Safer Than A Known Way

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC June 14, 2015, Gay Pride weekend and Pastor Theresa Thames’ last Sunday at Foundry.

Scripture:  Jeremiah 17:5-10

 

Who are we?  “What is expected of us?  Who is in charge?  How do we know what we should really be doing at any given moment?  How [in the world] did we get here from there?  And what…is the point of it all if we’re all just going to die anyway?”[i]  These angsty, existential questions knock about “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” Tom Stoppard’s Tony winning play that is currently on at the Folger Theatre here in DC.  Anthony and I attended Thursday’s performance and, as we were letting the experience settle in, Anthony said simply—and with a distinct tinge of disappointment—“When you get right down to it, it’s all about trust.”

 

Perhaps you can appreciate the disappointment—Lord knows I can.  After all, when’s the last time you said, “Woo-hoo! I am going to make a life-changing decision with no guarantee that it is going to bring about the desired outcome!” As Guildenstern says (with considerable anxiety), “We act on scraps of information… sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct…”  “Words, words. They’re all we have to go on.”   And the character called “The Player” posits that “Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.”  // Life is full of confusion and limitations, with decisions to be made, with unexpected twists and turns, and no guarantees.  We may wish that someone would tell us exactly what to do and where to go so that we can be sure, so that we can be safe.  We may wish that someone would enter stage right and tidy up all the unanswered questions about our identity, about the meaning of it all.  But that isn’t the way things work.  In the absence of certainty, some measure of trust is required or else we go through life in a constant state of anxiety. 

 

Trust is the centerpiece of our scripture today.  In what or whom do you place your trust?  Jeremiah contrasts those who trust in “mere mortals” or make “mere flesh their strength” with those who trust in the Lord.  Those who put their trust in human strength can’t even “see when relief comes.”  But those who trust God don’t fear when things heat up and aren’t anxious in times of want.  Jesus is consistent on this point as well, highlighting the problem with putting stock in “mere flesh”—especially our own. I think of Eugene Peterson’s translation of Luke 6:25 from Jesus’ sermon on the plain:  “It’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.  Your self will not satisfy you for long.” 

Let's face it, in every moment of life, we are staring into the abyss of uncertainty, of the unknown.  We simply don't know what is around the bend for our lives.  For some of us today—like Pastor Theresa—that unknown is very focused:  the shape of life and ministry in her new congregation, Cheverly UMC.  Others here today may also be facing clear unknowns:  test results, a loved one’s recovery, vocational direction, the results of a job search, where you will live, where the money is going to come from, what to do with your life now that everything has changed, how to change self-destructive behavior, whether you will be forgiven, the outcome of a new relationship.  For some of us, the unknown may be what it will feel like to truly claim our God-given identity without shame or what kind of reaction we will receive from family and friends if we decide to come out.  All of these things are unknowns.  They are things that we have to wait for, or live into. 

And it's hard.  In the midst of all the unknowns the question really is:  where will I place my trust?

These days, living as we do in the “information age,” we’re very interested in what we can know, in what we can see, in what can be verified using the scientific method (or Wikipedia!).  Knowledge gives us a sense of control and safety.  As a result, we often put our trust in what we know.  

Is anyone else here a fan of the Indiana Jones movies?  In the last movie in the original trilogy, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we find Indy trying to make his way through the booby-trapped caves to reach the Holy Grail.  His father has been shot and lays dying—the Grail is the only chance of his survival.  So Indiana makes it through the caves and emerges at a vast chasm.  Across the divide he sees the way forward, but he knows that there is no way that anyone could possibly make the jump from one side to the other.  All at once, he realizes that if he is to make it across, he has to make a leap of faith.  And so he does.  And as he steps off the edge, his foot lands on solid rock—an optical illusion had hidden the stone bridge from his sight.  If Indiana had relied upon what he could see, if he had trusted in what he knew for sure—namely that there was no way to get across that divide—then he would have been stuck.  He would have succumbed to human limitations and wouldn't have been able to provide a source of healing for his father.  But in that moment, at the edge, Indiana decided to trust that he could put himself out there into the unknown and that he would be sustained. 

