God – Page 6 – Salvaged Faith

Who is God?

Posted on January 9, 2011Leave a comment

I realized today how theologically illiterate my congregation is.

That may seem like a slam, or a critique, but it is a simple reality.

And it is a reality that is not their fault.

As we began our discussion of Max Ludado’s Outlive Your Life we focused for a bit on a very simple question: If someone who didn’t know much about the Bible and was not a Christian asked you to describe what God is like, what would be your answer?

The room went silent.

They all stared at me… or their navels… for a few seconds.

And then someone confessed it was a really hard question.

As a religion student, as a seminary student, as someone who has prepared intensely for ordination examinations… it was an easy question to answer for me. I had taken some time to think about it. I’ve wrestled with what I want to say. And depending on who I am talking to, I can talk about what God is like in a variety of ways. I talk about incarnation… about God taking flesh. I talk about love. I talk about grace and mercy. I talk about a God who blesses us with a way, a path, a rule of community to follow.

I don’t have to sit and think for thirty minutes about what I might say. It’s right there.

But it is because I have taken the time, already, to think about the answer.

That room full of people had not.

Throughout their religious life, they had learned to read the bible. They have found comfort in the words of scripture and strength for tribulations. Devotional texts inspire them for daily living. Sermons have given them morsels to chew on. Some of them may have memorized catechisms… although many probably don’t remember them. They have been given some very excellent tools for theological reflection… but they have not been taught how to use them FOR theological reflection.

There was a critical step missing.

In the realm of reading we might call it comprehension or application. You move past the ability to read the words on the page and learn how to apply them, how to expand upon them, how to use them in different contexts.

My congregation has learned to read and study and listen… but they have not yet learned a theological language.

I’m not talking about big and fancy words. As our book points out – Peter and John spoke very effectively about their faith while at the same time coming across as “unschooled, ordinary men.” (Acts 4:13) We don’t have to have an storehouse of knowledge… we just need to know how to apply and consolidate and process all it is that we have been learning.

Theology at its root is simply words about God. How do I teach my congregation to speak in words about God? How can I teach them to answer a simple question like, “who is God?”

I don’t want to give them “answers.” I think that our movement away from memorized catechisms and wrote learning can empower us to think for ourselves, to develop the skills necessary to learn even more complex things.

But how do you begin to teach critical theological thinking? How do you begin to encourage congregation members to draw conclusions, to speak out loud words from their hearts about God?

My first step is to simply have this conversation. To point out that this is tough work, but that as Christians, we are called to be able to articulate what we believe. We need to do the work.

My second step is to stop providing answers all the time. I was asked point blank how I would answer by someone in the course of our discussion. At that point, I realized any answer by myself would limit their ability to begin down this path of wrestling.

But I also turn to you, blogging world. What has helped your congregations to develop this kind of language? Do we simply have to wait for the Holy Spirit to show up when we open our mouths? Can it be taught? Where do you begin?

Grilled Cheesus…

Posted on October 14, 20101 Comment

Ready-made just for my blog comes along an episode of Glee called, “Grilled Cheesus.” It begins with a young man named, Finn, discovering that his grilled cheese sandwhich has the face of Christ toasted onto the surface.

There are probably a billion different directions that I could take to start to dissect this episode from a faith perspective… especially the idea of prayer being a magical incantation that gets us all of the things we have ever wanted.

But the storyline that drew me in and rocked me professionally was that of Sue Sylvester. When Sue gets all uppity about faith being brought into a public place, you begin to think, alright – this is a typical Sue rant.

However, when she is confronted by the school guidance counselor, Sue responds back honestly and openly. You get the feeling that she is truly baring her soul and not just making up some wildly crazy and insane story to disturb everyone around her. Our fearless antagonist proclaims that she once had faith… and that she has always looked upon her big sister with eyes of wonder. But as Sue began to grow older, she started to recognize that others did not see her big sister with the same love and adoration she did. They saw her as a person with disability, a person who was less than, and treated her as such. Sue’s heart was broken over the way that her big sister was treated and she prayed and prayed to God that her big sister might get better. When God failed to answer – Sue gave up on God.

