Sunday, September 21, 2008

"What God is Really Like"
The biblical narrative can transform and renew lives
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Text: Psalm 103:1-13

 

I have a deep burden this morning for our young children and young people throughout the world. The burden has been exacerbated over the last few days with the shooting of a young man in school, with the rape of a young woman not far from the university campus and with the explosion in a hotel in Islamabad. I think we underestimate sometimes just how aware children are of what they hear and see and what they remember. For, indeed, the images portrayed and the messages given can affect a young mind and heart just as much as those of an adult.

This was brought home to me by re-reading a book that I had read when it was first published in 1990 by Robert Coles of Harvard University Medical School. I went to hear him give one of the lectures on the book titled, The Spiritual Life of Children. This book by a psychiatrist, although in a secular setting, is a series of interviews with children exploring the complex matrix of the things that influence their spirits and souls. Many of them talked about issues of evil and good, of right and wrong, of justice and inequity, and they related all of these to their faith in God.

Coles was overwhelmed by what he heard. In one chapter titled, The Voice of God, he interviews an 11-year-old Muslim boy named Haroon. Haroon is originally from Pakistan and his parents had moved to London, England. This interview shook Coles up, for he found in this boy a great conviction, a great sense of prayer and a love for Allah. Coles thought it was a little naïve and unsophisticated so, trying to test the boy, he resorted to the very last path of a sceptic and asked Haroon, “Where then is God, in Auschwitz, in Buchenwald, in Calcutta or in the slums of the cities of Pakistan where your family is from?”

He looked Haroon in the eye and felt guilty. Here was a boy who had convictions, who was praying, and he had shaken him up. He felt dreadful. It wasn’t as wonderful as he thought to play one-upmanship with an 11-year-old boy. They then began to talk about something with which the young boy could identify - the issue of bullying. Haroon said he had been bullied in his life and even when he was being bullied he nevertheless prayed to Allah. Coles shared that when he was a child, he had also been bullied and that his parents had given him advice on how to handle the bullying. He said his father initially said to avoid the bully but he couldn’t always do that. His mother said he should reason with him ask him why he was doing what he was doing. Perhaps there was some deep-seated reason for his anger and Haroon could get to the heart of it and the bully might stop. Coles’ father had another idea. Maybe he would stand between the bully and the son and defend him in his time of need. Coles reflected on that. He quoted from Hobbes, “Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

Haroon said that when he was bullied, he prayed. First he prayed that he would not lose his own moral foundation because of anger and vengeance. He prayed that the bully might start to worry about what he had done. But if the bully didn’t worry about what he’d done, he prayed that God would worry about the bully.

Coles had a “light bulb moment.” He realized that there is a point in life where you can pray, and indeed you should pray, even when the world is not always beautiful and everything is not working out, even when there are difficulties and tragedies, even when there is violence and the brutish, short, harsh world Hobbes spoke about.

Nobody knew that more than the psalmist in this passage from the most magnificent of psalms. For the psalmist praises God. He starts by actually talking to himself. He says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” I love the way some of the ancient rabbis interpreted this. They believed that every organ in our bodies corresponds with an emotion. Therefore, they interpreted “all that is within us,” as meaning that every organ, every emotion, every deep-seated thing should praise God. But the psalmist doesn’t do this glibly, this isn’t facile phrasing. Rather, he praises God knowing that he, himself, has experienced what he calls “the pit.” He has experienced difficulty and danger. He has had to turn to the Lord for forgiveness for things that he has done wrong and has turned to the Lord even in the darkest places. He then says, “The heavens are above the earth… as far as the east is from the west… so great is his love for those who fear him.” He makes this incredible prayer, this incredible affirmation, in the midst of what clearly was a difficult situation.

