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An Unexpected Opportunity--Preach It, Sister!
Our preacher left for another church, and members of the congregation have been preaching while we look for an interim minister. This was my sermon, delivered April 6, 2008:
No Outside
I'm going to be making some "we" statements today that aren't too flattering, so feel free to exclude yourselves if the statements don't apply to you. I may end up standing up here talking purely about myself, and you may hear more than you want to know. Today, I'm going to talk about living with jackals and ostriches. Jackals and ostriches are wild things, lawless, untamed, beyond human control. They are OUTSIDE.
Beyond human control scares me. I'm a control freak. I always feel like, if I'm in control, nothing very bad will happen. If everybody just listens to ME, they can't go very far wrong. My family humors me and then they go do things the way they want to do them. If things don't work out, I tell myself things would have been fine if they had listened to me. If things go right, I'm glad they got lucky this time.
But, of course, we're not always in control. I'm not talking about traffic jams or snowstorms. I'm talking about the big stuff. We turn on the television and something appalling has happened. The phone rings and we hear family news that goes through us like a bolt of electricity. Something happens that turns our world upside down, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Oh, we can learn to cope, we can learn to deal with the aftermath or help others deal with it, but the situation itself is there--inescapable, impossible to ignore, impossible to fix, and nobody--NOBODY is going to listen to how we think things ought to be.
We're no longer in our "comfort zone". We're out where we don't make the rules, where nothing is answerable to us. We're out in the desert, the companion of jackals and ostriches. OUTSIDE.
It's like a kind of death--helpless, defenseless, emptied out.
When we find ourselves out there, sometimes people who are still back on the safe side of the line will tell us not to worry, that God is in control. When they do, it's tempting to tell them, "I wish He'd give it to ME, because He's doing a lousy job of it."
Sometimes our would-be comforters point to Jesus, and you have to admit that makes sense. Jesus was all about outsiders. His teachings were outside the common wisdom, outside the acceptable practices of his time, right on the outside edge of the law. He took his message and his presence to the gentiles, the sinners, the ritually and physically and morally unclean outsiders of his society. He was rejected by the powerful, not to mention by most of his friends when the chips were down. He died as an outlaw.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he said, a human cry we can all recognize: "God, where ARE you?"
But Christians grow up being told that Jesus is with them always. We're so used to hearing it, it can lose its effectiveness. We can take it for granted, the way we often took our family for granted. "Sure, Mom thinks I'm smart. She's my Mom--she HAS to." "Yeah, yeah, Jesus loves me--this I know."
A few years ago, just before I came to this church, my happy little world turned upside down. Since then, it's turned upside down so often, it looks kind of funny right way up. At the time of that first catastrophe, I found myself somewhere I had never been before--outside any of my ordinary comfort zones, unreachable by any of my ordinary resources, inconsolable, helpless, defenseless, empty, OUTSIDE, with the jackals and ostriches.
I came here looking for a way to get back but I found something better. I found an educational series on the book of Job. Some of you went to them, too, so forgive me if I oversimplify or if I've got something just plain wrong.
Job was outside. He was just about as far outside as he could be. He lost almost everything: everything he owned, all his children, his health. He was a good man, but bad things kept happening to him. That wasn't the way things were supposed to be. The bad things that happened to him were bad enough in themselves, but the fact that these bad things happened to HIM--a good man--turned his world upside down. Good people were supposed to be loved by God, and that was supposed to mean that only good things happened to them. As he told the friends who came to visit him, his sufferings put him outside sense, control, orderliness. It made him the companion of jackals and ostriches.
His friends tried to reach out to him. They offered him conventional wisdom. They assured him that God was in control, that if Job was having a bad time of it, it was God's judgment on Job's bad behavior. They told him he didn't have the right to call on God. They advised him to get right with God and God would bring him back out of the chaos his life had become.
Job insisted that he didn't deserve the things that had happened to him. Like the perfect Man later, this good man cried out, "God, where ARE you? Why are you doing this to me? Where's the sense? This is out of order. Why have you abandoned me?"
