“GETTING REAL WITH GOD”
June 9, 2002
Pslam 13
The Psalms
reveal virtually every human emotion that I have felt. I experience a strange
kind of comfort knowing that for many centuries the human condition, in all its
frailty and freedom, hasn’t really changed. My feelings and thoughts are not
markedly different than those faithful people who lived and struggled before
me. They too experienced doubt and desperation, joy and jubilation, fear and
failure, anger and anxiety, happiness and hope, gratitude and gladness.
Psalm 13 is a “lament.” According to
Webster’s Dictionary “lament” is both verb and a noun. “Lament” means “to feel
or express deep sorrow.” “Lament” also means “a mournful dirge, an expression
of intense grief.” Biblical scholars, and what would one of my sermons be
without mentioning biblical scholars, they are important to mention so that I
know why I write my student loan check for seminary, anyhow scholars divide
“laments” into five identifiable stages:
Invocation:
Inviting God into your presence or rather inviting yourself into God’s
presence. Acknowledging that God is present in a situation even if your
emotional state is not an easy one. Crying out to God.
Complaint:
Naming of the Crisis, Owning up to the problem in your life, letting God know
about the issue from your point of view
Confession
of Trust: trusting in God to find a solution that you can’t find alone
Petition:
Asking for God’s intervention in your situation
Thanks:
Giving God the glory for a solution or resolution, praise
I really think that these stages of a “lament” are
also the stages to healing in our lives. I think that most of us can recall a
time in our lives when we cried out to God in lament. For some of you it was
the moment this morning when you read that I am the one preaching today.
Seriously, think back to the last time you cried out to God out of pain,
emotional or physical, or fear, whether real or imagined.
Something critical happens in the calling or crying
out to God or Jesus stage: WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR OWN HUMAN NEED FOR A POWER
GREATER THAN OURSELVES. We tap into the spiritual realm and doing so always
gives us a new perspective on our current circumstances. We are moved from the
temporary external situations of our lives to the eternal spiritual truth of
God’s presence.
I recall a time when I cried
out to God long ago. I entered the small chapel nervously in 1988 – it was
nestled in a beautiful area with trees and there were bunnies running around. I
was tired from the long distance move that we finally finished the day before
from IL to NJ. I was shocked to learn that such a place as MCC existed – a
Christian church for G/L/B/T people. I had no idea what to expect.
As the hymns started I found myself
weeping…something inside of me that I thought was long since dead and buried,
rose within me. It was powerful and moving. I saw myself as a child singing the
very same hymn and worshipping God with every bit of myself.I couldn’t believe
that God hadn’t forgotten me. I realized I hadn’t forgotten God. God waited
patiently. I cried out to God as only one who experiences a surprise homecoming
can. I knew that there was something special about April 15, 1988 but, in
retrospect, there is no way someone could have told me that it was the first
step in the spiritual journey I have been on since. The silent cry to God was
one of joyful recognition, like seeing an old dear friend unexpectedly. The
silent cry to God marked a new chapter in my life, a chapter filled with
excitement and wonder at the difference that being aware of God’s presence made
in my life.
God had always been there but somehow I had become
disconnected from God. The slow turning away from God had happened gradually
and silently and, yet, in a single silent cry, I felt face to face with God again.
AMAZING!
Can you remember a time in your life when you were
mad, or confused or downright disgusted with the Lord? It sounds like a country
western song….downright disgusted with the Lord. …God heard me and, yet, God
ignored…I’m so blazing mad…I wanted to be glad…downright disgusted with the
Lord.
Seriously, we are so conditioned by our culture to
avoid conflict or anything that we categorize as unpleasant that when our life
circumstances make us angry with God we simply go away from God. There is no
other time when we so desperately need to engage God more than when we have a
complaint…even if the complaint is about God.
We find it so foreign, so alien to our world, so
mind – bending that God loves us even when we are angry with God.
Sometimes the simplest truths are the most profound
life lessons to take in. God loves you no matter what you think and feel.
Scripture tells us to “cast our burdens on the
Lord.”
I tell folks all the time “it is okay to be angry with God. God can handle anything we can
dish out.” It beats the alternative, which is being angry without
God. Being angry means that you are invested in the relationship.
Struggling to understand and accept what you
perceive “God did to you or did not do for you” is simply a part of the human
condition. Dare I say, it is even biblical.
Consider Hagar, a single mom, a slave woman, forced
into the desert alone with her baby to die of thirst. She complained to God. Or
Joseph, who wanted to fulfill divine dreams, yet, he was sold into slavery by
his own brothers and imprisoned in Egypt. I bet you he muttered a few choice
words to God about his predicament. God made a way out of the difficult
circumstances for both Hagar and Joseph. God will do no less for you. Go
ahead complain to God it is not like God doesn’t know the messes we get
ourselves into anyhow.
The next stages of a “lament” are trusting in God
and asking for God’s intervention. Notice I didn’t say submitting a proposed
solution for God to rubber stamp. The deal is we participate to the mess -
making of our lives to some degree or another. We complain to God and THEN we
want to tell God how to solve our messes. Wow…we sure can be dense, we humans.
God has an infinitely more advanced imagination than all of us combined. God
can change things, people, situations that logic deems hopeless.
I have a friend, Susan, who is a national champion
trampolinist. She had a devastating accident on Feb. 14th and is
paralyzed from the neck down. The Prayer and Care Team prays for her. I spoke
to her mom, Shirley, this week and she reports that Susan has had two instances
where she felt things on her back. Prayer is a powerful spiritual tool.
Trusting in God to find solutions is a risk.
Believing that we can find our own solutions without God is an act of arrogance
and rebellion. God acts, I think, as an instrument by which we can recognize
potential solutions or resolutions. God moves in our lives, in both ordinary
and extraordinary ways, to bring about healing. It is up to us to open ourselves
to God’s intervention.
We complain when our wants and needs are in conflict
with another’s wants and needs. Conflict is an inevitable part of human
relationships and also our relationship with the divine.
Complaining can be constructive when we leave our
wants and needs on God’s lap. We, too often, grab them back and become
demanding with God, as if we know what is best for us.
Trusting in God means that we have come to terms
with the part we have played in broken relationships, missed opportunities and
difficult circumstances. It means that we are ready to turn over to God our
problem and follow God’s leading.God wants to meet us right where we are. God
wants to make a difference in how we live our lives. God longs for you more
than you will ever long for God.
Being in relationship with God means that we come to
a place of recognizing our own responsibility for our lives, our decisions, our
relationships. We accept our humanness and God’s power to transform our
lives.We truly live in relationship to the almighty…we are simply human and
allow God to work through us to change our lives.
I invite you in this coming week to lament with God.
Tell God your thoughts, feelings, opinions and be willing to leave your
troubles right there in God’s hands. Living in the light of Christ’s love is a
matter of giving God every part of ourselves. When we hold nothing back God
rushes into our lives to meet us. Possibilities that have always been there,
but have hidden in the chaos of our lives, suddenly come into view. We see ways
out of our difficulties that move us ever closer to God.
Malachi
3:3 says, “ God will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” A woman who was
very interested in this passage struggled to make sense of it and decided that
a visit to a silversmith might inform her understanding. She watched as he put
the metal in the fire. She asked questions and learned that the silversmith had
to keep his eyes on the silver the whole time it was in the fire. If the silver
was in the fire a moment to long it would be destroyed. She asked the
silversmith, “How do you know when it is refined?” He smiled at her and said,
“That’s easy, when I see my own image in it.”
So it is with God. God will use some of the
circumstances of our lives to bring us closer to God. We, being humans, think
we are under fire and fail to look for God’s image in ourselves and in each
other.
God asks nothing more of us than
to be authentic and open to God. Okay Saints…Get Real with God…Amen!
Amen and God Bless.
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