The Care and Feeding of Saints

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church for June 6, 2015

(This is a pretty rough draft.)

Text: Luke 10:38-42

Once upon a time, Karin and I and a few friends climbed to the top of Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. You reach the summit by creeping along a knife-thin ribbon of rock that drops away on both sides in cliffs hundreds of feet high. The summit area itself, a large, flat rock bench is surrounded almost 360 degrees by vertical cliffs that, on the valley side, drop almost 1500 feet straight down. It's like you're floating in the sky. From the summit of Angel's Landing, the views of the Zion Canyon and the surrounding areas are magnificent. We were there late on a Sabbath afternoon. The weather was a bit iffy and we had the summit pretty much to ourselves. We fell into conversation with four college students. One of them mentioned he was studying drama. As the conversation continued, something prompted us to ask, “Can you do something for us? Can you recite something?” He hesitated just briefly, then agreed. He stepped a few feet away. Gathered himself, then launched into into a poem. The first line captured me, and the spell built through the entire performance. I don't remember now any of the words. I can't recall what the actor said. I do remember the astonishing power, the enchantment, my wish that it would never end. I was in Zion National Park again a few weeks ago. It was grand and beautiful, but I didn't climb Angel's Landing. The actor would not be there and I would be disappointed.

Here in Seattle most of us are familiar with the idea of the Ten Essentials. If you're going out in the mountains, you must take the ten essentials. Water and calories. Extra clothes. A headlamp. A map and compass. One thing I have never seen on any such list is an actor. And if I had not been there on Angel's Landing for that performance, I would never have imagined an actor could add the slightest value to the experience of the great outdoors. But I was there. And I bear witness: If you know a gifted actor who has devoted himself to his craft, if you know someone who has practiced and rehearsed, someone who has studied and submitted to the discipline of a teacher, take him to some rocky peak. Then wait for the magic.

Another story about the power of art. I purchased a book written by a New Mexico lawyer who was a Christian and an environmentalist. The book was his account of a week-long solo trek through a canyon in southern Utah. When I heard about the book, I knew I had to buy it. It brought together so many of my favorite things—desert, backpacking, contemplative Christianity, environmental ethics. It had to be good. It wasn't. I kept telling myself I had to like it. I would pick it up and read a few pages, but the writing was quite pedestrian. Days or weeks later I would pick up again, thinking maybe this time it would be better. It wasn't. The writing never did manage to hold my attention, but after a few weeks I realized that every time I noticed the book sitting on my desk my eyes were captured by the photo on the dust jacket.

It was a picture of a slot canyon. That's nice. I like slot canyons. I like pictures of canyons. But over time I realized this photo had a magic beyond merely the red rock and sinuous shape characteristic of that country. The photo itself was magic. It had a power beyond the mere subject matter. I became curious. What gave it such magic? Why was it so beckoning, so commanding. I went searching for information. It turned out the photo was by Elliot Porter. Then I understood.

In his day—1970s and 1980s—Porter was the most famous color photographer in America. He specialized in landscapes, creating lyrical, poetic visions of nature. I knew he was a professional photographer. I knew he had devoted his life to his art. But as that single photograph enchanted me over and over and over, I gained a much deeper appreciation of the power of his art.

Jesus and his disciples were traveling toward Jerusalem. The entourage arrived in a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

Other gospel stories tell us about a man named Lazarus who was a very special friend of Jesus. Lazarus had two sisters, Martha and Mary. So we think this is the same Martha, the sister of Lazarus. If so, Jesus stopping here would have been very much the expected thing. He had been there before. Every time he passed through that town, he stayed at Martha's house.

As would have been normal in that culture, while the men were in the living room listening to Jesus, Martha was in the kitchen cooking up a storm. I imagine she had a whole tribe of other women working with her. Martha was a good general. She was busy and knew how to keep other people around her busy as well.

At some point in this process, she stepped into the living room to see if any of her guests would like some water and she saw her sister, Mary, sitting there among all those men, right next to Jesus, hanging on his every word.

“Jesus,” Martha said with confident indignation. “doesn't it bother you that I'm slaving away in the kitchen and sister Mary here, is sitting on her tusch doing nothing? Tell her to get and help me.”

Let's turn this into a movie.

We begin with a few scenes from Martha's and Mary's childhood. Martha is the older sister, responsible, focused. Mary is the dreamer. Martha has to constantly remind Mary to be busy. They're weeding the garden and Mary has gotten distracted by a caterpillar. They're working in the kitchen and Mary has stopped to talk to the dog.

You can hear the exasperation in Martha's voice, “Mary, we don't have all day. You can talk to the dog later!”

Jesus arrives in the village. We see him and his entourage—a large group of people walking into town. Martha runs out of her house to say hello, then runs back inside to get dinner on. Women in the traveling company wander into the kitchen to help out. Martha gives everyone directions while somehow also accomplishing enough work for two people herself.

The camera switches back to the living room of the house. There is a close up of Jesus talking, then the camera pans left. We see Lazarus and Jesus' disciples, Peter, John, Judas, Thomas. There are other nameless men from the village and the traveling company. People are asking questions—not the “gottcha” questions of the religious experts, but genuine questions about the great issues of theology and the personal realities of spiritual life. Jesus' words were irresistibly charming and persuasive. It seemed to people that just listening to Jesus talk made you a better person, a happier person, a more hopeful and generous person.

Then the camera wanders slowly back to the right, and we see Mary. She's the only woman in the room full of men. But we are not surprised she's there. We could feel it coming. We see her listening with rapt attention.

The camera switches back to the kitchen and Martha. We see Martha head into the living room to offer water to her guests, and we know what's going to happen.

Ever since they were five and three years old respectively Martha has been telling Mary what to do. Martha is a general. If you were looking for a wedding coordinator or someone to organize the reception for your daughter's wedding, Martha would be your first choice. Everything would be done—just right and on time. Part of that focus means making sure other people stay on task.

“Jesus,” Martha says, hands on hips, “doesn't it bother you that I'm slaving away in the kitchen and sister Mary here, is sitting on her rear doing nothing? Tell her to get up and get busy.”

“Martha, Martha.” Jesus says, “You are all stressed out over the thousand details of entertaining this crowd. There is really only one thing worth that kind of obsession. Mary has chosen that one thing, and it will not be taken away from her."

Martha was a bit deflated. Not many people could boss her around, but Jesus could. Jesus had spoken. She yielded and headed back into the kitchen. Mary kept listening.

It's a classic story about the tug of war between being practical and being visionary, between being an activist and being a mystic, between praying and doing.

When I read this story in preparation for today's sermon, I heard in this story an affirmation of the spiritual, visionary, mystical heart of our faith. Religion tells us to do good, to get things done, to be busy. Yes. It also asserts that all this doing and busyness is subordinate to something greater—the ineffable experience of God.

