| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| Previous Sermons |
| THE 11TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 31July, 2005 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The subject this morning is supposed to be Prayer.
Y’know, the sermons that are toughest to prepare are the ones that insist on writing
themselves. That is, those times when I know, in my head, exactly what I want to talk
about, but when I begin to put my thoughts down, the sermon starts wandering off on
its own and refuses to behave. This sermon is one of them.
Last week, in response to questions asked about my sermon of the week before and
to our reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Church at Rome, I took up with you the
question of prayer, and I said I would continue this week.
The questions were asked in relation to my comments, the week before, about God’s
inability to reach into this world of his creation and “change things.” That led some of
you to wonder, if that is what I believe, then what about prayer? Do I believe in
prayer? To that, I replied that I have seen too much in my life not to believe in prayer,
and I said I would go into that subject, this week, more deeply!
Well, I tried. But in trying to deal with the subject, my sermon insisted on going deeper
into the original premise, first – that God does not, indeed, cannot interfere in this
world he has created. And though I’ve spoken about it many times, it is so difficult for
us to comprehend – and accept – that it becomes one of those subjects that I
mentioned last week, ideas that we need to keep coming back to, approaching from
different directions, using different terms.
The problem is, it’s a premise that runs counter to so much of both our traditional
religion and popular religion! We hear examples of the old premise all the time, but
they’re so familiar to us that we don’t think twice about them; never wonder what it is
people are Really saying!
A case in point, just yesterday, on the TV news.
You may have noticed that the pro football season is almost upon us! The eagles are
up the road, a bit, in training camp – the rookies and the new guys, first, and now the
big boys are arriving!
But a couple of days ago, there was a near tragedy that happened to one of the
Eagles. A defensive end, Jerome McDougle, was shot in the stomach by three young
hoods in an attempted holdup in Miami.
When asked about it by news reporters, Donovan McNabb commented, “It was God’s
will. Everything’s going to take care of itself.” And I suspect when he said that, many
people were impressed by his faith!
But think about what he said!
“It was God’s will!” It was God’s will that three young punks try to rob this stranger in
his Mercedes, and shoot him when he reaches for his wallet! Do we really want to
believe that?
On the one hand, it’s one more example of the kind of simple-minded evangelicalism
that is coming to prevail in this country. But on the other, it’s only a little more
extreme than the kind of thing we’ve always heard whenever there has been a
tragedy or near tragedy – when the sole survivor of an accident, for instance,
inevitably says something like, “Thank God for sparing me.”
God wanted Jerome McDougle shot, and used three young men to do it for Him,
apparently.
Or, on another occasion, God wanted a bunch of people to die in a fiery accident, but
he “spared” one person.
God wants thousands of people to die in bombings and firefights in Iraq – but some
he spares! God’s will!
That kind of thinking is understandable and even to be expected amongst
prescientific peoples, faced with a world they cannot understand, and searching for
explanations. Imagining a gods or a god in charge is understandable. Indeed, for most
of history, in fact, most Christians have said these things, believed these things.
Nor is it by accident that Christians have held on to their belief in a God who works in
these ways. After all, we have in our holy book countless stories of God sending
plague and pestilence upon whole nations of people – but perhaps saving a few; God
sending his people to attack and destroy whole cities – expressly ordering them to kill
every living thing in the city – man, woman, child and animal; God decreeing that his
only-begotten Son should die an agonizing death for the sins of God’s people.
God’s will!
But as I’ve been saying, of late, “the things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, they
ain’t necessarily so!”
The Bible is at the same time the record and the source of a faith that has been
developing and growing and maturing for three thousand years, and more, but it is
Not the infallible, literal words of God! And anyone who reads it closely, and opens his
or her mind and spirit to the reading must come to see that!
We could, once upon a time, I guess, manage to maintain the illusion that it was, many
of us – until we finally came up against an evil so horrible that we had to grow out of
the illusion! That horror was the Holocaust, and its context, the Second World War!
In the Holocaust, 6.5 million Jews were murdered, simply because they were Jews –
God’s people! And in the war that accompanied the Holocaust, at least 25 million more
died!
And suddenly none who care enough about their faith to think deeply about it may
dare say it was all “according to the will of God” – according to the will of that God
whom that same book we value so highly finally proclaims to be Love!
And the Church is finally, finally beginning to grow up – and beginning to grow, finally,
into the full promise of that great book we call the Bible! The book that does not
contain all truth, but that leads us and directs us toward the Truth – the truth of the
living God who is Truth, and Goodness, and Love! The God who could never wish ill,
or suffering, or death to any of his children, but who would spare all of God’s children
all of those things – if God could!
We are finally learning that one of the guides to our theology must be the realization
that we must never ascribe to God anything that would make us morally superior to
God! And if we did continue to believe in the kind of God who kills – or allows to be
killed – millions upon millions of innocent people, we should ask ourselves, “why in
the world would we even want to pray to such a God?
But next week, God willing, and my sermon cooperating, we will reach the point of
actually discussing what prayer to this God – Our God – really is all about!
