A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, July 27, 2008
Romans 8:18-28
Do you know how it is when you vaguely remember something and start looking for it, then come across something else that grabs your interest, so you forget what you were looking for in the first place?
That’s how I found an old, yellowed “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon this week as I was looking for something else. Calvin is standing by his father: “Dad, what’s a control freak?” His father stops reading the paper and says: “that’s what lazy, slip-shod malcontents call those of us who get things done.” “Ahhhh,” says Calvin. “Am I speaking to their king…. Should I kneel?”
Many of us try hard to control our worlds. I’ve always tried to live according to the old marketing slogan for Holiday Inns maybe thirty years ago: they boasted “The Best Surprise is No Surprise.”
But we know that feeling “in control” is largely an illusion. Ask Ben Bernanke who’s in control of the stock market, or of oil prices. Ask a parent who controls a two year old. Ask a victim of domestic violence who’s in control of another’s feelings or another’s love.
We might think we can control the world around us, but the greater part of life is what happens to us from that realm beyond our control. It’s what unfolds when the phone rings at 4:30 a.m., or what happens when the doctor says it’s malignant, or what you do when you walk to your car in the parking lot and see that someone has run into it.
We can’t control our world. We can’t insulate ourselves from danger and risk and others’ intentions. Helen Keller wisely wrote: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”
So is life a daring adventure or is it nothing? Is this an improvisational tragic-comedy, or is it the meaningless passage of time signifying nothing? Each of us decides that one in our heart of hearts.
But let me ask another question. What would your life be like if you understood deep in your bones that life really is beyond your control, but that you don’t have to be afraid? What if you really have no reason to be afraid because God is at work in the world and in your life; God is advocating for each one who lives by faith and lives in love? I’m not saying that God has predestined you, or already written the script of what will happen a week from Thursday. I’m not saying that God insulates you from life’s pain or surrounds you with an invisible shield. But echoing the Apostle Paul here in Romans, we dare to claim that: “God works all things together for all who love God… God makes all things work together for you!”
We often hear a short-hand version: “things work out.” That’s passive, like saying if you wait patiently life’s got to get better. But Paul points us to a much bolder faith: God is the agent: “God makes all things work together for you, for your well-being,” he claims. Because God loves us, God weaves the joyful and painful together into rich, vibrant, amazing life. Wow.
But we often can’t see the big picture, the great sweep. We’re busy trying hard to control the uncontrollable and trying to negotiate our way out of reality. But hear this and hold on to it:
• If you’re in a painful place; if you feel in danger; if you’re wrestling with deep sadness or overwhelming loss, hold on. God is at work within you. God works in all things together and promises that one day you’ll look back at this time – this day, perhaps this very moment – and see it was one of the building stones of your life. Without it you wouldn’t be who you are. And God loves who you are.
• If you’re in a sweet place right now; if you’re feeling safe and secure; take a moment and look back over the years. God is at work within you. Chances are you’ve been through trying times, times during which you wept bitter tears and carried deep pain. God works in all things together and promises that one day you’ll look back at this time – this day, perhaps this very moment – and see it was one of the building stones of your life. Without it you wouldn’t be who you are. And God loves who you are.
Just this past Friday I was struggling with my message for this morning and feeling completely uninspired. It felt flat and lifeless. Then I went for my weekly visit with Bill and Darla Harris. They’re always an inspiration to me. If you have the privilege of knowing them you know what I mean. So Friday I asked their permission to share more of their story.
Bill and Darla were both divorced when they began to worship here just a few months apart. They met here in coffee hour, soon fell in love, and spoke their marriage covenant in our chapel in January, 1991. Ten years later Bill was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After a successful round of treatments, seven years ago, he was pronounced cancer-free. Well, last summer the tumor returned. Now Bill is drawing closer to death and receiving Hospice care at home.
As I sat with them on Friday I summarized this reading from Romans and told them I hadn’t found the spark to make the message come alive. So far it was just feeling like words. Darla spoke up “well these years together have certainly been an adventure; not a down time for us. Sure, it’s been sad sometimes because we love each other and want to be together. But we both wake up each day and say ‘I wonder what today has in store?’”
There was the inspiration that had escaped me when I was sitting in my study trying to think theologically. When I asked their permission to share this Darla simply answered, “Sure, we’re all family.”
That visit brought to mind another profound insight from Helen Keller: “Although the world is full of suffering,” she said, “it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
Suffering is unavoidable. Overcoming suffering is our choice – a faith choice. Even when you can’t affect what’s happening you can choose how you’ll respond. The issue isn’t really what’s happening outside of us, but rather deep within.
If we love God and believe in God’s purpose and presence then, in fact, we are saying “yes” to life. We’re acting out our confession of faith not saying “I believe in a God who tests me and sends pain and suffering my way; a God who is waiting for me to stumble.” That’s not Paul’s message. Neither is he suggesting an easy optimism by which everything in the universe works to make good people into happy people.
Rather, Paul is saying that God, by grace, is constantly at work within us through faith so we can discover abundant life. That’s not cheap grace or a foolish conviction that life should be easy because we go to church or try really hard to be good. No, the Apostle says that if we’ll allow it through our trust and faith, God will deliver on the promise of wholeness and inner peace.
That’s all that is required of you… to let God deliver on the promise; to stop fighting and struggling and demanding control.
God wants to equip us for living these days, and finds no joy when the world threatens to crush us under the heavy load. If your faith is small don’t try to shrink the enormity of the world to fit it. Rather enlarge your faith to embrace our world.
God works in all things together and promises that one day you’ll look back at this time – this day, perhaps this very moment – and see it was one of the building stones of your life. Without it you wouldn’t be who you are. And God loves who you are.
[Invitation to silence]