Years ago, I heard a choir anthem whose lyrics—an excerpt from a poem—have become a touchstone for me:  “I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’  And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.  That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’”[ii]

How can it really be true?  How can we trust such a thing?  Especially if we find ourselves at a point in life where God is among the greatest unknowns?  How can we put ourselves in all our vulnerability into the hand of God?  How can that be safer than what I know for sure?  I am reminded in conversation after conversation with folks that faith is hard.  Trust is hard.  And to put your trust in anything or anyone—even in someone you know and love—can feel quite unsafe.  So the idea of stepping off the cliff—when we can't see any possible way to escape falling—probably doesn't feel like the safest way to go.  But remember that just because you can't see a way, doesn't mean that there isn't one available.  Just because you don't know God or feel God doesn't mean that God is not there. 

Placing our hand into the hand of God is, at the very least, to acknowledge that there is something bigger than us—call it the power of Life or the power of Love—and that power is strong enough to sustain and hold and nourish us in times of change and doubt and vulnerability and persecution and loss.  To put our hand into the hand of God is an acknowledgment that we need help, that our “self” isn’t enough; it is an acknowledgement of the limitations of human strength and knowledge. 

And from a Christian perspective, where human strength and knowledge end, God’s strength and knowledge are infinite.  Where human love and loyalty are finite and fickle, God's love and faithfulness are steadfast.  When human beings turn away from us or can’t hang in there with us, God always does and always will.  And we can trust this because—thanks to Jesus and counter to what Guildenstern says—we have more than words to go on.  Thanks to Jesus and counter to what The Player posits, we act on more than assumptions.  We have been given a flesh and blood life to show us what God is willing to do and to be for us.  In Jesus the Christ we are shown that God wants to hold our hand, to walk with us, to encourage and guide us through it all.  In Christ we are shown what our God is like: a God who creates us in beautiful, diverse ways and spares nothing to show us love and to help us be and become fully ourselves.  In Christ we are shown what is possible when we truly put our lives into the hand of God:  freedom, peace, joy, reconciliation, resurrection! 

Human life is limited and limiting.  There's only so much that we can do or be for other people or that they can do or be for us.  There's only so much I can do for myself or you can do for yourself.  But there's no limit to what God can do.  And so when you feel you've lost it all, God's kin-dom is there for the finding; when you’re ravenously hungry, God’s table is prepared before you; when tears flow freely and feel like they will never stop, the promise of a new day brings hope and joy; and when your leaps of faith make other people laugh at you and hate you, God cuts in and asks you to dance. (Cf. Luke 6:17-26 The Message)  And this means that you can continue the journey.  It means that even when you feel insecure or uncertain, even when you cannot see the way ahead or are terrified by what you might find there, even when you have exhausted all your own strength and feel you cannot go on, even when you feel paralyzed by anxiety or grief or indecision—even then, and especially then, God will not only sustain you but will bring you through.

Trusting in God is not safe in the sense of protecting you from danger; putting your hand in the hand of God is not safer because it is without struggle or confusion or pain or loss.  Trusting in God is safer in the sense that what matters most is cared for.  Trusting in God is safer than a known way because the way of God is the way that leads to a life truly free of the fetters of fear and shame, a life that is truly eternal because it is participation in the life of God who is eternal; the way of God leads to a life that is really alive.  Indiana Jones stood at the edge and, if he had relied upon what he knew, would have stayed stuck there or would have had to take steps back.  By making the leap of faith, he was placed on a path that was still dangerous, but that led him to grasp the mystery of healing and new life. 

 

Of course, our lives are not Hollywood and there's not always the storybook ending that we might want.  But what we're given today—no matter where we are on the journey and no matter what we may be facing—is an invitation to place our lives into the hand of God who knows us fully and loves us completely.  We are invited to go into the dark and put our hand into the hand of God–and to trust that God knows the way. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] Aaron Posner, “Director’s Notes,” Folger Theatre program for Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, May 12-June 21, 2015.

[ii]Minnie Louise Haskins, excerpt from the poem “The Gate of the Year,”  The Desert,  (c. 1908).