Sermons

“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”

I Samuel 17:32-39; Mark 4:35-41 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – June 21, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might open ourselves to your will for our lives and our world, and trust and follow in your way. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Last weekend at our leadership retreat, we spent some time building prayers together. The first step, each time, was to come up with the address, the words that open the prayer by calling on God. We tried to gather a goodly number, so that we had a wide variety to choose from. In the mix, as you might imagine, there were a couple of options along the lines of “Our Heavenly Father.” In reflecting on it later, I realized we’ve never really had that conversation as pastor and congregation before. Perhaps you’ve noticed that I never use those exact words. Perhaps you hadn’t. Perhaps you’ve wondered why. More likely you weren’t surprised. But as we begin today, I’d like to say a few words about God the Father.

To refer to God as Father is certainly biblical. Jesus used that imagery more than any other. We do it together every Sunday when we say the Lord’s Prayer. And some of our Elders choose this language when they lead us in prayer. Casting God as “Our Heavenly Father” can be comforting and grounding for many people. On the other hand, as a race, it turns out humanity has the capacity of a six-year-old when it comes to not taking things too literally. The exclusive use of male language for God over the centuries has done uncountable damage, perpetuating unhealthy hierarchies and constrictive gender roles that have kept people from becoming fully what God created them to be. As someone pointed out at the retreat, there are those for whom Father language is a major barrier because of their particular life experiences. And so it is, that when I lead worship, part of my approach is to ensure that the language we use to talk to and about God is broader than gendered terms. Diverse imagery and words like ‘gracious’ and ‘loving’ and ‘merciful’ – words that are open to each person’s experience to fill in – help us to connect to God in a multitude of ways, as an intimate presence that is also a mystery beyond our comprehension.

But as I mentioned, the concept of God as Father is biblical and traditional, and a source of comfort for many people. So on this Father’s Day, I thought we might explore God the Father just a bit, to see what we can learn. In particular, I want to look at a quality that is often ascribed to God the Father, the idea of God as Protector. Now again, you probably know that I don’t really believe in gender stereotypes, so I have to point out that when a parent bristles in aggressive protection of their children, we usually refer to that as getting “mama bear” on someone, so clearly protection is not an exclusively male activity. But it is one of the things often connected with God the Father. Many of the hymns we are singing today draw upon this image of God. Much of the prayer we offer for one another in times of trouble calls upon God as Protector. And yet, if we look at the biblical stories of God’s protection, we get some hints that God’s idea of protection is not always the same as ours.

We’ve heard parts of two different stories of God’s protection from the Hebrew scriptures this morning. Our anthem told about Joshua “fitting” the battle of Jericho, and though it may not have been completely clear what happened there, besides that the walls fell down, the song is about a very unusual battle. There were eventually swords involved, but the walls didn’t collapse because Joshua invented dynamite or used cannons on them. They came tumbling down because Joshua’s army circled the city seven times on the seventh day, and blew their horns and shouted, as God had instructed them to do. It’s not exactly a conventional military tactic.

Likewise in the story of David getting ready to slay Goliath, the giant Philistine, we are given the almost comical picture of the young boy, David, trying on King Saul’s armor, helmet and sword. He can’t even walk once he’s got them on! And so he takes all of it off and proceeds with just his bag of stones and his slingshot. Again it is suggested that what we might assume is necessary for protection is not how God is planning to work things out.

And then we have the story from the gospel of Mark. This one is probably the most like the situations in which we find ourselves seeking God’s protection. Strong winds rise up in our lives, the waters get choppy, and we freak out because it seems like God’s asleep. “Do you not care that we are perishing?” we cry. ‘Help me! Save me! Fix this! Make it stop!” And yet, as in the story, Jesus rarely joins us in our freaking out. Instead, he invites us into his calm.

There are some interesting nuances in this story. The verse at the end about their awe and wonder implies that the disciples in the boat who woke Jesus up had no inkling that he could calm the winds and the sea like that. If that’s so, it seems all the more like they woke him up just so he could join them in their panic. Perhaps they thought even he should help with bailing the water out of the bottom of the boat. And his remark about their fear and lack of faith comes after he’s already stilled the wind and calmed the sea. Was he chiding them because they woke him up at all, or because it seemed like they didn’t think he could do anything to help them? Or was he perhaps hinting that with enough faith even death doesn’t have to be fearful? If they hadn’t woken him up, what would have happened? Should they have known that because God’s Messiah was on board, there was no way the boat was going down? Should they have assumed that if the boat sank, all of them would still reach the shore safely? Is this perhaps another indication that God’s approach to protection doesn’t quite fit our expectations? What does protection look like, coming from a crucified God?

We gather in our sanctuaries, and we offer prayers to God for protection in many circumstances. We pray for those traveling and those having surgeries and our children, whether young or grown. We pray for our elderly people living alone, and our teenagers navigating the choppy waters of high school. Rarely would it occur to us that we would need to pray for God’s protection for our own bodies right here in the midst of Christ’s church. This is a sanctuary – the very word is supposed to imply safety. And yet, this week, we have seen that this is not always the case.

As we explore the idea of God’s protective nature today, we do it with heavy hearts, and eyes that have seen too much. A group of Christians, gathered for Bible study, welcome in a stranger, and an hour later, most of them lie dead on the church floor. Let us make no mistake: this sort of thing is not likely to happen at Vista La Mesa Christian Church. The pastors and members of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church were not targeted because of their faith, but because of the color of their skin. This tragedy was another in a long line of terror inflicted upon black churches in America over the past 400 some years. It is not a sign that our sanctuary here in La Mesa is under threat. But it is a sign that God’s protection requires something different of us than we might imagine.

Fifty years ago, while eulogizing the four little girls and two little boys who died at 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr., said that the victims “say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned no merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life and the philosophy which produced the murderers.” Caution isn’t what we need in 2015 either. We must have the courage to recognize that those same systems and philosophies are still active forces in our world today. Though they may have changed their appearances, they are still warping God’s vision for our world, and they are still producing murderers.

We must do more than be sad about what happened at Emanuel AME. What does it even mean to talk about God’s protection in a world where things like this happen? Isn’t kind of a crazy idea, one that it makes no sense to hold onto? How can seeking God’s protection even make sense in a world where a child is only safe in her own sanctuary because she’s shrewd enough to play dead? Isn’t it too late?

Sometimes the lesson comes too late. It was only after Abel was dead that Cain asked if he was supposed to be his brother’s keeper. The question isn’t explicitly answered in that story, but we know what our response should be. We know that we must have a response. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We are called, by the Crucified Christ, to lay aside our obsession with safety and follow the path of sacrificial love. It is in giving our own lives for the sake of the gospel that we find true life. It is in loving our neighbors, across the lines of race and creed and status, that we truly share the protection of God our Father with one another. It will courage, yes, courage to stand up, to speak up, to ‘fess up to all the ways we have let racism and white supremacy shape our society unchallenged. It will take courage, to trust that God’s ways, despite their appearance of weakness or inefficiency, will be more effective than our ‘might makes right’ approach. Let us pray that the wisdom of our Heavenly Father will indeed re-shape our hearts, and inspire within us the bold passion required to follow Jesus in our times, no matter whether the path is easy or treacherous. Let us pray that we might be faithful children of God. Alleluia and Amen.