Whom do you trust?
March 18, 2012 | Anita Retzlaff

Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.  How many ways can you have your Timmies?  Translated: standing at the counter of Tim Horton’s there are a myriad of drink options available.  Cappuccinos, lattes, steamed drinks, espressos, mochas – all must be ordered with your choice of sugar, cream, sweetener, syrup, milk or other flavouring.  Different coffee roasts and teas beckon and the decisions one has to make upon bellying up to the counter can feel absolutely prohibitive and overwhelming.  Do I want something whipped, frothed, chilled, steeped or frapped? And my friends, these weighty decisions have only to do with ordering a cup of coffee.

Our great grandparents would have had hysterics if faced with this plethora of choice. This is our world: a joy to those who are young and accustomed to making hundreds of little choices in a day, a little sobering for those of us who sometimes are anxious about the tsunami of decisions to be made.  We live in an age of choice. 

This morning we sit shoulder to shoulder in a service of worship because we choose to be here; and again, it is one choice among many.  We could be traveling, playing sports, coffeeing, relaxing at home, exercising, brunching, watching a religious program on TV, catching up on work that we didn’t get done during the week or we could be worshipping at one of the couple of hundred other church options in Saskatoon.  However, today, you are here. I am here. It would be a wonderful thing if we could just take time right now to talk with each other about why we choose to be here.  With all the options open to us and counter to the pull of many other activities in our world, we choose worship.

Since we are not accustomed to breaking into discussion groups during the service I will try to articulate what I believe leads to our choice to be part of this community and its weekly practice of worship.  It has to do with what we ultimately trust; in whom we trust. Because our lives are a collage of choices we arrive here today knowing that often we have chosen well and timely.  We have also chosen poorly and sometimes with catastrophic results.  We have made choices that have hurt others and damaged us.  Our motivation often has to do with the fear of being alone or abandoned, left behind, passed over.  We seek the light but sometimes choose darkness or the darkness frankly overwhelms us.  Facing these realities of life alone is frightening.  Having periodically turned away from what we know to be right and true most of us have a deep desire to return to the safety of transparency and openness. We know that God waits for us.  We know that we need each other to live well upon this earth and don’t always know how to find our way back to warm relationship.  We trust that we will be found, rescued, saved. That is why we are here.  We choose to trust.

The story of the Israelites in the wilderness told in Numbers 21 is a story of finding a way back.  The people of God have drifted away, slipped into sin.  In the arduous journey toward the land of promise, of light, they give up in protest and complaint. They lose heart, abandon trust. Deadly serpents begin to invade the habitation of these people of God’s choosing. They die one after another as they are poisoned by discontent and by snakes.  Realizing that this is their doing they cry out to God for help.  Their cry is answered. Salvation is set before them, high and lifted up.  If, in their deathly moment they remember to go and look at a bronze serpent put in their midst by the power of God, they will live.

When we hear the many stories of God in the Old Testament and the Israelites and their coming of age, we tend to blame God for their hardships.  If God is a God of love, how can God allow for such suffering?  We forget that it is the people’s choices that always lead to dire consequences.  God usually provides a way out of deathly living.  That is called mercy! Salvation! Often the smallest confession of trust initiates that turn back, toward God.  When choices take us to places we do not wish to inhabit even our desire to make things right can set into motion God’s desire to pull us back from the brink. Yet even so and all too often we make God out to be a bully.  The journey into the light is not always an easy one.  The stories of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness underscore this truth.

And so we have reminders throughout the story of God and the people that help us to recognize truth.  We have the story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness reminding the people that it is God who saves.  We have the story of Jesus who in a similar manner is lifted up on a cross of human construction: a reminder that the heart of the divine is a heart of love. God is not a bully.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  Eugene Peterson says it another way, “This is how much God loved the world. He gave his son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.  God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.  He came to help, to put the world right again.  Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted…”

Hear the words of John 3:16 and 17 again.

Quartet – “God so loved the world”

What does believing in Jesus mean?  It means that we trust that the way of Jesus is the way toward the fullest life possible. It means that, as Wendy Peterson shared with us the other Sunday, her people, the Indian and the Metis “get Jesus.”  They understand the forgiveness and wholeness that Jesus preached and lived. 

In her book entitled, “Christianity after Religion” Diana Butler Bass describes what she calls the end of the church and the beginning of a new spiritual awakening among followers of Jesus. What does she mean when she says that she believes in Jesus? 

“Why do Christians pray? Christians do not pray to have wishes granted; rather, Christians pray to find themselves in God and that they might be more aware of their motives and actions.  Why do Christians worship? Christians do not worship to be entertained; rather, Christians listen to sermons, sing, and partake of bread and wine in community to be in Jesus’ presence and come to know themselves better. Why do Christians serve others? Christians do not act charitably to earn heavenly credit; rather, Christians find Jesus in their neighbors and such proximity enables greater insight to live fully in the world.  Christians practice seeking Jesus in their lives because when they find themselves in God, pretense slips away to reveal the truest dimensions of selfhood and gives individuals the power to act in transforming ways.” (Bass, p. 187)

Believing in Jesus means that we have the power to transform difficult situations into better ones, that we include the excluded and that we nurture all people who seek to be a part of our church. Trusting in Jesus means that we happily relinquish our inclination to shore up monuments to our faithfulness in structures and programs that don’t work anymore.  We trust in Jesus to work in us the passion to invite, include and involve all kinds of people in our church in ways that we have never dreamed possible before. 

This is not hypothetical or merely a pipe dream.  In this congregation we are working at changing some things so that we can provide solid spiritual nurture for our little children and their parents.  We are hoping to change some things in our music program so that we might continue to celebrate the goodness of God through singing and instrumental offerings.  We are asking questions about inclusion of all people regardless of their sexual orientation. Is this a welcoming place of worship for our friends and family members who are gay and lesbian?  Finally we are hoping to build stronger ties with our First Nations and Metis friends in Saskatoon.  Adult education classes have been a forum for some discussion. Round table conversations and long range discernment reflect a desire to transform lives in this congregation and community in the same way that Jesus expected of his disciples.  We don’t all believe exactly the same way in this congregation.  That is O.K.  Though we don’t agree on all the details we can still go forward trusting that Jesus is guiding and instructing us.  In whom do we trust?  I leave you this day with the words of Jesus to one who was seeking after truth: “God so loved the world…so that everyone who believes in him…may have eternal life.”  May it be so!  AMEN