An Act of God?

It seems every time there’s a tornado, a major flood, a hurricane or an earthquake some broadcaster somewhere calls it “an act of God”.  I’ve always heard that term and I’ve always wondered about its use.  It is at such odds with who I know God to be. 

         But then, where do I stand, what do I believe?  Are tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts, floods acts of God? 

             I would say no -- not in the sense most people mean.  I believe, like many insurance companies today, that they are “acts of nature” not “acts of God”.  And yet I know nature to be created by God.  Like Karl Barth, a famous reformed theologian, I think these disasters are what Barth called the “dark or shadow side of creation.”  I believe tornadoes happen when the weather conditions are right but I don’t believe God sits in heaven and plans when and where to send them. 

            God created the world and gave it structure and natural laws, and nature follows those laws without His constant interference, allowing us to live with a great amount of predictability and security.  We know that if we throw a ball up in the air, it’s safe to assume it will come back down.  We know a house will be more stable if we build it on rock than if we build it on sandy beach.

            Can God suspend the laws of nature?  Yes, I believe He can -- God can do anything.  Does He ever suspend them?  Yes.  And when He does it’s called a miracle ---- but miracles are few and far between.  They don’t happen every time we need one, pray for one, long for one.  

            We shouldn’t blame God then when a tornado hits one community and not another, when one child dies and not another.  We shouldn’t blame “an act of God” for every tragedy in life. 

            But I do believe that we see acts of God in the midst of those tragedies.  I believe we see God acting in the teacher who sheltered her students, protecting them from falling debris.  I believe we see acts of God in the hands of volunteers offering coffee and a hot meal.  I believe we see acts of God in first responders and volunteers that will be there months from now still building houses.  I believe we see acts of God in the prayers of His people who strengthen the works of others. I believe that in Moore and Sandy Hook and New Town and Haiti and Malawi and the Congo we see the mighty acts of God. 

            I believe that we see the acts of God not in the pain of our world but in the healing light that breaks into the darkness whatever that darkness might be.

White crosses and poppies

Too many fields in too many places are filled with poppies and white crosses --- row after row of white crosses – too many to count ---reminding us of the high cost of freedom. Somebody’s son, somebody’s mother, somebody’s fiancé lay beneath those tombs.  Each cross has a story behind it.

He’s in his eighties now and his buddy’s are close to all gone. They keep dying off, but he remembers them as if it was yesterday and he takes pride in the fact that his old uniform still fits him.

Those crosses in that field are not just name, rank, and serial number to him.  There was the one he shared the foxhole with and the one who always told jokes when he thought he could not stand another moment of sheer terror as bombs burst in air. 

Later came Korea, the “forgotten” war that is still being fought as the north launches missiles into the south and soldiers still man checkpoints and a DMZ is more myth than reality.

Then there is the Viet Nam vet.  We have yet to say our thank you’s to those men and women.  Mostly they were eighteen and twenty and didn’t want to go to war, but they answered when the lottery gave up their number.

She was just 19 when she left for Iraq.  She had joined the army right after high school graduation, thinking it would help pay for college when she finished her tour and the pay was good for someone with no experience. 

.  These are just a few stories of the hundreds and thousands of stories of men and women who lie beneath white crosses. The list goes on and on in places that make the news and places we have never heard of.   There are too many white crosses and too few thank yous. 

Whatever you may think of war, whatever horrors you can recite, these men and women, for the most part did what their country told them to do with no questions asked.  And they deserve our thanks --- the thanks of a grateful nation.

         So on this holiday weekend, pause to give thanks for the men and women who protect our world --- from Korea to Afghanistan.  They are the front line for freedom.  But also take the time to pray for our nation’s leaders that they will work to bring our soldiers home.

Because peace is the cause of every soldier.  Soldiers, more than any one else, long for the day when their swords will be beaten into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and the peace of God will reign through all the earth.  

"Rules" of Faith?

Jesus is talking to the men and women who are following Him.  They’re sitting on the temple steps with all the rush of official church business going on around them --- priests dressed in long robes rushing by on important business, rabbis talking thoughtfully and stroking their beards, scribes brushing people out of their way as they work through the crowds carrying their scrolls.  And in between it all, ordinary people approaching worship in awe, craning their necks to see the beauty of the temple, carrying lambs for their sacrifice, explaining the traditions of the temple to their children.

            In the middle of all this hustle and bustle, business and worship, secular and sacred combined, Jesus talks to the people, and what He says in essence is “Don’t lose the core of the faith.  Don’t forget the reason all this is here.  Don’t get caught up in the show or the theological questions or the religious power plays that are going on behind the scenes.  Remember, in the middle of it all, in its very center, our faith reveals Truth and Life itself --- the Truth and Life of God, and that Truth and that Life will set you free.”

            Jesus was well aware that the faith had been twisted and turned into rules and regulations that could strangle the joy and love right out of worship. And far too often we fall into the same trap today.  Our faith cannot be about rules --- however good the rules might be.  Our faith must be about loving God and loving each other.

We must come to church not to not to be seen, but to worship God and be renewed and restored.  We must give to the poor, not so others will see how selfless we are, but because we care about their need.  We go to visit the sick, not so others will notice our kindness, but because we want to touch their suffering with love.

We live out the “rules” of faith not because we have to, but because we want to, as a measure of our love.  So we strive to remember in the middle of all our do’s and don’ts, should’s and shouldn’ts, that the greatest commandment Christ gave us is love.  Let us never forget that that is the essence of our faith.

A Mom's Famous Words

Do these words sound vaguely familiar to you?  You may have heard them.  You may have even said them.

Please take that down stairs with you when you go.

Did you brush your teeth?

What are you doing out of bed?

Don’t just leave that there.  Take it downstairs.