What is powerful in this psalm is not only that the psalmist believes this but also that he bases it on some evidence. It’s not just wishful thinking; it is actually based on God’s historical work. It is no coincidence that to support his assertion, the psalmist says, “I look at the works and the deeds of Moses; I look at the works and the deeds for our people, Israel. I see how God’s hand has been with us and with our people.” The psalmist, then, is convinced that, having seen God’s hand save the people of Israel and save Moses from the snare of Pharaoh’s grasp, God works, God acts, God cares.

That, my friends, is the power of the biblical narrative. It speaks in a story form through the eyes of faith about what God has done. We live in a day and age in which story is a powerful thing. We live in a post-modern world that loves the idea of narrative and story-telling. You can even see politicians picking up on this. Have you noticed how so many politicians when giving speeches break into a story in the midst of outlining their platform about somebody who lives in the middle of Manitoba, drives a truck and has two-and-a-half children and a cow, and how their economic policy has transformed the lives of those people in the middle of Manitoba.

If you listen, for example, to the State of the Union Addresses, it’s really kitschy I think. While giving the speech, the president puts somebody up on a balcony, somebody that no one has ever heard of before, and starts telling the person’s life story of what it’s like to live in the middle of Kentucky, to have a farm and some pigs and how the agricultural policy he has brought about has changed that person’s life. It’s the power of story. It’s kitschy, but it works. It works because people can identify with something that has actually happened to somebody.

The Bible is the story of what God has done. It’s a story of God’s activity. It’s not just a series of philosophical ideas or even theological mantras, it’s a story of a God who acts. The psalmist says, “Praise my soul, all that is within me, praise his holy name” because of the way that God has acted. If there is anything we can do in our day and age, it is to teach young people that biblical story, to give them that story that it might go with them throughout their lives.

But if you are going to tell the story, if you’re going to encourage young people to learn the story, you’d better know the story yourself. The story can transform, it can change and it can renew one’s life.

I was sitting in a doctor’s office not long ago reading some of the magazines - doctors’ offices are notorious for having somewhat outdated magazines - and there was a copy of Guideposts, dated November 1997. One of the more current editions, I thought. I started to go through it - it’s a lovely, inspirational Christian magazine - and I came upon the story of the bounty. This 18th-century ship sailed to the South Pacific and went down. Captain Bligh went to this beautiful island and most of the seamen on board wanted to stay, so there was a mutiny. Bligh kicked them off the island, and they got in a boat and went to Tahiti. Ironically, name of the man who led the mutiny was Fletcher Christian. He led them off to this island and when they got there, there were disputes, arguments and discord. Finally, they moved to another island called Pitcairn under the leadership of a man called Smith and there they drank too much and argued amongst themselves. They were in this beautiful, beautiful place on God’s earth and they turned on each other with violence and diseases set in. Eventually, almost no one was left.

This Mr. Smith resided on the island of Pitcairn with a few women and children, and found one thing that had come from the bounty: a copy of the Bible. He began to read the stories of the Bible and realized that if the island could live like the Bible instructed, follow the teachings of Jesus and look at the God who had done great things, it would be good.

Many years later another ship went by and landed on the island and the crew found some of the most peaceful, beautiful, quiet, restful and happy people. Why? Because in the midst of all their turmoil, they had read the story, and the story had changed them. That is the power of the history of the biblical word.

I know that within the biblical word not all is beautiful and good. I know that there is violence and inhumanity, that there are terrible things that take place. But over-arching it all is God’s word. In the midst of God’s word, here is the profound compassion of the Lord Almighty who does great things. The psalmist doesn’t just speak about history; he was convinced, based on his own experience, about what God had done. He had been in the pit and God had redeemed him. He had suffered from sin but he had felt the power of forgiveness. In one of the most incredible statements of faith, there are the seven deeds of the deity. There is a God who heals, a God who forgives, a God who redeems, a God who crowns, a God who preserves, a God who satisfies and a God who vindicates the oppressed. Here, in this incredible psalm, is a picture of a God who comes into people’s lives and transforms them.

