility that God might rejoice with us when we prosper

(1)  And that certainly doesn’t fit with Jesus

(a)    Wedding at Cana: first miracle

(b)   Festive meals and celebrations

(c)    Companionship

E.  Christians certainly disagree about a lot of  things, like who to vote for and what the right thing to do in certain situations is

1.    Episcopalians disagree about certain things

a)    We’ll see just how much in a couple of weeks when the Eames Commission report comes out

2.    But the one thing that Christians have to agree on, is that God is relevant

a)    God is relevant to everything

(1)  How we live our individual lives

(2)  What our priorities should be

(3)  What the world should look like

3.    Sadly, though, not all Christians are willing to speak out on this

a)    Some are (including re: 9/11)

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were quick to declare that God had allowed the attacks because of His displeasure with abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, and other corruptors of American society.  In their judgmental and unbiblical proclamations, Falwell and Robertson played the role of Job’s comforters, who told the innocent Job that if only he would admit to his wrongdoings, then God would stop punishing him.  Job not only rejects their pleas for repentance; he also rejects the God that would bring such agony upon an innocent man.  Job calls upon an entirely different God, whom he calls “redemptor,” “redeemer,” and “advocate,”[1] to defend him against the evils that plague him, which include any God who would mercilessly curse the innocent.  Instead of defending God’s justice in the face of such undeserved punishment, Job leaves that God behind, as if to say, “My God would never do such a thing, and anyone who would is not my God.  My God is not a sadist.  I will look elsewhere.”

4.    And that’s exactly what a lot of people do nowadays

a)    They see something bad happen – like 9/11 – and the only Christian voice seems to be talking about how certain people deserved that punishment, and people say, “Well if that’s what Christianity says, it’s not for me.”

b)    Or people feel good about something – like a wonderful new member of their family, or a promotion, or the opportunity to try something they’ve never done before – and they’re told by the Christian powers-that-be that they shouldn’t enjoy it too much, because God is what’s most important, and they should make sure to keep focused on Him, and not on the wonderful gifts He may seem to have given them

5.    I believe that we, as a Church, are called to proclaim the message that God is relevant – to everything in our lives

a)    And not just in terms of what’s good and bad, and right and wrong

b)    But in terms of what is joyful and grievous, and what lifts our spirits high and what threatens to crush them

c)      Three years ago I stood in a pulpit barely 2 miles from Ground Zero and proclaimed that

Our God is not stoic and unfeeling; our God does not dispense punishment with cold abandon; ours is the Crucified God, the God who suffers with and because and alongside us. We don’t need to bring God into all of this, because the Cross is dead-center in the middle of it; it marks the spot that we call Ground Zero.  For when any person suffers there, God suffers with them.  And when the people died there, part of God died there, too. 

d)    And today, in a much different place and context, I say that God is with us in our joys and blessings, as well

(1)  Lucy is here because God is generous

(2)  Catie’s going to be a big sister in four months because God wants us to have life, in abundance

(3)  This sacred space opens its doors each Sunday to proclaim the message that God is with us, on the tops of the mountains and in the depths of the valleys

(4)  And so we can bring everything to God

(a)    Our joys

(b)   Our sorrows

(c)    Our worries

(d)   Our false certainties

(e)   Our foibles and warts and undeserved luck

6.    In the end, I don’t blame folks for rejecting the view of God they hear a lot of the time

a)    I wouldn’t want to worship a God who didn’t feel

(1)  Who was implacable, unmoveable, too concerned about right and wrong to know anything about love and hate

b)    Jesus Himself – by the way He lived, and the words He said – rejected that view of God, that idol

c)     And He calls us to do the same

(1)  To proclaim to all who will listen – and even those who won’t – that God cries and weeps when we do

(2)  That nothing is too big or small for God

(3)  That God wants to walk with us wherever we go, through the extraordinary and the mundane, and everywhere in between

7.    For just as Paul said in today’s Epistle

God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love

[1] Job 19:25ff.

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