I May Not Know Much

Sunday, August 10, 2008
Lay Preacher: Sarah Naumann

Readings:
1 Kings 19:9-18
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33



Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/F4888F2A-C7F6-63C9-729B-0473C1ED74B1.mp3

Sarah Naumann was our lay preacher today and what a lucky bunch we were. Her interpretation and take on the Gospel message today was poignant, touching, and powerful.

Sarah’s dad, Mike Naumann, shared a story with her daughter about a co-worker, Pat, whose mother is suffering from dementia and who, herself, was recently diagnosed with a rare form of colon cancer. She asked Sarah’s dad ‘why this happens … why God allows this to happen’. Mike confessed to Sarah that he had no answer for her, that he didn’t know what to say to her.

And then the wisdom in the father shone through. He told Sarah, “Maybe you don’t have to have an answer. Maybe there is no answer.” There was (and is) a storm on Pat’s life like the storm on Galilee. We collectively have experienced the human condition: illness, crises, wars, school shootings, poverty, death … there are a bevy of emotional storms, earthquakes, tornadoes in our lives. And we often, while weathering these storms, feel, at times, as if we are fighting them alone. Like Elijah, we might be calling out “I alone am left”.

In the commencement advisement entitled Sunscreen, the graduates are admonished that if life is a race, “that race is long and, in the end, it’s only ever with yourself”. In our most difficult moments, we may well feel entirely alone or abandoned. We are told today, at those times, to keep sight of Jesus, to keep focused on Him. Yet, even though Peter has faith enough to try, the storm blows and he loses his focus. Within the storm, we are likely to lose sight of our focus and falter and doubt.

There is a great quote attributed to Henry Ford that “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” When Luke first meets master Yoda in his Jedi tutelage, he fails to raise the star cruiser spaceship. He says “I can’t” to which Yoda replies, “THAT is why you fail.”

Jesus, like Yoda, asks us to keep our focus on Him, on The Force. Being human, our faith will waver when we face tough situations if we focus on our circumstances. At such moments, we will sink in the waters. Even when we try to focus on Jesus, we often falter. It’s the human condition.

Sarah offered a brightly hopeful conjecture on why Jesus was able to supercede his human condition with a calling to his divinity.

Before he walked on the waters of Galilee, he made the waters; before he was crucified on Calvary, he made the tree they hung him on. When we have Jesus in our boat, we lay claim to that creation. And we don’t have to reach all the way as Jesus is there reaching out for us.

Tony Snow, former White House Press Secretary, penned a wise piece entitled Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings which Sarah offered as a telling testimony to today’s scriptural lesson:

“ … we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere.

We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.”

Just as last week, we meet up with the saying “We may not know much, but we know this.” Sarah said we know Jesus implored us “Be not afraid.” Scripture, she tells us, evokes this statement 366 times, one for every day of the year. And we all probably need, at least once a day, to here Jesus say to us, again, “Don’t worry. Trust me. I’m here.”

William Barkley, Sarah tells us, called us all the hands and feet of Jesus. So being without answers to the questions we can’t answer is maybe all too human. Sarah and Tony Snow wisely remind us that maybe we won’t recognize Jesus until we’re in the heart of the storm ourselves.