Immortal Immutable God Only Wise
Psalm 46:1-3, 8-11
Two weeks ago Rev. Robyn and I attended the Festival of Homiletics which was held in downtown Minneapolis. At the opening worship service the presider noted that there were more preachers per square inch in that sanctuary at that moment than any other place on the planet. Sometimes, I have to admit, being in a room with that many unknown religious people can be… well, freaky. I mean, there is a lot of crazy in the world but if you want to see a whole new level of crazy, get a bunch of religious people together. But I have to tell you that it was a wonderful experience. I spent more time in downtown Minneapolis last week than the combined six years I have lived here. Several famous preachers like Dr. Anna Carter Smith, Walter Brueggeman and Jim Wallis were present plus we enjoyed video interviews with Garrison Keillor and Fred Craddock.
There were several God moments that occurred in unexpected and thrilling ways. Like the opening service where this group of Canadian pastors ended up sitting all around me and they just kind of took me in as one of them. I am convinced that everyone in Canada knows everyone else. I told them Bill and I were married in MCC Toronto and they all knew the church and Brent Hawkes, the pastor there. By the end of the service, I felt like a Canadian. They were a very grace-filled group.
Then one day I ate lunch at one of the downtown diners between sessions. This very nice older woman sat down one stool over from me and spoke with the waitress, received her menu and began to look it over. The waitress walked away and I could overhear this woman having a conversation with someone. I thought maybe someone sat down on the other side of her. No. Then I thought she must have one of those ear pieces on the ear I couldn’t see from my side so she must be talking on the phone. It was that kind of conversation. She was answering questions, referring to things on the menu and asking for opinions. Then she turned her head and there was nothing on her ear. That’s when I knew this was different. There was nothing odd about her dress, her grooming, her interactions with the waitress but there was obviously a different world happening right beside me of which I wasn’t part. She was not distressed. She was not raging at anyone. She was simply having a very pleasant conversation with someone I couldn’t see. In church we call that prayer. In a diner, we call it mentally ill.
Then later as I was sitting in the crowded Great Hall of Westminster Presbyterian waiting for the video from Dr. Fred Craddock (my homiletics professor from seminary), this nice Lutheran pastor sitting next to me saw my name tag and said he had attended All God’s Children several years ago when he lived in Minneapolis. He is now serving a rural parish in North Dakota. Nobody in his congregation knows he is gay. He has no gay friends in the town where he serves. He lives his service to God alone. We exchanged business cards and I expect to see him show up for worship one day in the future when he is back in town.
Out of that conversation he and I decided that there were probably other GLBTQ clergy among the 2200 registrants and wouldn’t it be great to have a time to meet others. So I put a notice on the message board, “GLBTQA Pastors Dinner” with my name and phone number. Thursday night of last week Rev. Robyn and I hosted that dinner gathering at the Ichaban restaurant. We had seventeen clergy join us – Presbyterian, UCC, Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran – and we got to hear their stories and welcome them to Minneapolis on behalf of All God’s Children MCC. Such amazing stories. One Presbyterian pastor from rural New York is completely closeted to her denomination and her church. Her partner doesn’t live with her. She conducts an on-line blog called www.Ceciliainthecloset.com. It is her way to push the envelope. An Episcopal former clergy from Georgia told how Minneapolis played an important part in his coming out process. He attended the Episcopal conference where Gene Robinson was approved as bishop that happened here in Minneapolis a few years ago. He felt a connection to this city because this was where he began to claim his identity in earnest. He is now an on-air personality for a religious media production company. We heard from a married Methodist couple who serve in southern Minnesota. She had always considered herself a lesbian until she fell in love with her husband (so now she identifies as bi). Both are pastors serving small rural congregations. Truly amazing journeys! All of them fulfilling their call to serve God in whatever ways they can – some were fully out and accepted by their congregations and denominations and some use extraordinary measures and denominational gymnastics to hold their call. They shared their joy, their pain, their fear, their hope. It was another God moment.
During the conference last week we sang many of the great hymns of faith – “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” “Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise” “A Mighty Fortress”. We heard great sermons, insightful biblical exegesis and powerful special music.
Through it all I thought to myself, “This is great stuff. There is quality information. No gay bashing. No thinly-veneered hateful messages tucked into sweet religious language. There was good news.” That didn’t mean everyone thought alike or held the same theology or that there weren’t times when a presentation made all of us squirm. Rev. Robyn and I sat in on a workshop that Dr. Christine Smith from United Theological Seminary presented on “Preaching Ecological Justice.” She talked about the violence humans are doing to the planet and the natural affinity that theological proponents and ecological proponents had in how they viewed the world. Robyn and I both had trouble eating meat for a few days after that one. Our world is dealing with some complicated and tough challenges. If we as the church don’t find a voice to be part of those discussions, we will continue to be dismissed as being as irrelevant as compulsory celibacy or communion exclusion. Oops! Churches are still arguing about those things.
Our world is changing rapidly. God may be immutable, but nothing else stays the same. Even the things we use to measure other things. I read recently that the lump of metal that is the standard for measuring the kilogram is stored in a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures outside of Paris. It has been used for this purpose for over 100 years. However, they have discovered that this kilogram lump of metal now weighs 50 micrograms less than it did when they created this standard. They speculate that regular cleaning of the metal might account for small particles being removed. So, even the standards we use to measure other things are not immutable.
Sometimes the rapid change of life makes us want to create immutable beliefs. God doesn’t change, but our beliefs about God continue to grow and change. If we aren’t discovering new things about God, our beliefs become idols – obstacles for knowing the transcendent reality we call God. When we confuse our ideas, our beliefs, our opinions about God with the reality of God that is so much more spiritually complex, then we miss the mark. The Psalmist said, “God is our refuge and strength. God is our fortress.” The reality of God is like those things that make us strong to stand against the tide of evil. But we hear that Psalm and we can create all sorts of beliefs. God becomes Cinderella’s palace at Disneyland. That would be a small God after all! God is the one who saves us from pain, some say. The Psalmist says the purpose of the reality of God is not to prevent bad things from happening to you, but to let you know that you have divine presence with you even as you go through those bad things. It is the difference between escaping from danger and living with trust in the danger. There is this existential angst that humans seem to have to want some parental being to protect them from the world. But the faith the Psalmist and Jesus talk about is one of learning to approach the world through a life of trust. You get knocked around sometimes but the knocking around doesn’t determine your agenda. Those God moments can remind us that we’re connected to a source of strength more important than any of the knocks of life.
Sometimes we think we have to be on retreat or have a mountaintop experience to glimpse the presence of God. There are God moments happening with you all the time – in a greeting from a new friend, in a welcome by the stranger, in overhearing a conversation with someone I can’t see, in living with trust. Those moments are happening all the time if we just pay attention.
Sources:
www.homileticsonline.com The Kilogram Shift, June 2008.