“Discipleship By the Lakeshore:  Trust Issues”

First Congregational United Church of Christ

July 24, 2011

The Rev. Sharyl B. Peterson

 

Scripture Readings:  Joel (portions), Luke 12: 22-32, Romans 8: 31-37

 

During this month of July, we are thinking together (and hopefully, talking together) about the notion of “discipleship.”  About what it means to be a disciple of Jesus’, and about what sometimes holds us back from either wanting to be – or actually being – His disciples. 

            The first Sunday of the month, while actually at the lakeshore (Highline Lake) for worship, we considered the fact that when Jesus called the first disciples, he didn’t choose just the people he liked best, or the best-dressed, or the most important.  He called ordinary folks just like you and me.  And he still does.   

            The next Sunday, we reflected on the fact that when Jesus invited those first disciples to come to him, to learn from him, he returned to the most ancient Biblical notion, and the most ancient cultural practice (the original “we’ve always done it this way”) of offering the invitation – of offering his hospitality – to everyone.  And in returning to those ancient practices, He had to ignore all the messages that had emerged from His the surrounding culture.  He had to ignore – to refute – the beliefs that only some people deserve hospitality, that only some people merit God’s love, that only some people are worthy to be disciples.  Instead, Jesus called everyone to look and to hear and to learn.  Instead, He spread the table of God’s grace for everyone.  And He asks us to do exactly the same thing.

            Finally, last week, we thought about the fact that if we are going to be Jesus’ disciples (just like those very first disciples of His) we must be willing to listen.  To listen to and hear what Jesus taught.  To listen to and hear what Jesus shows us about God’s love.  To listen and to hear how God is speaking in our lives right now.  To listen not just with enthusiasm, but with passion, and commitment, and dedication, because we really do want to learn to live the way He tells us to.

At the end of last week’s sermon, we noted that if we’re going to be disciples, we must also be willing to trust.  In the metaphor of last week’s parable (about the farmer and the seeds and the soil), we must be willing to trust enough that we will hang in there with Jesus and Jesus’ teachings even when “weeds” of worry and illusion grow up and threaten to make it impossible for us to be disciples.

            Now, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed this, but each week, the bar has been raised a little higher.  The requirements for discipleship keep getting more demanding.  And today’s “bar” – a further consideration of some of our issues around trust – is the highest yet.  Hearing our call is one thing; believing in hospitality for everyone is another thing; listening, really listening, is yet another thing.  But the need to trust takes us to a whole new level.

            You may remember, going back to our still-earlier (last May) series on faith, that trusting God – or Jesus – is not the same thing as believing in statements about God – or about Jesus.  I don’t have time to re-preach that whole sermon-series this morning, but if you missed it, and are interested in what we considered in it, Michelle (our secretary) will be happy to make you copies of the May series.  The bottom line for this morning is, most of us are here in this place this morning because we do believe in God … we do believe in Jesus (whether or not we believe particular statements about them).  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we trust God.  Or that we trust Jesus.  And we can’t be disciples unless we do.

            Let me digress for a moment, and tell you about a chemistry professor I “back in the day” when I was an undergraduate science major at Florida State University.  My professor for my first year of chemistry classes was a man named Dr. Mellon.  He was in his early 40s (I think) ,not very tall, built a little like Santa, he smiled a lot, and he was a truly great teacher. 

            He was also a little eccentric, as attested to by many stories that floated around the department among both students and other faculty members.  My favorite was a story about a dinner-party he and his wife had hosted, at which they were serving spaghetti and a wonderful red wine.  After all their guests had sat down at the table, Dr. Mellon stood, and raised his wine-glass in a toast to everyone there, then deliberately spilled some of the wine on the beautiful starched linen tablecloth.  As all the guests gasped, he then took a forkful of spaghetti and sauce, and deliberately dumped it onto the tablecloth too.  Then he smiled, in his usual roguish way, and said, “okay, now the tablecloth has been thoroughly spilled on, and all of you can relax and eat your dinner and drink your wine without worrying about spilling something.”

            It was a perfect example of his sense of humor, and of his hospitable spirit.  Both of which were qualities that showed up in the classroom as well.  And not surprisingly, every student who ever took a course from Dr. Mellon knew that he was a good man, a good professor, and that he could be trusted. 

