Let me begin today with a question: what do you expect from God? So let’s think together. What do you expect from God?
Answers. In a real foundational way we want answers. We want help in making a decision so we pray for guidance, discernment, for thy will to be done. We look around the world and ask about suffering, famine, abuse and neglect. Why O God. But our quest for answers isn’t always so altruistic is it? I know mine isn’t.
Why O God do you keep your mouth shut when things start to go haywire? Why O God are some of the best and most loved people in my life suffering? Why O God does my nose start itching every week right after I am done sanitizing my hands for Communion? Why O God did you call me to be a Pastor when the overwhelming smell of Easter flowers give me headaches and Palm Ashes make my forehead red and blotchy? Why O God did you make many of the foods I love so terribly unhealthy & caffeine addicting? Why O God why?
I don’t feel bad about bringing these questions to the Lord. There is nothing wrong about going to God for answers. In a real sense there is no better place to bring our questions and because I am often going to God for answers I have a fair amount of sympathy for the folks we meet in our reading. They wanted answers and so do I. They wanted to know if Jesus was in fact the Messiah and if he was, a clear and definite yes or no would suffice. No roundabout Jesus answers thank you. Like Dragnet they just want the facts. It is a fair question; I think especially when we consider circumstances. The winter stroll along Solomon’s Portico took place during the Festival of Dedication, which goes by the name Hanukkah in today. Hanukkah celebrated the retaking of Jerusalem by God through the heroic faith of the Maccabees and when people gathered to celebrate the successful revolt of the Jews over an oppressive empire, trying to sniff out a potential Messiah takes on all sort of political flavor. “How long will you keep us in suspense?”, they ask. “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” The problem is that this is the Gospel of John & what they don’t know is that Jesus is hardly ever saying much plainly.
The other day I had the youth group go around and label all the stained glass windows. They got most of the them right including the ones of the Gospels that have their names right there on the windows. Think of it as a warm-up. The Gospel of John is pictured with an Eagle and has been for sometime. The image is a strange one but the Eagle is attached with the forth Gospel because John seeks to write at the lofty heights of Christ’s mind. Things in John are spiritual, they require thought or as one of my books put it, “People who like black and white answers and who prefer plain meaning to subtlety and allusion may find reading the Gospel of John frustrating.” The Jesus we encounter in John is frustrating & no doubt the vibe we get from the story is that those who asked Jesus if he was the Messiah were frustrated too. They are tired of the dodgy rhetoric. They are tired of the “sound of one hand clapping” type answers they are getting from Jesus and they want to know. They want to know. They want to know. They want to know. They want to know and Jesus is talking about sheep again. They want to know if Jesus is the one who will overthrow, take back, and establish. They want to know if Jesus is the one they are to follow and the answer is of course, yes but they will never be happy. They will never get the relationship, the love, the embrace of Christ because what they want isn’t going to be available to them. They want answers about Jesus, they want information, they want to know A or B, Left or Right, Up or Down, but Jesus is a Shepherd and not an ATM, spitting out what you want when you ask for it. There are sheep who hear his voice and follow, and there are sheep who do not. What the folks in our reading aren’t accepting is that it is in the following that we can ever know anything about Jesus and through him God.
Brothers and Sisters, knowing Jesus may come in handy if you ever get on Jeopardy but we have not been redeemed, overcome by grace, and embraced so that you could win the Daily Double. We are not called to know, but to hear. We are not called to answer, but to follow. This is where faith is formed. Not in answers but in experiences; experiences that we may never be able to articulate or explain but experiences of following. Let me ask you a question. Did any of you learn to drive just by reading a book? Learn to play the Piano without touching the keys? Learn how to pray by Google’ing it? Did any of you go to the Library to find Trusting God for Dummies (that is what I should have called this sermon…)? No you didn’t because you can’t learn to drive without actually driving, play the piano without actually playing the piano, pray without actually praying, and you certainly cannot learn to trust God from a book, a pastor, or even Oprah. Like my old Little League Baseball coach used to say, the only way to know what it is like to get hit by a pitch is to have actually been hit by a pitch. The only way to trust the Shepherd’s voice is by following where he leads time after time.
Now if you are here today and you are thinking about the “what ifs”, if you mind is saying, “I don’t know”, or maybe you are thinking about what your friends would say, or you are wondering about the risks then you are in the right place because Jesus has one more thing to say. If you are thinking about risks, if you are terrified at what might happen if you trust a Messiah like Jesus who isn’t handing out easy digestible answers to make us all feel better but instead wants you to follow then hear these words one more time: No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. Brothers and Sisters, the hands of Christ are filled with people just like us. People who seek to follow where he leads but are afraid, people who hear the voice of the Shepherd and venture out slowly but lucky for us there are others here in the hands of Christ too. Grasped in the same hands that held Christ to the cross we find those who have followed Christ’s call and have learned to trust despite the world telling them not to. Here you will find the woman who made it through the death of her husband by placing her burdens on the Lord. You will find the couple who, despite making just enough, tithes more than 10%. You will find those who will pray for you. You will find those whose trials and trust have borne great wisdom. You will find someone who knows what you are going through. In the hands of Christ we find that we are not alone but surrounded by those who hear the voice of the Shepherd and will walk with you as you take your first steps because those first steps are some of the hardest.
Let me wrap all this up with a story from college. I was a Religion major and I had to take a class entitled American Christianity. I loved that class. One of the required books was In His Steps the book that first asked What Would Jesus Do? Now while I was in college WWJD? was everywhere. Bracelets, t-shirts, I even remember seeing a WWJD Cremation Urn. Of course there were those who parodied the phrase, my Dad being one of them, who had a number of WWJD items that he believed stood for What Would Jeff Do?, Jeff, of course, being my Dad’s first name. There was also the briefly popular We Want Jack Daniels, and then the take offs like What Would Shaq Do, and the now infamous What Would Jesus Drive? The culture ate it up but my professor thought that it was fundamentally the wrong question. What Would Jesus Do, was about an answer for every circumstance and had little to do with what he believed we should be asking. He cam up with the slightly less marketable WHJDITPAWCTDITF? – What has Jesus done in the past and will continue to do in the future? If we want to know what lies ahead then we need to look back to the places that Christ has taken us & remember Amazing Grace - Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.
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