My Sermon 11/18/12
Sermon: Inscrutable
By Katy Wright
November 18, 2012
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13
I just heard that song for
the first time last weekend. I was at Fort Rapids
Because the world needs
love. I remember during camp training
talking about how kids who are acting out are often the ones who are hurting
the most. The ones who are being bullies
are doing so because they are trying to distract you from the ways they are
hurting but what they really need is someone to tell them they are worth loving
just the way they are. And there are a
lot of people like this in the world today – people who are hard to love. Or maybe for you, it’s not the bully who is
so hard to love but it’s the person who holds different opinions than you. Or maybe it’s someone who just rubs you the
wrong way. For me, it was people who
were quick to judge others. I remember
having the realization at one point that I had become judgmental about judgment
– talk about irony. And so I had to
remind myself that God loved them too.
Think about that person you have a hard time loving. And then think
about them as a child of God. It brings
a little perspective doesn’t it?
I must confess this isn’t
where I thought my sermon was going.
When I sent the initial thoughts to Dave and Cinda so they would have
musical information, this wasn’t the scripture I was considering. But when I sat down to write this sermon
after I got home Tuesday night, I found myself overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed by ideas and not knowing
where to put them all. I knew they
didn’t all fit, but I couldn’t figure out which ones to keep and which ones to
leave out. So I wrote a draft. And I didn’t like it. It felt forced. It reminded me of my college days when I used
to write papers – I have always been a flow writer. What I mean by that is that I can’t force a
paper. Some people have to make
themselves write. For me, I need to get
in a flow and let the words just go through my brain right to the computer
without really thinking too deeply about them.
And when I get stuck, when the flow stops, I have a problem. I can’t push through it. In college, there were many times that late
at night, the night before a paper was due, I would open an entirely new
document and start the paper over. I
might cut and paste some pieces from the original but I had to essentially
start over and go in a different direction to push past that block.
And that’s what I had to do
with this sermon. But first I had to
come to a realization. See I’m a
perfectionist. Some of you may doubt this
because you also know that I am a procrastinator. It is a challenging combination, but when it
comes to things I put my energy into, I put them off until the last minute and
then I strive for perfection. So when I got stuck in my sermon, knowing it
wasn’t what I was trying to say – I stopped.
And I started thinking. And
looking at different things I have written over the past year and ways that I
have been challenged and growing in my faith, all in an effort to come up with
the perfect sermon. And there were some
definite themes, so I thought maybe I was supposed to speak about those
instead. Or maybe I was supposed to
stick with my original plan. And then I
was thinking that I really don’t understand how people do this every week. And then I was stopped in my tracks by a
realization. Somewhere along the way I
had gotten way off track. The sermon had
ceased being about sharing God with you, and instead it had become about me. My
perfectionism wasn’t about wanting God to work through me in perfect ways. It was about me wanting to be perfect for my
own sake. I wanted to say the right
thing, not because I wanted God to be glorified in my words, but because I
wanted you to be impressed with what I said.
Wow. Talk about being
humbled. So I stopped. I stopped reading the words that I had been
writing over the past year. I stopped
trying to push through to a perfect sermon.
I stopped focusing on the sermon at all.
And I focused where I should have been focusing all along – on God. I
apologized to God for making it about me, and I started praying that God would
empty my mind of all the thoughts that were clogging the way. I prayed that when I turned back to my
computer, my mind would be empty and that the words that flowed as I typed
would be words from him.
And isn’t that how we should
live our lives? As a reflection of who
God is to the world? But the problem is that we tend to let faith become
routine instead of relationship. I grew
up going to church. I heard all the
stories, and I knew the Sunday school answers.
I knew about the miracles that Jesus performed – healing the lame,
feeding 5000, raising the dead. But the
stories were just that to me – stories.
I somehow missed the miracle in them.
It was just information, like that I learned in history class. Because I was learning about Jesus, but I
didn’t really know Jesus.
Last year through Lent I was
reading a devotional by N.T. Wright and this quote really struck me: “A love unlike
any other. A God unlike any other.” I
read those words on Good Friday. And I
reflected on the crucifixion. See you
and I, we know what happens. We know about
Easter morning. But imagine you didn’t
know the end of that story. Imagine you
had been following Jesus, believing the words he said, amazed at his miracles. And then he’s dead. This isn’t how you thought the story would
go. You thought he was going to
overthrow the Roman government. You were
waiting for a Messiah who would work in a way you would understand. But he’s dead. Can you imagine it? Sometimes the story becomes so routine to us
that we forget how incredible it is.
Jesus died, on the cross, because he loves us, each and every one of us,
no matter what. It’s not possible. And yet it’s true.
So here’s my question to you
– do you know Jesus? I mean really know Jesus – not just know about him. There are a lot of people who know about Jesus. We know the stories of the Bible. We know about his miracles. We know he died for us. We know about Jesus. But do we really know him? In James, where the author is talking about
how our faith and our deeds are connected he writes this: “You believe that
there is one God. Good! Even the demons
believe that and shudder.”
Wow. Even the demons believe
in one God. But that’s information.
That’s knowing about God. And
knowing about God is good – IF it leads to knowing God. Information is good, but
we can only know so much.
