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November 20, 2005
The Very Rev. Bud Thurston
Proper 29 - Year A

To read the lessons for the day click here

Over this last week I have begun to pack up my stuff in my office and at my apartment. Packing up, as well as making this move, are not tasks that I particularly enjoy. But as I put books in a box, I carefully placed a copy of a book that I take with me everywhere- that is, everywhere that I may be for a period of time. Since I was a classical language major in college- you may read into that statement a full scholarship from the classics department to keep the department alive-I carefully packed my copy of the Odyssey.

What has stuck with me over the years with this epic is how much better, how much nobler, are the human heroes than the gods in this story. The gods are vindictive, petty and even lecherous. They are deceitful. They play favorites. They make sport out of human tragedies. Calypso keeps poor Odysseus prisoner on her island, far from his home-far from his wife and family-because the goddess wants him as her own. Poseidon, the earth shaker, the god of the seas, keeps Odysseus from making it home, because Odysseus blinded Cyclops, the son of Poseidon. And on Mount Olympus, the gods vie with one another, using poor Odysseus as a pawn in their power struggles.

It's no wonder that Socrates discouraged exposing the youth of Athens to the poets because of the unethical examples of the gods contained in Greek poetry. He preferred to give the gods their due, but to leave them alone.

Nevertheless, this view of the gods, namely that they should be placated, but left alone, was common throughout the ancient world. There were three particular requirements that had to be followed to placate the gods. First, offer the appropriate sacrifices. Second, violate no sacred places. And, finally, harm no priests (that one I like the best). In other words, do not draw attention to yourself, so the gods do not become too involved with you.

On the face of it, this is not an unreasonable view of things. Given the fickle nature of human living and even fortune in this life; given our vulnerability to changes in many parts of our lives-whether it is our money, or our physical selves as we age, or our need for constant attention- why would anyone think that the hidden cause behind all things-that is, the gods-are anything but fickle? Why should we view the gods as anything but capricious and erratic?

In today's world of the church, many people pass through the church for baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and, even the final pass through-funerals. These are people who wish to do the "right thing", to offer appropriate religious respect, but for some of these folks, they fail to get the imprint, and they miss the depth and mystery of God- often at the crucial moments of their lives, or the lives of their families.

Some of us here may not feel much of anything about God this morning. In fact, this might just be a description of a number of us who are wondering what this faith thing is all about?

It's this that I want to address today.

Let's make a real-life confession. In many ways the most realistic approach that we can have to life is that it may not come out the way we think it should. A shocking truth, isn't it?

The evidence for this truth is legion. We can think of hundreds and thousands of illustrations. Some of us with children especially know that often things that we expect for our children, and the things that we wish for our children, simply do not happen. Or some honest people get put on the shelf in business and others who cut all the corners, make all the compromises, get promoted. Need I point out other illustrations that may come to your minds?

There is nothing new about this. So as we sit in church today, a reasonable assumption about life is that we have no reason to think that it will always be easy or, sometimes, even pleasant. Life can be hard; birth is hard, death is hard, the adjustments of adolescence are hard; the disappointments of young adulthood are hard; the disabilities and infirmities of aging are hard.

I don't want you to think that I exaggerate the darker side of life to the exclusion of the brighter side. Life is also wonderful and good and filled with all sorts of glorious surprises and joys that exceed our expectations.

My experience over many years is that there are people who don't want to accept their life situations and many proceed to build a religious faith on the flimsy foundation of an unrealistic world in which they presume that everything is going to come out just the way they want it to. And when that doesn't work, as it so often doesn't, then their faith crashes.

This is the last time I have to say some things to you, so let me say them with frankness, with, hopefully, clarity, and with a sense of abiding love for you as a community of God.

When you and I face the sometimes-hard realities of life, we have two choices to make. We can believe that life is a mess that does not make sense, or we can say that life is a divine mystery that does make sense. We may not know how-we may not know all the details of life-we may not know the whys and wherefores of the moment.

Two choices: one, that life is a mess that doesn't make sense, and the other, that life is a divine mystery that does make sense.