Most of us agree that the Ten Essentials are a useful, truthful descriptions of how we should engage with the outdoors. And most of us, I'm pretty confident, would recognize the value of a photographers eye and an actor's voice.

Elliot Porter with his photography and that actor on Angel's Landing were not less valuable than extra clothes. They were not even less valuable than food and water. As human beings, we need more than bread alone.

Because our ordinary needs are so demanding and obvious, we can sometimes forget their subordination to the glory of art and faith.

This spring, I spent a week in the desert with a geology student. Late in the week, he told me of his spiritual journey. He had grown up in the Catholic Church. Happily went to church every week. Graduated from high school and went to work, still happily involved in church. Then he headed off to university. The culture there was strongly atheistic. He was told he had to choose between engagement with the “real world” and the fantasies of church.

When it's put that way, any self-respecting scientist is going to go with reality. But reality—rocks and numbers and chemistry and physics did not satisfy his soul. So now he asked me, was it possible to live in both worlds? Was it possible to respect the knowledge of science and to connect with the other world, the world of spirituality?

He ended the week by attending church. It was a first step back toward the glory hinted at by the poet on Angel's Landing. Above the rock and the glorious canyon there was another reality—God.

Just this week, I received an email from a university student. He dreams of getting his Ph. D. and teaching English literature. In his email he said, “I believe that all great literature reveals something of God to those who are discerning. I want to help students see the light that shines through the words.”

This student is not an Adventist. A friend had given him a copy of my book on spirituality and it spoke to him. He wanted to be part of a community that saw God in that light. But, he asked, is there actually room for me in the Adventist Church? Is there room for someone who sees truth not just in the Bible but also in the Tolkien and Beowold and Harry Potter?

Is there room for me in your church? Can I recite my poem, can I show my picture in your church?

The world is like Martha, constantly demanding that we be busy. We must be constantly productive, constantly striving to control the world, improve our situation.

But people are hungry for something else, for poetry that stirs the soul, for photographs that enthrall us, for an experience of God that satisfies the soul.

Our job as a church, is to join with Jesus in saying, those who pursue these hungers have chosen the best. Here at church we push back against the imperious demands of realists and reductionists. Beauty and grace are precious. Faith, hope and love are worthy of our time and attention.

Here in church we keep alive the secret knowledge that above all other beauties and wonders is the glory of God. Here in church we bold assert that our hunger for God is a reflection of the desire of the All Mighty.

We understand the clamor of the necessary. We understand the urgent needs of the world. We ourselves endeavor to feed people and clothe them and heal them and provide them with all the blessings of technology. We are not scornful of the tangible, material world. We simply insist there is something higher and more beautiful. Here, we honor the quest for God.

Who Do We Mean, When We Say God?

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, August 23, 2014

We've been doing a sermon series inspired my conversations with young atheists. For Americans my age, the word “atheist” is an alien word, a harsh, jagged affront to convention and conviction. But many young people nowadays happily embrace the label. Just last week, sitting on the sidewalk at my favorite table outside Teddy's Bigger Burgers on Green Lake Way, a group of teenagers walked past. One of the guys asked the girl in the group, “So, I hear you're an atheist.” Without the slightest hesitation or awkwardness she launched into an explanation which I did not hear because they had moved beyond my hearing. But I was struck with the casualness of the entire conversation. It is that kind of young, casual atheism that has been in my mind as I've worked on this sermon series.

Once upon a time, a few thousand years ago, the king of Damascus started sending raiding parties into Israel, his neighbor to the south. The story as it comes down to us, does not describe any precipitating event for these raids. The way I imagine it, there was a new king on the throne, a young man. His dad, the old king, had died. Now it was the young buck's turn. He wanted to demonstrate his leadership, so he did what red-blooded kings did in those days. He went to war. Not an all-out, win-it-or-lose- everything war. He wasn't that crazy. But still it was military action that would demonstrate his leadership—and bring in some oil revenue (oops. I should have said olive oil revenue.)

The king led his army in a series of cross-border raids. They set up carefully-planned ambushes. Maybe they were waiting for a wagon train loaded with grain or a camel caravan carrying more expensive stuff. Whatever. They would set up a perfect ambush. The secrecy would absolute. The camouflage flawless. Then nothing would happen. No traffic would come down the road. Not even any Israeli military patrol. Nothing. The raiding party would be sitting there, baking in the sun, eating their own provisions. Bored. Frustrated. And very embarrassed. Because eventually they would head home with nothing to show for their effort.

My guess is the king got mad. (You don't want the king mad!) The king tried different places, different strategies. But every ambush came up empty.

Finally, the king called in all his officers and threw a temper tantrum. “Who is the traitor?” he demanded. “Obviously, one of you is leaking our plans to the enemy. It's the only possible explanation. We have tried every possible method of ambush. Every accessible road across northern Israel. Every time we come up empty. It's crystal clear the enemy is getting inside information. So who is it?”

He stared around the circle of his commanders. It was a pretty tense moment. Each officer knew his own innocence, but still . . . What if someone else suspected him? What if someone started pointing fingers just to divert attention? Maybe some of these officers had Israeli slaves, maybe an Israeli wife or mistress—connections that could look really suspicious if anyone pointed the finger his direction.

People were sweating. The king's eyes were bugging out. “Who? Who is it? You might as well 'fess up because I'm going to find out. Someone is spilling secrets to the Israelis.”

Minutes passed. People didn't move. They scarcely breathed.

Then an old man on the king's right spoke up. He was by far the oldest in the group. Old enough to be the king's father. He had, in fact, served with the king's father for decades.

“Sir, we are your loyal servants. We are not traitors. But I can tell you who is passing secrets.”

He had the king's attention. “So? Who?”

“Sir, it's nobody in this circle. It's a prophet named Elisha. He's amazing. Years ago, before you were born, when your father was king, the commander of our army was diagnosed with leprosy. He had a Jewish servant girl who had claimed that if he went to Samaria there was a prophet there who would cure him. Naaman went down there with a load of gold and came back healed. Sir, his skin was like a baby's skin. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. That's the kind of power this prophet has. There are even stories of him raising the dead. Elisha can tell the King of Israel what you whisper to your woman when your heads are on one pillow.

“So, be gentle with your men, Sir. They are as hungry for victory and booty as you are.”

I'm always amused by what happens next. To me it is strong evidence that the Damascus king was young and brash.

“Go find out where the prophet is and let's capture him!” The king ordered.

It was a fool's errand, but warriors do as their superiors direct. The Damascus special forces headed south to find Elisha.

They had reports of Elisha being in the town of Dothan. They marched through the night and surrounded the town. Surprisingly, Elisha was still there. God had not alerted him to leave. The soldiers were thrilled. The king was going to be really happy.