Sue and Jean – from The Yeti Online

I think this is a common theme in many stories of those who have left the faith. When someone we deeply love is hurting… when we are hurting… we pray for God’s deliverance. We pray that God would take away the pain and would bring justice to those who have been wronged. And we pray and we pray and it seems like there is no answer. The world is still broken, our loved ones are still sick, death comes, the mean guy wins the lottery… where is our salvation?

We believe God has failed us… and so we turn our backs upon God.

What I loved about how Glee handled this storyline comes in the scene between Sue and her big sister, Jean. It comes across much better when you can see Sue react to her sister’s words. You can watch the scene here.

Sue: Do you believe in God, Jeannie?

Jean: Do you?

Sue: No, I don’t

Jean: Why not?

Sue: (explains how God never answered her prayers for her sister to be like the other kids)

Jean: God never makes mistakes. That’s what I believe. Want me to pray for you, Sue?

Sue: Yeah, that would be nice.

In four words, Glee disrupts the more traditional understandings of disability as brokenness. Jean looks upon her life, not with eyes that see a problem, but with eyes that are thankful for who God has made her to be. In four words, Jean helps her sister realize that she is not sick, she is special. In four words, this episode challenges us to think differently about how we see the “less fortunate” of this world – to rethink even how we might characterize those who are not the same as us.

I don’t want to say that there are not real problems of poverty and disease and sickness. There are many broken and hurting people in this world. But there are also just as many opportunities to experience blessing and abundant life and joy and hope amongst the lives of those who we might think have gotten the short end of the stick. And it is sometimes in the darkest corners of our lives and in the world, that we see the hope and the light of Christ shining the brightest.

Setting the Table: The Plate

Posted on October 10, 20101 Comment

Two weeks ago, I was honored to be asked to plan worship for a gathering of clergy in Des Moines. A friend, Rev. Sean McRoberts planned the service with me and we had everything arranged and ready to go. I just had to make sure to arrive early enough in the morning that I could meet with the technical engineer to set up the microphones and other electronics we would need that morning.

Lately, I have not been a morning person – and this particular trip required that I leave my house by 6:30. Which meant waking up by 5:30 to get myself ready. Now, I know that many of you have internal clocks that work much differently than mine and 5:30 is sleeping in… but for me – this was a super super early morning.

The alarm went off. I turned it off. And promptly pulled the covers back over my head. Every fiber of my being wanted to go back to sleep. So I did.

Notice, I didn’t hit the snooze button. I turned the alarm off, and fell back to sleep.

Ten minutes later, something woke me up. Whether it was the rustle and squacks of the birds in the tree, or a cat pouncing on my legs in the bed or just some kind of internal switch – I woke up. And I remember very distinctly taking a deep breath and saying – thank God. And I didn’t mean it in an offhand, irreligious kind of way. I was grateful to God that I had woken up. I was grateful to God that although my body was not ready or willing, God was making sure I was going to be able to answer the call I had received. I was grateful to God, because even though I was weak – he is strong.

How many of you have heard of the word “providence”?

What exactly does “providence” mean?

The word originally comes from the Latin providentia – and has to do with foresight, prudence, the ability to see ahead. So when we talk about God’s providence – we think of God’s ability to provide for, to direct, to shape the future.

Martin Luther understood providence to be both the direct and indirect work of God in the world. Not only does God provide the good things we need for human life – but God also works through family, government, jobs, and other people. “We receive these blessings not from them, but, through them, from God.”

If you remember last week the story of the cellerar – the monk in charge of looking after the storage room at the monastery – even mundane and simple tasks can be a vehicle of God’s blessing to others. God can use even the lowliest of jobs for his glory.

And so, Providence is the way that God cares for the universe – upholds the universe – and also the special ways that God extraordinarily intervenes in the lives of God’s people.

That holy providence is the subject of our psalter this month. The Psalmist reminds us of the glorious deeds of the Lord – the wonders that he has done… wonders that we are supposed to pass on to generation after generation.

