Am I not a God far off? (sermon)
Sometimes, I have a hard time finding God outside of church.
This probably sounds like a strange confession, coming from someone inthe pulpit, someone who is in training to be clergy in the church.
But there are many days when I leave these four walls and mentally checkchurch off the to-do list. “Okay, done for the day, God. It’s time to go take anap, or go see a friend, or do some homework... or do whatever else is next onmy calendar”
It’s amost too easy for me to relegate God to a list of things to do, orplaces to be... even when my life involves church almost every single day.
It’s too easy to compartmentalize, to put church and God in a box, oreven just forget about God, as I get caught up in busyness and the cares andconcerns of this world.
It’s too easy to forget the question that God asks in today’s lessonfrom Jeremiah, where God asks “Am I a God near by, and not a God far off?”
Am I a God near by, and not a God far off?”
This rhetorical question is a bit confusing. We all have differentconceptions of God and where God is present for us, but I think it’s fair to saythat many of us draw from an image of God as friend. An image of Jesus sittingbeside us, of Jesus healing the little children. Of soft, friendly, Jesus wholoves us and died for us and wants us to be with him.
So it’s a little bit shocking to be confronted by this question. “Am I aGod near by, and not a God far off?”
“Am I not bigger than you think I am?”
“Am I not able to see everything that goes on in the world?”
“Do I not fill heaven and earth?”
In this reading, God is telling the people of Israel---“don’tunderestimate me”.
And as I think about how easy it is to put God in these four walls andmove on with my day, what God says here is really challenging. “Do I not fillheaven and earth?” Do I not fill your days, your schedule, your busyness, evenwhen you forget I’m there?
I forget sometimes that God is bigger than all of this.
Psalm 82 says that “God takes his stand in the council of heaven; hegives judgment in the midst of the gods”. God takes God’s stand in the councilof the heavens as we go through our daily lives, as we go to work and class, aswe make choices as communities and nations about the poor, the captive, and theimmigrant.
Jeremiah and the psalmist tell us repeatedly that the God who is nearenough to be in our hearts and minds, is also able to see all our choices, ourjoys, and our failings from the highest reaches of heaven.
The God who stands in the council of heaven, who parted the Red Sea, whoshut the mouths of lions, who sent Jesus to be our savior and redeemer, wantsus to know this: God wants to be part of every moment of our lives.
Three years ago, I was getting ready to move to a monastery for aninternship. There were a lot of people who were giving me advice about what Ishould make sure to do in Boston, or how to cope with being newly graduated.But one of the most common pieces of advice I received was from people saying“read Brother Lawrence”. “Oh, you’re going to a monastery, you have to readBrother Lawrence”.
I had no idea who this Brother Lawrence fellow was, but I took theiradvice anyways. Brother Lawrence, it turns out, was a medieval monk who wasn’tliterate, but was so profoundly spiritual that someone bothered to interviewhim about his spirituality and write it down in a book called “The Practiceof the Presence of God”.
What I love about ThePractice of the Presence of God is that BrotherLawrence is completely honest about his failings as a good Christian. He startsout talking about how he’s really a bad person, and that he thought that heshould become a monk as a way of apologizing to God, and to live a life ofpenance. But as it turns out [the book says] “GOD had disappointed him... hehaving met with nothing but satisfaction in that state” [of being a monk].
Lawrence’s actual point though, is this. Iquote “That we should establish ourselves in a sense of GOD’s Presence, bycontinually conversing with Him.” What does this mean? For Brother Lawrence,this means talking to God constantly throughout his duties in the kitchen. Hesays “That our only business [i]s to love and delight ourselves in GOD”.
Our gospel reading makes a big point oftalking about how following Christ must necessarily create division between usand others.
This division doesn’t always look like familyarguments and battle lines and political parties. What I know from my own lifeis that more often that not, this division happens in my calendar, and in thethoughts I have throughout the day. What we do with our time matters.
We can make a choice, like Brother Lawrence,to be faithful to the presence of God in each facet and moment of our lives,even if it’s a moment of prayer while peeling potatoes in the kitchen orstanding by the copier at work, or simply remembering why we’re doing thisreally good outreach work in the first place. That choice is ours to make, andthat’s what we’re being invited into right now.
Faithful ones—God is very near to us, butthis is a gift that we can’t be complacent about. Discipleship requires focusand dedication, not just in one part of our lives, or on one or two days of theweek.
We’re called to work for justice for allpeople, and to lead faithful lives with our whole being. This is the call thatwe promise to live into in our baptism— to continue in the apostles' teachingand fellowship, to strive for justice and peace among all people.
As we do this work, we need to know that this too, is where God is. Not just in these four walls, near us, but in the council of heaven, calling us continually, to make time for the presence of God wherever we are in this world.