Shortly after sunrise an old man appeared on a roof top near the city wall. He looked out their direction, appeared to engage in prayer and that was the last anyone in the army saw. During the prayer, the entire army went blind. They could see nothing. The old man had amazing power.

A little later, an old man approached the army asking to speak to the commander. When the commander was located the old man asked, “What's up?”

“We are looking for the prophet, Elisha.” The commander said.

The old man began laughing. “You've got it all wrong. You're in the wrong place. You're chasing the wrong man.” That much was not all that surprising. The army commander did not really think Elisha would really be sitting in a small walled city waiting for the Damascus special forces to surround it. On the other hand, the power of the old man they had seen to blind the entire army suggested the old man must be the fabled prophet.

The old man told the commander, “Follow me. I'll take you where you need to go.”

What could the commander do? He was blind. His entire army was blind. They were in enemy territory. Following the old man sounded like walking into a trap, but the commander didn't have a lot of options. He was in the heart of enemy territory. Blind. Any moment he expected to feel the edge of a sword against his neck.

So the commander grouped his men. Then hands on shoulders, the mass of warriors shuffled down the road, scared to death, wondering when they were going to fall into a pit, or find themselves on the point of a spear.

For hours, they stumbled along. Hot, thirsty, hungry. Then they could tell they were going through something. A tunnel? A cave entrance? A gate? Maybe this was the end.

A few minutes later, they hear the old man's voice. He addressed his God. “Lord, open their eyes!”

Instantly they could see. The view was not too reassuring. They were staring at the tips of arrows notched in drawn bows, raised swords, pointed spears. This was not good. I'm guessing at this point the soldiers were not too happy with their boy king back in Damascus. What did that fool, the king, imagine he was going to accomplish by messing with the prophet?

Up to this point, this story sounds like other ancient tales of warriors and wizards and magic. But this is not a fairy tale. It is not a story of military folly or magic or romance. It's theology. The story sets up a profound moral lesson.

The King of Israel surveying the band of enemy warriors imprisoned in his town square and says to the prophet Elisha. “Shall I kill them? Shall I obliterate them?”

Imagine for a minute that Elisha was not there. Imagine the king asked you what to do. And your job is to tell the king God's will for this moment. What did God want the king to do?

Remember these Damascus soldiers were part of an army that had been practicing naked aggression. Completely without provocation, they have been crossing Israel's borders aiming to do harm and steal stuff. They came from a nation that had been warring with Israel off and on for generations.

These warriors had been captured on an evil, deadly mission. What should the king do with them? What was God's will?

Among the young people I talk to, the label atheist means a commitment to honesty, justice, and compassion. When they call themselves atheist they are announcing their refusal to agree with the institutional church when it damages people or advocates error. It is a sign that they regard human well-being as a higher value than any dogma, including religious dogma.

So I respect my young atheist friends. But sometimes, when I'm feeling a little grumpy, I challenge them. “Just what kind of atheist are you? The most famous atheists in my life time have not been very nice people.”

When they think of atheists, they think of people like Hemant Mehta who writes a blog called “The Friendly Atheist.” Mehta is generally polite. He seems like a nice guy. But I think of atheists, I think of people like Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin and Pol Pot. Mao killed fifty million Chinese in an engineered famine. Stalin killed twenty million people he didn't think were good for the Soviet Union. Pol Pot thought atheism was the best philosophy for his country and killed twenty-five percent of the population in his zeal to prove that his ideas were the very best.

My young friends get impatient at this point. They would never kill people. They would never approve of the kind of barbarity practiced by Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.

Still my questions are not irrelevant. Historically speaking, atheism has not always been a bright, shining pursuit of truth and justice. Sometimes it is the name of a dark and evil force.

With this as background, let's go back to our story.

What was God's will for the king of Israel as he surveyed a town square full of dangerous soldiers from an enemy country? What would God do with all these bad men?

This is a tricky question. Our gut tells us that mercy is the right answer, but someone else might argue that God is a stern judge and king. And they could quote Bible verses in support of the king's idea of killing the captives.

They could quote Moses' words about Sihon, King of Hesbon:

And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. Deuteronomy 2:34

Or the report in Joshua about what God's directions regarding the people of Jericho:

And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6:21 (There was an exception made for Rahab and her family, but other than that . . . )

Or the instructions of the Prophet Samuel to King Saul regarding Amalekites:

Now go and smite the Amalekites, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15:3

If you based your advice to the king on these Bible verses, what would you say? What would be the right answer to the question, “Shall I smite them?”

It is these verses that cause our young atheist friends to challenge us when we say we believe in God. They want to know, just what God do we believe in? The God of hell fire and capital punishment and genocide and the stoning of brides who cannot prove their virginity on the day of their marriage? Is that the God we believe in? Do we believe in the God of Westboro Baptist Church and Mark Driscoll?

It is entirely fair that our young friends ask us this question.

And what is our answer?

We believe in the God of Elisha. Elisha told the king, “If you had captured these soldiers with your own sword, you would remember the rules of war. Captives must be fed. So feed them. Give them something to drink. And send them home to their master.”

The king did what the prophet said. And the story ends—they lived happily ever after. Well, not in those words, but that's the sentiment. Syria quit raiding Israel. Peace was created.

When I tell my young atheist friends about the God I believe in, this is the God I tell them about—the God of peace. The God who forgives. The God whose grand goal is not retribution but reconciliation. The God whose supreme purpose is not appropriate punishment but glorious healing.

The genocide of the Old Testament is not God's ideal. The commandments in the Old Testament to kill people—whether in genocide, stoning for adultery, or blessing soldiers who commit atrocities—these commands do not express the character and purpose of God. Rather they reflect the brokenness of humanity. The highest virtue of religion is to heal that brokenness, to cultivate a vision that is higher and more noble than retribution, condemnation and punishment.

When we say we believe in God, we are declaring our allegiance to God's program to move people away from brokenness toward wholeness, away from anger and alienation toward reconciliation and peace, away from wickedness to goodness, away from fierceness to harmony.

My guess is when we get this right, when we as a people speak the language of justice and peace and live in harmony with the principles of righteousness, our young atheist friends will see what we are doing and will hear what we are saying, and they will say, “Yes. That's what we meant.”

This past Wednesday, I was back at my favorite table on Green Lake Way eating my vegeburger, working on my sermon when another group of teenagers came by. I could hear them coming. They were asking other diners along the sidewalk for a dollar and sixty cents. They needed that much to buy a pizza. No one was buying.

They got to where I was sitting. “Hey, any chance you could give us a dollar and sixty cents? We're that much short for a pizza.”

