Sermon: Third Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Benjamin Anthony
Episcopal Chaplain at Emory University


When belief in God is broached as a conversation topic, what ensues usually unfolds along the lines of rationality, logic or evidence. Or such belief is defended as an operation of faith, which is construed as the opposite of these other "empirically" based forms of human behavior. Belief in God and its attendant religious practices are situated as just one more form of human discourse, albeit one promoting largely discredited truth claims and where it has survived past its expiration date, religion is seen as liable to promote sectarian clannishness and "inspired" violence.

Religion's emergence into a competitive marketplace of ideas has exposed its weakness as a "system" capable of explaining everything. This is fine. Actually, this is a rather wonderful gift. In its inability to explain everything religion has a valuable, if underutilized freedom.

This freedom goes mostly unrecognized. Instead the pressures to make religion a "system of ideas" have induced in Christianity an amnesia for what makes religion—and the faith it sustains—possible. We seem to have forgotten that what makes faith possible (and worthwhile, I might add) is trust. Trust that the God we proclaim is loving, good and intent upon human flourishing. Trust that the lives we lead are gifts from this God. As religion becomes something of a minority report in contemporary culture, it will be increasingly tempting to make appeals to rationality, empirical evidence and proof as justification for its practice. I believe we would do well to look elsewhere. I believe we would do well to consider what it means to trust God and what signs constitute the trustworthiness of God.

Recently in the New York Times Stanley Fish authored a two-part column entitled "God Talk". In the column Fish took up the claims of an author named Terry Eagleton who has recently published a book in response to some of the louder voices of contemporary atheism. I won't summarize Fish's columns here or even attempt to characterize the responses to it. What I will say is this: I don't think it was originally intended to be more than a one-shot piece but the response to it, as measured by reader comments posted to the online edition, was so vigorous and polarized that Fish was moved to respond and refine his original post. By the time the editorial gatekeepers at the Times closed the articles to further reader comments, each column had generated nearly 800 comments apiece. Regardless of where one comes down on belief in God, it seems safe to say that a considerable number of people are concerned with the question and that the resources typically used to answer that question are better suited to generate heat rather than light.

One final comment: this is not a call for blinkered anti-intellectualism or a shortcut through the rigorous terrain of critical inquiry. Christianity is an historic religion which claims that the decisive events of salvation are human events and that redemption unfolds as a process of human history. But faith arises not just from evidence that verifies these events as "true" but in response to a God that is trustworthy. Said simply: Christian faith trusts that the God of Jesus Christ is the Creator and redeemer of the world. To that we turn.

Our turn towards the trustworthiness of God is helped along by a turn into today's Scripture texts. What I propose to do is to do a reading of them; specifically, I want to draw together the lesson from Job, its insights into God as Creator and the scene from the Gospel in which Jesus calms a windstorm and the fears of his disciples. What I hope such a reading will produce is a sense that the God who, as Creator is invisibly beyond all things becomes visible in Jesus.

The lesson from Job comes near the conclusion of the book. Job's friends have held forth, offering their partial understandings of how God governs the world and the affairs of people. Finally, God speaks. As if to emphasize the mysteriousness, God speaks "from a whirlwind," a narrative flourish that lends the speech an atmosphere of tremendous darkness. These are words freighted with incomprehensible gravity. God says to Job (and to us as well), "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?"

The only answer to be given goes something like "I don't know." Indeed this is the answer that Job gives when God's speech concludes after much elaboration. Job, humbled and chastened, says to God, "I know that You can do everything, that nothing you propose is impossible for You... Indeed I spoke without understanding of things beyond me which I did not know." (Job 42:2-3). On the one hand the power and hiddenness of God are accented and establish a limit for what human understanding can comprehend. This disparity, this gap that separates Creator from creature is impassable and any attempt to explore this disparity requires a measure of trust. Said simply, we may come to know our world well and intimately but that knowledge will always remain a darkened mirror reflecting the glory of God.

But we can say at least this much: God as Creator has brought the world into being with powers that infinitely surpass human imagination and as Creator, God shapes human destinies even more completely.

Now, let's turn our attention to the Gospel lesson. At first glance we seem to get a pretty straightforward affirmation of the insight we gained in the Job lesson. That is, we see that the power to subdue and order creation are at the disposal of Jesus, the Son of God. This miraculous display of power impresses the disciples. With the windstorm that had been buffeting their boat reduced to a dead calm, the disciples remark to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" We nod in ironic agreement for we, the readers of Mark's gospel, know who this man Jesus is. We know that he is the Son of God, right? But do we know what this means? Do we see Jesus as a kind of super human and fail to see the way in which he is actually perfectly human? In other words, does our faith owe to the narrow range of miracles that show forth Jesus' power to tame the forces of nature? Or does our faith owe to the rather greater miracle that is rooted in Jesus' relationship to God?

For in Jesus we see a perfect and pacific dependence upon God. And that tranquil, trusting relationship seems to me to be the overarching significance of this story from Mark's gospel. Before Jesus rebukes the windstorm, the narrator notes that Jesus was "was in the stern, asleep on the cushion." And immediately following the calming of the storm, Jesus asks his once panicking disciples, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" Framing the performance of this miracle are clues that disclose the true nature of God as Creator. Jesus rests, secure in the care of God, trusting that the Creator of all things is intensely and intimately present to him. The disciples fear and trust is ensnarled with anxiety and despair: their faith perishes in the world's relentless threats of chaotic return.

We see that Jesus perfectly embodies God's creative power and intent. Jesus trusts God completely and so discloses the trustworthiness of God. As Rowan Williams has said, we see that God's power is "the unlimited power to be there, to be faithful to and for a world that is deeply unstable and unjust and suspicious and uncooperative: the power to go on trying to get through at all costs, labouring and wrestling with the human heart" (Tokens, p. 19).

This is hardly proof that God exists or even that belief in God is empirically plausible. I'm not sure such comforts are available to us. Perhaps God cannot be proven to exist. But there are reasons to trust that this is the case.

The words spoken to Job from an arcane whirlwind become plainly visible in Jesus, the embodied Word of God. And we see that the purposes of God intend our well-being. We see that God has created us to have life and to have it abundantly. We see as Rowan Williams says that "God is to be trusted as we would trust a loving parent, whose commitment to us is inexhaustible, whose purposes for us are unfailingly generous; someone whose life is the source of our life, and who guarantees that there is always a home for us." (Tokens of Trust, p. 19).

Sermon - Second Sunday After Pentecost

Tracy Wells
Communications Coordinator
> click here for the scripture for the day


What does it mean to be "chosen" by God?

In the Hebrew scripture for this morning, we read the story of God choosing David to replace Saul as king of Israel. The prophet Samuel surveys the sons of Jesse and discerns that David is the one God has chosen.

In essence, the work Samuel does in discerning the next leader of Israel is the same work that discernment committees do in choosing the next leaders of the church. As individuals present themselves as interested in a career in ordained ministry, it is the committee's responsibility to listen and to pray, and to discern which of these individuals God has chosen to serve as deacons or priests in the church.

I stand before you today as a product of that process. The committees met, the prayers were said, the bishop was consulted, and at the end, all these people affirmed that they believe that I have been chosen by God to be a priest.

And I believe it, too. The discernment process and the ordination service do not allow for a kind of "oh, if you insist..." approach to putting on the collar. Aspirants for the priesthood are not allowed to play the role of the reluctant leader, having greatness thrust upon them. A large part of the discernment process is learning to claim one's sense of calling. When the bishop asks in the ordination service, "My sister, do you believe that you are truly called by God and his Church to this priesthood?" I must be able to answer confidently and firmly, "I believe I am so called."

In essence, I must stand up and proclaim to the world that I am chosen by God.

Sounds just a bit arrogant, doesn't it? -- maybe even dangerous. We are rightly suspicious of people who claim to be "chosen by God" -- for me, that language conjures up images of early Puritans proclaiming who is and who is not among the "elect" few whom God has chosen for salvation, in a system that I would call theologically abusive. Throughout human history, people have used language about being "God's chosen people" to justify pursuing their own self-interests, often through violence.

But what we miss if we think of being "chosen by God" as arrogant is the fact that being "chosen by God" does not make us any better than anyone else -- because here's the secret -- God has chosen EVERYONE. But we are chosen to do different things, to play different roles. Claiming to be "chosen by God" only becomes arrogant when we believe that the thing God has chosen us to do is better than the things God has chosen other people to do.

My grandfather, who was not a church-going man himself, used to always say, "What a good thing it is that God made us all different -- that's what makes the world go 'round." Or, in the words of the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Ephesians:

"[E]ach of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13)

What role has God chosen you to play in building up the body of Christ? Even this passage from Ephesians is quite limiting, as it talks about people being called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers -- but God also chooses people to be doctors and lawyers and English tea volunteers and vestry members and gardeners and finance committee members. Where do your gifts lie in serving God and bringing others to the knowledge and love of God?

In my experience of discerning my calling to the priesthood, I have come to believe that we all have a particular calling in life, a particular path that will bring us to a place of abundant blessing if we choose to follow it. I do not believe that God will reject us if we do not choose that path, but I do believe that we will find more fulfillment and abundant blessings if we do follow it.

In late college and the beginning of graduate school, I planned to pursue a career in journalism. I knew I loved studying religion, and I was also a good writer, so I thought I would combine these two things and become a religion reporter for a newspaper. My experiences in the world of journalism were all rewarding in some sense, and I believe that God was surely with me, guiding me and loving me through all that I did in that field of work. But while I was writing articles and copy editing newspaper pages, I couldn't shake the sense that there was something more important that I should be doing.

From the first time I began to read the Bible in earnest in late high school, I had been struck by Jesus's injunction to reach out to the poor. Passages from Scripture like, "If you love me, feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17), and "whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), would ring in my head as I walked past homeless people begging for change on the streets of Cambridge.

Finally, I listened to the call and began to volunteer with an outdoor church for the homeless in Cambridge, similar to the Church of the Common Ground here in Atlanta. Although I felt completely unqualified and incompetent in this ministry, it certainly brought me much closer to God than journalism ever had. I began to write about my experiences with the Outdoor Church, and some of my mentors began to suggest that I might consider pursuing ordained ministry. Although every practical bone in my body told me it was time to get a "real job" and start making money to pay off my educational debt, I felt the call to devote intentional time to seriously discern whether or not I had a calling to ordained ministry, so I spent a year in intentional community living and discernment in Omaha, Nebraska, through one of the Episcopal Service Corps internships for young adults. While I know God would have been with me even if I chose not to go to Omaha, it became obvious to me once I arrived and met the wonderful people there who supported me in my discernment that I had found the place of deep blessing that God had for me at that time.

Listening to God's call is not often easy or practical, in my experience. But when God chooses us to do something, we actually have very little choice in the matter. From comparing notes with others in the field of ordained ministry, I have heard countless stories of people who have denied their calling for many years, pursuing another career, until finally they were able to accept God's call, to recognize their chosenness, and begin to live into that place of deep blessing to which God had been calling them all their lives. Like Jonah, we are finally unable to run from our calling, however scared we might be to accept it.

It has certainly been difficult for me to accept that I am chosen by God. Ironically, although I look for approval from others and struggle with perfectionism, it is actually difficult for me to accept praise, and even harder to truly acknowledge that I am fundamentally accepted, even chosen, by God. My perfectionism often leaves me feeling woefully inadequate in the face of the calling I have received. Perhaps that's why I was brought to tears by the following quote, which I first heard in a sermon that a friend of mine gave at St. James Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the church I attended while I lived in Boston. It is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but was actually written by Marianne Williamson, an author and minister in the Unity Church. She writes,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

My years in discernment have begun for me the process of becoming liberated from my own fear -- fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being hurt -- and becoming reborn as "a new creation" (as Paul says in 2 Corinthians), a more calm and confident version of myself who is able to claim her gifts and own her calling. The process is difficult and ongoing, but it is happening. I am learning to accept my chosennesss, to acknowledge that I am the beloved of God - to stand up and say, "Yes, I am chosen."

I believe this is what happens when we begin to follow the path that God has prepared for us -- we are brought face to face with our belovedness and are liberated from our fear. God begins to pry open our hearts to accept God's love and begin to offer it to others. It may not always be the path we would have expected to take; it may not be the path that others would have us take -- but it is the path God calls us to nonetheless. And it is an invitation to a place of great blessing.

My prayer is that each of you would find that path, that place of great blessing, in your own lives, and in doing so you would find yourselves face to face with a God who loves you and who chooses you - every day and every hour - to represent God's love to the world.

The Lord has chosen YOU. Stand up and proclaim it to the world, and "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify God in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Amen.