            My guess is that most of you sitting here this morning have similar memories of a school-teacher … or college or university professor … or coach … or other teacher whom you admired too.  Someone you trusted, no matter how hard the going got.  Someone you could learn from, and wanted to learn from, because you trusted them.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Jesus as our teacher, all too many of us have what a therapist might call “trust issues.”  We might want to trust Jesus.  We might even think that we do trust Jesus (or God).  But then bad things happen, and we find ourselves floundering, unsure, frightened, asking all kinds of questions.  Why did this happen?  Why me?  Why won’t “they” do it “my” way?  What’s going to happen next? 

            In fact, for many people, the whole question of whether or not one can trust God gets centered around the problems and evils that exist in our very real world.  People will argue, “yeah, I know God is supposed to be good and trustworthy, but what about the Crusades … or the Inquisition … or the Holocaust … or more recently, the tsunami in Japan; the floods in North Dakota; the heat-wave in the Midwest; the cancer my loved one is struggling with?  We wonder aloud – or silently, late at night – if we could really trust God (or Jesus), wouldn’t God keep all those bad things from happening?” 

            Our assumption seems to be that God is only trustworthy if nothing bad ever happens – to us, or presumably to anyone else.  And the fact that bad things do happen – to us, and to others – seems to argue for many people against God’s trustworthiness.  If you happen to be one of those people (and I’d bet, if we were all honest, that we either have been, we are, or we will be in that group at some point in our lives), I want to challenge you (us) – and I encourage you to challenge yourselves – on that way of thinking.

            Back in my chemistry class, while we trusted Dr. Mellon, that didn’t mean we never got bad grades on tests, or never got penalized for messed-up experiments (although we were sometimes given the option of trying the experiments again, to see if we could get them right the second time around).  Trusting someone – or someone’s love – or someone’s sense of justice – does not mean that bad things won’t happen.  It means that, with faith, we can get through them.

If you read your Bible, you know the Old Testament teachers and prophets knew that.  Joel was one of those teachers and prophets, who lived somewhere between 500 and 800 years before Jesus was born.  And just as we live in difficult and broken times, so did Joel, and the people he was trying to teach about God.  Although the book he wrote (in the form it’s been preserved in the Old Testament) is only three chapters long, they are three chapters filled with pain and heartache.  I encourage you, before going any further, to read this book, so you’ll know what I’m talking about as I continue with the sermon.

            You may have noticed that nowhere does Joel – or any of the other Old Testament writers – promise that if we just trust in God, nothing bad will happen to us.  Instead, what they promise is that if we do trust in God – or try to trust in God – God will get us through the bad things that do happen to us.

            I know that there are people sitting here this morning who know exactly what those Biblical writers are talking about.  Your own child died, from an illness, from an accident, and you weren’t sure you could manage to go on living.  But somehow, God got you through it.  Or, you’ve been diagnosed with cancer … or COPD … or AIDS … or M.S. … and you know there is suffering ahead, and quite possibly a much earlier end to your life than you had hoped.  And somehow, God gets you through it.  Your wife … or husband … or life-partner … or best friend has descended the long, dark, agonizing road of Alzheimer’s Disease.  You’ve lost your job … or your home … or something else you have treasured.  And somehow, you know that God will get you through it.

            I know, from the stories you have shared with me, and with other people, that when these awful things have happened – or do happen – you didn’t give up on God.  You – we – may have been tempted to do that.  You – we – may have wondered whether we could really trust God.  But somehow, God has shown up, and shown us God is trustworthy.

            God’s love showed up, sometimes in ways we didn’t expect.  Through a conversation with someone, or through the tears running down a friend’s cheeks for our pain or fear.  Through a letter or a phone-call or an e-mail that said exactly what we most needed to hear, or through a dream, or a book, or a movie, or a song.  Through an extraordinary sunrise, or a rainbow, or a flock of baby goats in a field.  But in some way … in something – or someone – that somehow

surrounded and filled us with love … with courage … with the certainty that somehow, things were going to be all right in the end.

            And at the end of the day … at the end of the long journey through pain and hardship … we have known what Joel promised.  “O children …be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God…

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. .. You shall know that God is in the midst of (the people)…” 

            We understand Paul’s promise in that letter to the early Roman church.  “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? … neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  

            We can believe what Jesus himself promised, over and over again.  “strive for God’s kingdom, and (all) things (that you need) will be given to you as well. “Do not be afraid … for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  And remember, I am with you always.” 

            Whatever our trust issues with God may be, may we find the will – the courage – and the love – to struggle to overcome them.  And as we continue in our journey toward discipleship – toward learning ever more from and about Jesus, our Christ – may our struggles become easier, as day by day we find new ways, and new reasons to trust our God.  Amen.