It was a test. I had wanted the teenagers who walked past the week before, talking about atheism to stop and let me join the conversation. I love getting all philosophical with kids. But, of course, they didn't stop.

Instead the kids who stop are people who are hungry and are looking for money not wisdom. So I walked next door with the kids, had them place their order and put their money on the counter, then I added a couple of bucks to their pile so they could get their pizza.

I didn't know their stories. I don't know how they ended up that afternoon on Green Lake Way, a dollar and sixty cents short the cost of medium pizza. But I had money in my pocket and food in my belly. And the God I believe in says when we have sufficient, we are called to share.

We believe in God, the God of Elisha. The God who helps and heals, who forgives and reconciles, the God who creates peace and harmony. The more deeply we believe in this God and the more consistently we live in harmony with God's glorious ideals, the easier it will be for our young atheist friends to join and say, “We, too, believe.”

God and Atheists, Part 2: Human Experience

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

For Sabbath, August 9, 2014

Wednesday evening I peddled my bicycle the few block from here [Green Lake Church] to Teddy's Bigger Burgers. I locked up my bike, ordered my usual vegeburger and fries, then headed back outside to my usual table on the sidewalk. It was a glorious evening, warm and sunny. The sidewalk was busy with people pushing strollers, walking dogs, or headed to one of the restaurants in the neighborhood.

At some point I looked up and noticed way down the block at the corner a couple embracing, then kissing.

A few minutes later I noticed them leisurely walking up the block toward me. They were both fit. Maybe they had run around the lake together. She was tall, red hair, a rich smile on her face. He was muscular, just a bit shorter than she was. Obviously happy. They stopped at the bike rack opposite me and he began turning the dials on the cable lock on his bike, explaining to this beautiful woman why he preferred combination locks to keyed locks. He was in no hurry and as he continued talking and messing with his bike, I turned my attention back to my burger and fries, smiling at the magic of romance.

Only romance would fool a guy into thinking a beautiful woman was interested in a lecture on the relative merits of combination versus keyed bike locks. Only romance or motherhood, would prompt a smart woman to acted interested in said lecture. But that's what romance does. That's what love does.

One of my physician friends likes to talk about romance in terms of hormones and brain chemistry. The brain can sustain the fiery intensity of romance only so long, he says. It's his way of explaining away “the truth” of love as seen through the eyes of young lovers.

A few months ago I listened to a psychologist seated next to me at a dinner table explain that fMRIs show that the brains of people in love are “disordered.” That was her word. She went on to speak dismissively of the starry-eyed dreams of lovers. I think the older people at the table were supposed to nod their heads and wisely agree that romance is an exercise in insanity. But I wasn't persuaded. I'm a hopeless, shameless romantic. Obviously, what we see through the lenses of romance is not objective. But that does not make it false or undesirable. Human life purged of the magic and charm of romance would not be an improvement. And the language of hormones and brain chemistry, and electrical activity in the brain function is utterly inadequate for conversation about the human experience of love.

Given the neighborhood where I was eating my vegeburger and witnessed the charming scene I just described, it's possible the red head was neurologist and the muscular guy was a psychiatrist. If that's who they were, let's imagine listening to either of them describe their afternoon to their respective friends.

They would have at their disposal all the language of science to describe their afternoon, but I doubt we would words about hormones and pheromones. We wouldn't hear about mate selection in pursuit of the propagation of genes. Instead we would hear the language of love and romance and friendship—the only language remotely adequate for this wonderous human experience.

It is the same with spirituality.

You can study human spirituality using various scientific tools—neurology, biochemistry, psychology, sociology. These scientific disciplines can give us useful insights. They can identify various predictable correlates with spiritual experience, but when you sit down to talk with someone who has had a direct experience with God, the language of science quickly becomes utterly inadequate. The concrete language of science can at best describe only pieces of the experience. And all of the pieces together do not equal the experience any more than an analysis of hormones or a map of electrical activity in the brain is adequate for talking about love.

Which is a long way round to get to today's scripture, Acts 9

Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord's followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them--both men and women--back to Jerusalem in chains.

As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?"

"Who are you, lord?" Saul asked.

The voice replied, "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."

The men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone's voice but saw no one! Saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes he was blind. So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. He remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink. [Act 9:1-9 New Living Translation, accessed through Blue Letter Bible.com]

This story of Paul's encounter on the Damascus Road sets the stage for us to understand the most influential missionary in the history of Christianity. Paul had been a devout, brilliant, implacable enemy of the Jesus People. Then traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus to continue his crusade against these corrupters of religion, he had his own, personal encounter with the Risen Jesus. He changes course 180 degrees and becomes a Christian preacher.

The early Christian church was founded by people who had dramatic spiritual experiences. The church grew because of the attractive force of dramatic personal stories. People experienced miraculous healings. They experienced ecstasy and had visions. The early Christian Church was not a club of Bible scholars and philosophers. It was filled with people who had direct encounters with the divine that was persuasive and attractive.

You can try to account for all these stories using various psychological and sociological descriptions and explanations, but in the end they fail to tell the story. It's like describing a rainbow in terms of wave lengths of light and diameters of rain drops. You haven't said anything about the why we rush to grab our cameras.

We are sitting here today because of experiences people had 2000 years ago, and because the experiences did not stop happening 2000 years ago.

I sat down yesterday in Starbucks to finish my sermon. I noticed a book on the table next to me, “Living with a Wild God” by Barbara Ehrenreich. It grabbed my attention. I thought Barbara Ehrenriech was an atheist. I asked the woman at the table if she had read the book. She had. She found it difficult to read, but fascinating. “You can have a look, if you like,” she said motioning to the book. I picked it up and read the blurbs on the dust jacket and the description on the inside front cover.

Then I got on line and read several reviews. I was right, Barbara Ehrenreich was famous as a curmudgeonly atheist. And yes, this book was about her teenage encounters with God. They did not fit any of the categories of experience people she knew talked about. A couple of times she had tried to talk about them, but people thought she was crazy. So, for decades she had ignored those encounters. Finally, she went back and looked again at the journals she had kept in those days, trying to make sense of experiences that did not fit any of her secular categories.

Here is Barbara's description of one of those encounters:

The world flamed into life. How else to describe it? There were no visions, no prophetic voices or visits by totemic animals, just this blazing everywhere. Something poured into me and I poured out into it. This was not the passive beatific merger with the ‘All,’ as promised by the Eastern mystics. It was a furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once, and one reason for the terrible wordlessness of the experience is that you cannot observe fire really closely without becoming part of it. Whether you start as a twig or a gorgeous tapestry, you will be recruited into the flame and made indistinguishable from the rest of the blaze.

