December 12, 1999

Pastor David G. Mullen

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Isaiah wore his heart on his sleeve: The Spirit of the LORD God has taken control of me! The LORD has chosen and sent me to tell the oppressed the good news! I celebrate and shout because of my LORD God. And Mary, overwhelmed with the kindness of God sang, With all my heart I praise the LORD and I am glad because of God my Savior.

And they are not the exceptions, but rather the rule. With such passionate, personal language all the great Biblical figures speak and sing of God, like poets pushing language to the limits, trying to find words to express the virtually inexpressible rightness of the friendship God offered them. The words are important, but it’s not the words that they really care about, but rather the One to whom the words point, just as John the Baptist over and over directed attention away from himself or his preaching to the Messiah who was about to appear.

Here’s an example of what I’m getting at. About six years ago this congregation was looking for a pastor. Lots of pastor profiles were read. Reams of information were offered. One of the piles of papers represented me. Stuff the church had gathered about me. Stuff I’d written. All words. Were the words me? No! They may have pointed toward some things about me, but they were not and never could be me. And now, over five years later, for good or for ill, you know that old Pastor Mullen is something quite a bit more than the few hundreds words printed in black and white on boring profiles. Why? Because you’ve been in a living relationship of some sort or another with me. And that’s a lot different than mere words.

Now here’s the point we need to get to. Many of us face deep problems and difficulties on a regular basis. And if you think about, the truth is we often hope that by finding or hearing the right words this, that, or the other thing in our lives–usually some person!--will be magically fixed. Yet the answer to what ails us is not us, or the right words, not even some eternal pearls of wisdom. The self-help section in bookstores is huge, but most of it is a lie. It’s not in the wise words of authors that our salvation is to be found. All those thousands of books are nothing but a sign of the human need for God. For our help and our salvation and our hope of feeling right again is in God alone. In God as God.

Paradoxically, in little a book called, Beginning to Pray, the author suggests that the beginning of prayer is not finding the flowery language with which to direct our wants and needs toward God, but is rather praying just to be really present with God. Real prayer is our raw humanity being honest with God, and seeking God for God’s sake, God as our joy. Prayer, like a joyful, thankful life, begins and ends with a relationship or experience of God.

Here’s another example. How long do you think my marriage would be good or even last if Susan we never spent time with each other, never talked things over and never expressed love for another? Marriages that I’ve seen in trouble almost always show the signs of it by the partners avoiding each other, silencing each other, and at the same time harboring lists resentments and obligations, with twisted beliefs about alleged fairness and so on. No, a marriage, like a great friendship, is a deep relationship thing. It takes work, it takes talking, sharing, honesty, commitment.

In fact, the New Testament sometimes talks about Christ’s coming into our world as a marriage made in heaven: a marriage between God and us. If so, think about this: How much time do you spend in direct contact with God, talking things over, just enjoying being with God? Most American Christians spend almost no time doing that. Most people who do pray spend most of their time bringing honey-do lists of things for God to fix. But God is more than a handyman for humanity. Our hearts were created for God and are truly restless until they come to rest in the divine presence, just because God is God. Let God be God!

That’s exactly why St. Paul wrote in our second reading today, Always be joyful and never stop praying. Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. Why? Because if we have God, we can take anything that happens! Paul is urging us to be in a deep and loving relationship with our Creator and Lover. Let’s be clear on this. We’re not talking about trying to look joyful, or always saying "Praise the Lord" everytime something happens. That would be just legalistic stuff, which, though very religious, could still leave God out of our lives. The answer to what ails us is not a better performance on our part, but is simply us surrendering to God even when our lives seems to be falling apart.

Still, being human a lot us have questions about God. How can God be the answer, since obviously, our lives and our world are still such a mess? With all different religions around, each of which professes some kind of faith in a Higher Being, why aren’t things better? Really, what confidence can we have in God?

But you know what!? Those are questions that have been asked for millennia. They are questions that can never be adequately answered by theology or church doctrines. And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with asking those hard questions, they miss the point. It’s not mere intellectual answers we really want. I just keep making the same point here, from different directions: What we really want is God. The only answer to our sorrows and wounds is to know and love God as God, the God who suffers with us in Jesus on the Cross, the God who loves us with a love so deep it cannot be expressed in words, only experienced.

One last example of what I’m trying to say. In the later years we lived in Eureka, my kids were teenagers. When I came home late in the day or in the evening, and if they were home, they’d be in their rooms or lying on the couch watching TV or playing a video game and would hardly even acknowledge my presence. "Oh, Hi Dad", and then back to the TV. That’s how we are with God too much of the time.

But across the street from our house in Eureka lived a young family. The Dad drove a Farmers Brother Coffee delivery truck and the mom stayed home with kids, which included a daughter about 12 years old and two little boys. Now it happened that I sometimes worked on my computer at home while my teenagers and wife were all away at work or school. And once in a while in the mid-afternoon I heard my neighbor’s delivery truck rumble down our street and turn around the end of our cul de sac so as to pull up right in from of his house. And if I looked out my kitchen window here is what I saw. As soon as the Dad turned off the engine, the front door of his home flew open, and down the sidewalk rushed his two little boys, darting around the front of the truck, shouting, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, as they leaped into his waiting arms.

What the Bible means from beginning to end is: be like that with God. Amen.