According to the Psalmist our ancestors were a stubborn and rebellious people. They witnessed miracles: they were released from bondage in Egypt, they passed through the Red Sea, they were led through the desert by cloud and light, they drank pure clear water from rocks in the midst of the wilderness… and yet they doubted. Yet they did not, could not, would not believe that God would continue to provide.

“Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” they grumbled. “Yeah, God made water come out of a rock – but can God provide bread and meat for us? Can he fill our bellies? Can he satisfy us?”

God’s anger was kindled… because the people had no faith in God – because they doubted God’s providence.

And yet…. And yet…. God opened the skies and manna rained down. Birds came and dwelt in their camps. Their bellies were full. He gave them what they craved.

This idea of God’s providence stays with me today… and not just because I was miraculously woken up in time to make it to a meeting. It stays with me because all around this room are folks who have witnessed the miraculous working of God in their lives.

Each of you has a story to tell about how God provided for you in some time of need.

Many of you have a story to tell about how God guided this church through a difficult time.

This building itself has a story to tell about how God has upheld and sustained the life of this congregation throughout the years.

In the middle of the sanctuary there are those large doors. I have yet to see them fully opened, but I’m told that in times of war – times of scarcity – when we sacrificed our use of energy so that factories could provide for our soldiers… those doors were closed to reduce our heating costs. The simple wonder that someone would create such doors is a reminder that through other people, and not from them, we receive the blessings of God.

All throughout this month, we will be telling the stories of this church. We will be reminding ourselves of God’s active presence in the history of this congregation.

Perhaps it was the Sunday School teacher that sustained your faith in one of those classrooms back there.

Maybe it was church dinner that took place at a time when your family had nothing left to put on the table.

Perhaps it was the words of a pastor who encouraged you during a dark moment.

Maybe you felt God’s blessings through a brother or sister in Christ who got down on their hands and knees and served you.

I hope that today as you came in, each of you were handed a note card. I want to encourage you to take out that note card and to write there on the card a memory of God’s action in your life.

For those of you who can do so – think of a specific moment or a person in the life of this church when God’s presence was know.

And for those of you who might be visiting with us, or are new to our church, or whose memory does not go back that far – share with us some other testimony of how God has worked to sustain you along your journey.

I want us to take a few minutes to fill out these cards, to remember together, how God has provided for us.

The Psalmist asks us to tell the coming generations the glorious deeds of God so that we might teach them to set their hope in God and not forget his works.

I want to urge you to place these note cards in the offering plates this morning. Hand them over go God as a thankful offering for the blessings you have received and in doing so – we will collect these memories and share them with one another at our Celebration of the Past on October 31st.

These memories… these reminders of God’s active presence in our past remind us that God does indeed provide. They remind us that not only does God call us to the table as his children… but that the table is not empty. God has and God will continue to set the table.

What I am asking you to do as a congregation is to join me in awaiting those promises of God.

To take all of these blessings that we have received and to remember them. To remember that God has worked in the past… and therefore – to have faith, to trust, that God will continue to work in the future.

The plate that we put on the table today is a reminder of this foundational promise.

No longer will we worry, “what will we eat?” or “what will we drink?” We know that God has provided in the past. We trust that God will continue to provide in the future.

We place it here today because we eagerly await the next action of God in our lives. We are prepared for the next blessings that will come. We are putting aside our worry, our stress, our doubt – We come to God and know that God will provide.

Amen and Amen.

The Karma Question

Posted on September 13, 2010Leave a comment

On the season six finale of House, a woman is trapped in a building and Dr. House is right there beside her while they try to get her out.

The situation is desperate. We learn a little bit about who she is, her husband waiting back home, her hopes and dreams. But there she is. Stuck. And unable to get out.

At one point, she turns to Dr. House and asks him to pray with her.

Now, anyone who is familiar with the show knows that Dr. House is not a man of faith. He thinks religion is superstitious nonsense that his patients should be rid of. He frequently butts heads with colleagues and those he is supposed to care for. God is the farthest thing from his mind.

So when House is asked to pray, his first response is a resolute, “no.” He follows up with the thought that he doesn’t believe in God. Which leads our stuck woman, Hanna, to reply back – “neither do I.” The two sit for a few moments in silence, presumably joining together in a moment of silent prayer to a God that neither is sure exists.