Yes.  You have to wear a jacket and no I don’t care if you look like a dork.

I don’t care if she can.  If her mother said she could jump off a bridge would you expect me to let you do it too?

Take that downstairs.

Yes. You have to eat everything on your plate and no I don’t think brussels sprouts look like eyeballs. 

I thought I told you to take that downstairs.

Don’t touch your brother. 

Don’t touch your sister either.

In fact, no one touches anyone in this house again without my express permission.

Of course I love you, but dying your hair with green jello is still not a good idea.

Now means NOW.  Not later. Now. Take this stuff downstairs.

            There is a serious side to all of this.  For the most part, all the famous parenting statements, including the most famous of all: “Because I said so that’s why,”  are forms of loving.  Loving doesn’t always mean giving in to what someone wants. 

            Loving means setting guidelines and limits, explaining them and, unfortunately, enforcing them.  Love frequently means saying no.  And love means doing all of that when it would be so much easier to just give in and say yes.

            So for all those times you have sat at the kitchen table going over multiplication tables --- for all those times you said no when you’d rather have said yes --- for all the bedtime stories and clean clothes that magically appeared in closets --- thank you and God bless. 

National Day of Prayer

Thursday evening at 7:00 at the downtown commons, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, conservatives and liberals, will gather together despite our differences to pray for our community, our state, and our nation and those who serve us.  It’s an American tradition. 

            In the dark days of 1775 when the existence of the nation hung in the balance, the Continental Congress called for prayer.  Since that time, calls for prayer frequently rang out when prayer was our only hope and finally in 1952 President Truman signed a bill proclaiming an annual national day of prayer into law. 

            But we do not need to wait for one day in May.  As we drive through Buchanan whether we want the stop light to flash or turn red and green, we can pray for the city commissioners who listen to arguments pro and con and then make the best decision they can (which at least half of us won’t like!) 

            As volunteer firemen rush to the scene, we can pray for their safety and give thanks for their bravery and pray we will never lose them to tragedy.

 We can pray policemen will end their shift whole and well, for they never know if they will be involved in settling a domestic violence dispute or helping to unlock a pastor’s car.  All they know is they have been called to serve.

And let us not forget small business leaders who not only struggle to make a profit but donate hours after hours to building our community and making our downtown vibrant in creative and artistic ways, building a future on the bones of the past. 

The list goes on --- and I haven’t even finished with prayers for our community.  I haven’t mentioned the school system or RAM or volunteers for the Trail. 

This Thursday we have much to pray for, much to give thanks for.  Let us lift our voices together. 

            

Forgiveness is a choice

I have a friend, Jan, whose parents beat her for even the mildest offense, leaving scars upon her heart as well as her back.  Her mother would call her stupid even though Jan made the school honor roll without fail and her father consistently told her that no one could ever love her.   

For years Jan’s life was controlled by the rage she felt toward her parents and the world – her rage against God.  She wore anger as a badge on her heart.  You never knew when she would erupt into a rage, and worse, you never know if you were going to be the target. 

Jan lost friend after friend until one day I asked her “How’s this working for you?’  She stopped and thought about that for weeks on end until she finally concluded that it wasn’t working at all.

 In the end she was punishing herself as effectively as her parents had abused her in the past.  Her life was not what she wanted it to be.  Instead it was controlled by the past..

So she set about the difficult task of leaving the pain behind by forgiving her parents as people who were living out of their own pain and self-loathing.  It was not until she found the ability to work through her bitterness and anger that she was freed to live her life.  Jan eventually became one of the most compassionate people I have ever known, becoming a therapist to help others with a similar background of abuse. 

She discovered what forgiveness is all about.  In the Bible in Greek,  forgiveness literally means to release, to hurl away, to free yourself.  That’s what Jan did. She hurled the pain and bitterness away from her.

What forgiveness does not mean is putting yourself back in harm’s way if the other person has not been changed by their own repentance or your act of forgiveness.  A battered wife can forgive her husband for the pain he caused both physically and emotionally but she should not go back to him to receive the same treatment time and time again. 

But how do we find our way to this new way of being?  How do we forgive?  What does forgiveness look like?

 First of all, forgiveness is more a conscious decision than an emotion. You can consciously decide to not let the past rule over you.  You can decide to reclaim your power, your self with God’s help.

 Doing this takes time, commitment, courage, and energy.  It is an unnatural act that you must work at to achieve.  But you do not need to work at it alone.  God will be there walking with you, strengthening you, enfolding you with the love you will need --- including love for yourself.

Sunshine

            I woke up to sunshine this morning.  Oh, the sky was grey but there, outside my window, were the bright yellow daffodils I had planted in the fall for just such a day as this.  

            Daffodils require faith.  Unlike the annuals I’ll plant in a few weeks that already come full of blooms, color, and fragrance – no waiting or patience required --- daffodils go into the ground as bare bulbs showing no promise of life or the glory to come.  Yet every fall I plant some more, believing in the spring to come.

            I balance on my hands and knees, digging down just far enough but not too far, place the bulb into its especially prepared spot and cover it carefully with sweet smelling earth and adding a layer of mulch.  And for months all I see is that mound of dirt and I wonder what will happen in the spring --- and if anything at all will happen. 

            Now, after months of waiting, green shoots stand tall and on gloomy mornings like this one, I have the wondrous gift of bright yellow blooms proclaiming the certainty of the miracle of life. 

            In the seasons of our lives’ falls and winters we need to remember that life does not always come with the full blooms and glory of annuals that last only for a season, but that most of life grows like daffodils: bare bulbs of hope and promise that take a season to grow hidden underground only to burst like bright sunshine when the time is right. 

Oh, one other thing you need to know about daffodils --- and the unexpected blooms of life --- they are not just for one season.   The miracle happens again and again and again.