The book is not a conversion story. Barbara still does not have confident, helpful language for talking about what happened. But honestly confronting her own experience has led to a late-in-life admission that rationalism and scientism are not adequate for describing her own life. The fullness of her humanity cannot be accounted for without resorting to language of God and spirituality.

Late in the book, Barbara writes: “It took an inexcusably long time for me to figure out that what happened to me when I was 17 represents a widespread, if not exactly respectable, category of human experience.”

To which one reviewer responded: “It took Ehrenreich so long to learn that her visions were a part of human experience not because the visions were so foreign, but because human experience was altogether foreign to her, too.”

(NY Times Book Review: “Vision Quest,” a review of ‘Living With a Wild God,’ by Barbara Ehrenreich. By Parul Sehgal. April 25, 2014)

Just as love and romance are essential to the richest, sweetest experience of humanity, so religion and spirituality are essential to living fully human lives. And the language of God and spirituality are necessary for rich, meaningful conversations about these kinds of experiences.

When we use the word atheism to describe insistence by young people that we be honest about unanswered questions, it has powerful appeal. Our religious answers don't always work. Just as some people have rich experiences of the presence and favor of God, others have devastating experiences of the absence or inaction of God

Just last week I met a woman after church who needed some financial assistance. She told me her story. For 40 years she had worked, bought groceries, paid her rent, went on vacation. Then three years ago the business she was working for closed. No problem. She figured she would get another job. But it didn't happen. Now she's on the streets. Where is God, she asked. “I prayed,” she said. “And prayed and prayed. But either God won't help me or he can't.”

I winced when she said that. I felt the sting. Her experience seems to contradict the promises of God we celebrate here at church. When atheism is a label for our willingness to hear this kind of story and not discount it, then atheism is a label worthy of respect.

But atheism falls apart when it imagines we can account for the entire range of human experience without invoking the language of God and spirituality. There is far too much human experience that can only be explored and celebrated through the language of God and spirituality.

In fact, the very commitment of atheists to the pursuit of truth and justice makes most sense against a background of the reality of that fiery presence Barbara Ehrenreich experienced decades ago.

So to my atheist friends I offer this:

If you have not had a direct experience with the divine, we will not ask you to pretend. We share your commitment to honesty. We will not pretend that your lack of experience of God is evidence of bad character or bad judgment.

On the other hand we will encourage you to respect the stories of others who have had such experiences. Don't pretend that psychology, sociology and neurology can provide adequate language for the entire human experience. Don't narrow your world to things that can be counted, weighed and measured with a tape measure or micrometer. Don't imagine that a world without romance is an improvement.

In church we celebrate the reality of God. We honor the stories people tell. We prize the stories of God's involvement in the world. We love the stories of the fiery presence.

We also respect the stories of God's absence. For those who feel the weight of God's absence, we join you in your longing.

Remember the couple I saw on Green Lake Way? The beautiful woman and muscular guy. The guy was unlocking his bicycle and talking about why he preferred combination locks to keyed locks. The next time I glanced their direction, he had his lock stowed, his bike away from the bike stand and was preparing to get on and ride away. That much was entirely unremarkable. It was the woman who caught my eye. She was standing there looking at him getting on his bicycle and I instantly saw she was wanting one more kiss. Her body language was as eloquent and unmistakable as a movie scene. He was utterly oblivious. They had had a wonderful time running or playing ball or frisbee across the street at the park. The date was over. He had kissed her good down the street. Now he had places to go, things to do. He was preparing to ride away, but she wanted another kiss. To me sitting ten feet away, it was plain as day and sweet as jam. I'm thinking, how can he not see it? He throws his leg over his bicycle and calls over his shoulder, “Love you.” And was stopped in his tracks. She said something. I didn't hear her words. I saw the effect. He planted both feet and opened his arms.

I was not watching chemistry or neurology. I was watching love.

And when we come to church or climb a mountain or sit on a park bench and open our hearts, we are not chasing an illusion. We are not merely activating a fossil neural pathway, we are opening our hearts toward a reality called in English, God. We are longing for the kiss of the divine.

May you not be forever kept waiting.

Church and Young Atheists

Church and Young Atheists: Part one in a series, God and Young Atheists

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, August 2, 2014

Texts: Colossians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:34-40

Luke 10:25ff

Mark 12:28-34

Erica attended Auburn Adventist Academy. She graduated from Walla Walla University—an Adventist school—and moved back to Seattle. A few months ago we met at Starbucks in Pioneer Square to catch. on life. She asked about my kids and the animals at our house. Then it was time to find out what was going on in her world. She was working for a non-profit, making a little money and a big difference in the lives of her clients. Her boyfriend was similarly employed. She was happy.

I had heard through the grape vine she was an atheist, so I asked about that. She explained she didn't really know for sure there was no God. She just found it easier to say she was an atheist than to try explaining all the complications in her mind in regard to God. Church people had been good to her she said. It's just that she couldn't believe everything she was supposed to believe. So she called herself an atheist and no one hassled her about the details.

I meet more and more young people like Erica. They grew up going to church. They used to believe, used to pray, to read their Bibles. Now they consider themselves atheists. Some of my young friends are quite confident that science gives a completely sufficient description of the forces and causes operating in the universe. There is no need for God. Others are not so certain. The most obvious characteristic of their thinking is questions.

I thought it would be good for us as a congregation to think about these young people. How should we respond to their questions, to their lives?

Let's begin with a curious congruence between what these young people tell me and the words of the Apostle Paul.

At the beginning of the book of Colossians we read these words.

We are writing to God’s holy people in the city of Colosse, who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. May God our Father give you grace and peace. We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people. which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News. This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace. (Colossians 1:2-6 NLT)

Grace and peace. . . . We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people. The Good News that came to you is . . . bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives.

Paul had never met these people, but he had heard about them. And from what he had heard, it was clear the religion of these Christians in Turkey was not merely a set of dogmas or Bible interpretations. Their shaped their lives. They were good people.

When I talk with young atheists, one thing that jumps out at me over and over is their affirmations of the church. They remember going to church and being treated well there. The people at church they knew were good people.

Of course, you can find horror stories. Church leaders and church people have been sexually and verbally abusive. But I only hear about this in the news. I do not hear about this from the young people I know. They may think of themselves as atheists. They may find church irrelevant or uninteresting at this point in their lives, but when they tell me about their direct, personal experience of church, church was a good place, populated by good people.

You have done a good job representing God to your young people.

Speaking to you as representatives of the world church, I say, “Thanks.” Thanks for being kind. Thanks for teaching Sabbath School classes and involving young people in the life of the church. Thanks for learning the names of the kids who sit on the same row you do in church. Thanks for taking kids out on your boat, for taking them camping and for involving them in feeding the homeless. It is because you have shown the kindness of God to these young people that they are willing to sit down at Starbucks and articulate their questions and uncertainties. Because of the goodness of people like you, church is not a scary place. Because of you, church is seen as a wholesome community of good people. You make God look good.

As we consider how we can best respond to the atheism of young people who have grown up in our churches, let's take satisfaction in knowing that most of these young people have seen good things in church. Church is not “the problem.” These young people do not struggle with faith because you have failed. You are not to blame for their crises of faith.

When I talk to people in their fifties and older, I frequently hear stories about damage they experience in church. Church in their youth was not a safe place, not a welcoming place. But happily, I do not hear those kinds of stories from people in their twenties and thirties. Which brings me to my second point. In responding to our young atheist friends, we should pay attention to what they say. They are not processing great failures by the church to care for them as persons. Rather they are pondering deep, haunting questions that lie at the very core of religious and theological conviction.

The gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, all recount conversations between Jesus and a questioner who asks the great big question. If the conversation had happened today, the question would have been something like, “What is the meaning of life?”

In that society, the question went like this, “What is the greatest commandment?” “What is the highest human obligation?”

Here's the way Matthew tells the story: a conservative religious scholar asks the question not to seek understanding, but as a secret attempt to make Jesus look bad. Of course, Jesus wins the day by giving a wise, incontrovertible answer. The first and greatest commandment is to love God with your entire being. But you can't stop with one commandment. There is a second right up there with the first. And that second commandment is love your neighbor as yourself. answers well this way: A Pharisee tempted Jesus by asking what is the greatest commandment? (Matthew 22:34-40)

The Gospel of Luke also pictures the questioner as someone out to score points in a debate with Jesus. This time the question comes out like this: “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” Interestingly, Jesus does not immediately answer the question. Instead he asks the scholar for his understanding of the Bible. What is his answer to the question. The lawyer gave the classic answer Jewish thinkers drew from the Books of Moses—Love God and love your neighbor. Jesus said, “You've got it right. Do that, and you're good to go.” Since the lawyer hadn't actually been looking for insight, he refused to accept this as the answer. Nothing can be that simple. So he asked the complicated question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus then told a story that confronted the lawyer with the stark challenge of a moral choice. The real questions are not theoretical definitions, but am I willing to take moral action? Will I do goodness? (Luke 10:25ff).

In both Matthew and Luke, the questioner is morally suspect. The purpose of recording the story is to show the wisdom and goodness of Jesus. Mark does something very different.

In Mark's story, the questioner is also a scholar. But instead of setting out to trick Jesus, he asks his question because he has been impressed with the answers Jesus has given to other questions. This scholar engages in conversation for the purpose of seeking understanding. He asks Jesus the same famous question, “What is the most significant commandment?” Jesus answered with his famous summary, The first commandment is love God with your entire being. The second commandment is love your neighbor as yourself.

Now notice what happens. After hearing Jesus' answer, the scholar, says. “Yes. That's right. Because surely there is only One God. And to love God with one's entire being and to love one's neighbor matters more than the performance every possible religious ritual.”

The scholar asks a real question.

Jesus gives a real answer.

The scholar sees the wisdom in Jesus' answer and affirms it.

Then what happens next? Jesus affirms the scholar. “You are not far from the kingdom!” (Mark 12:28-34).

This story provides a model for our conversations with young atheists. When we talk with young atheists, there is little value in attempting to prove that we are right. In the stories of Matthew and Luke Jesus is shown to be right, but where does that leave the questioner? The questioner is wrong and lost. But in Mark, the questioner is shown as an honest seeker for truth. The point is not proving that Jesus is right, but that he leads questioners to toward the kingdom and blesses them in their journey.

Let's learn to copy Jesus. Let's not aim to make ourselves look good. We don't even need to work to make the church look good. Rather let's learn to hear our young friends. Let's honor their quest for truth.

Most of the time when you ask young people why they are atheists, they will tell you about their commitments to truth and justice. When they voice these values, we can say to them truthfully, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

When we listen carefully and respectfully to our young friends, they will help us sharpen our own thinking. We will create the kind of community that they themselves dream of inhabiting.

Many of the young atheists, I know are single or without children. If we continue to respect their spiritual journey now, while they questioning and searching, it may well be that when they have children and look for a community that will help them teach their children compassion, integrity, justice, peace, and wisdom, they will decide that the church is just the kind of community they have been looking for. They will once again claim their place in this visible expression of the family of God.

Questions My Kids Ask

Article for Green Lake Church Gazette

August 2014

Occasionally I have the honor of conversation with people young enough to be my children. I meet these young people inside and outside the church. They ask hard questions, good questions.

Why would a good God—who knew the future and was perfectly free—create a world in which most people would be lost? Did God deliberately decide that the loss of most humanity was an acceptable price to pay to acquire the kind of world he wanted for himself?

Did God create rainbows to encourage our faith and fossils to test our faith?

How can a good God (who is omnipotent, omniscient, and ubiquitous) be reconciled with suffering which is visible, palpable and randomly distributed?

Since most religions claim we are right and all those others are wrong, why should the claims of any religion be taken seriously? How can we prove the Bible is true? How can we prove the Bible is the best (or only) source of information about God?

Would a good God really condemn to eternal hell fire people whose primary “crime” was an incomplete or incorrect opinion about Jesus?

Why should I reject science, which has demonstrably increased longevity, in favor of religion which promises eternal life (but offers no proof)?

Some of the young people asking these questions call themselves atheists. Others call themselves Christian. Whatever label they apply to themselves, the questions are significant. All these questions evince a deep regard for justice and truth. Young people ask these questions because of they care about goodness. Their questions are an expression of their active moral compasses, their lively sense of conscience. So, they deserve our respect.

Why would a good God—who knew the future and was perfectly free—create a world in which most people would be lost? Did God deliberately decide that the loss of most humanity was an acceptable price to pay to acquire the kind of world he wanted for himself?

I grew up hearing preachers quote three statements by Ellen White, the Adventist prophet, that implied more than ninety-five percent of humanity would burn in the lake of fire. Similarly gloomy opinions can be found across Christianity. When I googled “How many will go to hell?” The first piece I pulled up was titled, “Billions of People Are Going to Hell.” The author figured that at least ninety-nine percent of humanity would be burned in hell. Other sites offered similarly depressing assessments. This is not the universal conclusion of Christian preachers, but it is not rare.

As a teenager, I unhesitatingly believed what I heard about the difficulty of being saved. Getting into heaven was certainly harder than getting into Harvard (current acceptance rate >5%). I resolved to be part of that tiny remnant of good-enough people. I cultivated a devotional life. I rigorously observed Adventist rules regarding snacking, movies, caffeine, slang, flesh foods, mustard, fiction, smoking, alcohol and drugs. I am happy for the discipline and structure of that childhood religion. However, I emphatically reject its gloomy picture of God and humanity. Is it really possible that God created a system which he knew would be a disastrous failure for most of humanity? No! Not if God is good.