When the moment has finished, Hanna says that she used to think that if she was a good person, if she tried to do the right thing, that everything would be okay. But here she is, stuck underneath a building. How do these things happen?

It’s a question we all struggle with. Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there anything that we can do to avoid the perils of this world? And if God is so good, why is there so much pain in the world? Well, maybe those are three different questions. But at the root, it’s a question of theodicy. It’s a question about the power of God.

My simple answer to this question is that this is not yet the new creation. This world is fallen. And that is not only a statement about human sin, but about the totality of creation. Natural disasters, accidents, illness – all of these things are signs that the world is not as it should be.

The answer to this fallenness is that God has put into motion a plan to make it all new again. God has already begun to act in the saving work of the creation. Already, signs of the inbreaking of the Reign of God can be seen. The earth quakes in birth pangs… God is redeeming it all.

But it’s not done yet. It’s not whole yet. We are still living in a fallen, broken, messed up creation. And so in this world, even when we do everything right – that doesn’t mean we get a happy ending.

God Loves Sinners

Posted on September 12, 2010Leave a comment

I am a person who does not get lost. Never in my life can I remember a time when I didn’t know where I was or how I was going to get where I needed to go next. I have always been a very spatial person, and so if you give me a map, I can not only find my way somewhere – but on the route, I can tell you alternative directions. I am an EXCELLENT navigator… at least when I can remember my rights from my lefts.

In high school, I was a part of speech and drama and music – which meant we went to many contests at other schools throughout the year. The group was always trying to find their way around the new building and in the first half hour that we had been in the building, I had it all figured out. I knew where to be when, I helped out others who were lost. I never got lost.

The same goes with driving. I like to figure out new ways to get places and sometimes I run into obstacles or dead ends, but that just presents new opportunites to learn about what way not to go next time. When my friend, Stasia, was learning how to drive – her mom would often suggest that I accompany her in the car… and we never got lost as long as we were together. I do not get lost.

I do, however, lose things. Oh boy, do I lose things. This past week, I had to buy a new pair of earbuds – little headphones that fit into your ear canal very comfortable, because I lost the pair I had. And in nearly every single move that I have made in my life – I have lost my car keys. When I moved out of the house I lived in at Simpson College – I literally packed my keys up with my other belongings and sent them home in the truck… two hours later, I realized my keys were back in Cedar Rapids and me and my car were still in Indianola.

And of course… I lost one of my monkeys this morning =) [Reference to the children’s moment… sent the kids out in the sanctuary to find my lost monkey]

Today, in Luke’s gospel we get to spend some time in the parables of the lost… the lost sheep, the lost coin, and if we kept reading – the lost son… the child who takes his inheritance and runs off, squanders it all and returns home. Now that word, parable, is simply a short brief story that tells us a moral lesson… kind of like the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. It doesn’t matter if its true or not – the point is what it teaches us about who we are and how we live.

Luke groups all of these lost parables together, because Jesus has a message for us about who we are and how we are to live.

You see, at the beginning of this chapter, Jesus has sat down for some supper with some quite unsavory characters. He was eating with tax collectors and sinners. Ooooo….

What? Does that not trouble you? The idea that Jesus would sit down with a tax collector? That’s probably because tax collectors today – our friendly and unhelpful IRS agents are not typically people we think of as unsavory. But who would be? Who would be scandalous to eat with here in Marengo?

Perhaps a gathering of area gays and lesbians invited Jesus over for dinner? Or the Muslim community in Cedar Rapids? Or prostitutes from Waterloo? What if Jesus was sitting down to eat with a bunch of liars and adulterers? Or murderers and meth makers?

Would we be upset? Would our feathers be ruffled just a little bit? Would we stop in our tracks and stare?

The Pharisees sure did. They walked by the house where Jesus was having this grand old feast with a bunch of sinners and they started to whisper. They started to grumble. They started to complain… that fellow welcomes sinners! And not only that – he eats with them!!!

