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Sunday's Sermon
Nov 4, 2007

1085
"There"
The Rev. Dennis Posno

 

Fulton Oursler wrote these words many years ago …

“As a little boy I was led to a gray stone chapel.
Welcoming me inside, a Sunday School teacher awesomely informed me
that I was in God’s house.

“‘Whereabouts is God?’ I asked.
‘God,’ my teacher assured me, ‘was everywhere.’

“But I wanted God to be SOMEWHERE.
That is why I refused to sit on my little oaken chair, but ran about the room.
I peeked under the pew and in the broom closet,
only to be rescued finally, breathless and dusty,
from behind the organ pipes,
weeping because I had not found God.”

Have you ever been at a place like that?
        Hearing and believing that God is everywhere
                yet wanting and needing God to be somewhere:
                        in the somewhere where you live and move and have your being …
                                in the somewhere of the dailyness of your life …
                                        in the somewhere, wherever it is,
                                                where you are.

Have you ever been at a place like that?
Looking everywhere and finally weeping
because you had not found God?

There she was.
A young Roman Catholic Yugoslavian girl, born Agnes Bojaxhiu in August, 1910,
who at the age of 12 knew that she wanted to be
a missionary to the poor in other lands.

There she was.
Taking her first vows as a nun with the Loreto Sisters in 1931.
Taking her final vows in 1937.

There she was.
After 17 years as a teacher in Calcutta, India, with the Loreto Sisters,
beginning a second journey in September of 1946.

There she was.
She was 36 years old … unwell and needing a rest.
And on a train ride to her annual retreat in the Himalayan foothills
she reported that Christ spoke to her.
It was not the kind of speaking that I am doing now.
It was the silent whispering of God …
it was the gentle nudging of the Spirit …
it was the call of Christ on her life.

“(Christ) called her to abandon teaching
and work instead in ‘the slums’ of the city,
dealing directly with ‘the poorest of the poor’  ~
the sick, the dying, beggars and street children.
‘Come,’ he told her. ‘Come, carry Me into the holes of the poor.’
‘Come be My light.’”

Two years later she began her work with the order she founded  ~
“The Sisters of Charity.”

There she was.
From that moment she devoted her life to Christ and to others,
born of an experience of Christ.
 
There she was.
In her own words,
“loving as he loves,
helping as he helps,
giving as he gives,
serving as he serves,
rescuing as he rescues,
being with him twenty-four hours,
touching him in his distressing disguise.”

There she was.  Living her life for others.  Giving her life to others.

There she was.  Binding up the wounds.  Caring for the broken spirit.

There she was.
Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, in Oslo, Norway,
dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals.

It all came to an end when she died n September 5, 1997. 
She was eighty-seven years old.

The mark that this woman left on the world is undeniable.
The difference she made in the lives of millions is unquestionable.
“Come be My light,” were words that Christ spoke to her as a young woman.
She became that light in her incredible life of sacrificial service.

It is this Mother Teresa who would write
that Christ is everywhere, yet somewhere:
“Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet,
Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive.”

That is the Mother Teresa we know.
But there is another Mother Teresa  ~
a woman not know until just recently
when her personal letters to superiors and confessors were revealed.

The Mother Teresa we discover there is one who experienced
not the presence of Christ in her life,
but Christ’s absence and silence.
That absence and silence left her empty
                                                                                alone
                                                                        doubting
                                                                struggling
                                                        in the darkness.

This great woman of faith  ~
who became, not just the word of Christ
but the presence of Christ in her flesh to others …
who did become Christ’s light in the darkness of the poor  ~
struggled in her faith.

The one who had heard Christ calling,
“Come be My light”
experienced Christ mostly as the divine absence.
Hers was, to use the language of another, “the dark night of the soul.”

And like that little boy who was told by his Sunday School teacher
that God was everywhere
but who was wanting and needing God to be somewhere,
Mother Teresa wanted and needed Christ to be in her somewhere.

She would write words like this for more than fifty years:
“Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me?
The Child of your love  ~  and now become as the most hated one  ~
the one  ~  you have thrown away as unwanted  ~
unloved, I call, I cling, I want  ~
and there is no One to answer  ~
no One to whom I can cling  ~
no, no One …

“When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven  ~
there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return
like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.  ~
I am told God loves me  ~
and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great
that nothing touches my soul.”

Have you ever been at a place like that?
        Hearing and believing that God is everywhere
                yet wanting and needing God to be somewhere:
                        in the somewhere where you live and move and have your being …
                                in the somewhere of the dailyness of your life …
                                        in the somewhere, wherever it is,
                                                where you are.

Have you ever been at a place like that?
It is a place where I would suspect all of us have been. 
I know I have.

I have been there when our daughter’s marriage fell apart.

I have been there when, as we held his hands in a dimly lit hospital room, Kim’s father died.

I have been there when, against her wishes,
our mother was placed in a nursing home,
and we, as her children, lived with regret and great sadness.

I have been there as I stood at a graveside,
weeping with our children and many others,
saying goodbye to a young woman who at eighteen years of age
had died because she was too frail to receive a heart-lung transplant.

I have been there when hopes have been shattered
and dreams have been broken  ~
the hopes and dreams of others …
and my own.

I have experienced and witnessed the brokenness of life.