If we choose the first option-that life is hard and unfair and is a mess-then we have relieved some of life's pressures on us. We can avoid the standards of the world-ignoring its values-deciding that unhappy endings are not something to take seriously. With this viewpoint we can eliminate the hard questions that may haunt us-we can get rid of all sorts of disturbing concerns in life that have to do with darkness and clouds. But in doing so, we also lose the one vital explanation of the brightness that often makes our world incredibly beautiful.

If we take that first choice, we have as company cynics and skeptics, doubters and those of little or no faith-and those who have never dared to launch out into the deep waters of life.

On the other hand, if we take the second choice-that life is an incredibly divine mystery that does make sense (although we may not always understand it or perceive it) then we have to keep all the injustices and the unhappy endings-we keep all of the questions that go through our minds when things happen that are an affront to our sense of goodness and fairness and truth. In fact, if we take that second choice, we actually intensify much of what we experience-the incongruities of life, the pieces that don't fit, the unhappy endings, the searchings and questions that never seem to be answered. We keep all of that.

But we have God, who can give us the power to stand up and face all the injustices and unfairness of life. We have God to whom we can turn when our minds and consciences have been assaulted by what we know is not right, and we have God to whom we can turn and expect solace and compassion, power and direction.

We also have God who can direct our lives when the injustices and the unhappy endings come our way.

These are the two choices. We don't have a lot of influence over the world; we don't always have a choice about whether things are always going to come out all right in the end. But this is the option that we do have.

We can make the choice about how we are going to approach life, either from the unrealistic point of assuming that life must come out all right or else there is not a just or loving God, or, from the very realistic approach that life is a great mystery that is beyond us, but that it can make sense because there is a God whose ways are different from our ways.

There is a beloved story by Hans Christian Andersen entitled, The Little Match Girl. It appeared in a book that my two kids had in their childhood. It was given to them by some very dear older friends of ours. The story is of a New Year's Eve. It is cold. The little girl has come to the end of the day with her apron full of matches that she has not been able to sell. She doesn't dare go home because her father will be unhappy with her, so she huddles in a corner between two houses. At the end of the story, someone finds the little match girl frozen to death.

Recently, the story was translated again, and the ending was changed. The little match girl-in the new translation-does not die of the cold, but finds warmth and cheer and a lovely home where she is able to live happily ever after.

In Andersen's original version-to keep warm-the little girl lights one match after another, and in the glow of them she sees, first, a shining and bright stove, then she sees a New Year's dinner, with a goose walking straight toward her. Then as another match is lit, she sees the Christmas tree with all the candles burning so brightly that they finally become stars. She lights another match and there stands her loving grandmother. Her grandmother gets taller and taller as she lights one match after another to keep the image alive and to keep herself warm.

And this, then, is the ending according to Andersen: "Grandmother took the little girl into her arms. Together they flew in joy and splendor, up, up to where there was no cold, no hunger, no fear. They were with God. But in the cold morning, huddled between two houses, sat the little girl with rosy cheeks and a smile on her lips, frozen to death on the last night of the old year." The New Year dawned on the little dead body leaning there with the match stubs, all of them used up. "She was trying to keep warm", people said. Nobody know what lovely things she had seen and in what glory she had gone with her grandmother to the happiness of the New Year.

Our mission is to lift up the presence of God in the world. To lift up God, who is the hidden key to life; to lift up love for all, to name love as God's, to be drawn to this love and to reflect it to the world. For that to happen, our hearts need to be open to the mystery of God, to the mystery of the world, even as we know and experience our growth in the Christian faith and in this Christian community. How will anyone be convinced that beneath the pain and suffering of common experience flows a promise of god's presence that will never go away, unless you and I live that way?

My hope and prayer for each of you is that we will live lives that accept the fullness of God's love and presence with us, and then boldly proclaim that grace to one another.

Thank you for your care for me over the last ten months. I have been deeply moved by your kindness and your trust.

And most of all, thank you for your love. Love has been the heartbeat of my time with you.

Amen