If I knew I carried a gene for a severe disorder that would doom ninety-five percent of my progeny, I would not have had children. You would probably make the same decision. And we are not more tenderhearted than God. When our children ask, “Would a good God accept the damnation of most of his children as an acceptable price for acquiring the world he wanted?” we know the answer is NO! We don't have to do fancy exegesis. We don't have to know Hebrew and Greek. We don't have to argue the merits of varying translations. The answer to that question is NO! When our children ask this question, we should commend them for seeing clearly.

Did God create rainbows to encourage our faith and fossils to test our faith?

Nature is not a book of tricks. Rainbows really are caused by the interplay of raindrops and sunlight. We can remember the words of Genesis and find reassurance of God's beneficence in the splendor of the rainbow, but we don't imagine that rainbows are a magic show. Fossils really the result of natural processes. They are not a tricky test given by the great teacher in the sky to see who is willing to ignore the evidence available to their senses. The God who created rainbows and inspired the Bible prophets is the same God who was present at the creation of the fossils. Physics and chemistry may seem to be more accessible to our understanding, and less controversial than geology, but the rocks don't lie. We cannot expect our kids to believe in God and God's Book and disbelieve God's rocks.

How can a good God (who is omnipotent, omniscient, and ubiquitous) be reconciled with suffering which is visible, palpable and randomly distributed?

Across the centuries Christians have offered various explanations of suffering. Adventists have given special attention to a narrative explanation called “The Great Controversy.” These explanations can be helpful, but every explanation asks us to skip lightly over huge imponderables. How do we calculate the weight of pain? Until we have lived long in that gray space where praying for the release of death is easier than asking for healing we ought to speak very humbly and quietly in our attempts to make good sense of suffering. I think our children will have greater respect for what we do say if we acknowledge there are some questions beyond any possibility of answer in this life.

Since most religions claim we are right and all those others are wrong, why should the claims of any religion be taken seriously? How can we prove the Bible is true? How can we prove the Bible is the best (or only) source of information about God?

Many Christians devote a lot of energy to insisting that our way is the only right way to speak of God. We would do better to invite people to do taste tests. Come and experience God with us. Experience for yourself the value of our religion. If someone tries our religion and finds it useless, why would we keep insisting it is the perfect religion for them. On the other hand, if we persuaded a person intellectually that our religion was the best and they never actually lived it, what would be the value of our persuasive effort? Winning arguments is difficult. In the realm of spirituality, winning is probably pointless. Instead, let's invite people into the sweetness of our life with God. Encourage them to experience God for themselves. Let's offer our testimony about what we believe and how religion works for us. If this is not attractive, there is little to be gained from argument.

The New Testament offers many anecdotes illustrating the power of direct experience: Jesus' first disciples (John 1:46), Pentecost (Acts 2), Cornelius' household (Acts 10), the Blind Man of John 9. When we invite people to make direct experiments in spirituality we are in line with the New Testament. Trying to establish a theoretical basis for the superiority and uniqueness of Christianity is misplaced effort. Rather, let's exhibit its attractiveness and invite people to test its effectiveness. If the Bible is the living Word of God, we don't need to argue the point, we can simply invite people to read it for themselves. Their experience will be far more persuasive than any words we can offer.

Would a good God really condemn to eternal hell fire people whose primary “crime” was an incomplete or incorrect opinion about Jesus?

No. God is concerned with justice more than with ritual or linguistic precision. Certainly there are texts in the Bible that could be cited in support of a very narrow view. People can be saved only if they meet certain criteria—faith, works, compassionate care for the needy, keeping the commandments. Fortunately, there are also passages that speak of the openness of God to all humanity. There are formulas for salvation in the Bible. Yes, of course. These Bible formulas are not to be construed as constraining God—as though God himself could not operate outside a simple formula he gave for our edification. Rather these Bible formula are best understood as aids to humans for cultivating spiritual and moral life.

Why should I reject science, which has demonstrably increased longevity, in favor of religion which promises eternal life (but offers no proof)?

This question offers an open door for exploring the complementary value of both religion and science. It appropriately presumes the value of life. But how do we know life is better than non-life? Science cannot even speak to that question. Scientists are humans, of course. They have human values and valuing life is a fundamental human value. Science provides tools for furthering life and for ending life, for easing pain and causing pain. But science itself offers no language or taxonomic categories for valuing life over non-life. When we talk of the value of life we have moved into the realm of religion and spirituality or at least into esthetics. When we ask how can we extend life and ease suffering, most of the time we will find our answers in the tools and insights of science, but when we ask why should we extend life and ease suffering, our answers will have the ring of religion. Appreciation of life will lead us to respect both science and religion. Neither on its own is sufficient for responding to the wonder of life.

When we give proper respect to the questions asked by our children, we are likely to gain for ourselves clearer insights into God. Together with our children we may discover better ways of speaking of God and better ways of honoring the incredible gift of life. We will learn to work together not only to extend life, but to enrich it.  

Romantic Logic

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

August 17, 2013

A few weeks ago, I watched the movie, The Mask of Zoro. My daughter assured me I would like it. It was swash buckling and romantic. It had a satisfying ending. I'd like it. So I settled down with my computer to watch. But in the first few minutes, I wondered if this time Bonnie had made a mistake. After a rollicking opening scene with Zorro riding to the rescue of some hapless peasants, the movie suddenly portrays a deep, heart-breaking, irremediable tragedy. Zorro is ambushed in his castle by the evil Governor Montero. Zorro's beautiful wife is killed and the despicable Governor Montero takes Zorro's daughter to raise as his own an ocean away. Zorro, himself, is consigned to a filthy dungeon.

I almost turned off the movie. Being sent to prison was dark and terrible, but I could imagine an escape, a parole, some kind of redemption. But Zorro's loss of love was unbearable. In the movie, Zorro and his wife were obviously deeply in love. Their affection for their daughter was naturally rich.

How could a man endure the loss of both his beloved wife and his precious daughter to the machinations of an evil man? What possible twists of plot could lift us above the soul-crushing ache of grief and loss? How could our sense of outrage at the horrific injustice be assuaged? I was tempted to turn the movie off, but Bonnie had assured me I would like it, so I kept watching.

The story sucked me in. It pulled me along. And sure enough, not only was justice done, but in the end, even Zorro's heart found a measure of rest. Finally, everything was all right.

The Bible tells a similar story. It's going to be all right. Goodness will triumph. God will triumph. No matter how chaotic, tragic, or cold the world seems to be, there is a story being written that will be so sweet, so grand and wonderful, that in the very core of our being we will find ourselves cheering.

