May 17, 2015 –The 7th
Sunday of Easter, Year B
© 2015 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon can be heard here.
We have reached a new
developmental stage in the Garner household. We are now fully immersed in the realm
of the “What if?” What if you didn’t
marry Mommy? What if you hadn’t become a nurse? What if we still lived in
Montgomery? At first, the what-if questions are entertaining in their
possibility. It’s fun to let a child explore the hypotheticals of life—to
recognize that things didn’t have to be this way or, at least, to recognize
that there is a reason that things are the way they are. But, after a while,
what if questions getting annoying. What
if Auburn and the St. Louis Cardinals played each other in baseball—whom would
you cheer against? What if a tyrannosaurus rex came crashing down the street
and stepped right on our house? What if the only thing we had to eat was ice
cream? Although we still allow our children to dream out loud about how
else things could be, we’ve stopped answering questions about hypotheticals
that have absolutely no bearing on reality.
But the truth is that I’m
not sure that things could be any other way. While it’s fun and perhaps
valuable to reflect on how we got to where we are, I don’t think there’s any point
in agonizing over how things could be different. In fact, I’m starting to think
that part of what it means to be a person of faith is to accept that, no matter
what, where we are is God’s gift to us. That might seem old-fashioned or even
fatalistic, but it’s the kind of faith our church was built upon.
Consider, for example,
the problem of Judas. One of the first challenges that the Christian movement
faced was what to do about the one who betrayed Jesus. Jesus’ followers were
convinced that their master was the Son of God—that his life, death, and
resurrection were all an expression of God’s salvific plan for the world—but
outsiders weren’t so sure. They couldn’t imagine following a messiah who had
picked a traitor to be one of his closest friends. “Shouldn’t God’s holy
prophet have been a better judge of character than that?” they might have
wondered to themselves. But Peter and the other apostles didn’t see it that
way. “Friends,” Peter said, standing up in front of the fellowship of the believers,
“the scripture had to be fulfilled.”
In other words, this was part of God’s plan. It had to be this way—even if it didn’t
completely make sense.
But faith isn’t just throwing
up your hands at life and saying that there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s
more than that. Faith means believing so fully in God’s unfailing love and
God’s unconquerable power that we learn to trust that, no matter what, God will
provide for us—even in those moments when we can’t see God at work in our
lives.
When it came time to pick
a new apostle to take Judas’ place, the fellowship of believers put forward two
individuals—men who had been with them for the whole journey from the time of
Jesus’ baptism all the way through his death and resurrection and ascension. The
two whom they identified as worthy of that holy calling were Joseph Barsabbas,
who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. And how did they decide which one
was right for the job? They cast lots. They drew straws. The rolled the dice.
They said a prayer and let God decide.
But how in the world is
that supposed to work? Does that mean God reaches all the way down from heaven
to be sure that the right man is chosen for the job? Does God make sure that
the dice fall in favor of the holier candidate—that Matthias gets the sort
straw? Now, if you think God cares what roll comes up on the dice, you
shouldn’t be here in church. You should be down in Biloxi. (They have Episcopal
Churches there, too.) But, at the same time, if you believe that God has no
interest in the outcome of human affairs, you shouldn’t be here either. This
isn’t a social club. We’re here because we believe that God has a plan for the
world and that we are a part of that plan. That much, I believe, is a given.
The part that is up to us—the hard part—is making sense of how that plan is
unfolding around us and learning to trust that God is in control even when it
seems like he isn’t.
What if Joseph Barsabbas
had been chosen instead? Would anyone have noticed? Would he have done a bad
job? Would the Holy Spirit have failed to show up at Pentecost because the lot
fell on the undeserving candidate? Would the Christian movement have sputtered
out before it really even got started? Does it matter than neither of these two
men is ever mentioned again in the bible?
What does it mean to
trust that God will take care of us no matter what? People get frustrated when
they come to me looking for advice and all I do is shrug my shoulders and say,
“What do you think you should do?” For some reason, they don’t seem to think
that “let’s flip a coin” is good pastoral advice. But I mean that—not because I
believe that God will alter the way a coin flips through the air to be sure
that it lands on tails—or is it heads?—but because I believe that God will always
take care of us—no matter what decisions we make.
As Christians, we must
believe that God’s love is bigger than the choices we make. Otherwise, life
would be unbearable. Imagine the paralysis that would set in even before we got
out of bed in the morning if we believed that God’s love and blessing depended
upon us making all the right choices. Choice, my friends, isn’t an illusion,
but the consequences of our choices are. Instead of worrying about whether
you’re making the right choices for your life, try devoting that emotional and
intellectual energy to the possibility that God will take care of you no matter
what choices you make. Discover first-hand what it means to believe that God is
in control of your life instead of you. Discover the freedom that comes from
knowing that there is no decision you can make that will set yourself outside
of God’s loving plan for your life and for the world.
That’s why we baptize
little babies like Lou Lou. As sweet as she is today and as beautiful and
innocent as she seems to us now, we all know that someday she will make some bad
choices—even some terrible choices. But you know what? We still baptize her
into the body of Christ because, as Christians, we believe with every fiber of
our being that God chooses her and all of us regardless of the choices we make.
God’s love doesn’t depend on our choices. Our lives depend on God’s love. He
has chosen us to be his children, and that is the only choice that ever
matters.
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