Photo by Martin Baldwin

And so loud enough so that they could hear – Jesus begins to tell these stories about the lost. About the shepherd that leaves behind the entire rest of the flock to seek out the one lost sheep. About the woman who burns the oil a single coin was worth in order to seek out the coin that was lost.

And when they find those lost things – Jesus said – there will be great rejoicing… and in the same way God seeks the lost people of this world… and God rejoices when he finds them.

I may not know what it is like to be lost and not know my way home… but I do know what it is like to have lost something. I know the desperation of seeking out that thing that I need – the thing that I love. I know how important it is.

And so in some small way, I can understand what it might be like for God when he seeks out the lost of this world.

What is harder to understand is that I am someone who has been and who probably still is lost. What is harder to accept and acknowledge is that we are sinners, that there are parts of our lives we still hold back from God. We are really good at being oblivious little sheep, wandering away from the flock and not realizing it.

Whether it is a habit of telling lies, or the anger you harbor in your heart. Whether it is simply the fact that you like spending more time playing football than thinking about your faith journey. Whether it is the way that you use and abuse the gifts of God’s creation, or the prideful idea you have stuck in your head that you can do it yourself and you don’t need God’s help… We are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God.

That is an ugly fact about each and every single one of us. As much as we might try to white wash it and pretend its not so – at the very least, let us take comfort in the fact that we are all sinners. We are in this together. We have all fallen short of the glory of God.

That is what Paul reminds his young friend Timothy in our first reading from today. Paul – that great pioneer of the faith – proclaims out loud for all to hear that he was a blasphemer, a persecuter, and a man of violence – a man who loved to do violence for violence sake… a torturer. I am the foremost of sinners, Paul says. Note, he doesn’t say – I was the foremost of sinners… but I am the foremost of sinners. It is like how addicts are taught to think of their addictions not in the past tense, but in the present tense… I am an alcoholic. I am a chocoholic. I am a sinner. I will always live my life with the temptation to sin at my doorstep. I am a sinner.

And not only that, Paul says, but I am the foremost of sinners. I’m the worst one out there, because I killed people who followed Jesus and I liked it. I took pride in it. I was the best at what I did. And yet… And yet… God chose ME to serve his church.

God sought me, the foremost of sinners out, because God seeks the lost. Jesus came to save sinners. God came to save me, and God came to save you.

Can I hear an Amen!

There is one last piece of this story that I think we need to remember… a man named Rodger Nishioka tells the story of a time he was a part of an ecumenical team in Alaska: Presbyterians working alongside Russian Orthodox. In the course of their work, he had referred to this so familiar “Parable of the Lost Sheep” with some of the RO folks when someone interrupted him and asked him which parable he meant.

For a moment there, I can imagine Mr. Nishioka thought these Russian Orthodox folks didn’t know their bibles very well. And so he summarized the story about the shepherd looking for the one sheep that had gone missing from the flock of 100. The Russian Orthodox priest looked at him and said, “Oh! You mean the Parable of the incomplete flock.”

In the eyes of that tradition, God was concerned about the one sheep that went missing, because without that one sheep – the 100 would not be complete. God desires all of his children to come home… and the family is only complete when each and every single one of us is sought out.

Many of you know that my family is incomplete right now – that there is division on my dad’s side of the family that I have no idea how to reconcile. And it hurts. I know that many of you have experienced this kind of separation and pain in your lives, too. To be incomplete as a family is an ugly and bitter thing…

But if we remember from last week, God desires us to move beyond our immediate families and to follow him. To follow him in seeking out our brothers and sisters in this world who are lost. To follow him in his diligent search to find them and tell them how much they are loved.

Our family is incomplete without the rest of our brothers and sisters. The family of God is incomplete without the folks from the county jail, and without those prostitutes in Waterloo, and without our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and without our Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist brothers and sisters.

Our family is incomplete as long as we hold those people at a distance who we believe are unworthy, or unfaithful, or uninterested. Our family is incomplete if we act in hatred and anger towards our brothers and sisters. Our family is incomplete if we are unwilling to sit down and have a meal with one another.

As much hatred and anger and division is in the world… we know that God seeks out his children. And I know we are called to seek out our brothers and sisters in love and in respect. Let us be found by the Lord our shepherd… and let us go with him to all the world.

