CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS TRUSTWORTHY
From November of 1997 until May of 2002, I worked on my Doctor of Ministry degree at the Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. The program required that I go down there twice a year for about ten to twelve days at a time. It was 740 miles from my driveway in Salem, Ohio to the parking lot at the seminary. I used to leave on Sunday afternoons after leading worship at my church, and drive until 11 or 12 o’clock at night. I was much younger then.
My poor wife had to run the household all by herself in my absence. And, like any good father trying to buy his way back into the good graces of his children, I always came home bearing gifts. One year my daughter – who was probably five years old at the time – wanted me to bring her back a Furby. A Furby was a fuzzy little robotic toy that could talk to you and move its arms and blink its eyes. Thus, when I had a little free time, I went to a mall and found a Furby. Money was a little tight in those days, and a Furby was not an inexpensive toy.
A few days before I was scheduled to return home, I was talking to my daughter on the phone. She said, “Did you get me my Furby, Daddy?” I said, “Mariah, a Furby costs $35.00.” To which she quickly replied, “Do you know what I got you, Daddy?” I said, “What, Mariah?” She said, “I got you a hug and a kiss…and that’s priceless!” Of course, I immediately went out and dropped $35.00 on a Furby.
There is a special bond between a father and a daughter. There’s a special bond between a father and a son, too, but it isn’t quite the same. My boys call me “Dad,” or one of several nicknames they have for me, but my daughter always calls me, “Daddy.” She’s twenty years old now and is a junior in college. And the last thing she says to me whenever I talk to her on the phone is, “I love you, Daddy.” That’s a very special word to me. I suspect that’s a very special word to many of you as well. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit. We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us. Change happens when something else is modified. What is it that needs to be modified? What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is. We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is if we’re ever going to change who and what we are… because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.
As Jesus is God incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative. We noted how many of us see God as an angry judge. Citing a passage from the gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who was blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In their minds, it had to be one or the other. Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God. Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them. He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” In other words, “God is good; God wills the good...and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.” Then Jesus healed the man born blind. The point is that God wills what’s best for us. The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture. Yet the narrative Jesus sets out to establish within us is that God is good.
Today our aim is to establish the narrative within us that God is also trustworthy. Consider the passage I read from the gospel according to Mark. Jesus has just shared his last supper with his disciples, and established what we call the sacrament of communion. It was late on that first Maundy Thursday. Looming on the horizon was the first Good Friday; looming on the horizon was Jesus’ impending crucifixion. Thus, Jesus left the upper room and went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.
He took with him Peter and James and John. Knowing exactly what was about to happen to him, he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death. Remain here, and watch.” Then going a little further into the garden, Jesus dropped to his knees and cried, “Abba, Father, all things are possible with thee. Remove this cup from me…yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Now I could probably write an entire book about the rich theological content of that one simple prayer. Instead, let’s take a look at just a couple of things, and try to understand the narrative Jesus reveals to us here about God.
The first thing Jesus says is, “Abba, Father.” The word “Abba” is an Aramaic word. Aramaic, of course, was the language of the day. Hebrew was the language of the Scriptures, Greek was the language of the Romans, but Aramaic was the language of the people of God. The word “Abba” only appears three times in all of Scripture: once on Jesus’ lips in the Garden of Gethsemane, once in Romans and once in Galatians. The word literally means, “Daddy.” So in other words, at Jesus’ most crucial time of trial, he cries out to God, saying, “Daddy! Help me!”
Such was the relationship between Jesus and God. Jesus called him, “Daddy.” The word itself implies a closeness, a relationship, and an intimacy that defies description. What’s more, I think it reveals the level of trust that Jesus had in God.
A number of years ago, my family and I were at the Kennywood amusement park in Pittsburgh. There is a roller coaster there called The Phantom’s Revenge. I wanted to go on it, but neither of my boys would go on it with me. My daughter said, “I’ll go on it with you, Daddy.”
So we stood in line for 45 minutes. We were fortunate enough to sit in the front seats of the very first car. The ride lasted all of a minute-and-a-half and – truth be told – it scared me to death! I don’t think I’ve ridden it since! It’s because I don’t like to stand in line that long, not because I’m afraid or anything. Anyway, after we got off, I asked my daughter, “Mariah, were you afraid?” She said, “No.” I said, “Why not?” She said, “Because I was with you, Daddy.”
For better or for worse, my daughter trusted me. I was and am clearly not worthy of such implicit trust. I love her and would do anything for her, and I would never put her in harm’s way intentionally. But I am a limited, finite human being. In her eyes, however, being with me meant that she was completely safe. Maybe that’s what it means to have a Daddy.
Jesus called God, “Daddy,” when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Thomas Smail puts it well in his book, The Forgotten Father. He writes:
The Father that Jesus addresses in the garden is the one that he has known all his life and found to be bountiful in his provision, reliable in his promises, and utterly faithful in his love. He can obey the will that sends him to the cross with hope and expectation, because it is the will of Abba whose love has been so proved – that it can now be trusted so fully – by being obeyed so completely. This is not legal obedience driven by commandment…but trusting response to known love.
In Jesus’ mind, God was trustworthy. We know that because Jesus called him “Daddy.” Yet note that he also says, “Remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Remove this cup from me. The Greek word for cup is po-tare-ion. It literally means cup or drinking vessel. Yet the cup is meant to represent, by implication, what it contains. The cup Jesus sought to have removed was the pain and suffering he was about to endure. Perhaps we have a cup or two we’d like to have removed as well.
I have a good friend who battled leukemia six years ago. The chemotherapy protocol and the bone marrow transplant he endured were nearly unbearable. When it comes to cancer, sometimes it seems as though the cure is worse than the disease. Yet my friend survived. He got through it and was living a happy and successful life of gratitude to God. And then the cancer came back. What do you say to a person you know and love who says to you, “Why is God doing this to me?”
We want to say to God – as Jesus said to God – “Remove this cup from me.” And when we say that, we can say it with confidence because sometimes God does remove the cup. But sometimes he doesn’t. He did not remove the cup from Jesus. Yet Jesus trusted God enough to say, “Not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Jesus trusted God enough to make his way to the cross.
It occurs to me that perhaps the problem is that we think this is the most important phase of our existence. We think this earthly life is the most important phase of our existence. Maybe it’s not. Maybe this earthly life is like a seed that we plant in the ground. The seed – with the proper sunlight, nutrition and care – grows into a beautiful flower. In other words, maybe the most important phase of our existence is yet to come. After all, the next phase of our existence is supposed to last for all eternity.
Jesus believed that God was trustworthy. He trusted God enough to make his way to the cross. He knew the proper way to view God’s grace and mercy. I’m not entirely sure we do. Thus, I want to conduct an experiment with you. It’s an experiment the Rev. Dr. George Buttrick conducted with the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in downtown New York City some 60 years ago. I believe it is equally applicable today.
What do you see? What do you see when you look at this piece of paper? (Walk down the aisle and display the paper.) There is no trick here. Just tell me what you see. What do you see?
You see a black dot, don’t you? We focus on the black dot and fail to notice the white paper that surrounds it. And therein lies the problem. We notice the black dots in our existence and fail to notice the widespread mercy that surrounds it. We need to learn to deliberately call to mind the joys of our existence, and to focus on them...if we’re ever going to come to find God to be trustworthy.
Counting your blessings is a powerful spiritual exercise. Perhaps what we need to do is conduct a spiritual inventory. Make a list of all the blessings in your life. Are you thankful for your family? Write that down. Are you thankful for your home? Write that down. Are you thankful for your job? Who gave you the mental capacity to earn a living? Are you thankful for the air that you breathe or the water you drink? Who created the earth and stocked it with abundance? Make a list of all the blessings in your life. I think what you will find is that there’s a lot of white paper surrounding the blots on your page as well.
Our troubles are real. But they are small compared to God’s widespread mercy. The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we will come to realize that God truly wills what’s best for us. And when that moment of revelation occurs, our trust in God…can’t help but increase. Amen.
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