He sometimes talks not only about the attributes of God, but also about the things that God does not do. For example, a God who does not harbour resentment against people, a God who does not treat us according to our own sins, but forgives us freely. Some have said, “Does this mean, then, that God is unjust?” By no means. It means that overarching even God’s sense of justice is God’s profound sense of mercy. And the psalmist had experienced that profound forgiveness.

Just this last week, I had a very emotional visit with a business person who, because of the fluctuations in the market, faced a huge personal crisis. He described it as having come to a crossroads. He wondered whether or not his life could even continue in the way that it was. I pulled out this passage from Psalm 103, fresh on my mind because of this week’s sermon, and simply read it to him. It is glorious because not only does this God forgive our iniquities, not only does he not harbour resentment towards us, he is also compassionate towards us. The problem is, and I said this to this man, “I’m sure that if you ask him, God will be merciful to you. But the question now is, are you willing to forgive yourself for your greed, knowing that God has forgiven you?”

It’s like a story by Philip Yancey about a hospital administrator who suddenly found out that his leg was no longer functioning. It had no circulation and a surgeon said that it would have to be removed. The man said, “I have one request, and that is that you preserve the leg after it has been removed.”

The surgeon said, “Well, we don’t often do this, we do a biopsy and then we destroy the leg. We don’t do this kind of thing.”

The man said, “No, I want you to save it. I want to put it on a mantel shelf and I want to tell this leg every, single day how mad I am at it. I want to get up in the morning, and point to it and say, ‘You have ruined my life!’”

The surgeon said, “If you really want to keep it, I guess I could put it in something that will preserve it, but this isn’t very nice. I really don’t like doing it, but if you insist.”

The administrator said, “I insist.”

So, every day, he pointed at his leg and yelled at it. But he had forgotten one thing: phantom pain. Even though the leg was gone, there was still residual pain and memory in his body. The leg had been cut off, all right, he had preserved his anger, but the pain still remained.

Yancey said, “You know, that’s often how we are with God. God is gracious and forgiving but we keep a phantom pain because we don’t let guilt go.”

The psalmist says, “God does not harbour our wrongs. God does not treat us according to our sins, God is merciful.” What a profound statement! God is also compassionate. The psalmist says, “As a father, you have compassion on your people.” The psalmist knew that whatever pit he’d been in, whatever difficultly he’d faced, God was still a compassionate God for him, a God that was there to help him in his time of need, a God who was there to protect his people.

I think that’s what Robert Coles was getting at when he talked about his father being between him and the bully, acting, protecting and saving. The story of the Bible, and especially of the New Testament, is the story of a God who comes and stands between us and what is evil, between us and that which is bullying and judgemental, that which is harsh and difficult. God comes and stands where we cannot stand, to be compassionate, to protect us and to save us.

I cannot help but think what a gift it would be to our young people if they knew the depths of that compassion. I have a confession to make to you this morning, and that is that there is a television program that is a little risqué, but I think it’s very funny and I can’t help watching it late at night. It’s Two and a Half Men. It is the story of two brothers and a child. I remember watching it not long ago and it reminded me of something evangelist Dwight Moody once discovered. He gave a great speech and afterward someone came to him and asked, “Dr. Moody, how many people were converted at your gathering?”

Dr. Moody replied, “Two and a half people.”

The man said, “Do you mean two adults and a child?”

Dr. Moody said, “No, two children and a man.”

The man looked at him and asked, “What do you mean?”

Moody said, “The two children who have been converted have their whole lives ahead of them. The adult has already spent half of his.”

Such is the power of reaching a child with the message of the good news. As I read this psalm and look at what children and the next generation face, the challenges before them, how wonderful it would be for them to know on this journey the compassion of God. How magnificent it would be for them to have an experience of God’s divine grace. How enthralling it would be for them to draw on the story of God’s redeeming power, so they may know what God is really like. Amen.