April 12, 2015
I love when I accidentally stumble upon someone talking about God. It's like a special treat for me. Standing behind a couple in line at the grocery store, eavesdropping on a conversation in the restaurant booth next to mine, or even catching half of a particularly heated phone call from a passerby—I relish these moments as rare and intimate glimpses into the human condition. I believe they are because, let’s face it, when we talk about God, we are talking about a lot of different things. And how we talk about and imagine God says at least as much about us as it does the divine we attempt to articulate. The author Zora Neale Hurston put it this way: “Gods always behave like the people who make them.” I would add that how we make the divine behave is often linked directly to the condition of our own hearts as well as the circumstances of our lived experience.
So what happens when this lived experience is defined by trials and tribulation? I began reflecting on this while listening to a poignant standup performance by the comedian TigNotaro. In an August 2012 set entitled Live, Notaro takes her audience through a series of very recent tragic events in her life. Initially hospitalized for pneumonia—which turned into a life-threatening intestinal bacterial infection—she was released only to face the tragic death of her mother, a break up, and a Stage II breast cancer diagnosis—all within four months. “You know the Good Lord giveth,” she quipped, “and the Good Lord taketh away. But sometimes the Good Lord taketh and just keep taken-it-eth.”
What stood out to me was the incredible display of vulnerability throughout the entire performance. This was not some smug, self-congratulatory mocking of faith by a condescending comic. This was a woman allowing us, her audience, to hear her story in one of the more raw and honest pieces of art I have ever encountered. Not unlike those I've overheard in the store, in the restaurant, and on the street, Notaro gives us the gift of listening to her stumble through a little theology. I want to play a small clip from this performance, her second and final reflection on the divine. **PlayTigNotaro’s God is Crazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRDUAnpsL6w**
“Why, God?!” she cries through the voices of exasperated imaginary angels. She then answers this seemingly rhetorical question, reflecting,“God is insane, if there at all.” This hit me, hard. Her words rang so true to my experience, and I’m sure they speak to yours as well. There have been many moments when I have sworn that God was either deranged, absent, or imaginary. But TigNotaro and I are certainly not the first to say this. (Quick aside: Indeed, I often wonder what passed through the mind of Christ—even if for a fleeting moment—when he fell to the ground and begged God to let this cup pass from him.) The final line of Notaro's reflection on God reminded me of the closing lines of Robert Frost's haunting sonnet, "Design.” Seeing an all-white spider holding up a dead white moth on a rare white flower—a heal-all, ironically enough—the speaker asks what sort of divine designer could have orchestrated such an awful sight, which they called "assorted characters of death and blight.” “What but design of darkness to appall?” the ending couplet states, “If design govern in a thing so small.” It's easy to examine the circumstance of our broken existence and wonder if the design itself is broken or if the designer is sadistic or (perhaps more comforting) just MIA.
This seems like a strange topic to cover just days after Easter, when many of us in the Christian tradition feel like we’ve just encountered God in an especially meaningful way. But this reflection comes from my own sense of loss. For as I think upon the life of a dear friend of mine who committed suicide two years ago yesterday, my ears have been particularly sensitive to these kinds of conversations about the divine. In the days leading up to this one, as I re-read Frost’s poem and listened to Notaro’s standup, I could not help but wonder how many of us in this room have faced, are facing, or will inevitably face those moments when are left all alone with one burning question: “Where is God?” I have had many. Where was God in my friend’s suicide? Where was God in my parents’ divorce? Where is God in the depths of my depression and the throes of anxiety? In the midst of heartbreak? Watching the news this week, my latest question is: Where was God in the murder of Walter Scott? Such is merely the echo of a question that has long haunted our nation: Where was God in the murders of Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and countless others?
In writing this sermon, I knew only that I had this large, looming question and no answers to propose. So now I’m the one stumbling through a little theology and you are the audience. Thanks, in advance, for extending a little grace to me in this process. I’ll kick off my reflection with a little insight from a charismatic-pastor-turned-Southern-Baptist minister, my father. I’ve had countless conversations where I've inundated him with my deepest existential angst (and you can imagine there have been many along my journey from charismatic PK to Unitarian Universalist seeking ordination myself). In these moments my father has calmly, rather wisely, told me to start with what I know. So, as I work toward an answer to this question, I'll share with you a few things that I know to be true. The first is that often in our interactions, we want to come from a place of security and power, if not outright control. We lead with our minds and our might, hoping to wrangle the forces much larger than ourselves into something we can understand and even manipulate for our benefit.
I also know that as followers of the call of Christ, when attempting to answer this looming question, we have a resource in Scripture. When I knew I was coming to speak to you a few months ago, long before I had a topic in mind, I kept returning to the story of the rich young ruler. I was recently struck by The Message's version:
Matthew 19:16-22 The Message (MSG)
16 Another day, a man stopped Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 Jesus said, “Why do you question me about what’s good? God is the One who is good. If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you.”
18-19 The man asked, “What in particular?” Jesus said, “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as you do yourself.”
(Jesus would have been a good salesman—almost a little bait-and switch here.)
20 The young man said, “I’ve done all that. What’s left?”
21 “If you want to give it all you’ve got,” Jesus replied, “go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.”
22 That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crestfallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn’t bear to let go.
