Sometimes our eyes do lie to us. Often times our ears do not hear the whole story. Even our hearts are swayed, many times with the best of intentions, but are led to that point not knowing the real truth.
Sometimes statistics can be interpreted in different ways. There tends to be a positive side to all information but also a negative side. Who knows the real truth?
August 7 was primary election day across our state. Now—with all the precincts reporting, there can be no doubt—we know the truth about who will represent us for the next few years.
God is always pursuing the truth. Our Lord God is the epitome of truth. In fact, it’s all He is! There is no falsehood in His gracious personality; there is only honesty and integrity and sincerity. It’s just who He is.
This Sunday, we encounter the great prophet, Elisha (I Kings 19:9-18), the great apostle Paul (Romans 10:5-15), and our great Lord Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33). In the Gospel story for this week, it about Him walking on the Sea of Galilee.
All three, in different times of history, are looking and seeking the truth for their people—meaning those who fear and love God. All three are up against great odds as the world has always presented great opposition to faith and truth. And—even in our best intentions—we don’t always discover such truths. It’s not as easy as taking a vote to determine the exact information to clarify the results sought. The truth, thanks to the world and our worldly thinking, is elusive.
Because we expect God to work in miraculous and powerful ways, sometimes we must become like Elisha, who learns that God doesn’t necessarily always work in magnanimous ways. Hollywood and the T.V. media (just to name two) have created in our way of thinking that God only shows Himself in marvelous and splendiferous manners. Elisha learns otherwise. He is not in the horrifous, overwhelming, or even sometimes frightening experiences of life. He’s not like the Wizard of Oz who appears above a golden throne with fire, smoke, booming thunder and a deep, Elizabethan voice. That is not what Elisha experienced. God was found in a small, still voice, or as the NRSV says, in “sheer silence.” Plain and simple.
For Paul, it’s not about who is going to heaven and who is going to hell (something that mainline churches spend entirely too much time on), but on the fact that God expects us to respond, to act, in very simple terms, and that everybody (some mainliners would say “God forbid!”) can have this grace-filled salvation: “…just share God’s Good News with your lips and from your very own heart…” (Romans 10:8) That’s it. No glitz or glitter. No large banners or fight songs blaring. No yard signs piled upon one another 100 feet from the polling places to try and sway you at the last minute. No bright lights or loud booms to get everyone’s attention. Simply live and share that “Jesus is Lord.” Paul suggests this is sufficient in this life.
For Peter (good ol’ Peter) in this week’s Gospel, he is invited to walk out to Jesus on the water to join Him. Peter does fine until he pays more attention to the wind and the waves around him—that which attracts much more attention. Once he loses sight of the simple image of His Lord and Savior, he begins to sink. It’s a hard sell, this keeping our eye on Jesus, because the world is so tempting and luring as we focus on so many other things (yes, again, with the best of intentions).
Critics of the faith love to ask where God is in the mass murderings, the suicide bombings, the terrorist attacks on America and elsewhere, and mere constant threat of war. Our answer this morning is, “That’s the problem! He wasn’t there, for if He had been, it might not have happened!” I’m not suggesting God cannot be everywhere, He can. But where there is no faith, He can do no good work there (see Mark 6:1-6). God can work anywhere He chooses, but there are times when He chooses NOT to work. After all, it is His choice to make.
Where we find God is what happens after the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. (II Kings 19:11-13) He comes after the horror and the loss because that is where He lives out what He said He would do: be with us (Matthew 28:20b). He was not in the bombing of 9/11, but He was in the pain, rubble, and destruction that followed. For those who remember that terrible day and what followed: can you ever remember a greater time when God’s people came together after it all? I can’t.
We cannot any longer trust in the many “waves and wind” that surround us on a daily basis. Our constant focus must be on the Lord Jesus Christ, as one of my favorite hymns suggests, “…all other ground is sinking sand…” We mustn’t be swayed by society’s numerous winds, earthquakes, and fires that will only consume us. Turn to Jesus Christ.
When Luther finally had a grasp on the revolutionary ideas known as the “Reformation,” one of his mentors asked him, “If you take away all that the common person relies on for their faith (meaning statues of saints and rellics of any kind), what would you put it their place?”
Luther’s answer was simple, “Jesus Christ. One only needs Jesus Christ.”
Follow Him, and Him only. Proclaim with your lips and from your heart. Do it in your own, personal way. Don’t do like I or anyone else might do it. Be yourself. Have Christ as the apple of your eye. There you, me, and the world can find some peace…for the moment, but in the long run—for an eternity!
Remember that God loves you and so do we!
Pastor Jim