| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| THE 12TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 7 August, 2005 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
| Previous Sermons |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Still working on Prayer.
I could almost wish we weren’t, because this morning’s lessons are just as juicy as
could be.
Jonah praying from the belly of the great fish! Paul lamenting his disappointment in God’
s chosen people, the Jews. And Jesus walking on water, while Peter sinks! All great
stuff – good sermon material…, when preaching about the lessons.
On the other hand, though, all of those lessons actually do touch on things that I’ve
mentioned on the way to discussing prayer with you! So they’re fitting.
But I will have to apologize again, this morning. I will, finally, get to prayer, but it will be
next Sunday, not today. There are a couple of things I still need to talk about, first – one
a matter of emphasis, and the other an added point we need to look at. And I am also
trying to be sensitive to the fact that at this time of year, sermons really do need to be a
little briefer than the rest of the year. I promise you, though, next week will be it!
As for the matter of emphasis: at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I just cannot
stress too much the importance and the effect of the holocaust of the 30’s and 40’s on
the world and on the Faith. Certainly there has been much evil committed in the history
of this world, some of it almost beyond imagining! But nothing has ever quite
approached the horror of this one event! The word, “genocide,” itself, was invented in
1943 to describe the campaign the Nazi Government of Germany was enacting with the
aim of exterminating the Jews – not just from their own country, not just from central
Europe – but from the whole world – with the plan, ultimately, once the goal of world
domination had been accomplished – of seeking out and murdering Jews wherever in
the world they were! There did not exist a word to describe what they were trying to do –
because no one had ever so much as imagined it, before, much less tried it!
And we must never forget that the Nazis tried to exterminate those same people that St.
Paul affirms, in this mornings 2nd reading, were those to whom “belong the sonship, the
glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises,” and of
whose race is the Christ!
It took an event of that magnitude to make us begin, finally, to rethink our
understanding of God; of who God is and of what God is all about. For surely an all-
powerful God, and an all-knowing God would have found a way to intervene in this
slaughter – if he could!
And since that event, when we hear someone thanking God for saving him from a car
wreck, or, better, yet, when we hear someone thanking God for helping him win a
football game or a boxing match – all thinking Christians can do is shake their heads in
wonder and think, what kind of God do people believe in, who does not act to stop the
murders of 6-1/2 million Jews and tens of millions more who died in war with the Nazis –
but steps in to help Them in sporting events! We must learn to think more deeply and
more clearly about God if we are truly serious about worshipping God in our lives!
At the same time it must be admitted that what we really look for in so much of our
prayer, is, precisely that kind of intervention by God: miracles! We seek the same kind of
intervention in life that it would have taken to stop the holocaust! And here we run into
the big dilemma! Do miracles occur? Or do they not? And if they do, what are they?
And here we arrive at that spot where I said in one of my earlier sermons I have seen
too much in my life not to believe in prayer! I have seen things happen in prayer that I
cannot understand, cannot explain. I’ve had experiences in prayer that I can neither
explain nor understand. Yet because of barriers like the holocaust I continue to find it
impossible to believe, for instance, that God intervened with a miracle to heal, instantly,
a six-year-old from chronic, near-constant, dangerous kidney infections, so that she
never had another one – but would not intervene to save the life of that girl’s sister
from a terrible disease, 20 years later!
But I saw the child healed! I was there.
The closest I can come to “explaining” it – if that is a word to be used for something
unexplainable – is by appealing to one line in the Bible. In the Gospel according to St.
John, Chapter 14, verse 12, John has Jesus say, “Truly I say to you, he who believes in
me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I
go to the Father.”
Add to that another reference, where, in Paul’s Letter to the Church at Corinth, in a
discussion of what he calls “the gifts of the spirit,” Paul lists “gifts of healing,” and I
begin to think that what we see as “miracles” are not, in fact, “interventions” by God –
but occasions when we human beings are able to “tap into” a natural, God-given ability
that is rarely manifest! That in theory, at least, we all have that ability – but we only
manifest it when we have managed to align our will with the love of God! And when that
happens, we experience the effect as a gift! And a great one! It is rare that it happens,
and it is wonderful when it does!
I have seen the little girl cured of her chronic infections. I have seen a person with a
body so terribly damaged in an accident that she should have died; but not only did she
not die, she wound up as healthy and as strong as she’d been before the accident! I’ve
seen a person who seemed to have died in a fall, but, then…, hadn’t, and later made a
virtually full recovery.
And, even more impressively – to me – I have seen a number of people at the very gate
of death, hanging on, continuing, surviving, with no hope and no end apparent, who,
being told, finally, that it was okay to let go, okay to give up clinging, okay to go to the
Father – and that it was time to go – I have seen those people, finally and at last, just slip
away!
I do not understand these things. But I have seen them; and I know that they are true.
I hope I don’t need to say this next thing, but just in case, I will: That is, I’m not talking
about Benny Hinn, or Orel Roberts, or any of the countless con-men in tents and on TV
who strip the gullible of their hard-earned money in exchange for carnival illusions!
They are the worst kinds of crooks, manipulators, users.
I have never known a healer who was not quiet, dedicated, deeply spiritual, and
thoroughly loving! And I’ve Never known a wealthy healer! But I have known healers! I
have known people who seem to be able to tap into that glorious and mysterious
“something” that permits wonderful things to happen. And I’ve seen that those things
seem only to happen in prayer.
But that’s for next week.
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
I could almost wish we weren’t, because this morning’s lessons are just as juicy as
could be.
Jonah praying from the belly of the great fish! Paul lamenting his disappointment in God’
s chosen people, the Jews. And Jesus walking on water, while Peter sinks! All great
stuff – good sermon material…, when preaching about the lessons.
On the other hand, though, all of those lessons actually do touch on things that I’ve
mentioned on the way to discussing prayer with you! So they’re fitting.
But I will have to apologize again, this morning. I will, finally, get to prayer, but it will be
next Sunday, not today. There are a couple of things I still need to talk about, first – one
a matter of emphasis, and the other an added point we need to look at. And I am also
trying to be sensitive to the fact that at this time of year, sermons really do need to be a
little briefer than the rest of the year. I promise you, though, next week will be it!
As for the matter of emphasis: at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I just cannot
stress too much the importance and the effect of the holocaust of the 30’s and 40’s on
the world and on the Faith. Certainly there has been much evil committed in the history
of this world, some of it almost beyond imagining! But nothing has ever quite
approached the horror of this one event! The word, “genocide,” itself, was invented in
1943 to describe the campaign the Nazi Government of Germany was enacting with the
aim of exterminating the Jews – not just from their own country, not just from central
Europe – but from the whole world – with the plan, ultimately, once the goal of world
domination had been accomplished – of seeking out and murdering Jews wherever in
the world they were! There did not exist a word to describe what they were trying to do –
because no one had ever so much as imagined it, before, much less tried it!
And we must never forget that the Nazis tried to exterminate those same people that St.
Paul affirms, in this mornings 2nd reading, were those to whom “belong the sonship, the
glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises,” and of
whose race is the Christ!
It took an event of that magnitude to make us begin, finally, to rethink our
understanding of God; of who God is and of what God is all about. For surely an all-
powerful God, and an all-knowing God would have found a way to intervene in this
slaughter – if he could!
And since that event, when we hear someone thanking God for saving him from a car
wreck, or, better, yet, when we hear someone thanking God for helping him win a
football game or a boxing match – all thinking Christians can do is shake their heads in
wonder and think, what kind of God do people believe in, who does not act to stop the
murders of 6-1/2 million Jews and tens of millions more who died in war with the Nazis –
but steps in to help Them in sporting events! We must learn to think more deeply and
more clearly about God if we are truly serious about worshipping God in our lives!
At the same time it must be admitted that what we really look for in so much of our
prayer, is, precisely that kind of intervention by God: miracles! We seek the same kind of
intervention in life that it would have taken to stop the holocaust! And here we run into
the big dilemma! Do miracles occur? Or do they not? And if they do, what are they?
And here we arrive at that spot where I said in one of my earlier sermons I have seen
too much in my life not to believe in prayer! I have seen things happen in prayer that I
cannot understand, cannot explain. I’ve had experiences in prayer that I can neither
explain nor understand. Yet because of barriers like the holocaust I continue to find it
impossible to believe, for instance, that God intervened with a miracle to heal, instantly,
a six-year-old from chronic, near-constant, dangerous kidney infections, so that she
never had another one – but would not intervene to save the life of that girl’s sister
from a terrible disease, 20 years later!
But I saw the child healed! I was there.
The closest I can come to “explaining” it – if that is a word to be used for something
unexplainable – is by appealing to one line in the Bible. In the Gospel according to St.
John, Chapter 14, verse 12, John has Jesus say, “Truly I say to you, he who believes in
me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I
go to the Father.”
Add to that another reference, where, in Paul’s Letter to the Church at Corinth, in a
discussion of what he calls “the gifts of the spirit,” Paul lists “gifts of healing,” and I
begin to think that what we see as “miracles” are not, in fact, “interventions” by God –
but occasions when we human beings are able to “tap into” a natural, God-given ability
that is rarely manifest! That in theory, at least, we all have that ability – but we only
manifest it when we have managed to align our will with the love of God! And when that
happens, we experience the effect as a gift! And a great one! It is rare that it happens,
and it is wonderful when it does!
I have seen the little girl cured of her chronic infections. I have seen a person with a
body so terribly damaged in an accident that she should have died; but not only did she
not die, she wound up as healthy and as strong as she’d been before the accident! I’ve
seen a person who seemed to have died in a fall, but, then…, hadn’t, and later made a
virtually full recovery.
And, even more impressively – to me – I have seen a number of people at the very gate
of death, hanging on, continuing, surviving, with no hope and no end apparent, who,
being told, finally, that it was okay to let go, okay to give up clinging, okay to go to the
Father – and that it was time to go – I have seen those people, finally and at last, just slip
away!
I do not understand these things. But I have seen them; and I know that they are true.
I hope I don’t need to say this next thing, but just in case, I will: That is, I’m not talking
about Benny Hinn, or Orel Roberts, or any of the countless con-men in tents and on TV
who strip the gullible of their hard-earned money in exchange for carnival illusions!
They are the worst kinds of crooks, manipulators, users.
I have never known a healer who was not quiet, dedicated, deeply spiritual, and
thoroughly loving! And I’ve Never known a wealthy healer! But I have known healers! I
have known people who seem to be able to tap into that glorious and mysterious
“something” that permits wonderful things to happen. And I’ve seen that those things
seem only to happen in prayer.
But that’s for next week.
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Previous Sermon |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |