September 16, 2001
Luke 11:9-13 ( RSV) ( KJV) ( NIV)

 

"When God is Silent"

Tuesday morning America was silent. When the airplanes crashed, without warning into the World Trade CenterTowers and the Pentagon, there was silence……..disbelief…….a shuddering horror before any sounds came forth.

That’s very unusual for our culture. We are a nation of noise. As Barbara Brown Taylor states, “communicationhas a higher value for us than contemplation.” We can’t even stand to be away from our cell phones. We are availableeverywhere. In a restaurant or a theatre when a cell phone rings, a flag rises up that says, I am indispensable.

Almost before we could catch our collective breath long enough to wipe the tears from our eyes, the talkingheads of radio and television were talking and talking- in fact they are still talking. Why can’t they just be quiet sometimes…...thepictures tell the story much better than any of them.

When the airplanes slammed into the towers, I didn’t need some one to tell me what was going through theminds of loved ones who had their spouse, child or lover in that building.

When the Pentagon was in flame I didn’t need some reporter to tell me how shocked a wife was because shethought that her husband finally had a safe posting.

We have a problem! It’s very hard for many of us not to look at the e-mail, harder still to simply let thephone ring. To be in silence is to risk being disconnected from people and it’s hard for us to allow others the dignity of theirbeing alone with their thoughts. Even the one-minute of silence before our Pastoral Prayers on Sunday Mornings is too long forsome.

Amazingly, through this crisis, people have been reviewing the foundations of their beliefs. When all elsefails, just what is there to which we can cling? And, may I remind you, that is a very tough answer to give. It’s tough becausejust when we want answers, there are none.

Just when we want God to speak, we sense remoteness. We feel alone.

We are left with silence……….and instead of honoring the silence and allowing it to be a reality, wewant to speak or we want an answer; now!

Moses was well acquainted with this God who retreats into silence. No sooner had the law, the TenCommandments been given, than the people again were disobedient. Having given the Children a picture of himself, God is notconvinced that things will be different. Barbara Taylor says it much better than I, God knows “it will not be long before theydancing with cows again.”

Predictably, the children take things into their own hands and shortly, things are in a mess. God says, inDeut. 32: 20  “- I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end will be,for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.”

Things are remarkably similar. All over this country we have been singing God bless America. Believer or not,it is being sung and sung. Is it possible that we have forgotten that God already has blessed America? Is it possible, that wehave simply forgotten the source of our freedom and our comfort? Is it possible that like the Israelites of old, we too haveerected idols in place of God; that we have forgotten God. 

Listen to these words, “None of you can be a true believer unless he loves for his fellow believer what heloves for himself.

Three qualities are the sign of sound faith and he who acquires them can feel the sweet taste of faith. Theyare (1) to love God and his messenger most of all, (2) to love his fellowmen for the sake of God alone and  (3) to resent and resist returning to disbelief as much as he does being cast into fire.

He who believe in God and the last day of judgment is forbidden to cause any harm to his neighbor, is to bekind to his guests-especially the strangers, and is to say the truth or else abstain.” –(The Islamic Tradition. Arguscommunications Allen Texas, 1978- (Page121) These words are from the Koran, the scripture of Islam.

We must be very careful that we do not label all Muslims as being the same as the radical fringe sects-namely, the Shiites and the Jihad. These fanatical conservatives of Islam take very literally the words in the Koran-

“to those who leave their home in God’s cause, after suffering oppression. We will assuredly give a goodly home in this world; but truly the reward of the Hereafter will be greater, if they only realize this.”

Do you suppose that God is silent with us because we too have drifted into idolatry? I am not talking aboutthe pursuits of humankind that crowd out God; that is much too obvious and much too easy- you know, things like- pursuing money atthe expense of all else or leisure or sports or, you get the picture. I am talking about the idolatries that many have placed intheir religious faith.

We are so prone to state, the Islamic fundamentalist have distorted the Koran to the point where they cankill and maim in the name of Allah, be comfortable with their actions, even if they result in death because they believe they willbe even more rewarded.

I am equally concerned by some Christian believers who claim that what they believe is the only way anyonecan believe and if you or I disagree, then we are denied fellowship. There are Churches, right here in Wauwatosa who will notallow you and me to have Holy Communion with them. The Church, in this village, where Kathy grew up refuses to acknowledge thevalidity of her Ordination- that is ecclesiastical idolatry.

There are American religious leaders who are stating that this was a wakeup call from God because of theconduct of our people. I don’t, for a moment, think this was God initiated or that God works that way.

Let me try and illustrate; the Bible is the greatest repository of knowledge and revelation the world hasever known. It tells of God’s self- revelation, the response of humans through the ages, good and bad and the joys andpossibilities that exist for those who take its words seriously. But, having said that, I believe it is wrong for a thinking humanbeing to take the Bible and try prove all situation and forecast history by it, usually by pulling verses from here and there outof context. That is not the intention of the Bible.

The Bible is a repository of truthful stories, statements and attitudes. They come to us through the writingsof scholars and ordinary believers in the clothing of the era in which they lived. Serious Biblical scholars do not get boggeddown in how the truth was presented. They dwell on explaining and proclaiming the truths that the stories convey.

