Did you have a story that you loved as a child? I had lots of them, Curious George, MikeMulligan and his Steam Shovel, Ferdinand.
And I didn’t just have those stories. I had Bible stories too. The one I loved most was David and
Goliath. It had Goliath, the scary,
daunting villain, David the bold, young, untried hero; and those two armies in
between, both convinced that David didn’t stand a chance. And then he defeats Goliath with a single
stone from his slingshot.
But unlike the other stories I remember, that story still
speaks. It still has powerful insights
for our lives. Why? Well you and I hopefully will never face a 9
foot spear-wielding giant, but we do face problems that feel huge
nonetheless. It may be an inner struggle,
a challenge in our family, a financial stress. a health issue. It may even be some of the scary things on the
news from ISIS to the economy. But here’s
the problem with Goliath issues. In
those problems, it becomes terribly easy for Goliath to capture your
imagination rather than God. You can
become like the Army of Israel facing their giant, so fearfully convinced of
the power and potency of the challenge that confronts you that you can hardly
see anything else. But here’s the
stunning truth of the story. David didn’t
need a miracle to defeat the giant. He simply
needed to stay rooted in a reality that the other Israelites could no longer
see. He saw that with God the bigger they
come, the harder they fall. On the day
of Goliath’s defeat, the person most connected to reality was David.
Think about it. How often, in life, has your imagination been
captured by a challenge that seemed so daunting, but when you look back, it
wasn’t nearly as powerful as you imagined it to be. Mark Twain put it well. “Lots of terrible
things have occurred to me, and some of them actually happened.” Yet even as we remember that, these Goliaths
still capture us, and if we let them, they will keep us captured. They will prevent us from living into the
full and blessed life God yearns each of us to have. So how do you not let your mind get captured
by the Goliath issues of life? How do
you remember that no matter how big the challenge you face, God is bigger
yet? In these words from Romans, God
shows the way. Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.
The writer Anne Lamott has said that it is hard to
defeat the enemy when that enemy has outposts in your head. And in life, it’s not simply the problems you
face that challenge you, but how you see them, how they shape your view of
reality. And here in Romans, in the
story of Abraham, God gives us a picture of reality far different than the one
that the world tempts us to see. In this
picture, God reminds us. Neither our failure nor even our faith define our
reality. God does that. And in God’s reality, our future is always
bright.
Abraham had a Goliath of a problem. He and his wife, Sarah yearned for a child,
and God had even promised them one. God
had said that their descendants would be like the sands of the sea or the stars
in the sky. Yet, well after child-bearing
age, they still had no child. Yet Romans
tells us Abraham still believed.
Why? He understood. God defined his reality and nothing
else.
Now it took time for Abraham to figure that
out. Paul tells us that it wasn’t
Abraham’s obedience to God that defined his relationship with God. It was simply his trust in God’s
promises. It’s the whole point of Paul’s
talking about circumcision. Circumcision
was the first law so to speak. God asked
Abraham to cut himself in that most intimate of places to signify that every
part of him, even the hidden parts belonged to God. But well before, God gave that rule, God had
already given the relationship. God had
already given the promises. God had
already made it clear that Abraham was right with God.
So God defined the reality of the relationship with Abraham. It didn’t even depend on Abraham’s goodness,
and that’s a good thing. Because,
Abraham made some big mistakes, and it didn’t take him long to make them. Right after, he did this whole trust in God
thing, Abraham travels through Egypt.
He knows how attractive his wife is. He’s afraid, somebody will kill him
to get her. So what does he do? He tells her to lie and say that they’re
sister and brother. And before it’s all
done, the King of Egypt, the Pharaoh, takes her into his harem. Only when God intervenes, and gives the
Pharaoh an unpleasant plague, does Sarah get rescued. When it comes to protecting his wife, what
does Abraham do? He throws her under the
bus to protect himself. Now, if that isn’t
bad enough, years later with a different king in a different land, he does the same
thing again. Abraham will never be a
candidate for husband of the year.
And yet this guy God takes as the example of
faith? Yes. That’s the point. Neither Abraham’s best deeds nor his worst
mistakes defined the reality of his relationship with God. And what is true of Abraham is true for everyone.
It was certainly true for Paul, who
before he encountered Jesus, captured and murdered Christians. He was a sort of one man ISIS for his
time. Yet, in Christ, Christianity’s
greatest enemy became its greatest leader. We can never look at anyone as beyond the
grace of God, including ourselves. Too
often, past mistakes or failings become Goliaths in our lives. Guilt and shame can hold us back. But those failings never define our
relationship with God, God does that.
And what does God say?
Let the little old lady who had tea with Jesus tell
you that. How many of you who have been here
awhile remember that story? It goes
like this. Ms. McGillicudy, starts announcing
to her church family that every Tuesday she has tea with Jesus. The
elders speak to the pastor. You’ve got
to do something about this, she’s gone crazy.
But the pastor wonders. What if she is really having tea with
Jesus? So he decides on a way to find
out. He asks. “Ms. McGillicudy, I heard that you have tea
with Jesus on Tuesday. Is that correct?” She replies “Yes, it is. He just loves my scones.” So the
pastor takes a deep breath and asks. “Well
then, could you ask Jesus to tell you about a terrible mistake I made that I’ve
always regretted, one I’ve asked forgiveness for again and again. She
replied. “Of course.” For the rest of
the week, the pastor hardly slept, fearing that this sweet old lady would know
his shameful secret. The next Sunday, he
saw her, and anxiously asked. “Did Jesus come?” And she replied. “Of course he did.” Well, what did he say? He
said, “I forgot. I forgot.” Your worst mistakes will never define
you. God’s love does that, and in that
love God removes your failings from you as far as east is from west and God remembers
them no more.
All you need to do is believe it. But of course, that can be harder than it
sounds. Do you ever have a day where it’s
really hard to trust that God is working?
Trusting God ain’t so easy, and we can wonder. Will we ever be any good at it. And then we look at this Abraham guy, and
think, well he really believed. But did
he? When God was taking his own sweet
time in fulfilling the promise, Abraham and Sarah figured they’d help him
out. They arranged for Abraham to sleep
with Sarah’s maid so that at least he’d have an heir. I don’t think I need to tell you that did not
turn out well. Yes, Abraham believed, but
that doesn’t mean he didn’t doubt. His doubt even led him to a terrible mistake.
What makes Abraham a great example is the simple
fact he wasn’t a great example. No
figure in the Bible is. That’s the whole
point. What Abraham got is what Paul is
trying to tell us. God defines your
relationship with God, no one else. As
the great mystic Brother Roger put it.
It is never our faith that creates God.
Nor is it our doubts that put an end to God’s existence. Nor is
it even how poorly we live out the faith we hold.
Let’s be honest, all of us know painfully well, our
weakness, our failings. Who here would
want a slide show giving the highlights of their words, thoughts and actions,
even of the past week? We know. It won’t
be a pretty picture. And likely, we
have one issue we’ve been struggling with for years; some bad habit we’ve tried
to stop; a temper that leads us into situations we painfully regret. We can think to ourselves. What sort of believer am I? And the answer is you are a believer like
Abraham, like every other flawed figure in scripture. And like them, even in your struggles, God is
never going to give up on you ever.
My son, like many kids, has been struggling with a
speech delay. And so often when he says
a word, it doesn’t come out exactly right.
But every word he says however flawed it might be, fills my heart with
delight and joy. Why? He’s my child. That reality defines our relationship, not his
performance. And if that’s true of me,
with my very real limitations as a parent, do you see how it is even more
profoundly true of God. No matter how
badly you mess up, even if you feel your mistakes or weaknesses are Goliath big,
they will never define your relationship with God ever. Nor will your doubts. God’s love does that. All you need to do is believe it’s true.
You might say, though. Well Abraham and Sarah did have a son. God did answer their prayers. But I’m not so sure God is answering
mine. Abraham had a moment like
that. And so God gave him a
vision. In that
vision, God appeared as a flaming torch, and before God, Abraham saw a line of
animals cut in half. Abraham knew what that
meant. People cut up animals like that
when they were making a serious agreement.
And in that agreement, both parties walked through the animals, to
symbolize that they would honor this agreement with their very lives. In Abraham’s vision, God walked through
those animals. God committed to honor
the promise he had made with his life. But he never asked the same of Abraham. God simply made it clear. Abraham I will put my life on the line to
honor my promise to you.
And what Abraham saw in a vision, God did in real life. In Jesus God did do what he promised. Jesus
took the curse even though we were the ones who had broken the promise. He took that curse so that nothing would
separate us from God ever. Don’t you
get it? In that cross, Jesus defined God’s
relationship with you forever. No
mistake is too great, no faith too weak, that God cannot meet you there. And in that meeting, God opens you to a
future that is brighter than you can conceive, one where not even death, will
separate you from love’s embrace, from the beauty and wonder of life with God
forever. So when Goliath problems arise,
remember the one who rose for you. And
in the power of that reality, you will know.
No problem, no challenge will ever defeat that love.
No comments:
Post a Comment