And God shows up. First, he wants to know where Job was when God CREATED sense and order. Where was Job when God CREATED boundaries and limits? Does Job make it rain or snow or hail? he asks. Then God claims ravens, mountain goats, wild asses--even ostriches. He claims warhorses, hawks and eagles. He gets poetic, talking about His hippopotamus and His crocodile. Wild things. Lawless things. Untamed things beyond human control.
He gets downright sarcastic with Job, but He isn't angry with him. He's angry with Job's friends. He tells them Job is right and they are wrong. The things that have happened to Job aren't Job's fault. There is nothing Job can do to control what God does or doesn't do. The bad things that have happened to Job are not a sign that Job has been cast beyond God's limits.
Job dared to challenge God with that question: Where are you? God's answer was, in essence: "I'm here. I'm where the order is, and I'm where the chaos is. Anything that can be tamed, I made that way. Anything that can't be tamed, I made that way. Any limits that were set, I set, and they don't apply to me. I made it all. It's all beautiful to me. I love it all. You might be beyond HUMAN limits of order, reason or control, but you aren't beyond MY limits, because I don't have any."
Is that a comfort? I don't know that "comfort" is the word for it. When your sense of security turns out to be a house of cards and when your happy little world is in ruins, is "comfort" even appropriate? I've known times when my only comfort was knowing that I didn't have to live if I really didn't want to. So maybe "assurance" is a better word. Since the book of Job was opened to me, I have a strength I didn't have before, because I know we can look into the heart of chaos and see God looking back--looking and loving. Jesus doesn't love us because He's a softie, He loves us because He's God--because He knows what chaos looks like from both sides--been there, done that.
If you're lucky enough never to have been to that dark place, outside the limits of comfort, the companion of jackals and ostriches, what I've said may strike you as bleak. But those of us who have have been there know that what I'm talking about is joy. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin said it well: "Joy is that which survives when your worst fears have been realized. Joy is that which still burns brightly when the sorrows of the world sweep over you like a sea." I might add that joy is what you feel when you hit rock bottom and realize that what you've landed on is the palm of God's hand.
Here's a riddle for you: What's deep and wide and has no outside? I bet you know the answer.
Children's Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for being with us all the time, when we're happy and when we're sad, when we're sick and when we're well. Thank you for being with us when we're lonely and comforting us when we're hurt. Help us to be like that for other people--help us to be happy with them when they're happy and to comfort them when they're sad or sick or lonely or hurt. We ask it in Jesus' name--Amen.
Prayer for the church:
Almighty God, You made us as we are and You love us as we are. Help us to be the very best people we're able to be, and help us to forgive ourselves if our best is not as good as we'd like. Help us to respond to other people with the best that's in us, and help us to see and draw forth the best that's in everyone we meet. We thank You for all Your graces and kindnesses. We bless You for Your everlasting faithfulness that knows no bounds, that doesn't fade with time or shy away from devastation and rejection. We pray now for those who are now walking in the dark valley--those who face loss, illness, death, depression, spiritual agony and all suffering. Give them the gift of knowing they are never separated from Your presence and Your love. We name them now in our hearts........
In Jesus' name we pray--Amen
I'm going to be making some "we" statements today that aren't too flattering, so feel free to exclude yourselves if the statements don't apply to you. I may end up standing up here talking purely about myself, and you may hear more than you want to know. Today, I'm going to talk about living with jackals and ostriches. Jackals and ostriches are wild things, lawless, untamed, beyond human control. They are OUTSIDE.
Beyond human control scares me. I'm a control freak. I always feel like, if I'm in control, nothing very bad will happen. If everybody just listens to ME, they can't go very far wrong. My family humors me and then they go do things the way they want to do them. If things don't work out, I tell myself things would have been fine if they had listened to me. If things go right, I'm glad they got lucky this time.
But, of course, we're not always in control. I'm not talking about traffic jams or snowstorms. I'm talking about the big stuff. We turn on the television and something appalling has happened. The phone rings and we hear family news that goes through us like a bolt of electricity. Something happens that turns our world upside down, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Oh, we can learn to cope, we can learn to deal with the aftermath or help others deal with it, but the situation itself is there--inescapable, impossible to ignore, impossible to fix, and nobody--NOBODY is going to listen to how we think things ought to be.