Jesus is clear that God is not to be found in the fist, no matter how tightly clenched. God is not folded in your wallet, locked behind your safety deposit box, or written in the lines of your insurance policy. This is not to say that God cannot or will not work through those things, but it is to say that God is not bound by them. God is not in the business of reinforcing our illusion of security. Jesus' offer here is rather radical, in fact. "If you want to give it all you've got," he says, divest yourself of your power, embrace vulnerability, and experience true power in following me, in answering my call. In light of this passage, I think the first step in answering the question of "Where is God?" may just be answering another question: What are you holding on to?
I have a confession to make. As someone who loves thinking theologically and historically, I often hold too tightly to thinking about God. I find security in understanding things and—in my worst moments—I have even used my knowledge as a means of cutting others down in order to lift myself up. (As you can imagine, this has come up in heated debates with my evangelical friends and family back home.) What would Jesus ask of me if I were in the rich young ruler's position? He might ask me to let go of my obsession with knowing it all and illusion that my intellect is my ultimate security. This might especially be true when it comes to my desire to understand all of God. This conviction hit me when I came across this quote in Lutheran minister Nadia Bolz-Weber's memoir, Pastrix. She wrote, “I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.” Wow! Reading that was a getting-kicked-in-the-gut kind of revelation for me. I too often worship my own ability to understand the divine, it's true. I'm guilty, God, that's me. Forgive me for losing sight of your call, exchanging it for this false sense of security in the power of my own mind.
And what is this call, anyway? It's simple, right? We all know it. Love God and love your neighbor. But what to do when we don't know where God is in the midst of our pain, our loss, our brokenness? I think we too quickly rank these two commandments, first and second. Now, according to the scripture (Matthew 22), Jesus did say that the first was the most important, but he also set the second alongside it. What if we began to see one as a bridge to the other? What if we saw them as truly interdependent? How would that change the way we search for God and the way we treat one another?
This brings me to another thing I know to be true: community is key. If you are searching for God, look to and love your neighbor deeply. It is within this connection that we touch the divine. I think we all carry some security blanket that keeps us from fully experiencing this. As I've said, mine is often a need to grasp things intellectually. Fearful of where feeling will take me, my heart often cowers behind my head. But I must heed Jesus' words to the religious leaders of his day: love people more than you love ideas. (Nadia Bolz-Weber has a story about drawing a line and God being on the other side of it—maybe we should start our search for God by looking on the other side of the divisions we have placed between ourselves and another.) It's messy. You cannot control and manipulate people like you can rules. That's why, I believe, Jesus came as flesh and bone and not some disembodied dogma, which is too often how I have treated him. The Word became flesh. To connect with our own fleshiness, our own humanness, and then that of another is to take a great risk. It makes us truly vulnerable. But is it worth the risk?
I have often thought of vulnerability as a dirty word, but ancient wisdom and contemporary research tell another story. Brené Brown, a noted author, qualitative researcher, and professor of social work, has written that "Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience.” When asked in an interview to explain this further, she said the following:
[Y]ou know, when I ask people what is vulnerability, the answers were things like sitting with my wife who has Stage III breast cancer and trying to make plans for our children, my first date after my divorce, saying I love you first, asking for a raise, sending my child to school being enthusiastic and supportive of him and knowing how excited he is about orchestra tryouts and how much he wants to make first chair and encouraging him and supporting him and knowing that's not going to happen. To me, vulnerability is courage. It's about the willingness to show up and be seen in our lives. And in those moments when we show up, I think those are the most powerful meaning-making moments of our lives even if they don't go well. I think they define who we are.
Connection is worth the risk. According to Jesus, it's how we access a blessed life. (My thanks to Bread of Life's Kim Montroll for pointing me to The Message's beautiful interpretation of The Beatitudes.)
Matthew 5:1-12The Message
5 1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:
3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
I shudder to think of what TigNotaro would say about what I've just said. Considering all that she has experienced, a few neatly packaged phrases about love and searching for God—even from Jesus himself—may not bring any sense of comfort. I understand that. But I wonder what might change in our perspective if we quit looking up to the heavens for a divine master puppeteer of our broken world and rather see God as a victim of, yet subversively victorious over, this world—alongside us. Perhaps the master puppeteer God we imagine is more a reflection of our need for control than it is of God's true nature. Just a thought. Besides, before we come down too hard on God, let us not forget our own complicity in the brokenness of this world.
Quite honestly, I do not have an answer the question I posed in this sermon. Where is God? I cannot always be sure. My home church, First Unitarian Church of St Louis, used to have a banner out front that read, “The Search is the Answer.” This feels right to me. More than a clever, quotable statement of Unitarian Universalist theology, it is an ambitious truth. Questions often leave us reeling in the dark. To be present in the suffering of our search and to extend grace to ourselves throughout is quite a radical notion. And to celebrate it seems just short of madness. But what if we make that journey together? We may not come from the same place or even arrive at the same answers, but maybe our connection along this road is the answer. Maybe there we encounter a love subversive enough to claim divinity.
Again, I don't have the answer, but I know some questions that might help point us to it. What are you holding on to that is holding you back from fully connecting with another? (Where have you drawn lines between yourself and another?) Who is your neighbor and do you love them? If we look within and in between us, attuned to love's movement, maybe we will find God there, even in the brokenness. Maybe the answer—if there even is an answer—to the question of “Where is God?” might be God asking me, “Ian, where are you? I’ll meet you there.” Maybe God already has.
Thank you for listening to me stumble through a little theology today and extending grace to me where we may disagree. I am humbled to be a part of this community and look forward to continuing this dialogue and deepening our connection. I truly believe that my connections with you sharpen my own connection to the divine. In your faces I come closer to seeing the face of God. Thank you, and Amen.