Amen.

Crafting Idols

Posted on August 15, 2010Leave a comment

In the season opener, The Office – Season 4, chaos seems to break loose around Dunder-Mifflin. First Michael, the boss, runs over Meredith with his car. Then Sprinkles the Cat dies. A curse is upon the office!

There is a scene when Michael gathers everyone into the conference room and asks them to share about what their religions are – and what they might say about this curse. As they go around sharing, there is some bonding between the Presbyterians and some banter about other faiths and not being identified simply by your religious affiliation… but the Michael pops in and says something about how they just can’t believe in God after a day like today. And the room goes absolutely silent. Blank stares are all you see on the other faces. Perhaps slight nods of assent. Michael asks – What did people believe in before God? The Sun? Some animal? And then proceeds to create the most fantastical animal god that he can dream up.

I wonder in some ways if that isn’t what the Israelites were thinking as they were huddling in fear at the base of Mt. Sinai. Above them is thunder and lightning and booming and I’m pretty sure they thought they were about to die. They had been led out of the land of Egypt to this desert landscape and they were doomed. So they put their heads together and gathered up all the gold that they could get their hands on and formed it into the most awesome thing they could imagine. They formed a beautiful calf to protect them from this dangeours and fearsome God hovering on the mountain top.

Whenever we want God to fit into our box – to be tame and manageable and on our side, we craft hideous and fantastic idols. We turn God into a policeman, or a gentle old man. We turn God into vicious angry beast in whose hands we are helpless, sinful creatures. And in each of theses ways in which we try to define God, to limit God, to say what God is – we fail. We miss the point. We never are able to get the entire picture.

When Moses met God on the hillside and asks for a name to give the Israelites. Although it is debated how exactly the translate Exodus 3:14… both the ideas “I will be who I will be” and “I am who I am” both give us the impression that God is not to be defined by our words, our images, or our thoughts. God is more than, God IS… and that immensity just doesn’t fit into our little brains.

Suffice it to say – any time that we speak of God, we create an idol of a sense. The key is to keep aware of the fact that we have limited God by any gender, image, creature or name that we have given… and to keep ourselves open to the possibility that we might be wrong and incomplete and that we might need someone to shake those notions up a little bit for us.

Where we head terribly wrong is when we, like Michael, create a god of our own choosing – be it money or fame, or “some sort of monster, like something with the body of a walrus wit hteh head of a sea lion. Something with the body of an egret, with the head of a meerkat. Or just the head of a monkey, with the antlers of a reindeer. With the body of a… porcupine.”

what to do when your faith is shaken

Posted on August 14, 2010Leave a comment

On a television show like “Bones,” faith and reason, science and religion, seem to be inevitably at odds. That is part of the beauty of the chemistry between Booth and Brennan – this dynamic interplay reminds me that just because something appears to be contrary doesn’t mean it has nothing in common.

While there could be many places to start with an episode called, The Devil in the Details, an episode about a body found lit on fire in the middle of a Roman Catholic sanctuary, it was the last few minutes that caught my eye.

Brennan asks Booth a simple question – how is your faith not shaken after a case like this one? And his simple answer is, it is. He’s going to lie awake tonight and toss and turn and question and doubt. But he trusts that his faith will come back as much as he trusts the sun will rise the next morning.

My mind immediately went to the philosopher Hume, who took empiricism to its farthest limits when he posited that just because the sun has come up every other morning is no guarantee that it will come up on the next morning. Cause and effect is not something that we can see or touch or taste.

Brennan’s response lies somewhere between Hume and faith. She is concerned with causes and effects and when she sees an effect, like a dead person, and cannot determine the cause – her ability to trust in the basics of science and reason is tested. But throughout it all – even when she can’t see what she is looking for, she can trust that 2+2 = 4. “There are mysteries that I will never understand, but everywhere I look I see proof that for every effect there is a corresponding cause… even if I can’t see it. I find that reassuring.”

I was once told that our faith needs to be strong enough so that if one of the pillars of that faith is shaken, the whole thing won’t come tumbling down. The question always seemed to me – what are the pillars that are okay to be shaken? And what are the immovable and unshakable tenants of our faith?

