Trust

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

shelliwilliams Faith, Journey, LENT, Roads, Trust

Star TrekScripture Passage:  Genesis 12: 1-4a (Lent 2A)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

We are familiar with this story that our lectionary brings for this second week of Lent.  We know it well.  Abram is called to go forth, called to leave what he knows and become someone new.  We know that it will end with him becoming Abraham.  It is the beginning of Israel, the beginning of Judaism, and, ultimately, the beginning of us and our own faith story.  The story quickly moves from a broad sweep of humanity to a focus on one family and one person.  Perhaps it was a way of reminding us that humanity is not just a glob of no-name people but is rather made up of individuals, each children of God in their own right.

We like this story of our hero Abraham.  What courage, what persistence, what faith it would take to leave one’s home, to leave everything that one knows and to follow God.  It is that to which we all aspire and to which most of us fall incredibly short.  We struggle with what leaving would mean for us.  After all, what would it mean to you to just lock your doors and walk away, never looking back at the comforts and certitudes of your existence, never look back at all the stuff you’ve gathered and stored, never look back at this life that you have so painstakingly created?  And, yet, think about it.  Abram’s people were nomadic, wandering aliens.  Their sense of “home” was not the same as it is for us.  And family?  Well, Abram had more than likely outlived his parents and he had no children.  Who was he leaving behind?  What was he leaving?  Maybe God was calling him from hopelessness and loneliness and barrenness and finally showing him home.  Maybe God was not calling him away but toward.  Maybe that was the promise.  And yet, Abram still had to have the faith to go into the unknown, to trust in the promise that God was beginning to reveal.

Maybe that’s the point that we are supposed to learn–not that God calls us to leave behind what we know but that God calls us to journey into the unknown, to journey beyond what we know, to journey far past those things of which we are certain.  It is called faith.  We are not called to know, to be certain.  We are called to trust that the Promise is real.  Do you remember the Star Trek mission–“to boldly go where no man has gone before”?  (Well, it was the 1960’s so I’ve made it more inclusive for the title of this post.)  I’m not really that big a Star Trek fan (more of a Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo kind of gal!) but I remember watching it when I was little.  There was something that drew me in.  Perhaps it was that notion of going beyond, traveling to a place where no one had ever been, a place where parents and mentors and clergy, where books and Scriptures and songs could talk about but never really fully depict exactly what it was.

God does not call us to “figure it out”.  There are no “right” answers.  In fact, I have found that really good discussions of faith matters generally create more questions.  (Thanks be to God!)  God doesn’t expect us to blindly follow into certainty but rather to leave what we know behind and journey far into the unknown, into the wilds of our lives where the pathway is less paved and worn down by others.  Maybe that is why Lent begins not in the Temple but in the wilderness, where the winds blow the pathways into changing patterns rather than roads and the sands swirl and blind us at times.  Maybe it is when we leave behind what we know that we can finally hear the way Home.  That is the Promise in which we trust–that somewhere beyond what we have figured out and what we have planned and for which we have prepared is the way Home.

Today we are bombarded with a theology of certitude. I don’t find much biblical support for the stance of “God told me and I’m telling you, and if you don’t believe as I do, you’re doomed.” A sort of “My god can whip your god” posture. From Abraham, going out by faith not knowing where he was being sent, to Jesus on the cross, beseeching the Father for a better way, there was always more inquiring faith than conceited certainty. (Will D. Campbell)

As this second week of Lent begins, of what are you certain?  What would it mean for you to leave your certainty behind and journey into the unknown?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Guided in the Wilderness

shelliwilliams Faith, Good Shepherd, Shepherd, Trust, Wilderness , , , , , , ,

Shepherd with SheepScripture Text: Psalm 78: 52-54

 

52Then he led out his people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54And he brought them to his holy hill, to the mountain that his right hand had won.

 

We tend to think of the wilderness as a place where we are sort of thrown out into virtually alone. We imagine wandering, looking for solace, looking for companionship, looking for someone to help us out of where we are. We search for God as if God is somehow parked at the exit of the wilderness holding a sign with our name on it as we disembark. And, yet, this psalm reminds us that even in the wilderness we are not alone, that God leads us and guides us through the treacherous terrain. Actually, there are times, when God, as it says, guides us IN, wandering, living the wilderness. It says that we are led to safety and brought to a place that is holy, that is of God. So, why then, here in the wilderness, do we feel so alone?