I have been there.
Wondering where God is.
Wondering why God is silent.
Wondering why God seems so powerless.

I didn’t need God to be everywhere.
I wanted, and want God still,
to be in this somewhere …
in these moment in time.

The Psalmist was at such a place, too.
In words read earlier we heard the aching of his heart …
“As a desert wanderer longs for springs of cool water,
       so my thirsty souls reaches out for You, O God.
How I long for a deeper sense of Your presence,
       for a faith that will embrace You
              without fear or doubt!
Yet while I weep in longing, people about me say,
              ‘If God is not dead, where is (God)?’”

And as the psalmist remembers a faith once confidently lived, he laments …
“Yet now my heart is empty,
       and waves of doubt flood over my soul.”

Trying to recapture the joy and confidence of those years, he cries out …
“I pray, but the heavens, too, are empty.
It is almost as if God had forgotten all about me.
And while I struggle with the sickness of doubt,
       people about me say,
              ‘If God is not dead, where is (God)?’”

What does all of this say?  What does all of this mean?  ~
The contradiction of living with a doubting faith?
The paradox of proclaiming God’s presence everywhere
but not experiencing God’s presence in our somewhere?
The apparent foolishness of believing in the power of prayer
but feeling God’s absence, and in that absence, God’s silence?

What does all of this say?  What does all of this mean?

Truth is, all of us  ~
from the Mother Teresas to the Dennis Posnos to the psalmists to you  ~
all of us have owned that doubting place.

All of us wrestle with our questions and uncertainties.

All of us struggle with the mystery of God,
even though we know much about God, particularly through Jesus.

And the truth is that none of us can escape the experience
of knowing that God is everywhere and missing God in our somewhere.

But perhaps we can discover an answer in Mother Teresa’s life.

Despite her doubts, knowing the will of God for her life  ~
that she was called to be Christ’s light to the poor  ~
she gave herself to it.

She became Christ’s presence
to the poor and dying in Calcutta.

She became Christ’s presence
to the hungry and homeless and the unwanted.

She became Christ’s presence, even with her own doubts,
by loving as He loved and showing compassion as He showed compassion.

Her life, to use Malcolm Muggeridge’s words, became
“Something beautiful for God.”

It was in her life that the God who is everywhere was somewhere.

She may not have sensed Christ’s presence  ~
but other’s sensed the presence of Christ in her.

She may have known only silence as an answer to her prayers  ~
but she became the answer to prayer for millions of others.

She found the way of seeing the face of Christ in everyone she met;
and those she met were able to see the face of Christ in her.

Until the time of her death, even with her doubts,
she persisted in bringing to life the words of Paul, who wrote,
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
Paul could just have easily written,
“Perhaps the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, even when filled with doubt.”

I would expect that millions, because of her, in answer to the questions,
“Did you see God today? 
Did you hear God speaking today? 
Was God with you today?  ~
would answer by saying,
“Yes, I did.
God was disguised as a nun  ~
wearing a broad smile and laughing like a child,
and was dressed in a blue-bordered sari and was shod in sandals.”

Whereabouts is God?
Everywhere.
And in your somewhere.
It was Jesus who said,
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
God is there.

In your certainties. … and in your doubts.
When you stand tall … and when your knees buckle.
In your joys … and in your sorrows.
When your cup is overflowing … and when you feel as empty as a pocket.
God is there.

In every act of kindness shown …
in every cup of water given in God’s name …
with every act of courage on behalf of another  ~
God is there.

When you raise your voice in protest …
when you lift your voice in praise.
When you act in the strength of others …
when you have to stand alone.
When you fall to your knees in exhaustion …
when you fall to your knees in prayer.
             God is there.

Victor Hugo wrote these stunning lines …
“Be like the bird
That, pausing in her flight
Awhile on boughs too light,
        Feels them give way
Beneath her and yet sings,
Knowing that she hath wings.”

And even if your wings are broken, sing.
God is there.

SOLI  DEO  GLORIA
       
PSALM 42   Psalms/Now (Leslie Brandt)
As a desert wanderer longs for springs of cool water,
          so my thirsty souls reaches out for You, O God.
How I long for a deeper sense of Your presence,
          for a faith that will embrace You
                    without fear or doubt!
Yet while I weep in longing, people about me say,
                    “If God is not dead, where is *(God)?”
I remember so well the faith of my childhood.
How real God was to me in those days
          when I prayed and sang praises
                    and listened to (God’s) Word
                             in the fellowship of family and friends!
Then why am I so depressed now?
Why cannot I recapture the joy and confidence
          of those years?
I remember the stories of You love
                    that I had been taught;
          how merciful and all-powerful were Your dealings
                    with Your children throughout history!
Yet now my heart is empty,
          and waves of doubt flood over my soul.
I pray, but the heavens, too, are empty.
It is almost as if God had forgotten all about me.
And while I struggle with the sickness of doubt,
          people about me say,
                    “If God is not dead, where is (God)?”
O foolish heart, why do you seethe in unrest?
God has not changed;
          (God’s) love for me is ever the same.
I must renew my faith in God;
          I must again shout (God’s) praises
                    even when I don’t feel God’s presence.
For truly (God) is God,
          and (God) is my Help and my Hope.
       
* I have replaced the pronoun “He” with “God.”
Footnotes