Hilton Head Island, SC – May 19, 2013
The Chapel Without Walls
Mark 14:32-42; Psalm 100:1-5
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. – Psalm 100:1-5 (RSV)
Miriam Toews is a Canadian Mennonite novelist. Her most recent novel is called Women Talking. It is about a group of women in a Bolivian Mennonite community who are systematically raped and abused by a man who is an authority figure in the community. The women can neither defeat the abusive man nor escape him.
In an interview with the author in The Christian Century (May 8, 2019), Ms. Toews tells about being excommunicated from the Mennonite Church by her uncle, although she insists that in her heart she will always be a Mennonite. She said, “What is harmful in the Mennonite tradition resembles what is harmful in any religion – when religious leaders use the authority of God to scold, shame, punish, silence and shun people in extreme cases, they use God’s authority to justify the most depraved crimes.”
Is God dependable for people who don’t depend on God? Miriam Toews’ uncle didn’t depend on the leading of God in his life if he could force his faith-filled niece out of the denomination she loves and reveres. The authoritarian Bolivian Mennonite in her novel thinks he depends on God, but by his behavior he ignores God. For those who consider themselves self-sufficient, or perhaps even more aptly, totally self-reliant, does it matter whether God is dependable? Who needs God if anyone can get along without Him?
In any case, whether or not Miriam Toews’ uncle or the character in her novel depended on God, she depends on Him. Through the deeply upsetting experience of being shunned from the Church which nurtured her, she felt the presence of God in the lonely aftermath of that trauma. That is supremely evident in her Christian Century interview.
The God who is proclaimed throughout the Bible, in both Testaments and in virtually all its books, is portrayed as the God we can always count on. Psalm 98 was our responsive reading. Here are its opening verses: “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory, he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations” (98:1-2). In biblical times, the Jews felt that God was in competition with the purported gods of other nations. Thus when things went well for Israel and battles were won, it vindicated God in their eyes. They believed they could depend on God to do this.
If you know the broad scope of scripture, however, that wasn’t always the way things were perceived in the Bible. Sometimes, when the world seemed to collapse on either the whole nation of Israel or any individual Israelites, there were questions about whether they could always count on God. Other Psalms, the book of Job, the book of Lamentations, and many passages in the prophets question the dependability of God.
Hildegard of Bingen was a famous twelfth-century mystic and visionary. She often seemed to encounter God in a brilliant light which surrounded her on a regular basis. It was so bright she could not look directly at it, but she always tried to see through it.
Two well known psychologists have postulated that Hildegard’s blinding light may have been the result of severe migraine headaches. Many people who suffer migraines find that lying still in a darkened bedroom is the only way to mitigate the mind-numbing pain. For Hildegard, her light seemed to be at times a decided blessing and at other times merely an excruciating curse. But when it came upon her, she wrote about what she saw, and she composed music because of what she saw. She also led her community of nuns by what the light revealed to her.
Might it be that God is dependable in ways we do not anticipate, perhaps even in ways we never fully comprehend? Did God somehow speak to this gifted mystic who probably never directly associated the blinding light inside her head with God? Might God come to us by means we never imagine are actually divine manifestations?
Psalm 100 is perhaps the second-best-known Psalm, after the 23rd Psalm. “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!” it declares. “Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” Thus it begins, and here is how it ends: “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”
Is God always dependable? Oh, indeed He is, says Psalm 100, and much of the rest of the Bible. He is good and steadfast and faithful. We can’t always count on ourselves or others, the Bible declares, but we can always count on God: always. Nonetheless, experience doesn’t always verify that; only faith can do that. Faith tells us that come what may, despite everything that happens, God is the Ever-Dependable One of Israel.
A couple of weeks ago we again watched Driving Miss Daisy. That was just a few viewings short of our umpteenth time. The film covers three decades, the late Thirties through late Sixties, in the life of Daisy Wertham (Jessica Tandy) and her chauffeur Hoke (Morgan Freeman). You will recall that Miss Daisy didn’t want a chauffeur. She wanted to drive herself, thank you very much. And Miss Daisy being one of the grande dames of Atlanta Jews, she perhaps didn’t want a black Christian chauffeur either. But her son Bulie decided she needed a driver, so for the next thirty years, that position and responsibility was filled by Hoke. She wouldn’t allow Hoke to drive her anywhere for the first few weeks, but she finally broke down and let him take her places, even though she didn’t like the routes he chose, because that wasn’t the way she always chose to go. A more determined lady than Miss Daisy there never was.