 

We are accustomed to pastoral images in the Bible, beautiful images of the flock being led or shepherds on the hillside. We know what it is supposed to connote. The shepherd guides the sheep to the place where they will be well-fed and cared for, the place where they will grow and flourish into maturity. There is soft, green grass, blue skies, and other sheep in the fold to keep them company as they grow together. But this is not what it looks like right now. Where is the green grass? Where are the blue skies? Where are my trusty companions? And so, searching for our image of where a shepherd is supposed to lead, we leave to look for greener pastures or easier pathways. But the grass isn’t really greener, the skies really aren’t any clearer, and in our confusion, we fall, tumbling down the gulley, bruised and tired.

 

As we said before, the wilderness is not just something to rush through. And God does not always lead us out of the desolation that surrounds us. As the passage says, God leads us through or in the wilderness, helping us navigate the rough paths and the difficult sightlines and, when the time is right, bringing us home. Our problem is that we don’t envision ourselves like sheep because we are trying so hard to be the shepherd of our own lives, to be in control, to be the guide. And so we often wander away and get lost. We may end up in a place that is not ours to be. But think about sheep. Sheep are seldom characterized as one of the smartest beings on the farm and yet, sheep know to whom they belong. Sheep know how to follow. Sheep know how to be part of a flock, holding each other up, helping each other see the shepherd. And when, as happens every now and then, a sheep gets lost, the sheep trusts that the shepherd will come and bring the sheep home.

 

Lent is a season that teaches us to be more like sheep, to follow God through the wilderness, learning the things that it teaches, accepting the things that it offers, and knowing, that, when it is time, God will guide us out of this lostness, out of despair, out of the loneliness.  You don’t have to fix it; you don’t have to hurry; you don’t have to make it something it is not.  Just follow.  Just live.  But by following God’s lead, we will see beauty we have never seen and companionship we have never known.  That’s what you get when you’re part of a flock.

 

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or books that are written in a foreign tongue. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually without noticing it, live your life some distant day into the answers. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

 

FOR TODAY:  Be sheep.  Follow.  Listen.  Be patient.

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

shelliwilliams Faith, Journey, LENT, Roads, Trust

Star TrekScripture Passage:  Genesis 12: 1-4a (Lent 2A)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

We are familiar with this story that our lectionary brings for this second week of Lent.  We know it well.  Abram is called to go forth, called to leave what he knows and become someone new.  We know that it will end with him becoming Abraham.  It is the beginning of Israel, the beginning of Judaism, and, ultimately, the beginning of us and our own faith story.  The story quickly moves from a broad sweep of humanity to a focus on one family and one person.  Perhaps it was a way of reminding us that humanity is not just a glob of no-name people but is rather made up of individuals, each children of God in their own right.

We like this story of our hero Abraham.  What courage, what persistence, what faith it would take to leave one’s home, to leave everything that one knows and to follow God.  It is that to which we all aspire and to which most of us fall incredibly short.  We struggle with what leaving would mean for us.  After all, what would it mean to you to just lock your doors and walk away, never looking back at the comforts and certitudes of your existence?  And, yet, think about it.  Abram’s people were nomadic, wandering aliens.  Their sense of “home” was not the same as it is for us.  And family?  Well, Abram had more than likely outlived his parents and he had no children.  Who was he leaving behind?  What was he leaving?  Maybe God was calling him from hopelessness and loneliness and barrenness and finally showing him home.  Maybe God was not calling him away but toward.  Maybe that was the promise.  And yet, Abram still had to have the faith to go into the unknown, to trust in the promise that God was beginning to reveal.

Maybe that’s the point that we are supposed to learn–not that God calls us to leave behind what we know but that God calls us to journey into the unknown, to journey beyond what we know, to journey far past those things of which we are certain.  It is called faith.  We are not called to know, to be certain.  We are called to trust that the Promise is real.  Do you remember the Star Trek mission–“to boldly go where no man has gone before”?  (Well, it was the 1960’s so I’ve made it more inclusive for the title of this post.)  I’m not really that big a Star Trek fan but I remember watching it when I was little.  There was something that drew me in.  Perhaps it was that notion of going beyond, traveling to a place where no one had ever been, a place where parents and mentors and clergy, where books and Scriptures and songs could talk about but never really fully depict exactly what it was.

God does not call us to “figure it out”.  There are no “right” answers.  In fact, I have found that really good discussions of faith matters generally create more questions.  (Thanks be to God!)  God doesn’t expect us to blindly follow into certainty but rather to leave what we know behind and journey far into the unknown, into the wilds of our lives where the pathway is less paved and worn down by others.  Maybe that is why Lent begins not in the Temple but in the wilderness, where the winds blow the pathways into changing patterns rather than roads and the sands swirl and blind us at times.  Maybe it is when we leave behind what we know that we can finally hear the way Home.  That is the Promise in which we trust–that somewhere beyond what we have figured out and what we have planned and for which we have prepared is the way Home.

Today we are bombarded with a theology of certitude. I don’t find much biblical support for the stance of “God told me and I’m telling you, and if you don’t believe as I do, you’re doomed.” A sort of “My god can whip your god” posture. From Abraham, going out by faith not knowing where he was being sent, to Jesus on the cross, beseeching the Father for a better way, there was always more inquiring faith than conceited certainty. (Will D. Campbell)

As this second week of Lent begins, of what are you certain?  What would it mean for you to leave your certainty behind and journey into the unknown?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Brick by Brick

shelliwilliams Cathedral, Faith, Patience, Trust
Building a Cathedral at Annecy, France
Edmund Blampied
Early 20th century

Lectionary Passage for This Week:  Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”  2But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”3And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”4But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”5He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”6And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.  7Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.”8But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”9He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”10He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.  12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

We often read this story with Abram as the hero, trusting and faithful to God, who follows God’s call and believes God’s promises.  After all, Abram would become the patriarch of three worldwide religions.  But even Abram was not perfect.  Yes, the truth is, Abram was more like us than we care to admit.  He told himself that he trusted God, that God had made a great promise of descendants to him.  And he had waited and waited and nothing had happened.  So, he took care of it.  After all, he was old, Sarai was old.  Time was slipping away.  Something had to be done.  But, in Abram’s defense, remember what “barrenness” meant in that time. An absence of children was not just a discontinuation of one’s line or one’s name. It was death. There would be no one to care for you, no one to work with you to provide. Barrenness or infertility was looked upon as failure. It meant that God had not blessed you or provided for you.

But, God clarifies the promise a little bit more. This is not the heir that God had been talking about. The heir shall be a biological child of Abraham and Sarah rather than a surrogate birth. Well, I’m sure you can see Abraham rolling his eyes a bit. Are you kidding me? Because, you see, I’m really, really old. My wife is really, really old.  This is just not normal. This is not even rational. This is nuts!

Well, we know how the story turns out.  God, once again, in spite of Abram, comes through.  The truth is, that’s pretty much what God does.  We can plan and prepare and even force things to happen but when it’s all said and done, things will happen in God’s time.  The truth is, hard as it may be for us to admit, the fruits of trust and faith do not come to harvest when we think they should.  Did you read the last line of the passage?  Abram did not get the promise of land.  The land was to go to his descendants.  He was not called to deliver the world; rather, he was called to be a small part of a long line of the faithful that God would call.  The realization of God’s promise was not immediate gratification. (I mean, did you think that you were the only one to which God was making promises?)

Maybe that’s our whole problem. Maybe we want to see the fruits of our faith now, in our lifetime. Maybe faith is about realizing that we are part of a deep and abiding relationship between God and humanity as the holy and the sacred sort of dribbles into our world little by little. Our part is important but it is, oh, so much bigger than us. In fact, it’s really not even rational the way we think it should be. Maybe that’s what makes it faith. Faith does not teach us to believe; it teaches us to wait with expectant hope that when the time comes, the clouds will part and the light will break through.  In the meantime, we are called to keep building cathedrals, brick by brick, knowing that it doesn’t matter whether or not we see them completed but only that we had faith enough to imagine it to be.

So, on this Lenten journey, let go of needing to see the result and instead do your part to make it be.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli 

On the Other Side of the Wilderness

shelliwilliams Faith, LENT, Temptation, Trust, Wilderness
“Christ in the Desert”
Ivan Kramskoi, 1872
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

This Week’s Lectionary Passage:  Luke 4: 1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” 5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 12Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Every year in this first week of Lent we read of Jesus, led or driven by the Spirit, intentionally going out into the wilderness.  On purpose?  Who does that?  Who chooses to relinquish control and put oneself at the mercy of the elements or whatever else might come along? Well, obviously Jesus.  So what is our take-away of that?  Are we really supposed to follow?  After all, our lives have been a veritable exercise in learning to maintain control–of our homes, our families, our finances, our health, our time, and even our spiritual life.  And then, this.  Jesus leaves all the comforts and control of home and goes out into the wilderness by himself.  I mean, really, anything could happen out there, right?  He is hungry.  He is vulnerable.  And he surely knows that he is in danger.  And sure enough, temptation looms.  Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, the gift of the God’s unfailing grace, the ground of our hope, and the promise of our deliverance from sin and death, is driven not just into the wilderness but into the depths of his humanity.  And it is there that he is tempted to raise himself up, to fill his emptiness, to place himself above others, to guarantee his own being and his own protection. 

The truth is, though, no one, not even Jesus, can save oneself.  That’s just not the way it works.  Maybe that’s what the wilderness teaches us–that we cannot save ourselves, that we cannot guarantee what will or won’t happen to us, that we are not, much as we hate to admit it, in control.  Now there are those that will say that this whole account was some sort of divine plan by God.  I have a hard time with that.  I mean, really, what point wout that prove?  All that says is that God is some sort of divine game player and we are nothing but pawns on an earthly gameboard.  And after all, is Jesus human or isn’t he?  I’ve been told that he was.  You know–fully human.  He was not above it all.  He was not a super hero.  And he was certainly not a game piece.  He encountered the same human weaknesses that we do every day.  Real weaknesses, real happenings in one’s life, are part of being real, part of being human. 

The truth is that there are some things for which we just cannot prepare.  I mean, think about it, we go along living our lives the best we can and then, without warning, a meteor comes screaming across the sky.  Do you know why astronomers and cosmologists weren’t expecting it?  They didn’t know that it was coming because it was too small to see.  That, too, is what the wilderness teaches us.  Sometimes the small things that we dismiss in our lives are the things that can hurt us, can slowly, bit by bit, pull us away from who we are, from who God calls us to be.

God does not inflict the wilderness on us.  Jesus was not led into this dark and foreboding place to pass some sort of Divine test.  Because, remember, a test does not always possess a right or wrong answer.  Think about a chemical test.  You put two or more elements together not to see if they will pass but to compel them to change.  Jesus went into the wilderness to change, to be fully human, and to find deep within himself the piece of the Godself that calls him home.

So, in this Lenten season, let us intentionally enter the wilderness, not to prove something or because God is waiting to see whether or not we fail, but because the wilderness is the way home.

The Promised Land lies on the other side of a wilderness.  (Havelock Ellis)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Believing in Trust

shelliwilliams Belief, Imagination, Openness to God, Trust

“Trust” and “Belief” are interesting terms.  Are they the same?  If not, what is the difference?  We are told to “just believe”, as if that will make everything alright, as if that will somehow make us worthy or deserving of God’s attention.  What does that mean?  Believe in what???  Believing is an odd thing.  It moves us beyond where we are, beyond ourselves.  Believing in God means that we realize that God exists, that God is part of our lives, that we need God.  And yet, believing, in and of itself, means that on some level, we have systemitized our understanding of God (or, for that matter, whatever it is in which we claim that we believe).  Once we “believe”, we have in some way locked in our understanding of something.  So, for us God-believers, God has become our own doing, our own creation, our own imagining of how God works and who God is.  In some way, to say “I believe….” is to affirm, yes…to confess, yes…and to claim it as part of who we are, yes.  But saying those words also means that we have in that moment boxed God in to who we think God is.

Why can’t we just trust in God?  Why can’t I just trust in however and whoever God manifests Godself in my life?  God is God.  Why is that so hard to trust?  You see, when you get right down to it, God is not really something that can be defined, or systematized, or limited to my belief system.  Sure, God is comfortable and reliable and one on whom we can count to set our lives on track.  Thanks be to God!  But, God is also wild and unfathomable, unpredictable and imaginative and one on whom we can count on to throw our carefully-cultivated and perfectly-planned lives into a complete and unadulaterated tailspin.  Thanks be to God!

You see, there is a difference between believing in who you think God is and trusting in God who is.  God is beyond who we can imagine in our dreams.  God is beyond who we can claim as our belief.  And God is beyond what we have planned and cultivated and saved for the certainty in our lives.  God is God.  Nothing else.  Why is trusting in God so hard?  Because to trust in something, we have to surrender to the idea that it’s more than what we’re capable of conceiving.  Trust in God…and be surprised at what you find!  Trust in God…and find that in which you should have always believed.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Picture:  Jerusalem, Israel, 2010