We're no longer in our "comfort zone". We're out where we don't make the rules, where nothing is answerable to us. We're out in the desert, the companion of jackals and ostriches. OUTSIDE.
It's like a kind of death--helpless, defenseless, emptied out.
When we find ourselves out there, sometimes people who are still back on the safe side of the line will tell us not to worry, that God is in control. When they do, it's tempting to tell them, "I wish He'd give it to ME, because He's doing a lousy job of it."
Sometimes our would-be comforters point to Jesus, and you have to admit that makes sense. Jesus was all about outsiders. His teachings were outside the common wisdom, outside the acceptable practices of his time, right on the outside edge of the law. He took his message and his presence to the gentiles, the sinners, the ritually and physically and morally unclean outsiders of his society. He was rejected by the powerful, not to mention by most of his friends when the chips were down. He died as an outlaw.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he said, a human cry we can all recognize: "God, where ARE you?"
But Christians grow up being told that Jesus is with them always. We're so used to hearing it, it can lose its effectiveness. We can take it for granted, the way we often took our family for granted. "Sure, Mom thinks I'm smart. She's my Mom--she HAS to." "Yeah, yeah, Jesus loves me--this I know."
A few years ago, just before I came to this church, my happy little world turned upside down. Since then, it's turned upside down so often, it looks kind of funny right way up. At the time of that first catastrophe, I found myself somewhere I had never been before--outside any of my ordinary comfort zones, unreachable by any of my ordinary resources, inconsolable, helpless, defenseless, empty, OUTSIDE, with the jackals and ostriches.
I came here looking for a way to get back but I found something better. I found an educational series on the book of Job. Some of you went to them, too, so forgive me if I oversimplify or if I've got something just plain wrong.
Job was outside. He was just about as far outside as he could be. He lost almost everything: everything he owned, all his children, his health. He was a good man, but bad things kept happening to him. That wasn't the way things were supposed to be. The bad things that happened to him were bad enough in themselves, but the fact that these bad things happened to HIM--a good man--turned his world upside down. Good people were supposed to be loved by God, and that was supposed to mean that only good things happened to them. As he told the friends who came to visit him, his sufferings put him outside sense, control, orderliness. It made him the companion of jackals and ostriches.
His friends tried to reach out to him. They offered him conventional wisdom. They assured him that God was in control, that if Job was having a bad time of it, it was God's judgment on Job's bad behavior. They told him he didn't have the right to call on God. They advised him to get right with God and God would bring him back out of the chaos his life had become.
Job insisted that he didn't deserve the things that had happened to him. Like the perfect Man later, this good man cried out, "God, where ARE you? Why are you doing this to me? Where's the sense? This is out of order. Why have you abandoned me?"
And God shows up. First, he wants to know where Job was when God CREATED sense and order. Where was Job when God CREATED boundaries and limits? Does Job make it rain or snow or hail? he asks. Then God claims ravens, mountain goats, wild asses--even ostriches. He claims warhorses, hawks and eagles. He gets poetic, talking about His hippopotamus and His crocodile. Wild things. Lawless things. Untamed things beyond human control.
He gets downright sarcastic with Job, but He isn't angry with him. He's angry with Job's friends. He tells them Job is right and they are wrong. The things that have happened to Job aren't Job's fault. There is nothing Job can do to control what God does or doesn't do. The bad things that have happened to Job are not a sign that Job has been cast beyond God's limits.
Job dared to challenge God with that question: Where are you? God's answer was, in essence: "I'm here. I'm where the order is, and I'm where the chaos is. Anything that can be tamed, I made that way. Anything that can't be tamed, I made that way. Any limits that were set, I set, and they don't apply to me. I made it all. It's all beautiful to me. I love it all. You might be beyond HUMAN limits of order, reason or control, but you aren't beyond MY limits, because I don't have any."
