September 25, 2005

A Message: In God We Trust?

By Rev. James Farrell

Our neighbours to the south have “In God we trust” prominently placed on their currency…not a bad idea and no doubt, historically influenced by the Christian roots of American forefathers who remember the words of Jesus when he was confronted by the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians who were hoping to trap him with a tax question. That being, should people pay taxes or not? Jesus’ response? Give me a coin, whose image does it bear?…Caesar’s was the reply and Jesus said, then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God's.

Linking currency with theology is an old quest indeed. But I can’t help feeling that it is a bit of a disconnect to see that phrase on American currency. Not because I think God is outside of our very earthly monetary needs and aspirations…far from it…I believe God is crucially connected to our human condition in every way, including our finances. But those words, that phrase, on currency does make one question our trust level of God. Do we only trust God when we have cash in our jeans?

What does it mean to trust God to be God?

Do we trust God to be all powerful? Do we even believe that God is all powerful? The first, a question of intent, the second a question of capability.

Do we trust God to do the right thing? A question, I guess of motive or willingness. What if there is no evidence of the right thing being done? Can God still be trusted?

These are some of the questions that the people in the reading from Exodus wrestled with. We encounter them when they have just been through a big ordeal… hounded by the Egyptians, released into a 40 year journey that had them wandering around the desert wondering what they were doing…living in the kind of refugee conditions that leave nerves raw and personalities testy… these were the same people promised “a land” by God—a land they would enter through the leadership of Moses and Aaron…these are they who thought that they had left all of their troubles on the other side of the Red Sea…and now they begin to grumble against God.

What do you think? Are they bad folks for their grumbling? Are they faithless wonders that don’t deserve God’s favour? What if you were in the group…hard to say how long the wandering in the wilderness had been going on but lets think of their travel at this point in terms of years and not days, weeks or months…so if you were along for the journey, how would you be feeling? What would be your trust level of God right about now?

In my travels this summer I encountered a person who started speaking about church…they said that they liked the idea of folks getting together…the fellowship of church, was the phrase used…they said liked the idea of all the stuff the UCW did and even the thought of getting together with others to work on some projects…but the whole church thing, “the God stuff” they said, was not of interest.

The person with whom I was speaking was a smart person with a big heart but an injured soul…injured from seeing parents succumb to disease, injured from seeing family and contemporaries degenerate because of illness…people that should have been able to live out productive years as they selflessly gave themselves to the helping and medical sciences as heart and career choices.

So for all of that, “how,” said, this person, “can I believe in a “good” God, if God cannot be trusted to do what is good?”

“How can I trust God to be God, the very one who told Moses to lead us out here in the wilderness if, in fact, I have to wither up and die of dehydration? How can I trust God to be godly if I am starving along with my exiled nation as we trek across this obviously God forsaken land?”

Seems to me that two things often take place when people share a collective experience that tests what folks are made of…they grumble, complain and turn bitter or they rally and recognize the common plight of the group and pull together, pooling resources and sharing spiritual strength.

The stories I hear of the last world war from those who lived through it are stories of people often pulling together to help each other get through the rough times. I’m not naïve enough to think that the other side of the experience wasn’t true too, but there are enough remembrances of folks rallying in support of one another that I believe it was true for many.

There is often a difference however in how people react to what they think is a battle of good vs. evil and a natural catastrophe like drought, hurricane, flood and the like. Last Sunday, in the video I showed you, was an image of a bench with a plaque on it bearing a quote from Shakespeare “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

And I think that is true whether that touch of nature is as was my experience of marveling amid the redwoods last April or as many others have experienced or are continuing to experience the awesome destructive power of nature found in the tropical storms thrashing the southern U.S. of A.

People are united in this; but what is there spiritual understanding of the experience…I felt the time I spent that 2^nd week of April amid the redwoods was sacred time in the presence of the Holy. The reports I’m hearing of survivors of the Katrina storm and the Rita storm don’t have folks lined up to share their experience of the holy…they are hurting and feel battered and some, no doubt, even feel forsaken by God much as our Israelite relatives would have felt 3000 years ago.

It is hard to believe in an benevolent God in the face of overwhelming tragedy.

I read a story this week written by a Houston Doctor who thought he would join his fellow citizens at the George R. Brown Convention Centre to, as he put it, help people and get a warm fuzzy. He admitted that his interest in helping had also to do with his own curiosity level.

After reading his story I think he was “more curious” than he was really wanting to help because as he helped out he found that the mood of most people was negative and the attitude of most persons was an attitude of demanding help … and the willingness of most survivors to help share in the work that was needed in the convention centre was, let’s say, minimal.

People live with many addictions and personal issues…when there habitat is destroyed their issues and addictions don’t miraculously disappear and that is what “Dr Richard L. Johnston, M.D. from the University of Mississippi Medical Center” discovered. For many of the persons he was encountering, their pain and addictions kept them from being demonstratively grateful for the gifts that were heaped up all over the Convention centre for them.  Enough food, clothing, beds and bedding etc.

He wasn’t ready for the response he received in the face of his generosity and it didn’t take long to eat away at his benevolence to the point that he regretted being a part of the rescuing effort and he found himself so embittered that he now has little nice to say about the people who lost so much. In fact he said, “WHY SHOULD I HELP PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO HELP THEMSELVES!!!!”

I think Dr. Johnston’s experience is typical really…typical of those who find themselves in helping professions… because often people in greatest need of help generally are not coming from a nice place in life…and Dr. Johnston’s experience is typical of the reactions people often have when they don’t feel appreciated or they feel frustrated that the dream isn’t working out the way they might have hoped or expected…but the real “care-givers” are those who can keep caring without the warm fuzzies for payoff. The people who help because help is needed, not because they can get something in return.

I had a prof once who said you had better be prepared for people puking on your carpet if you plan to be much of a minister. Right he was. Substance abuse people are people in need of helping ministry…sick folks are people in need of helping ministry.

Jesus had it right when he said that the well have no need of a doctor.

We know that Moses got testy because of the problems he was having, I read for you today an account of how the Israelites felt…they weren’t good or bad for feeling the way were feeling. They were just being people.

It is easy to wear the frustration that Moses felt and to get testy and it is easy for the collected community to become agitated and ungrateful when their common experience is one that leaves them feeling forsaken by God. The acting out that comes is often directed at frontline people because God is hard to put a face on sometimes and what people really want to do is complain against God.

“How can I trust God?”, I suspect, will be the cry of many should an avian flu pandemic get a world foothold and lives begin to be lost in great numbers… “How can I trust God?” is often the cry when persons are lost to any form of natural disaster.

The question is one that needs to be asked if we are to wrestle with our faith the way that God has invited us to wrestle. Jacob wrestled with the angel and came away a little disfigured because of his struggle. The Israelites became a new group of people because of their struggle in the wilderness and because of the way they were willing to name their displeasure.  And yes it is Easy to say “God is love” and take whatever comes as the will of God but much more difficult to wrestle with God’s presence on a moment by moment basis as those who think through as well as feel through their faith encounters.

You folks are here to your credit as those who are called to be the church…you have resolved some of these issues or you choose to wrestle with them in community…the community of believers that you have chosen to be part of your faith family.

We are all here because we are called…sometimes the work we do as our mission and outreach might not feel appreciated but it is done because it needs to be done. Straight and simple. We move beyond our frustrations and we seek to suck it up and be all we can be because we have been called to be it.

Can God be trusted?…oh I sincerely believe so. Can we be trusted? I believe we have been called by God to seek the support of the community to help us know that our struggle for shalom is definitely a trustworthy enterprise. Amen.