WDYDWYD? September 20, 2009

James 3:13 - 4:10
Mark 9: 30-37
The other day, this message appeared on my email: WDYDWYD?
A short time later the same title appeared again, WDYDWYD?
This time with a message, I am a College Freshman and have been given an assignment to ask people “Why Do You Do What You Do?”
Are you motivated by PROFIT, or ENVY or FEAR, or by RESPONSIBILITY, and if responsibility, is that to your business, to your stock holders, to employees, to the Nation, to your parents, to your spouse, to your kids, to God? WDYDWYD?
Part of me wanted to reply “YES to all the above.” Another part wanted to ignore the solicitation.
Then these passages were appointed for this day and this week.

American society is based on ENVY. A hundred times a day, in television talk shows and commercials, billboards, radio broadcasts and on the internet we are encouraged to want what others want. Everyone needs to have a Flat-screen TV, everyone including the seven year old needs a cell phone, we must have the latest computer, the newest car, designer clothes and shoes, and Labor day is over so we have to replace all the summer items with Fall and Winter. The point is no longer to WIN by having more than anyone else, but simply to keep up and not be left out. Why Do You Do What You Do? We try to DO everything, so as to not be left out, to be accepted like everyone else.

We have run into trouble economically, not because we did not listen, but precisely because we did.
We were given dozens of credit cards, free checks, enticement rates, rebates on future taxes, $4500 for cars (clunkers) we knew were not worth $500 without questioning why or who would pay the difference, we were told to buy now and pay nothing for two years, all so we could have everything everyone else would have, until we were drowning in debt in an economy based on credit. An odd development happened when humanity changed from hunter/gatherers to being a people of the land. Hunter gatherers can always share, what is gathered for three can include a fourth. But when we buy and sell and own land, we perceive resources to be limited, there is only so much lakefront, which requires that we become lenders and debtors. Then we wonder why our credit ratings are not better. WDYDWYD? As a Clan because all are in need, as individuals because others want what we have.
We expect somebody to do something about our debt, about all our problems or else we will vote others into office in their place. Yet, in the pit of our stomachs we do know there is a probability that nothing can be done. WDYDWYD?

Even in our prayers, we confess, “Dear God, I am helpless. My child is ill. There is Cancer. They are so far away. Nothing can be done, it is hopeless and every possibility has already been explored. So now we have come to you. If you can do nothing, I guess that will be okay, but I thought, I hoped, maybe, faith was worth a chance, if not then maybe there is no God anyway.” That is not faith, that is fate.

Like the father bringing his child to Jesus' Disciples, after a lifetime of everyone else being tried, everyone else failing as his son flails, throwing himself into fire drowning in water. Jesus was up the mountain with Peter and James and John, and you can hear the father saying, “Don't bother the Rabbi, who am I to ask anything of God, but maybe you could do something.” After even trying the disciples, the father brings his son to Jesus. This is such a classic scene, as the father asks Jesus “IF he can do anything?” and you can hear the indignation convulsing Jesus as he says “IF?” The point of faith, is not to bend our circumstance to accept whatever happens. Faith cannot be proven by an IF/ THEN proposition. Faith is opening ourselves to what God is doing in this circumstance, to accepting this as a question of our conviction, of our commitment of our faith, and standing toe to toe with the Almighty, committing ourselves, believing only God can make a difference. WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO? Because you can do nothing else!

Sometimes, I think the Evangelist of Mark recorded this story with an inaccurate emphasis. Mark makes us to see Jesus accomplishing miracles no one else, not even his disciples could do. That is good and valid, HOWEVER from the dialogue, I think what may have happened that day, is that when Jesus responded to the father “IF?” the father cried out “I DO BELIEVE, HELP MY UNBELIEF” and this is what was cured, and through the healing of the father's faith, suddenly the son could be helped. Throughout this section, the father has treated the boy as his possession, as his burden, that he wants someone else to fix for him. But continually the boy is still a burden, until the father is challenged and healed. WHY DID THE BOY DO WHAT THE BOY DID. throwing himself in fire and drowning in water? It got attention, for him and for the father. The father was needed because he could take his son to someone else.

Reading this over this day, we have to wonder. God, the FATHER is all powerful, able to create worlds and peoples, to form order and life. Why was it necessary Jesus enter life? On the one hand, we have a freedom of will and we were and are able to choose whether or not to believe. But also, God had come to have this relationship with humanity as being sinners with a far distant God, and change is hard. Change requires we let go our assumptions and fully believe, commit ourselves to a different reality. SO, Jesus coming into life, was also about the healing of God.

This story also helps us better understand about the Disciples. Jesus had called them, instructed and commissioned them, and sent them out two by two to call people to faith, to cast out demons, and preach and baptize. After doing so, they return, and this father comes with his son. The disciples listen, they exhort, they preach, they work beside the father, but nothing happens. When they ask Jesus WHY his response is that this kind of demon are hard to shake, they require prayer. The disciples had not been praying? There is no indication yet he had shown them how to pray. As an act of faith, prayer is where we often begin. But the disciples recognized something even more basic. Their first task was to get to know the people, to listen to them and build and establish trust. Not a little thing. But prayer comes after establishing trust. Trusting one another, that we are not isolated, not alone and not in competition, we then trust God.

There have been far too many examples of Faith Healers, who fix the lame and blind, and miraculously change the world. Just as there have been far too many examples of a praise faith that says Praise God and I will receive everything I want. FAITH is wrestling with God, wrestling with ourselves and our circumstance. Trusting God to have a plan to use us, even us.

Recently, I heard the story of a photographer, who taught a class in photography to blind students. She gave cameras to the students and encouraged them to take photos of their world. Shortly thereafter, the School Board received a photo of a broken sidewalk and uneven pavement. The accompanying note read, “You have eyes to see, and responsibility for your students. I cannot see, and these cracks cause me to stumble. They catch my cane and trip me up from trying. There are cracks that those with eyes do not see, I am showing them to you, you have to have responsibility to help those of us who are blind. The letter was signed WDYDWYD?