josephholubsermons
July 25, 2010
Pentecost 9
Luke 11:1-13
IN ALL
CIRCUMSTANCES
"Be joyful always; pray
continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will in
Christ Jesus."
"Give thanks in all
circumstances."
Really
– all circumstances?
In the church of my youth,
I remember the congregation singing this one specific hymn every
Thanksgiving Eve, appropriately entitled "Thanks to God."
As I announced, our choir is going
to lead us in singing it as the Hymn of the Day.
The lyrics were written by a Swedish
clergy named August Ludvig Storm – more about him later.
The reason I remember this
hymn from the days of my youth is because some verses in the hymn deeply
troubled me. I asked my pastor about
them, and he said, "Joe, there are some things about God’s plan that we must
just accept." I was pretty
intuitive as a youth, and that response sounded to me like a convenient
dismissal of my question, hence I felt dismissed.
I couldn't accept it, and I didn’t accept it.
The first line that
troubled me was, "Thanks for tears
by now forgotten." That line
vexed me! How was I supposed to be
thankful for tears? I grew up in an
alcoholic and conflicted environment that was often terrifying.
At times it was a living hell. I had
shed rivers of tears. My pillow was
often soaked because I had cried myself to sleep.
I didn't understand how I could be
thankful to God for such upsetting things that caused my tears.
Another line in the old
hymn that puzzled me was "Thanks
for pain…." I didn't get that either!
How do I thank God for pain, emotional or physical - especially
when it's unbearable? A few
years ago I had major back surgery with almost a third of my spine fused. In
the weeks leading up to surgery I was in excruciating pain and had trouble
walking. For six weeks following
surgery I was in agonizing pain and needed help just getting out of bed. I
do not recall beginning my day with the prayer,
"Thank you God for this horrific
pain, that doesn’t allow me to sleep or rest, and thank you for the
medications I take to alleviate the pain that make me ill and bring on
anxiety attacks. Thank you, God!"
No, that was not my prayer.
Many days my prayer was, “How long, O God? How long?”
And, to be totally honest there were despairing moments when my
prayer was, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Finally, in verse 3 we have
"Thanks for sorrow."
When I was 13 years old my best
friend was killed in a gun accident. I couldn't fathom being thankful for
the gut wrenching, heart rending grief I felt in the wake of his loss.
It felt like someone had reached into my soul and ripped out my
heart. I felt like I was being
pulled into the unrelenting gravity well of a black hole.
My mouth couldn’t sing the words of
this old hymn on Thanksgiving Eve with the congregation, so I did not!
I could only sit there in silent defiance.
It all seemed to me like a
kind of romanticizing and minimizing of the harsh realities of broken hearts
and ravished bodies of those who truly do suffer on this planet.
It also seemed to me that an expression of thanksgiving for such
things carried with it the requirement of an acknowledgment that these
things were a part of a greater
divine “plan” that I could not understand, but was told I had to accept.
I didn't much care for that kind of a sadistic God, or a God who
would plan can carry-out such hideous things.
I didn't buy it!
It wasn’t until decades
later that I did some research on the composer of the lyrics of that old
hymn that had caused such a stir within me, Pastor August Ludvig Storm.
Pastor Storm’s lyrics had stirred up a storm in my soul, and I wanted
to know more about him. When I
researched him, to my shock and surprise, I learned that Pastor Storm had
written these lyrics toward the end of his life after he had suffered many
years of excruciating pain and the crippling effects of an acute spinal
condition. Hey, that got my
attention! Living at a time
when there were no effective treatments , a good portion of his life was
lived in pain and misery, yet he was able to share these lyrics with the
world, lyrics that haunted my youthful soul.
We also have Paul, who
wrote the words of our epistle this morning, who lived anything but a
sheltered life. To use Paul’s
own words, he was many times "hard-pressed... perplexed... persecuted....
and struck down..." He experienced
more than his share of sorrow and pain, failure and hardship. Yet, he was
able to say, "give thanks in all
circumstances..."
What was the basis of their
gratitude (Paul and Pastor August
Ludvig Storm); that empowered them to not becoming bitter, cynical or
hopelessly despaired? I really do
have to know because for much of my life I have lived with the fear that
negative things will overwhelm me, and turn me bitter, cynical and
hopelessly despaired. But Paul and
Pastor Storm apparently didn't live in such a fearful, half-alive way.
