Friday, February 26, 2021
We Find Our Way Home
to the Light of God
Following the Trail Left by
the Saints Who Have Gone Before Us.
Amos 4:13
For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!
John 17:6-7
‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you.
Words of Grace For Today
While Covid 19 restrictions force us to deal with shortcomings in ourselves, in our congregations, in our faith …
All this can have huge upsides for us. Not that we are likely to overcome our shortcomings. Recognizing our shortcomings is the first step to confession, which is our first step back to renewed life in Christ. Our confession is not the first step back to renewed life, for God has taken many much larger steps to bring us to the point where we can confess by assuring us that God will respond graciously, forgiving us, and renewing us as we confess. In truth, our confession happens AFTER God renews life in us. Our confession is our first step to realizing (again and again) that God has already renewed life in us (again and again.)
The greater challenge in all of our-realizing-God-has-renewed-life-in-us is wrapping our finite, tiny minds (imagine so very small square holes) around God’s infinitely large being, or even God’s attitude towards us (imagine one multi-universe times infinity sized round peg!)
We just do not have the horse-power in our so limited minds, in our so limited existence as a whole species, to be able to start to comprehend God.
If you are pressed and stressed to the point of giving up by Covid 19 – a shortterm pandemic- , then we all must surrender to the reality that the project of starting to understand God is so far beyond us, there is no place to start.
Yes, humans have seemingly ‘understood God’ completely, which gives rise to all sorts of human-made-up religions, almost always tools for controlling other humans. What better way to control others than to have them believe it is not just another human ordering them about, but it is the divine, the infinitely powerful (to be feared), their Creator who orders them about. Even throw in love powered by fear and … well obedience is complete … or the just punishment has often been ruin, exile or even death administered by those in power over this made-up faith.
What about our faith that we hold to today? Is that made up as well? If you treat faith as a smorgasbord from which you can take anything as much as you want to form your faith, then I would guess that is not only the case, but you have lost yourself to a morass of ‘leaders’ who are yanking you around by the nose, though you may remain completely unaware of it.
If you adhere to a tradition … you may still be living out someone else’s control over you. OR maybe, just maybe …
Throughout scripture there is a thread woven of our God (the God of Abraham and Sarah and all the others down to Martin Luther, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Hordern, and many others of all generations) as a God who goes the complete ‘distance’ to bridge the infinite (imagine a multi-universe times infinity round peg) to finite (imagine a teeny, tiny square hole) problem.
We refer to it as revelation. We read it in the passages above:
For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!
‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you.
We are not left to try to bridge the gap, to somehow wrap our heads around the infinite, the divine. We need not worry about ‘understanding’ God. God comes to us and does that for us.
That we cannot do anything to earn God’s favour or renewed life, that we can do nothing to understand God, must leave us as the beginning of each moment humble.
Humbled we can confess. Humbled we can proceed through our days assured that God walks with us, that we can be bold (not arrogant or self-righteous) and courageous to speak of God’s Word to us, and to be the doers of God’s Word at all occasions.
God’s Will for us, for this marvellous creation is most clearly seen in … our failures, our sins. In God’s Forgiveness in response to our sins we limited humans experience most clearly God’s Will for us and all people; that we live lives of gratitude for life, forgiveness and renewed life.
Confession and humility and gratitude are not easy nor are they comfortable. There are plenty of leaders who encourage us to start, continue and carry on our days without confessing our sins. In Covid 19 times, with recorded worship, my congregation has not had confession once as part of the services (that I have seen, at least. I would hope I am wrong. Yet it should be a part of everyday, a part of every service. It is the beginning of experiencing God, otherwise we risk avoiding God all together as we ‘make up our faith’ for the coming days.
What a miracle it is that God has given us; a way to begin to understand God’s Will and Word for us and all creation!
It is said in many ways. It is the shadows that point us to the Light! Leonard Cohen expressed it, ‘It is in the cracks that the Light gets in.’