One activity we did last
weekend at Fort Rapids
God is inscrutable. We cannot understand him fully. I mean think about it – what are the things
you can understand? If you’re like me,
the things you can truly understand are few and far between and tend to be
little things. But things like God and
people – I don’t understand those. At my
brother’s college graduation, the speaker said something along the lines of “I
hope your kids feel they know less leaving college than they thought they knew
coming into college.” It’s true in
life. The more we experience, the more
we realize we don’t know. And when we
are in a relationship with God, we realize there is so much more we don’t know
than what we do know.
But we don’t have to know
everything about God to know God. Think about water with me for a second. We know that water is made of 2 hydrogens and
an oxygen, H2O. We know we are made
mostly of water. But have you stopped to
think about the miracle of water? How
water can soften things that have dried out?
How it expands when it freezes even though most things contract? When I was working at the Y, I had to teach a
class about water and the curriculum was really vague so I did some research
about water to teach the class and what I found out was really
interesting. Like, did you know that
water adheres to some things but not others, so you can actually pull a drop of
water around wax paper with a toothpick because it will adhere to the toothpick
but not to the wax paper? And if you
just get it close to another drop of water you will see them attract each other
like magnets because water adheres to itself?
That’s why sometimes you can actually see water go above the edge of a
container. It’s amazing. But I don’t have to understand all this about
water – or why water does all this – to appreciate the importance of water to
keep me hydrated. Likewise, I don’t have
to know everything about God to know God and trust him with my life.
1 John 4:16 says that “God is
love.” I can know that, and I can read
it, but until I experience it, I can’t live it.
There are so many times I could point to when I have experienced God’s
love but there is one that sticks out to me. I was working at camp and I was
having an awful week. I had campers who
didn’t get along and a volunteer co-counselor who was making things harder
rather than helping. Campers come on
Sunday afternoon and by Monday evening I was so stressed out by these
circumstances I really wasn’t sure how I would make it through the week. So when I went to worship Monday night, I
really needed God. And towards the end of worship in this outdoor sanctuary, I
am singing some praise song, and I look up into the sky and the way the trees
and clouds are and the sun is setting, it looks like there is a heart in the
sky. And I knew suddenly that God was
saying, “Katy, I know this is hard. I
know you aren’t sure how you’re going to get through this week. But I love you. Let that be enough.” I experienced God that day. I knew God.
I didn’t just know about him – I knew him. But knowing God is a lifelong process. It’s not a one time decision. We have to continually spend time with him,
sharing our lives, our whole lives, with him. I think of college friends who I still
know and care about a lot, but I haven’t talked to in years and I really don’t
know what is going on in their lives. I
still know about them – especially now with Facebook – but I don't really know
them anymore.
In Jeremiah 29:13-14, God
says to Israel
Because truly seeking God
means letting go of control. If we really seek to know God, he may call us to
something we don’t want. But if we never
seek him, we won’t know and it seems safer not knowing. We don’t like to let go of control. I tried
salsa dancing recently and I was really bad at it. Not because I have no rhythm which is the
problem I predicted, but because I am an extremely independent person and I had
a really hard time letting someone else lead.
I struggled to let go of that.
But my roommate, she has been salsa dancing more than I have, and she
said that as she continues going, she starts to learn the cues that her partner
is giving her and to know where he is leading her. And as we spend more time with God we will be
more able to trust where he is leading us as well. And as we spend time with
him, we will take on his characteristics.
I went to college in North Carolina North Carolina
Think about the scripture defining love. We know that God is love, so
what if it read, “God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or
boastful or arrogant or rude. God
does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; God does not rejoice in wrongdoing,
but rejoices in the truth. God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.”
That is how God loves
us. But can we love others that way, and
be proof of God’s love in the world? Not
on our own. That’s why when Paul is
talking about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control, he calls them fruits of the spirit – things that
come out of us when we are filled with the holy spirit.
Let’s
go back to water. Imagine God is like
water. Many of us try to love the world
this way – we go to God and we get filled up, and then we go out into the
world, and we empty ourselves into others.
And we don’t always realize when we’re empty, so we keep trying to pour
into others on our own power, but we get tired and frustrated. We share our knowledge, instead of God
himself. About a year ago, I heard a
youth ministry expert say, “We learn best what we love most.” It’s so true.
But her point was that we try to do it backwards. We try to give people information about God
and hope they will fall in love with him.
But we need to show people God’s love first, and then they will want to
learn all about him. And in order to do
that we need to do is keep focusing on God even as we go out into the world and
continue letting him pour into us, and then we can pour into others out of the
overflow of our own lives. When we know
God, instead of just knowing about him, and we let his love pour through us,
then we can be proof of his love simply by the way we live.
Let us pray.
God, you want a relationship
with us. And we have good
intentions. But sometimes it becomes
routine. We forget that you are so much
bigger than anything we can understand.
We forget that to truly know you, we need to spend time with you. So today God we remind ourselves that you are
a God unlike any other who loves us unlike any other. And we pray that we will be so filled by that
love that we will go out to love a world in need of it. We will love those you love – which is
everyone. Those we agree with and those
with whom we disagree. Those who we love
to be around and those who drive us crazy.
Help us love each of them with your love that our lives may be proof of
your love to a world in need. Amen.
Blessing:
So go out to be the proof of
God’s love in a world that so desperately needs it. Or as Francis of Assisi said it, “Preach the
gospel always; when necessary, use words.”
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