ME AND GOD, GOD AND ME

Have you ever stopped to think how important God is in or lives? We’ve heard many times that without God we can do nothing, and we nod our heads and say “Sure”.  We know it’s true, of course, deep down inside us. But it often seems that we only acknowledge the important if God in our lives in times of crises.

Just let a child get sick or a loved one hurt or let there be a serious need somewhere and we almost immediately run to God expecting – sometimes demanding – that God help us. There is a problem we cannot solve and we want the Problem Solver to do something about it – and do it in the way we want it done.

Nothing wrong there. That’s human and, I dare say, Christian. In our entreaties to God we are certainly acknowledging the fact that God has something to do with the way the entire situation comes out. We are, let us not forget, in praying to God expressing our faith in God. How strong that faith is, for the moment, does not matter. What matters is that we do have faith in God. Without God there are some things we cannot do, that are beyond our abilities to reckon with.

But there is another side to this coin, another side to our relationship with and faith in God. On the one hand we can quite honestly say that without God’s intervention there are some things we want done that won’t get done: miracles – major, minor or in-between. These are up to God to do and ours to ask. The other side of the coin is the fact that without my asking, there are somethings God will not do.

You see, when we pray “thy will be done”, we are praying and saying that we not only want what we are praying for to be God’s will, we also want it to be done. God will not do anything for us that we do not want to be done. That may seem obvious or even heretical. It is neither. God does not force God’s will upon us. God only works in and with and through us. God wants and needs our cooperation. If we don’t give it, God won’t force it. But God demands it in order to be God in us. That is not to say that God does not work in our lives. God does. But it is to say that God is only as important to us as we allow God to be.

It follows, then, that the more we allow God to be a part of our life, the more God will be. The opposite is just as true. Perhaps what it all boils down to in our everyday lives is the fact that much of what happens to us is really dependent upon us because it is dependent upon our relationship with God. If we allow God into our lives, if we are constantly seeking God’s will for us, the more God’s blessing will abound.

But it is up to us. Without God there are a lot of thigs that we cannot do, But without me, without us, there are an equally large number of things God’s won’t do because God cannot because you and I won’t let God.

FRUIT WORTHY OF REPENTANCE

There are times when I hear a song and I can’t get it out of my head. The words just won’t go away. They eventually do, of course, but you know what I mean. Well, there is a verse from Scripture that just won’t go away. It’s been rattling around in my head for over a month: since the second Sunday of Advent. Don’t ask me why, but it has.

I didn’t preach on it because I wasn’t in church as we were travelling that day. But when we arrived home, I looked up the Scripture assigned for that Sunday and read these words from John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel: “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” (Matthew 3:8) Yes, they were addressed primarily to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came out as curiosity seekers to see what this crazy preacher who was attracting so many listeners was all about.

The truth, of course, is that we all are to be repentant sinners: no exceptions. If those who had gathered at the Jordan River to hear John had any thoughts that the only people John was addressing were the Pharisees and Sadducees, they had another thought coming. He was talking to everyone including me 2000 years later. I know I have to repent of my sins. The question is whether or not my repentance is bearing fruit worthy of repentance. Am I doing enough?

That’s the question and that is why those words of John still won’t go away. The problem is this: are my repentant words and actions worthy enough or am I just cutting myself some slack and assume that they are? Whose to judge? In society we tell a convicted felon that if he has paid a certain fine and/or certain penalty, he has, in fact, born the fruit worthy of repentance.

The problem, of course, for any sin that we commit, no matter small or how grievous, we cannot un-commit it. We can’t take back the words or actions. And so in order to repent, we must say or do something that is worthy enough in the eyes of the one or ones we hurt to make up for our sinful actions. Again, we cannot undo them. We can only make up for them by an acceptable form of repentance.

The sad part is twofold: on the one hand we may think we do not need to repent because we don’t think we have done anything wrong. The other is that those whom we have hurt and whom we know we have hurt may never forgive us no matter what we do or how great an act of repentance we perform. We cannot do anything about the latter but we can about the former.

John’s message, which keeps ringing in my ears, is a reminder that I have to take seriously the sins I have committed and the people I have hurt over the years and ask myself if I have borne fruit worthy of true repentance. If I have, thank God. If I have not, what am I now going to do about it for it’s about time that I do, isn’t it?

OOPSIE

The five-year-old niece of a friend of mine had to be told that her 93-year-old grandfather had died. He lived in another country, had seen him once or twice in her young life and was, thus, not very close to him. But she needed to be told that he had passed away. Her response? It wasn’t, “I’m so sad” or “I will miss him” but simply “Oopsie!”

When I heard the story, I laughed. But the more I thought about it, that was a very profound and probably very deep theological response. So much of life is made up of oops. “Oops, I spilled the milk.” “Oops, I fell and broke my leg.” “Oops, my friend had a stroke.” “Oops, oops, oops.”

In so many ways so much of life happens in the spur of a moment. It is not planned. It is not expected. It is certainly not desired. But it happens. Oops. Now what? For that five-year-old, “Oops, grandpa died. I am sorry, I guess, but my life goes on.” For her mother whose father it was who died, it was still an oops. Her life had to go on as well. Yes, the oops was much more personal; and even if the death was expected, it was still an oops in that it caused an immediate change in her life, just as all oops-moments and events do.

I know this sounds rather flippant and perhaps it is. But the point is that these moments usually come when we are not fully, if that, prepared for them. And even when we are, there is still a moment, or longer, of shock that follows. We can sit by the bed of a dying loved one knowing full well that that person’s life is coming to an end. We are prepared. Yet, when the death comes, it is still somewhat of a shock. A life is gone. Now what?

The same is true for any oops. Whatever that oops was, it has changed our life: the broken leg, the spilled milk, the sudden illness of a friend. Whatever we had planned on doing before we spilled the milk or broke our leg now had to be rethought. We’ll wipe up the milk and move on. Not a very big deal, but a deal nevertheless. We’ll get the leg put into a cast: a bigger deal because now we have to make some changes, perhaps large ones, in the way we live our life until we are healed.

Life would be so much easier if we could prevent an oops from happening, but we cannot. And maybe it’s a good thing that we can’t. We can learn so much about life itself and even more about our own life when we have to deal with those oopses that come our way. Perhaps that’s the most important thing we learn is if we have indeed learned anything from the oops. The truth is, if you are like me, sometimes we don’t.

The milk spilled because we were not paying attention to what we were doing. But did we learn to become more attentive to what we are doing? We broke the leg because we tried to do something foolish. Have we become less foolish? Those oops moments, if nothing else, should become learning moments in our life. Whether they are or not is up to us.

SINS, DEBTS AND TRESPASSES

The new (well, it's really not that new; but it is new compared to the old) version of the Lord's Prayer uses the word "sins," as in, "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against. The Presbyterians use the words "debts" and "debtors." We traditionalists cling mightily to the word "trespasses."

To be honest, when I think of the word "trespass," I have this vision of the "No Trespassing" sign I see on condemned buildings or on private property. But is that what I mean when I use that word? Am I asking that I be forgiven because I have invaded the personal property/space of another?  Perhaps I am. Perhaps that is what I have done when I have hurt another in thought or word or deed. And that is what another has done to me. Never thought about it that way.

And the word "debt" is truly Presbyterian. The Presbyterian Church is the Church of Scotland. And you know what they say about Scots and their tightness when it comes to money. It has been said that the greatest sin a Scot can incur is to be in debt. So maybe asking God to forgive our debts is to ask forgiveness for a great harm we have at times done to another and for the same type of harm and hurt that has been done to us. Never thought about that before either.

And the word "sin?" Well, I think about that word much more often than I think of the word "debt" or "trespass," especially what those words mean in the context of The Lord's Prayer. But that does not mean that I have thought about the word and its meaning any more deeply. All I know is that I want to be forgiven for whatever I have done, whatever trespass, sin or debt that I am responsible for.

But the Prayer says that I only want to be forgiven in the measure and to the degree that I first have forgiven others of their trespasses, debts and sins committed against me. I have thought about that before, but I don't like the thought. I don't know about you, but I am much more inclined to ask for forgiveness than to forgive – at least ask God to forgive me. And God can forgive all those others as well. But to have God's forgiveness of me be based solely on my forgiveness of others, that's a heavy load. It might mean that I remain unforgiven unless and until.

Perhaps the question I need ask of myself is one about whether or not I really mean what I am saying, what I am praying for when I say the Lord's Prayer. Do I truly forgive those who have invaded my space, my life, who have deliberately done harm to me as I have done to them? I owe them that much.

My forgiveness of others for trespassing on my space, for harming me in any way that some kind of debt is due, for deliberately (all sin is deliberate) saying or doing something to hurt me, is to come prior to my asking God for forgiveness. I don’t know about you but I do know about me, perhaps, no, for certain, the Lord's Prayer is a reminder that I have to get my priorities, my life, my thinking and even my praying in order before I start asking God for forgiveness for my sins, debts and trespasses..