I gave the sermon today at church. Here it is in it's entirety.

This is the third in an ongoing series of annual sermons given by me. As I believe everything I do to be absolutely fascinating to those who know and don't know me, I like to think that the congregation is interested in keeping up on my faith journey. As fascinating as my facebook updates are to my followers, my spiritual growth is of the upmost importance to my fellow congregants. I realize this and offer you my third sermon. I know that some of my PNC Updates in the past year have been the length of a sermon, but this is, in fact, only my third.

In the past year I visited our friend Lee Arnot during one of her stays in the Methodist hospital. During my visit, she handed me a collection of Psalms translated by Stephen Mitchell and asked me to read Psalm 4. And she asked me to preach on it. As far as I'm concerned Lee's recent life and trials have been a living testament to Psalm 4. Let's hear it again.

PSALM 4 (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
"Comfort us; shield us from sorrow."
I pray for whatever you send me,
and I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
for I know that even now you are here.

During one visit, Lee confessed to not trusting the darkness. I guess that at that moment she wasn't feeling God's presence. I suppose her grief and fear and despair were overwhelming. We were sitting in the hallway outside her room, right across from the Nurses' Station. Next to her sat an old woman, deep into dementia, clinging to a doll, her baby. Every once in a while, she would look up and see me and take my hand. With furrowed brows and teary eyes, she'd express herself in a flow of sounds that were incomprehensible as words. A few yards away, on the other side of Lee, in his wheelchair, sat a man who was blind. He sat silently and would call out occasionally, breaking the impersonal sounds of the hospital ward with his own, deeply personal cry for comfort. At that time, this was Lee's moment-to-moment, day-to-day existence until a nurse wheeled her into her lonely hospital room.

How could Lee Arnot have come to this? Lee, who in doing God's work, has visited and consoled every sick and sorrowful member of our church? Lee, whose pleas to the congregation have never been for herself, but for others? Lee, who had left tea breads for every choir function last summer? How could she have been brought so low? And, since this is really about all of us, a question that perhaps we can all ask is "from where do we draw our strength when we feel that God has abandoned us? And where is God during our crises of health, finance or faith?"

Let's take a look at John 11 for some insight. In John 9, Jesus had just healed a blind man. The formerly blind man, the formerly blind man's parents and Jesus were all questioned by the Pharisees about the healing. Pharisees, by the way, were the noted, conservative and generally respected scholars and interpreters of religious matters at the time. In John 10, Jesus' conversation with the Pharisees continues. It ends with Jesus escaping a stoning and returning to the place where John the Baptist did his baptizing (and where everyone knew, loved and believed Jesus). John 11 begins with Jesus walking down the street and being told his close friend, Lazarus, is near death. There was some doubt as to whether Jesus should venture to see him as the people in that area were against him and he could be hurt or killed. There is so much in John 11 that could be discussed. So much. But, I'm concerned with the verse that in some translations simply states

"Jesus wept."

Some scholars (Morris) suggest that Jesus' weeping was grief over the misconception of those about him. Others offer that Jesus' tears were triggered by the thought of Lazarus in the tomb: not a personal grief over the loss of a friend (since Lazarus was about to be restored to life) but grief over the effects of sin, death, and the realm of Satan. (It is also possible that Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus because he knew there was also a tomb for himself ahead.)

Who knows why Jesus wept, really? And is it important to ask? Well, maybe it's important to ask as a tool or illustration to understand a little more about our relationship with God. Look at the actions and reactions - the arguments, the threats, the flight from harm - that lead up to this point and consider the betrayal, torture and pain that was about to occur (betrayal, torture and pain that we believe Jesus knew about all along) and it isn't difficult to understand why Jesus might have wept. I would have wept. And tried to place blame. And sulk. I know this because I've done this. Have you had a period in your life when nothing was working for you no matter how well you prepared or no matter what actions you took to remedy the situation? ... Yeah. So, Jesus wept. He wept and then he took action. He asked to have the rock that sealed the tomb moved away. And,

"Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, 'Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.' 40Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?' 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, 'Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.' 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' 44The dead man came out..."

Wouldn't it be great if it worked that well for us? Wouldn't it be great if we could say, "God, thank you for healing me of this cancer or financial crisis or split ends" and have it happen. I know that there are some here who believe that it will and for some of you maybe it has and, I don't know, maybe that's the official Presbyterian view (I really need to look that up), but I don't experience God working quite that way in my life. I don't believe God makes us sick (except to have made us mortal and susceptible to illness) and I don't believe God will heal us of our ills if we ask with enough faith. I just don't. Maybe someday I will and if so, I'll thank God with all that I am (and then be sure to tell you). Until then, though, I'm concentrating on looking to where God is in the sorrows and anguish that visit all of us in this Earthly existence.
For instance, I look to Lee Arnot who, sitting among the sorrowful and dispirited of that nursing facility, reached out to those who sat around her to see how she could lift them up. Lee knew the names of those people with whom she sat in the hallway. She spoke to them and tried to engage them in conversation. She did her best to reach them and show God's love even when she was at her lowest. I also look to the 10 men and women of First Presbyterian Church who took a morning and cheerfully and skillfully moved Lee's possessions from her Brooklyn Heights home to her new home in Park Slope and then prayed with Lee in her new home. Healing took place in me during that move when, as I went down to the truck to check to see if we had moved everything up to Lee's new place, I found Paul Austin and Reeves Carter sitting on the truck's back fender. "Two cops stopped us to give tickets for parking illegally (hey - except for the hydrant, it was the ideal parking space) and we talked them out of it." Truly, with the deep gratitude that comes in the presence of God's love, I embraced my brothers. Especially Reeves with whom I hadn't been seeing eye-to-eye in the past few months. Through Reeves, I received God's healing lovingkindness and grace. God was felt on President Street that morning.

A favorite book I return to at least once a year is Kate Braestrup's Here if You Need Me. Kate Braestrup is a journalist and a chaplain working with the Maine Forestry Service. She begins her book with her husband, a State Police Officer, being killed in an automobile accident. An event that, in part, prompted her to go to Seminary and became an important point of reference in her life; one, that serves throughout the book. Toward the final chapters she writes,

My children asked me, "Why did Dad die?"
I told them, "It was an accident. There are small accidents, like knocking over your milk at the dinner table. And there are large accidents, like the one your dad was in. No one meant it to happen. It just happened. And his body was too badly damaged in the accident for his soul to stay in it anymore, and so he died.
"God does not spill milk. God did not bash the truck into your father's car. Nowhere in scripture does it say, 'God is car accident' or 'God is death.' God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always--always--love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love."

Even as I read John 11 and my questions increased and I researched what theologians and scholars had to say so that I could deliver a decent, somewhat intelligent and even slightly authoritative sermon, I return to Psalm 4, the passage that began this whole train of thought and I read that God is in everything as long as I have faith. That no matter what shadows darken my days, God's light will shine through my own faith in God through Jesus Christ. And I'm beginning to understand this. And even if I understand this for a moment once in a while, I cherish that moment because I understand that this is one moment in a series of moments that are becoming more frequent in my life as my faith becomes stronger and my trust in God becomes more of my day-to-day living and not just in the dark days. And, though I'm not quite ready to say to Life's Tragedy "bring it on; I'm ready for it" I will continue to pray to see God in all moments of my life and in all of God's children who share those moments with me.

Thank you for listening.