A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, September 20, 2009
James 3:13-18
Mark 9:30-37
John Knox was a prominent figure in the Scottish Reformation and was deeply involved in the political intrigue and movements that gradually shifted Scotland from Catholicism to the formation of a Scottish national Protestant Church.
He was born about 1510 in southern Scotland, educated at St. Andrews, and ordained a Roman Catholic priest when still a young man. When the European Reformation swept into Britain about 1560, Knox was at the forefront, demanding that the church be freed from the dictates of Roman Catholic royalty. He publicly denounced the Roman Catholic monarch, Mary Queen of Scots and compared the pope to the Antichrist.
We visited several sites associated with his life this summer: the Church of the Holy Rude near Stirling Castle where Knox preached at the coronation of James VI in 1567. (Parenthetically, that cathedral was completed in 1414.) We visited Knox’s house on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and walked through the sanctuary of St. Giles Church just two blocks away, where he ended his ministry under virtual house arrest and was buried in an unmarked grave in the church yard in 1572.
Knox is remembered for his resistance to government interference in the affairs of the church. But even more importantly, he assured that the successor to Catholicism was not the Anglican Church of Henry VIII, but the Church of Scotland, guided by the wisdom of Elders rather than the authority of a bishop.
Knox left a rich legacy, including his 1560 Treatise on Predestination. Ah, predestination – specifically the doctrine that God has already decided who will be saved and who will be lost, and that we cannot influence the outcome.
We often generalize that particular point into a sense that God has planned, predestined, or fore-ordained everything! That’s why the old Presbyterian woman who fell down the stairs got up, with not a little difficulty, and said “thank God that’s over with!” God is the author and director and we simply strut upon the stage.
This belief that God has a plan and everything happens according to it creeps into many familiar comments. Don’t we often say or hear: things happen for a reason…; it’s all a part of the plan; her number was up; it was meant to be…?
Many people agree with the bumper sticker that says “God has a plan for your life… and it’s very, very bad.” When the news is bad it can give real comfort to believe God knows how everything will turn out even when you and I don’t.
I don’t believe that. Well, maybe I used to a little, but I don’t today. When you believe that fate or destiny rules everything, that the script for your life has been written and finished, then where is there room for grace and gratitude, and most importantly, for growth? If your life’s script is written in the great gilded book in the sky you become an actor just stating your lines.
If God has planned and determined your life already, then broken heart or cancer or war or hurricane or family fight or root canal all leave you with no choice but acceptance or occasional bargaining for a better deal. Seems to me there must be some other options!
We haven’t created this dilemma from thin air. It’s certainly clear in scripture that many of the authors believed God had foreordained or destined certain things to happen. Just read again Mark 9:31 – “the Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands and they will kill him, and three days after being killed he will rise again.”
It’s clear the author believed the events in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection were fore-ordained and that Jesus acted according to God’s plan. What isn’t clear is whether Jesus himself believed this. When the Gospel reports Jesus’ comment that he “is to be betrayed” was Mark saying God had predestined Jesus sacrifice, or was he saying that God inspired Jesus to sacrifice himself as a witness to the redeeming power of holy love?
I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it very well: “one asks ‘what will happen to me?’ and another asks ‘what is right?’ And this is the difference between the slave and the free.” I believe Jesus has a choice to make. He knew what was right, saw what was needed and sacrificed himself to show God’s holy will and purpose.
I believe God created us with free will so we can choose how we’ll live and die. I also know as a Christian that when I choose to be a disciple I also choose to open my heart to God’s righteous will. I didn’t say God’s plan, but God’s will. That’s the critical difference.
I don’t believe for a moment that life is random or accidental or haphazard. I see the hand of God again and again. The cornerstone of my faith is that God is always present and active in creation and that we encounter the Spirit when we’re open to it. I can say with certainty that if I did not have faith in God’s purpose and will in creation I couldn’t live with hope. If tomorrow were shaped solely by human hands and hearts I’d be terrified.
So as we read the Gospel lesson I not only picture Jesus walking and talking with his disciples James and John. I picture him walking and talking with me. If I’m open to his presence and guidance I will find that place toward which my life naturally points.
At any time I can turn aside, which I have done. At any time I can take a detour which I sometimes do. At any time I can be resistant and defensive which I sometimes am. But in the midst of it all I feel very clear – I don’t live my life according to God’s fore-ordained plan; I seek harmony with God and can be a co-creator with God of my life and our world.
Each one who is open to God is engaged in shaping our common future. Tomorrow is not pre-ordained, nor is it random, happenstance. Rather, we are this very day, this very minute, free to choose how we’ll live and how we’ll relate and how we’ll cradle this awesome power to co-create with God.
Of course I don’t mean that God consults me on what color to make the skies or how the V of geese should navigate to their winter home. Those things remain forever a mystery. In the same way I don’t expect God to take my instructions when I fervently pray for a particular outcome. But I do believe that the spirit of God engages my spirit through Jesus Christ. And what I want most is to shape my life according to what I know of Jesus.
So when I say “God has a will but not a plan” what do I mean? I mean the future is open, not yet written. God will guide us and engage us as we write the future together.
Martin Luther King, Jr. constantly weighed the conflicting pressures of when to push hard for civil rights, and when to let up, however briefly. He knew that he and others in the movement had to lay the framework wisely and well, and he knew he could see the Promised Land but realized he probably would never set foot in it. King expressed this so well when he said: “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” That’s one to put up on your refrigerator: “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”
So it is, I’m certain the next generation will look back at us with dismay at why so many – and so many people of faith – have fought to deny same-sex couples the right to marry; why we are so reluctant to fix the health care system so everyone can get good medical care and no one goes bankrupt because of a major illness.
Things take time, especially the things that are truly of God. But whatever is truly of God will embody what God embodies – as the letter of James says:
the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
God has a will, a holy will, and it bends toward a future that we can face with hope. Along the way stuff will happen. We’ll face heartache and sorrow and illness and brokenness. We’ll also experience peace, harmony, love and profound joy.
No matter how hard you believe God won’t take away all the tough things. But you will walk through them with hope and faith because of the companion who walks beside you. In Jesus Christ we encounter the presence of God who continues to fashion an unknown future and invites us to co-create – laboring side by side for a world of hope and promise, peace and justice for all God’s children.