For Booth and Brennan – it was the simple things that provided the grounding. The sun coming up. A simple mathematical equation. Something that we can see with our eyes, something that will never possibly be untrue. We may not know why… but we simply know.

Despite all of the questions of theodicy and good and evil and causes and effects… what are the things that we KNOW? what are the things that never go away – no matter how much our faith is shaken and how we are tossed about? what is your grounding, your anchor in the midst of a storm?

Whether it is rational or not – or biblical or not – I always go back to the simple premise that God is love. No matter the tragedies in the world, I trust that God is love and that God is present with those who are hurting. I trust that whatever evil has befallen us, that God is love and that love will conquer all. It is as true for me as the sun rising in the morning or a mathematical equation. Throw in all of the clouds and variables that you want… the earth will keep spinning and God will still be love.

The Gift of Peace

Posted on July 4, 2010Leave a comment

How many of you watched the world cup this year?

How many of you know what a vuvuzula is?

To roughly describe it, a vuvuzula is a long narrow horn – about two and a half feet long – that is a part of South African soccer culture. Perhaps no one quite expected them to catch on as much as they did and the soccer games this year had so many vuvuzelas that there was a constant noise in the background as fans across the world watched the matches.

These simple horns can produce up to 120 decibels of sound when you are standing just three feet in front of them. That is as loud as a rock concert or a jet engine. It’s kind of hard to believe that such a little piece of plastic can make all that noise!

At that level of sound, there can be permanent hearing loss, damage, and actual pain from the noise that is involved.

So, if we imagine 300 men, surrounding the Midianite army in the middle of the night, blowing horns and smashing pots and creating the noise of 300 rock concerts going off in the middle of the night – maybe, just maybe, we can understand why the Midianite army turned around and fled before a rag tag bunch of soldiers under the command of a man named Gideon.

As children, when we hear the stories of God’s victory in the Old Testament, we might be reminded of how Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and made the walls come tumbling down with marching and shouting. We might think of the shepherd boy David and how he took down the giant of a man Goliath and thus saved the day. Or we might think of the story we heard this morning about Gideon’s defeat of the enemies with a bunch of horns and smashed pots.

As children, we hear the tales of God’s victory… but rarely do we go into the harsh realities of battle and war. We conveniently skip over the parts of the story where men, women, children, and animals are destroyed in the name of God.

As adults, we often reread these familiar and inspiring stories only to wonder what kind of a God the Old Testament describes… how could this be the same Prince of Peace that we find in the gospels? Where is the God of mercy and love? we wonder.

I know that more than one of you has come up to me, either after Bible studies, or even after last weeks’ message about the defeat of the Egyptians and admit that your hearts are heavy with the war and destruction. We don’t understand the genocide that we read on these pages that accompany God’s victory. We can’t comprehend the loss of life.

Or maybe we can. Maybe these battles seem so real to us because of the wars that we engage in. We, as a nation, have been fighting in Afghanistan for almost nine years. In your lifetimes, we have been apart of war on five continents.

And while on a day like today, when we celebrate our nation’s independence, we know that these battles were entered to preserve and defend the truths for which we stand… at the same time, we are tired of all the fighting.

Last night, during the parade, my niece and nephews came and watched the festivities. And as the procession turned the corner from North onto Western and we caught a glimpse of the color guard, they started singing – “you’re a grand old flag.”

Now – of all the patriotic songs for them to choose, that was the one they started singing. And at ages 5 and 8, they knew all of the words. You’re a grand old flag. You’re a high flying flag and forever in peace may you wave…..

And forever in peace may you wave… those words jumped out as me as these children sang them.

Forever in peace…

I once believed that the opposite of peace was war.

I believed that we would finally have peace in our lives when men and women… but mostly men… laid down their weapons.

I believed that peace would come when all of our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters returned home.

But I’m not sure that is true anymore.

Anyone you ask will tell you that we have a lack of peace in our world, but we also lack peace in our nation, in our state, and in our families.