Jesus came on earth proclaiming the ancient truths about God in a new and spiritual manner. He was toleratedfor just 3 years before he was killed; and his killers were the religious leaders. He was bad for their business. He was outsidethe orthodoxy box of that day. Yet, even in death, we see and history validates the correctness of his life and teachings, butthat doesn’t mean we don a robe and wander around the country with 12 disciples.

Why am I saying all this? I am saying it because religious fanatics, the literalists of Islam OR Christianityare dangerous. They are dangerous because they do not allow for individual differences that are deeply held. They do not allow forGod to speak through modern avenues; they isolate and in one way or another, do away with those of broader thinking and faith.    Idolatry, according to the dictionary is immoderate attachment or devotion tosomething. The terrorists used modern vehicles trying to perpetuate an old and false doctrine that it’s O.K. to kill those youhate and with whom you disagree. While we don’t go to those ends, it is wrong to “kill” people intellectually because theydiffer from us.

God said in the giving of the Ten Commandments. The first is, you shall have no other Gods before me. When weelevate the scriptures, as some do, to the place where they are as important as God and used as an object of worship and proof ofeverything, we are committing idolatry. The scripture reveal God and point us to God and always the test of validity is howrelevant are the scriptural accounts to any age in history and how do they make men and women more loving, more accepting morebelieving people.

When the scriptures are interpreted with skill and knowledge, there is no problem with modern science. Thepower of the scriptures stories is that they transcend ages. The truths the Bible portrays are eternally true, but I for one amnot willing to have to practice those truths in the thought patterns of the era in which they were written. How things arecommunicated has changed. The truths the scriptures tell us have not.

And those stories: they are powerful and they are true to this very day. They tell how much God loves us andwaits for us to learn and live the manner proclaimed. They tell us how to love God and accept God’s love and how to translatethat, through actions to an always-needy world. Love is love no matter if it’s a Ruth and Boaz on a threshing floor or a lovingcouple in a sauna; whether it is Jacob and Rachael or any loving couple here today. Forgiveness is just as hard today as it was inthe days of Moses. Accepting all people, black, brown, yellow, red or white as equals whom God loves is just as tough today as itwas when Miriam had difficulty accepting the fact that her father, who was Moses, had married a Cushite woman.

The older I get the fewer the “fundamentals”, the absolutes we must believe are in number. As I age, thegreater are the number of areas where I must say I don’t know. I stand with the Father described in Marks gospel who brought hisson to Jesus to be healed. Do you believe, Jesus asked. The father answered, I believe, help my unbelief. That dear friends, isthe way I believe it should be.  Faith is experience, often hard to explain. We whoare Christians ought not to be ashamed to say, I don’t know, or I really don’t understand it all- how can we? God is beyondour understanding, eternity is not within our human grasp.

I believe in God because everywhere I look, the universe, our human bodies and human interactions speak to meof mind rather than accident, of order rather than chaos. If this is so, then it must exist elsewhere even though I may not beable to discern it. When I meditate on this being, I am lifted to a better way of living, a better way of viewing my fellow humansand a better way of accepting my own importance because I am the object of God’s love.

Because of this God in my life, I see no need to insist that all believers believe the same as I do. I do notget angry at those who believe differently, even those who blow themselves up in the name of their cause, I just feel very sorrythat some are so insecure that they must feel they are right and all others are wrong. If only they could accept the fact thatthey are loved by this God, and so are others. In that love, we can accept each other and agree to disagree agreeably.

Our scripture of the morning states, “Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find” but that cutsboth ways. If you seek hatred, you will find it. If you ask for evil you will receive it. If you accept the way of Jesus, he willguide you in the way of love.

Do you see what I am trying to say? We have just gone through a gut-wrenching week. None of us, no matter howreligious or cynical can explain the twisted thinking that becomes so powerful it is greater even than life itself. As we sit heregrieving and stunned, thousands are dealing with the death of one they loved. Without warning; with no preparation they were gonefor no good reason whatsoever and in most cases, they didn’t even have a chance to say good bye, I love you or I forgive you.The terrorists sought to insult and divide us. They hurt us, to be sure, but instead of dividing, they united us. We are united inthe name of over 5000 dead innocent people.

Now we must come together. Now we have to heal, but we will not be healthily healed if we seek after otherterrorists with the same twisted values that they hold. Now we have to begin by loving those with whom we are close and tellingthem over and over again not just that we love them but that God loves them also. Now we must begin to look at people with thesense that they too are people of value and worth. Once they sense that they too are loved, they too are important, they too havea potential, then the need to kill those who already believe that will cease. Now we must realize that thousands were killedbecause a few were jealous of our way of life and our way of believing.

There are no quick answers. Only idols have all the answers. The story of God has been told. The message ofJesus and his love has been lived and in some cases is being given. God in his love has given us freedom-freedom to accept theways he has taught or freedom to destroy the world by ignoring that way; freedom to take a marvelous invention and drive it into atower and kill thousands and freedom to risk life and limb trying to assist those who were involved in the tragedy.

The stories are there for us to read and use. The spirit is here to guide and lead.  God is silent:  because now it is up to us.