Is that a comfort? I don't know that "comfort" is the word for it. When your sense of security turns out to be a house of cards and when your happy little world is in ruins, is "comfort" even appropriate? I've known times when my only comfort was knowing that I didn't have to live if I really didn't want to. So maybe "assurance" is a better word. Since the book of Job was opened to me, I have a strength I didn't have before, because I know we can look into the heart of chaos and see God looking back--looking and loving. Jesus doesn't love us because He's a softie, He loves us because He's God--because He knows what chaos looks like from both sides--been there, done that.
If you're lucky enough never to have been to that dark place, outside the limits of comfort, the companion of jackals and ostriches, what I've said may strike you as bleak. But those of us who have have been there know that what I'm talking about is joy. The Reverend William Sloane Coffin said it well: "Joy is that which survives when your worst fears have been realized. Joy is that which still burns brightly when the sorrows of the world sweep over you like a sea." I might add that joy is what you feel when you hit rock bottom and realize that what you've landed on is the palm of God's hand.
Here's a riddle for you: What's deep and wide and has no outside? I bet you know the answer.
Children's Prayer:
Dear God, thank you for being with us all the time, when we're happy and when we're sad, when we're sick and when we're well. Thank you for being with us when we're lonely and comforting us when we're hurt. Help us to be like that for other people--help us to be happy with them when they're happy and to comfort them when they're sad or sick or lonely or hurt. We ask it in Jesus' name--Amen.
Prayer for the church:
Almighty God, You made us as we are and You love us as we are. Help us to be the very best people we're able to be, and help us to forgive ourselves if our best is not as good as we'd like. Help us to respond to other people with the best that's in us, and help us to see and draw forth the best that's in everyone we meet. We thank You for all Your graces and kindnesses. We bless You for Your everlasting faithfulness that knows no bounds, that doesn't fade with time or shy away from devastation and rejection. We pray now for those who are now walking in the dark valley--those who face loss, illness, death, depression, spiritual agony and all suffering. Give them the gift of knowing they are never separated from Your presence and Your love. We name them now in our hearts........
In Jesus' name we pray--Amen
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Come on Over
I'm over at a few other blogs today. If you get a chance, come on over to see the Christmas Decorations at http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com/At http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/ the topic is Spoiled Milk. Ever sit down to read a good book and been disappointed?
If you haven't yet, check out the post below about the Paper War.
Thanks,
Morgan Mandel
Paper War
I've been waging a war on paper the last few days. So far, paper is winning. The more I clean up, the more of it I find. The problem is, for much of it, I feel an obligation to do a thorough examination and decide whether or not it's worth keeping.The mailperson is my enemy. He, sometimes she, keeps leaving more paper in my mail box. I'm not talking about my Christmas cards, which I cherish, but all the other stuff dropped off for me to sort out. At times it's torture to come home and see the new pile the DH has set on the kitchen table.
I've discovered tons of magazines over a year old. They were trying to hide in a magazine holder on the side of the couch, but not doing a good job of it, since they were spilling over. Of course, I decided to check the headings on the covers to see if some of the information inside might prove valuable. Wouldn't you know it, I was right. Many articles seemed to good to give up.
I've already mentioned here before about how I also have a compulsion to print out emails that seem important to me. The result is I have lots of important pieces of paper. When there's an abundance, which is the most important? And, where's the one I really need? It is a quandary.
What about you? Is paper your enemy? Are you also waging a war against it? Who is winning?
Library Displays - See Make Mine Mystery Monday
Have you tried a library display? If you want to see mine, come on over to Make Mine Mystery on Monday.Thanks,
Morgan
Christmas Card Blues Is Up at Un:Bound Today
Hi Gang,I've written a short Christmas story which is being featured at Un:Bound today.
You may be able to relate to some of it.
I'd appreciate your going over to look and leave a comment.
Thanks,
Morgan
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It is the Christmas Season. We are hurrying from place to place, fighting huge crowds nearly everywhere we go, and we are all enjoying the carols sung and played on the radio while stuck in traffic. We are all determining the best Christmas gift to…
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