Just because swords and guns are no present, does not mean there will be peace. Peace must be bigger than a lack of war. Peace must encompass more than the fights we find ourselves in. The peace that we seek is like the peace of Isaiah in chapter 65….

I will rejoice over Jerusalem

and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying

will be heard in it no more.

“Never again will there be in it

an infant who lives but a few days,

or an old man who does not live out his years;
They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit…
They will not toil in vain
or bear children doomed to misfortune…

The wolf and the lamb will feed together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox

In the Old Testament… this vision that is lifted up is a dream of Shalom. It is a Hebrew word that means peace, not only in terms of fighting and conflict – but peace in terms of a whole vision of life. As one commentator put it, “everything fits together, the relationships work like they were designed to, and things just work right.” (http://listeningtoscripture.com/Textual_Studies/Isaiah/12isaiahspeace.html)

Paul Hanson says that shalom is “the realm where chaos is not allowed to enter, and where life can be fostered free from the fear of all which diminishes and destroys.”

Doesn’t that sound amazing? A life free from the fear of all that could destroy us?

That is the peace that we seek. When we are farmers and the usual flow of the seasons and the weather doesn’t cooperate… we fear that drought or too much water could destroy our crops and our livelihood.

When we work with machines, say in a factory, there are constant safety protocols to keep the terrible from happening… we are constantly regulating the chaos and trying to prevent spills, injuries, and death.

When we are a part of families and we try to manage our time and our schedules, we fear that we won’t have enough time with one another and that our relationships will suffer because of it.

The opposite of peace isn’t war… but chaos. A life where there is no freedom from fear. A life where any and everything takes away from our ability to live and live abundantly.

How many of you have some measure of chaos in your lives today?

In Ancient Israel, chaos was the norm. Nation states were constantly fighting for land and power and dominance. There were no programs for social security and a single drought could wipe a family out. That was if they had anything left after the rulers took away their goods.

In the time of Gideon, the people were afraid. Their crops were being confiscated, their lands were being consumed by the Midianites and they cried out for help.

And God responded… NOT by sending them into war… but by reminding them that he was and always has been on their side.

My favorite part of this story is when God whittles away the army of 32,000 able men to 300. Three hundred individuals take nothing but jars and torches and trumpets and scare away a whole army. And God does this to remind them that while human warriors can’t defeat the forces that destroy shalom and bring chaos… God can.

The Israelites have no need to raise a standing army and to set a king over them… like they try to make Gideon do… they have one God who reigns over them. And he will fight for them. They no longer need to be afraid of the things that could destroy them. They only need to trust.

But that trust doesn’t last very long. Their clamor for a king, their cries to be strong like the other nations will not be quieted. And so God allowed them to set a king over themselves. And as Bruce Birch reminds us, “Israel, in the belief that it could create its own security, was in reality flirting with chaos.” If you read through the books of Chronicles and Kings and the prophets you see how time and time again, the kings went to war – with God on their side or not, for power and territory.

They brought chaos upon themselves by trusting in themselves and not in their God.

It would be tempting to say that if we simply trusted in God more, chaos would disappear from our lives. The rains would come more regularly. Our paychecks wouldn’t be so sporadic. Fights between parent and child would diminish.

I’m not sure that God promises us that… at least in this lifetime.

But the peace that is offered to us by Christ is the peace that will get us by. It is the peace that comes from relationships that are returned to their rightful balance through forgiveness and mercy. It is the peace that comes when we learn to trust in God more than our pocketbooks. It is the peace that comes when our priorities are realigned and family comes before our jobs. It is the peace that comes when we remember that while this moment or this present struggle might be difficult, in the end, God is in control and those forces of chaos will not have the final say.

When we are called to be peacemakers by Jesus in Matthew… when we are called to be a shining city on a hill – an example to all… I believe Christ is calling us to trust him. To allow the Spirit of God to enter our lives and transform them. To set us right inside. To set us right with one another. To set us right as a people. And when the chaos of fear leaves our family… or our church… or our town, then people will look at us with wonder and say – what is it that they have figured out?

And then we will point to the One who has come into our lives. And we will share the peace of our hearts with others. Amen and Amen.