Driving Miss Daisy is on my all-time Top Twenty-Five list. It is funny and touching and important and serious and outstanding. Toward the end, when dementia has started to set in and she gets confused sometimes, Daisy says to her black driver-guardian-companion, taking Hoke by the hand, “Hoke, you’re my best friend.” Daisy never would have imagined such a display of deep affection was possible when he first came to work for her.
Then, at the very end, when Bulie drives Hoke to the nursing home on Thanksgiving, because Hoke himself is now too old to drive, Daisy sees the two of them come into the room. She speaks briefly to Bulie, and then summarily dismisses him. She asks her best friend a simple but poignant and heartfelt question: “How are you, Hoke?” Hoke says, “I’m doing the best I can, Miss Daisy.” “Me too,” she responds, with a quiet twinkle in those baby-blue Jessica Tandy eyes. And then, lovingly, he feeds her her Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, bite by slowly eaten bite, and one of the all-time best final cinematic scenes fades into the credits.
God is ever-dependable, but we need to learn to depend on Him through the kindness and affection of others, as well as through what we might expect would be more direct means. Hoke was an angel of mercy to Daisy Wertham, just as all of us have our own angels sent to us by our ever-dependable God. We may never realize how they managed to come to us just when we most needed them, but it is God who sends them through His ever-operative providence.
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is one of the most important stories in the life of Jesus. It is there where Jesus’ faith was tested as nowhere else during his previous 33 years. In today’s Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane is on the east side of a very busy road which runs along the bottom of the Kidron Valley, to the east of the Temple Mount. The garden surrounds a fairly large church, the Church of All Nations. The garden itself is very impressive. It isn’t large, probably not more than two or three acres. In it are ancient olive trees, some more than a thousand years old. Lois always remembers them as “the gnarly olive trees,” and they are indeed the gnarliest.
On that same site, almost two thousand years ago now, Jesus went to pray. He sensed that he was about to be arrested, and when that happened, he would be put on trial, and when that happened, he would be crucified. “Abba,” he prayed to God, which literally means Papa or Daddy or Dad, “all things are possible with thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). Father, can I depend on You? Will You get me through this? And if so, how? How can I avoid that about which I am so fearful? Can I avoid it?
Almost no one in the western world does not know how the story turned out. The next morning, Jesus had large iron nails driven through his wrists and ankles, and he was hoisted up on a rough, Roman cross. Therefore, was God dependable for Jesus, or wasn’t He? Can any of us, including Jesus, fully comprehend the nuances of what it means for God to be dependable in every situation? If God doesn’t give us what we want, does that mean He isn’t trustworthy or faithful toward us?
Recently I heard a man tell about nearly being killed in a car. He was driving on an icy, narrow country road. The road took a sharp turn under a railroad overpass, and the car started sliding rapidly toward the concrete wall beneath the overpass. The car came to a grinding halt on the gravel at the side of the road, just inches from the concrete.
The man attributed his near-death experience to the intervention of God. His right foot pumping the brakes and both hands gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could surely also played a key role. But who is to say for certain whether or not God saves lives by strangely and suddenly activated right feet and by clenched fists on a large crenellated plastic circle?
In 1943 an all-black cast staged a Broadway musical called Cabin in the Sky. It starred Ethel Waters, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and Lena Horne. It was directed by a new man in show business. His name was Vincent Minnelli. It had one really well-known song, “Taking a chance on love,” sung by Ethel Waters. In the plot a ne’er-do-well young husband is shot to death by a ne’er-do-well acquaintance. Instead of going straight to hell, God gives the husband a chance to reform, which he does, sort of, and in the end he and his wife walk through the pearly gates together. Does the ever-dependable God do things like that, or is the story too “staged,” too theatrical, too contrived?
In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace?, the noted evangelical writer Philip Yancey gives a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son, except that this time it is a daughter from suburban Detroit who is the central character. After an argument with her father, she went into Detroit to begin what she assumed would be a new and exciting life. She became associated with a man who gave her drugs and put her up in a luxury apartment. In return all she had to do was to perform sexual favors for men whom her new “friend” arranged to visit her. Two years later she found herself back on the street, almost penniless and with no clear prospects of survival.
She phoned her parents, whom she had not contacted during all that time. They were not there when she called, but on their answering machine she said she would arrive at their suburban bus station at such-and-such a time. If they weren’t there, she told them she would understand.
When she arrived, instead of finding an angry father with a glowering countenance, there was her entire extended family: parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents --- forty people in all. All were holding balloons and “Welcome Home!” banners. In Jesus’ parable, the prodigal’s father represents God. In the Philip Yancey parable, the whole family represents God.
God is always dependable: always. However, divine dependability is not always immediately apparent. We need to become more adept at discovering through whom and where and how it is that His dependability is made manifest. And it is only faith which can clarify that. Not even God Himself can verify it.