"Hope of Sharing God's Glory" May 26, 2013

Romans 5:1-11 Luke 6: 39-49 This week, after the devastation of Tornados in Oklahoma, and before the dedication of the Jersey Shore Boardwalk rebuilt after Hurricanes, our Confirmation Class were introduced to our Session. Every year, that meeting fills me with awe and amazement. For those who 9 months ago were gawky teenagers, who throughout the year you tried to develop relationship, tried to impart information, tried to develop trust, gather at the Table filled with confidence that they are not alone, filled with assurance that they are loved, filled with faith that whether they know answers or not they are welcome and claimed. In the end, a member of Session asked a Question “What they want to know that they had not learned?” As we looked round the table, the Confirmands were silent, at 14, 15 and 16 knowing trust, knowing acceptance, but not yet knowing what they do not know which is the beginning of knowledge. So we opened it up and asked the Session if there were questions of faith that they wanted to know and for which we had no answers? And an Elder with little hesitation said, “I do not understand suffering.” Some tried to offer answers they felt certain. The whole nature of suffering raises questions for us of punishment and sin, and abandonment, and whether God is All Powerful and All Knowing so makes us suffer, or if God is not all that we want God to be. I sensed round the table great discomfort with the whole idea of human suffering, which I believe is addressed by this morning's Scriptures. Remember back to when we were 14, 15 and 16 years of age. We were learning the basics of algebra and geometry. In those Mathematic Proofs, there were “Given” certain information, knowledge that formed the basis of all our theories, formulas, supposition and conclusions. Part of our problem with suffering, our problem with faith, is that we have begun with the wrong Given. We like people who like us. We judge those who are different. We hate and seek revenge on those who hate us. It all seems logical. According to Genesis, when in the Garden, Adam and Eve were given access to any fruit of any of the trees, but they chose to eat what was forbidden. Increasingly, I am convinced, that the fruit of knowledge would not always have been denied, but first we were to have developed an appetite for trust, first we were intended to have developed a diet of love and grace from God. Having established the essentials of trust, love and grace, we then could stomach knowledge. But having a taste for knowledge, without first claiming that trust, we will always search to know more and more, without ever being satisfied, without the salvation of acceptance and love. Our Mathematic Proof, is given in Genesis 1. In the beginning the World was without shape and void, and darkness covered the earth. And for each reality, God created balance. God did not eliminate dark, God called forth and provided light. God did not destroy the chaos of the waters, but God put limitations on the waters in the heavens, and the waters in the seas, and God established a place for us. Starting with knowledge, instead of the access of trust and grace and love, we jump to the conclusion that darkness is evil, that chaos represents sin and suffering and death then represent punishment for being mortal. That is a faulty proof based on a lack of full understanding. If we begin at the beginning, that God loves the world and everything and everyone within the world, then God did not seek to hate the darkness, or wipe away the sea, but instead sought a partner, a compliment for each and everything. Therefore death is not a punishment, but only definition, boundary ending this life and beginning eternity with God. Suffering is a human response to loss, to deprivation. The question we need to be asking is not “Why is there suffering,” but if humanity is to endure suffering, if we are ever to have hope that people won't be killed by storms, then there need to be shelters from storms. Repeatedly this week people asked “Why would anyone live in Tornado Alley?” It is where they were born, where their families live, where they have found work. All the reasons we live where we do. The question is why are there not storm shelters and basements in a place like tornado alley? The simple answer is that the soil is sandy and not clay, so walls must be built and reinforced, then backfilled. The more complex answer is, that engineering the walls and reinforcements and trucking in the fill is expensive, and these homes had no foundation. It is simple enough for us to blindly go through life, judging and being judged, the greater expense is to try to do something to help others. Years ago, I met the head of the New York State Department of Labor, who asked “What is Power?” People volunteered, that Power is Money. Power is Information, Power is Knowledge. Power is Influence. Power is Authority. Power is Dominance and Control. To each, he said No. Finally he said, while people think Money, Knowledge, Information, Authority, Influence, Control are all powers, the real POWER is access. You do not have to have authority or influence or money, if you have access. When I sit down at my computer, when I take out my smart phone, I gain access by having the password. Without that access, nothing works. When it comes to life, the access is God's grace, trust and love. While attending Seminary, I enjoyed listening to William Sloan Coffin at Riverside Church. Coffin often described that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. When Moses and the people came out Egypt into the Wilderness of Sinai, Moses went up the mountain and brought down for the people the Law, the Commandments, how the people of faith were to be in relationship with God and one another. In Luke, Jesus had this sermon, which serves the same purpose for the people of faith, for us, access to how we are to relate to God and one another. If you love only those who love you, it goes no where. If the gospel is to change the world, then you have to risk loving those who do not love you, loving those whom you fear, trusting those you do not know. The temptation of this passage is to say So and so needs to take the log out of their eye, before they try to help others, instead of questioning where are my blind-spots, where have I heard the words and failed to forgive, to act in love and hope and grace. Ironically, God's glory is not a thing to be grasped, not that all the world will lift up your name, or that your experience of life will be drenched with significance, but that you acted with compassion, you acted in faith, you began in life with trust and acceptance and love. If we begin at that beginning, then our suffering does produce endurance, and our endurance produces character, and our character produces hope, hope which does not disappoint.