They were fully alive, fully able to
embrace with gratitude all
past circumstances whether good and bad; and in so doing were able to face,
without fear and cynicism, whatever the future had in store for them.
That's why I have to know the basis
of their gratitude.
I believe today’s gospel
provides a clue. In the last
line Luke’s Jesus says, “…how much
more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask…”
This is a section of
Luke’s gospel where Jesus is teaching his disciples on the matter of prayer.
And he seems to be saying that every prayer, no matter how it is
expressed, (with whatever words, emotions, or specifics)
is ultimately a prayer to know and
experience the assurance of God’s presence in the given circumstance of the
pray-er, even and especially circumstances that are broken, painful and
filled with sorrow. I am
convinced that those who experienced Jesus first-hand, and those in the
early gospel communities that formed around him after he was gone,
experienced in and through Jesus the presence of God even in the darkest and
most despairing moments and circumstances of their lives.
Through Jesus, they came to
experience and trust God sharing and participating in their pain and
despair. That is what could
inspire Paul to write, for example, in 2 Corinthians,
“…we are afflicted but not
crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken;
struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in our body the death of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible.”
When I read those words, I
can almost feel Paul’s experience of the crucified and risen Jesus.
That was one of the first meanings of the cross for those early
followers of Jesus – the cross was a powerful symbol of God’s total
solidarity with human pain and suffering – a symbol of God’s presence
especially when the only prayer that can roll off our lips is the Jesus
prayer; not the one in today’s gospel, but the one he prayed from the cross:
“My God, my God why have you
forsaken me?”
When I learned that Pastor
August Ludvig Storm wrote the lyrics of this hymn toward the end of his
life, looking back upon his life after he had suffered much, it caused me to
look back on my life.
As I look back on my life
reflectively, I now see much more clearly God’s presence that surrounded me
at those dark and despairing times when the only prayer I could pray was,
“My God, why have you forsaken
me?” I see how God’s
presence often came through other people who
were willing to enter into my pain and share some of my burden with me; came
through others who were willing to let my life flow into theirs and their
life into mine and at that intersection the Spirit-presence of God was
ignited.
In my mind, there is a
difference being thankful “for” the circumstance and thankful “in” the
circumstance.
In those days of my youth
when I was so filled with bitterness and anger about my life circumstance, I
experienced God’s presence through the cherishing love of my mother that
kept a flicker of hope and love alive in my soul so that ultimately despair,
bitterness and cynicism did not finally win me over.
Those months leading up to
and after my spinal surgery I experienced God’s presence through the
multifaceted and artfully expressed love of Marcia who seemed to always know
just what I needed whether it was comforting love when I was despairing,
understanding love when I was confused, or challenging and confronting love
when I was wallowing in self-pity.
I look back and I see how
in those circumstances and numerous others the God-presence that was there
for me has transformed me, changed me, made me a different person; more
fully human; more sensitized and in touch with the pain and pathos of
others; more willing to let my life flow into other’s and other’s flow into
mine as we bear one another’s burdens in love.
I look back at those myriad
of times when I might have given up and gone under, but I did not.
A strength beyond my own, that often came through others, welled up
within me, and I carried on.
I look back at those times
when my own foolishness or confusion might have finally done me in, but a
wisdom beyond my own, that often came through others, lighted a path just
enough to lead me home through
the wilderness.
I look back at it all, good
and bad, joyous and grievous, and I see much more clearly the God-presence
and grace that has been there all along "in" every circumstance – that empowers me to simply,
yet profoundly, say today with the apostle Paul and Pastor August Ludvig
Storm, THANKS!
Hymn Referenced in Joe’s Sermon
Thanks to God for my
redeemer, Thanks for all Thou dost provide!
Thanks for times now but a memory, Thanks for Jesus by my side!
Thanks for pleasant, balmy springtime, Thanks for dark and dreary fall!
Thanks for tears by now forgotten, Thanks for peace with my soul!
Thanks for prayers
that Thou hast answered, Thanks for what Thou dost deny!
Thanks for storms that I have weathered, Thanks for all Thou dost supply!
Thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure, Thanks for comfort in despair!
Thanks for grace that none can measure, Thanks for love beyond compare!
Thanks for roses by the
wayside, Thanks for thorns their stems contain!
Thanks for home and thanks for fireside, Thanks for hope, that sweet
refrain!
Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow, Thanks for heavenly peace with Thee!
Thanks for hope in the tomorrow, Thanks through all eternity!