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
Y’know, the sermons that are toughest to prepare are the ones that insist on writing
themselves. That is, those times when I know, in my head, exactly what I want to talk
about, but when I begin to put my thoughts down, the sermon starts wandering off on
its own and refuses to behave. This sermon is one of them.
Last week, in response to questions asked about my sermon of the week before and
to our reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Church at Rome, I took up with you the
question of prayer, and I said I would continue this week.
The questions were asked in relation to my comments, the week before, about God’s
inability to reach into this world of his creation and “change things.” That led some of
you to wonder, if that is what I believe, then what about prayer? Do I believe in
prayer? To that, I replied that I have seen too much in my life not to believe in prayer,
and I said I would go into that subject, this week, more deeply!
Well, I tried. But in trying to deal with the subject, my sermon insisted on going deeper
into the original premise, first – that God does not, indeed, cannot interfere in this
world he has created. And though I’ve spoken about it many times, it is so difficult for
us to comprehend – and accept – that it becomes one of those subjects that I
mentioned last week, ideas that we need to keep coming back to, approaching from
different directions, using different terms.
The problem is, it’s a premise that runs counter to so much of both our traditional
religion and popular religion! We hear examples of the old premise all the time, but
they’re so familiar to us that we don’t think twice about them; never wonder what it is
people are Really saying!
A case in point, just yesterday, on the TV news.
You may have noticed that the pro football season is almost upon us! The eagles are
up the road, a bit, in training camp – the rookies and the new guys, first, and now the
big boys are arriving!
But a couple of days ago, there was a near tragedy that happened to one of the
Eagles. A defensive end, Jerome McDougle, was shot in the stomach by three young
hoods in an attempted holdup in Miami.
When asked about it by news reporters, Donovan McNabb commented, “It was God’s
will. Everything’s going to take care of itself.” And I suspect when he said that, many
people were impressed by his faith!
But think about what he said!
“It was God’s will!” It was God’s will that three young punks try to rob this stranger in
his Mercedes, and shoot him when he reaches for his wallet! Do we really want to
believe that?
On the one hand, it’s one more example of the kind of simple-minded evangelicalism
that is coming to prevail in this country. But on the other, it’s only a little more
extreme than the kind of thing we’ve always heard whenever there has been a
tragedy or near tragedy – when the sole survivor of an accident, for instance,
inevitably says something like, “Thank God for sparing me.”
God wanted Jerome McDougle shot, and used three young men to do it for Him,
apparently.
Or, on another occasion, God wanted a bunch of people to die in a fiery accident, but
he “spared” one person.
God wants thousands of people to die in bombings and firefights in Iraq – but some
he spares! God’s will!
That kind of thinking is understandable and even to be expected amongst
prescientific peoples, faced with a world they cannot understand, and searching for
explanations. Imagining a gods or a god in charge is understandable. Indeed, for most
of history, in fact, most Christians have said these things, believed these things.
Nor is it by accident that Christians have held on to their belief in a God who works in
these ways. After all, we have in our holy book countless stories of God sending
plague and pestilence upon whole nations of people – but perhaps saving a few; God
sending his people to attack and destroy whole cities – expressly ordering them to kill
every living thing in the city – man, woman, child and animal; God decreeing that his
only-begotten Son should die an agonizing death for the sins of God’s people.
God’s will!
But as I’ve been saying, of late, “the things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, they
ain’t necessarily so!”
The Bible is at the same time the record and the source of a faith that has been
developing and growing and maturing for three thousand years, and more, but it is
Not the infallible, literal words of God! And anyone who reads it closely, and opens his
or her mind and spirit to the reading must come to see that!
We could, once upon a time, I guess, manage to maintain the illusion that it was, many
of us – until we finally came up against an evil so horrible that we had to grow out of
the illusion! That horror was the Holocaust, and its context, the Second World War!
In the Holocaust, 6.5 million Jews were murdered, simply because they were Jews –
God’s people! And in the war that accompanied the Holocaust, at least 25 million more
died!
And suddenly none who care enough about their faith to think deeply about it may
dare say it was all “according to the will of God” – according to the will of that God
whom that same book we value so highly finally proclaims to be Love!
And the Church is finally, finally beginning to grow up – and beginning to grow, finally,
into the full promise of that great book we call the Bible! The book that does not
contain all truth, but that leads us and directs us toward the Truth – the truth of the
living God who is Truth, and Goodness, and Love! The God who could never wish ill,
or suffering, or death to any of his children, but who would spare all of God’s children
all of those things – if God could!
We are finally learning that one of the guides to our theology must be the realization
that we must never ascribe to God anything that would make us morally superior to
God! And if we did continue to believe in the kind of God who kills – or allows to be
killed – millions upon millions of innocent people, we should ask ourselves, “why in
the world would we even want to pray to such a God?
But next week, God willing, and my sermon cooperating, we will reach the point of
actually discussing what prayer to this God – Our God – really is all about!
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Previous Sermon |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |