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Sunday's Sermon
Jan 14, 2006
1055
SHINING THROUGH
The Rev. Dennis Posno

 

A man named Bill was standing at the edge of a high cliff,
peering into the surging water and rocks below.
He lost his footing and was tumbling headlong towards the water and the rocks
when he managed, luckily, to grab onto a protruding branch.

So there he was … dangling …
halfway between the cliff’s edge above
and the surging water and rocks below.

And he called out in desperation, “Is anybody up there?”
There was silence, except for the roar of the water breaking against the rocks.
He called out again, “Is anybody up there?”

The air was shattered with a Voice that said, “I’m here.”
And the man said, “Thanks you, Lord.”
And the Voice said, “You’re welcome.”

The man cried out, “Is that You, Lord?”
“Yes,” the Voice answered. “It’s me.”
“Well, can you get me out of this mess? Can you save me?”
And the Voice answered, “Let go.”

Well, the man didn’t think he heard right
so he asked God to repeat what He had said.
And God said, again, “Let go.”

Well, the man assessed his predicament.
He looked at the swirling water
smashing against the rocks below.
And he looked up into the heavens.
He hung there for a few moments,
holding tenuously on to the protruding branch.
And then he shouted,
“Is anybody else up there?”

Have you ever been there?
In that place between the heavens above and the rocks below?
Have you ever been at a place where, if you had the power to change it,
you would be anywhere else but there?

That’s the place I want to talk about today.
And I want to talk about the God who said “Let go”
to the man hanging precariously from the branch

I want you to think about God.
And as you do, I want you to think of yourself …
and I want you to think of those you know and love …
and I want you to think of those who are unknown to you.

The God of your life is also the God of my life.
The God of my life is also the God of my children’s lives,
as He will be for their children.
The God of our lives is the God who said, “Let there be light.”
The God in your life is the God known by “let my people go” Moses …
written about by “the Lord is my shepherd” psalmist …
experienced by the “love never fails” Apostle Paul …
preached about by John Wesley …
served by Mother Theresa.
The God of your life.

Through the centuries,
from the very beginning,
God has been there.
Oh, times have changed.
Time has changed them.
Time changes everything.
The years have slipped away into eons.
But the constant throughout it all has been God.

And as you think about God,
I want you to think
not so much about all of the dogma that we have wrapped God in
or the rituals that we worship God through.
I want you to think
not so much about the theology we have defined God by
or what others have said you should believe.
I want you to think
about the moments, or the moment,
in which you have experienced God …
those sentient awakenings
when you knew,
beyond the shadow of a doubt,
beyond any arguments that might say otherwise,
with a grateful and full heart,
that there is a God
and that God has been with you.

Maybe it was when you first held your children in your arms
and your heart was so full you could hardly contain it.

Maybe it was when someone held you
in a moment when you felt that your life was falling apart
and their holding on to you held you together.

Maybe it was when you lovingly, at a hospital bedside,
let someone go into the arms of eternity,
and your heart was so empty yet, somehow, divinely full.

Maybe it was when something that seemed impossible
in a way that you can only describe as miraculous, became possible.

Maybe it was when you were sitting at a symphony concert,
and the music took you to a place you had never been before.

Maybe it was when the laughter of a child broke into your gray day
and the grayness was dispersed and the light broke through
to let you know that life was worth the living after all.

Maybe it was when you were at the waters edge
watching the sun slowly slip behind the horizon
and you caught a glimpse of something more …
something more than water and sand and sun.

Maybe it was when your addiction took you took a place called despair
and in that rock bottom place you discovered that there was a way up and out.

Maybe it was when you sat in a quiet place, soaking up a quiet moment of peace,
and the quietness was filled with more than peace:
it was filled with something, Someone, more.

Maybe it was when you were least expecting it, or absolutely expecting it,
that the sacred burst through the ordinariness and dailyness of your life
and lifted your spirit above the daily trifles into the sacred.

Whenever it was …
however it unfolded …
wherever it occurred …
you were, as C. S. Lewis might say, “surprised by joy” …
you were aware that God was,
a nd that God was there.

Thomas Merton, a 20th-century Trappist monk, wrote:

“Life is this simple.
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent,
and God is shining through it all the time.
This is not just a fable or a nice story.
It is true.
If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves,
we see it sometimes, and we may see it frequently.
God shows Himself everywhere, in everything ~
in people and in things and in nature and in events.
It becomes obvious that God is everywhere and in everything
and we cannot be (without) God.
It’s impossible.
The only thing is that we don’t see it.”

And when we do “see it” …
when we do experience God “shining through” everything …
when the “thin places” become transparent
and the veil is lifted
between the visible world of our ordinary experience and the sacred …
something happens:
when our hearts are open to it
we see more clearly …
we move from darkness into light …
we are alive to wonder …
we are truly alive.

All of this brings me to the scripture read a few moments ago.
The words are stunningly beautiful.
They are, to me, incredibly breathtaking
as they are amazingly assuring.

They are words that have power
if we not only believe them,
but also bet our lives on them.

Listen to them again.
“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. …
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.”

Think of it. Take it in.
Let the truth of it wrap itself around you as a friend holds you in an embrace.
There is not a place … not a moment … not a circumstance
when God is not with you …
when God is not already there.

At the end of this service,
after the benediction has been said
and the blessing has been sung …
after the postlude has finished
and you’ve had your cup of coffee,
you’ll probably be heading home.

You may walk with the light-footed steps of the young
or the slower step of the aged …
you may walk in your own strength
or you may lean on another’s arm …
you may use a walker
or you may use a wheelchair.

However you came in today
and wherever you are going when you leave
the ordinariness and dailyness of your life will still be there.
But so will this incredible, breathtaking possibility:
if your heart is open to it
you will find God shining through.
And all of a sudden life is not so ordinary anymore.

When what you thought was impossible
suddenly becomes possible,
that is God shining through,
for as Jesus has promised,
“What is impossible with people is possible with God.”

When you find the strength to deal with the troubles
with what someone has called GUP, Grace Under Pressure,
that is God shining through,
for as Jesus promised,
“In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart! I have overcome the world."

When you are able to find peace where you thought you would find no peace
that is God shining through,
for as Jesus promised,
“Peace I leave with you.
Peace is my gift to you.
Not as the world gives
but as God gives:
peace, even in the midst of troubles.”

When you find joy, which had eluded you,
that is God shining through,
for as Jesus promised,
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and that your joy may be complete.”

When you discover, despite all that might press you to think otherwise,
that life is worth the living
and that you are worth something in the living of it,
that is God shining through,
for as Jesus promised,
“I have come that they may have life
and have it to the full.”

In the song “Grateful” which was played on Stewardship Sunday last Fall,
the singer, who feels “truly blessed and duly grateful,” sings

I feel a hand holding my hand
It’s not a hand you can see
But on the road to the promised land
This hand will shepherd me
Through delight and despair
Holding tight and always there

That’s the God who shows Himself
everywhere,
in everything.
That’s the God who shines through.
The hand that shepherds you
through delight and despair
holding tight and always there …
shining through.
And when you have experienced that,
you have experienced peace.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

SCRIPTURE
Psalm 139 (New International Version)
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

 

Footnotes