Unanswerable Questions

Easter 4 Year C

21 April 2013

Sunday after immense tragedy

        I must admit that this morning I am exceptionally tired—and it’s not because I went to Thunder last night and didn’t get home until midnight.  And it’s not because I got up at an hour even early for me to write this sermon.  I had to get up; I didn’t have much of a sermon yet.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried for hours but because I didn’t know what to say—I seem to only have questions—and no answers. 0f the many, many questions the ones that are continually reverberating in my mind are “Why God?” and “When will all these tragedies and catastrophes end?”, and “how in the world do I as a Christian respond?”

        This week these questions have flown through my mind at lightening speed—as I’m sure they’ve flown through many people’s minds.  Try as I might, I couldn’t find a place to start.  If I try to begin to answer the question “why God” with there are evil broken people in this broken world and that is part of the reason the devastation in Boston and the reason the ricin letters were mailed, I am quickly pulled up short.  Perhaps that is part of the answer for those two horrific events, but what about the fires in West, Texas and the devastating earthquake in China?  Who do I blame for those?  How do I explain those away?  How do I give those explanations; and I need explanations.  Explanations help to control—as a people many of us believe that if we can explain how and why something happens we can control it.  I like control; I like stability, predictability, color coded charts and calendars, and the only surprises I like are jewelry, happy rainbows and unicorns—in that order.

        Today’s psalm, the much loved psalm 23, itself denies the reality of the world and the control I want.  It does not say “if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” but rather “even though” or in some translations “when I walk.”  It does not deny, it in fact affirms that there will be darkness and valleys in our lives.  Some of these valleys we will walk through alone as—the death of loved ones, medical diagnosis we don’t want to hear, financial troubles, broken relationship; and some we will feel as communities local, national, and international—events like those that happened this week.  It does not deny these realities but it unquestionably states I will not be afraid, I will fear no evil for you are with me. 

        This psalm tells us how we are to believe, how we are to respond.  We are to respond without fear and with trust that God is with us.  This week we are forced to stare deeply into our souls and ask the questions.    Do we really believe those things we profess week after week?  Do we trust in the goodness and mercy of God, in the faithfulness and presence of God?  Last week many of us were here and were witnesses to a baptism and we heard parents and godparents answer the question, “Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?”  Perhaps you’ve answered that question for yourself or for your children or god children.  Today and in the days ahead we have the opportunity to live, to speak, and to act into the answer “I do.”   

        In the last few days, we have witnessed many examples of people who have lived into this profession—we have witnessed examples of people who refused to allow fear to be their guiding force.  We saw that fear was not the only force at work in the world—we saw that love, courage, compassion, commitment, discipline, sacrifice, faith, and hope are also very much alive, present and active in the world.  The presence of God, the Spirit of God moved through and with people.  I pray that we the people gathered here today and people throughout the world can continue to allow these forces, forces given by God, to be powerfully seen and felt.  In the days and weeks ahead it will be tempting to allow fear to reign.  Some in the world will try to capitalize on our fears.  And there may be movements whose purpose is to increase our fear to levels that have no place to go except in the form of anger--anger which can lead to vengeance, more violence, more hatred, more victims, and more hurt. 

        The psalm today acknowledges darkness and evil, and it even acknowledges that we will have enemies. But the psalm also defeats these in its profession of the goodness and mercy of God, in the care and nurturing of God; the psalm offers us another worldview—a view of the world where fear and vengeance are not the only forces—they are minimal forces,

In our church we sometimes hear the phrase lex orandi lex credendi—the law of prayer is the law of belief.  In essence, if I pray it enough, say it enough, I will believe it.  As we pray psalm 23 today and in the days to come, I pray that the prayer leads to and solidifies our belief and that belief drives our behavior. 

Prayer does something else—I was reading Thomas Merton this week and he says this about prayer/contemplation, “Contemplation is also the response to a call:  a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being:  for we ourselves are words of His.” (New Seeds of Contemplation p.3)  I pray that we are refreshed and nourished today and in the days to come through our worship, through the Eucharist, through our community and through our prayer so that we can live and be the words of God and the presence of God in these dark days.  I pray that we can be the light that shines forth. 

Our questions won’t stop; many of our questions are unanswerable.  A friend of mine said this about why we go to church, “we don’t come to church because we expect answers, but we come to ask the unanswerable questions and to ask them with other people.”  I add to that, and we come to church to be with others who believe in the power and goodness of God; we come to be reminded and to remind others.  Yes many of our questions will remain unanswered, but the question “Where was God, where is God in this world?” we can help answer.  Our words and actions can say, God is right here dwelling in you and in me; God is in Boston, in Texas, and in China dwelling in and with many others.  We are a community of faith, a communion of saints past, present, and future.

Thank you, thank you for being here for and with me today—today being here with you reminds me.