Willmar
June 17, 2012
Sermon
“Seeing Things Differently”
I am addicted to reading and watching murder mysteries. The marketing geniuses at the publishing houses divide different books into different genre of mysteries. I happen to like two types that are apparently at opposite ends of the spectrum: the cozy and the noir. The term “cozy” relates to the setting of the crime: a comfortable home or village, a place where one would never suspect that evil lurks in the corners. “Noir” mysteries involve hard-boiled characters and lots of gore, usually accompanied by impolite language! One of my favorite “cozy” authors is a Canadian named Louise Penny. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her books to anyone. The noir mysteries are another story. Two of my favorite noir authors are an Irishman named Ken Bruen and a New Yorker named Reed Farrell Coleman. In both cases the authors present the harder edges to their very specific home environments.
I’m a fan of what are called “procedural mysteries.” Those are the ones in which the process or procedures followed by the detectives are really the star of the story. Sherlock Holmes is a procedural, although Holmes is really in a class of his own. I prefer books to television, but some days it’s easier to steal an hour to watch a TV show than to get engrossed in a good book.
There are two television procedural mystery shows that I used to watch faithfully that have starring detectives with the same strange idiosyncrasy. They both do the same thing, and it drives me nuts every time I see them do it. Vince D’Onofrio on Law and Order/Criminal Intent and David Caruso on CSI/Miami both twist and bend their heads when talking to suspects. They look at the world through a view that’s slightly askew. Maybe there’s something about the change in the angle that helps them. Clearly they see things differently.
God told Samuel that he was going to have to look at the world a little differently in order to carry out God’s will. He told him to go to Jesse’s farm and anoint the next king of Israel.
When he got there he saw Eliab, a perfect specimen of a young man. He was sure that this oldest son of Jesse was the one. God said: “Nope! I don’t care what he looks like. It’s what’s inside that counts. Nope! He’s not the one.” Well Samuel went through seven of Jesse’s sons, most likely in the order of birth rank. Each one looked like the perfect candidate to Samuel. Camera-ready kings to the usual eye of a person. But God said “Nope!” all seven times.
Finally Samuel said to Jesse that God had sent him to anoint one of Jesse’s sons, and since God had rejected the first seven, there must be another one. Jesse sort of sheepishly admitted that yes there was one more, but he was the baby, the runt of the litter. Sure enough, it was David, the least likely candidate in Jewish tradition and to human eyes that God wanted. God saw things a little differently.
The eyes of Samuel had gotten it all wrong. It was the heart of David that God looked into and saw the man who would become king.
God looks at things differently than we do.
Saul, whom David would replace, was always described as a very handsome man from a wealthy and powerful family. Size and stature, clothes, hair, complexion, build, attractiveness: none of these matter to the Lord.
David was the youngest son of eight sons. His family was undistinguished. His family tree contains refugees and prostitutes. But none of that mattered. God had planted a seed in David’s heart and told Samuel that he was the one. It’s what’s in your heart that God sees.
The choice of David was almost unnatural from the Jewish point of view. It could only result from the way God looks at the world. It could never have resulted from the usual human viewpoint.
In the Gospel, we hear Jesus talking about unlikely beginnings as well. This 4th chapter of Mark is filled with parables, and the 8 verses in our lesson actually are building on the previous stories. When listening to these verses you have to remember how they begin: “God’s kingdom is like….” These aren’t stories of human logic, or human effort or even human understanding.
God looks at things differently than we do.
In whose heart does God reside? Whose life will aid the growth of God’s Kingdom? What do you look for when you are seeking the presence of God in the people around you? Do you suppose that God might claim the heart of a rich man; a poor man; a disfigured man; a beautiful woman; a retarded woman; a homeless child; a gay person; a white person; a black person; a Jew; a Muslim; a Presbyterian?
Rooted in the truth of the scriptures I’d have to say that the answer is a simple unqualified “Yes!” God claims whom God wants, and the people God wants are often the people who are ignored or scorned by polite society. They are often the people on whom we pass judgment and find lacking. And just as He did to Samuel, God tells us that we are wrong! We have missed the point. We haven’t seen into their heart.
We may need to twist our heads and look again. We may have look long and hard into our mirrors and then we may have to stand on our heads!
There are two things that I think I’m slowly coming to understand. The first is that gratitude is the core of our faith. That needs to reflect itself in prayer as well as praise. The more we bring God our thanks, the more we will recognize how much we have to be thankful for, and the more we will be blessed with a life truly abundant. The more we recognize how much we have to be thankful for, how dependent we are on God, the more likely we are to begin to see some things as God sees them.
The second is that the more solidly convinced I am that I know exactly what God intended for someone else’s life, the more likely I am to have missed the point entirely. Fathers sometimes make that mistake; so do mothers. God sees things very differently than we do.
In this time of transition, some of you are probably wondering what God wants for First Presbyterian Church. I’ve learned that the more I’m convinced that I know what God wants for First Presbyterian, the more I must prayerfully reassess my position. The best that we can do is commit our own lives to discerning what God has in store for us; understanding what it means to commit our own lives to following God’s will; praying sincerely for God to show us where we need to go with our gifts and talents and our very lives.
I’ve only been here a short time, but already there are people here that I’ve talked to who are convinced that they know what’s best for your congregation. I’m not saying that they are wrong, but I’m not so sure that we’ve spent enough time listening for God’s plan. I know that we haven’t spent enough time praying together, thanking God for the many blessings that have befallen this congregation and asking God what God wants us to do with those blessings.
In the Gospel, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like this: you and I plant some seeds and then step back and let God take care of the rest. Those seeds that Jesus talks about - perhaps unlike you and me - simply respond to God’s plan. They know it’s in their best interest. The sower doesn’t really understand how they grow, but that doesn’t matter.
Of course we are both the sowers and the seeds. What God can do with us – the ways in which God can germinate us – for the glory of God’s kingdom is way beyond our reason or even our ambitions.
What God will do with us if we give ourselves up to God’s will and let go of our own hardened opinions and ideas will astonish you. More importantly it will astonish Willmar – maybe even all of Minnesota! It could astonish the world.
Those little seeds know that what happens to them is why they were created. What God will do with us is also the best thing. It means letting go. It means giving up control to God.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola is one of the most frequently utilized spiritual disciplines in the history of Christianity. It has been the driving force behind the Jesuit order for almost 500 years. The spiritual directors who help people through the Exercises say that the biggest block is usually apparent when someone says: “Nothing is happening.” And “nothing is happening” is almost always the result of a stubborn resistance to letting go and choosing to follow the path that God does lay before us.
The time has come for us – you and me - to let go; God will show you the way clearly. God sees things differently than we. Just as God makes the seeds to grow in ways we can never understand, so God will show you the way and bring about the ministry for which this church was created.
Then we shall be God’s church. Then we shall live our lives to the glory of God. Then our lives will be an acceptable worship in the eyes of God. Then we shall assemble as God’s people and bring God our thanks and our praise.
Amen.
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