This hope consoles us in the face of great loss. It fires our drive and determination as we work to ease suffering, to build a healthier, happier world. When we pour our lives into making things better we are cooperating with the grand goal of the cosmos. We are partnering with God.

One way the Bible tells this story of the triumph of God is to picture God as a lover pursuing his beloved. God is a great king seeking to win the affection of his beloved. Humanity—we, people like us—we are his beloved. Sometimes people respond to God's desire and God is happy. Other times people spurn him and God is grieved or gets angry. Then he rouses himself and again pursues his beloved. At times as you read the Bible story, you despair. There is no way this story can turn out right.

Then other times, it looks hopeful. We get caught up again in the promise of romance. Surely love will win. This is the central conviction of our church. It is the most precious claim of the Bible. In this view of the cosmos, there is a purpose, an intentionality permeating reality. Life and love are not accidents in a universe that could have gone many other directions. Rather they are expressions of God who ultimately shapes the universe.

In our scripture reading we heard the words from Revelation 19:

I heard what sounded like a vast crowd in heaven shouting, "Praise the LORD! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God. His judgments are true and just. . . . the twenty-four elders and the four living beings fell down and worshiped God, who was sitting on the throne. They cried out, "Amen! Praise the LORD!" And from the throne came a voice that said, "Praise our God, all his servants, all who fear him, from the least to the greatest." Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder: "Praise the LORD! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear."

Throughout the book of Revelation the language oscillates between pictures of doom and gloom and boisterous, ecstatic worship. The forces of evil harass and torment the people of God. The people themselves vacillate between loyalty and infidelity. But finally, here in chapter 19, we come to the grand turning point. The wedding is announced. The Great King has won the heart of his beloved. She is going to become his bride. It's going to happen. For sure. Sweetness engulfs us. Everybody is happy.

This vision of a happy ending is perhaps the most important difference between atheism and theism. Christianity, in particular, imagines a bright future. Not just the possibility of a bright future, but a definite, sure triumph of goodness and light. This glorious, triumphant future is not merely one of an infinity of possible futures. We claim that God guarantees the final cosmic celebration. We affirm a future that all creation will judge to be sweet, good and satisfying. The universe has a story that comes out “right.”

Atheism does not offer this kind of confidence. Certainly, a bright future is one of the infinite possibilities among the infinity of universes imagined by mathematicians. But its likelihood is vanishingly minuscule.

Atheism asks weighty questions. Those questions deserve our respect. Some of the questions atheism raises are the same questions we Adventists pose to conventional Christianity: How could a good God torture people, even really bad people, for billions of years? For an atheist, it's a rhetorical question. For Adventists, it's a good question and we answer it: A good God could not do such a thing. The notion of eternal hell fire is bad theology.

Atheists and Adventists together ask how God could have written the verse in Psalms that celebrates war time brutality against children (Psalm 137:9). Adventists answer the question: God did not write that verse. No such thought ever entered his mind.

Atheists ask difficult questions. We owe them a measure of respect for voicing out loud questions that occasionally haunt even the most devout among us. No matter how many different ways we try to explain the relationship between the goodness of God and the suffering of the world, in the end, our explanations fail to provide a rational map of the connection between a good God and a suffering world.

We run out of words. No formula works. We cannot answer the question using logic and rational analysis.

Still we are believers. We believe the story will come out right. We believe the troubles and pain, the injustice and tragedy of the human story will be more than matched by the glorious climax. We arrive at this conviction by paying attention to way our hearts respond to stories.

Some of us are more cerebral than others. But no one can live on reason alone. I have been reading Frans de Waal's book, The Bonobo and the Atheist. De Waal pokes gentle fun at philosopher Peter Singer who made great show of being ruthlessly logical in his ethical reasoning based on first principles. When Singer was challenged about the great inconsistency between his pompous claims about the rationality of his ethics and his emotionally-driven, exceptional care for his mother. Singer replied, “Perhaps it is more difficult than I thought before, because it is different with it's your mother” (de Waal, p.184).

To be human includes reason and rationality, of course. It also includes heart. And our truest response to stories comes from our hearts not through logical analysis.

One of the great stories in the Bible opens like the Zorro movie. The first scene is happy enough. There was a recession in Israel. Food became scarce. A Jewish man named Elimelech moved his family from Bethlehem to Moab.

It looked like a smart move. Elimelech found work. Things were going well. Then he got sick and died, leaving Naomi with their two sons to fend for themselves. Mom and boys did okay. They were making it. The boys, Mahlon and Kilion, got married. Naomi, loved her new daughters, Ruth and Orpah. She began hoping for grandkids. Then Mahlon and Kilion got sick. Real sick. It was scary. Then it wasn't scary. It was terrible. Both young men died, leaving the three women to fend for themselves.

Three women alone was not viable in that society. Naomi told her daughters-in-law that she was going back to her family in Bethlehem. She urged them to go back to their parents' homes. Maybe they could find husbands again. Both daughters-in-law insisted they would go with her. They loved her. She was a real mother to them.

Naomi insisted. “Look,” she said, “You are young and beautiful. You have your whole lives in front of you. And I can't help you. I cannot give you husbands. I have no money. I have nothing. God is against me. You better go.”

Orphah, finally, reluctantly, headed back to her parents' home. But Ruth was adamant.

"Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!" Ruth 1:16-17

So the two of them traveled to Bethlehem.

They arrived about the time of the barley harvest. Custom was that poor people could glean in the grain fields. That meant that after a harvesting crew had moved through a field, the poor folk could go and pick up any stray grain that had been dropped. They could cut any stalks that had been overlooked by harvesters moving efficiently and fast.

Ruth told Naomi she was going to go glean and off she went.

That night when Ruth came home, Naomi was there to ask how her day had gone. Ruth was full of news. First, she had brought home a full basket of raw grain, plus some roasted grain that had been left over from the lunch the owner of the field had given her.

Then Ruth, full of giggles and amazement, told how the rich man who owned the field had talked to her and urged her to work only in his field because he thought she, as a single woman, might be harassed in other fields. Oh, and he told the men to be kind to her. And he said she could glean right among the sheaves. He said he knew about her, that he had heard about her sticking with Naomi after the death of their husbands. He had invited her to rest in the shelter with the work crew and to help herself to water the men had drawn from the well. And he was so good looking.

Naomi was listening and nodding and smiling. When Ruth slowed down enough so Naomi could get a word in edge-wise, Naomi said, “That man is a relative of ours. He, too, is single.”

So Ruth worked through the barley harvest. Then she spent the wheat harvest also working in fields owned by Boaz.

Some time near the end of the wheat harvest, Naomi had a mother-daughter talk with Ruth. “Look,” she said. “It's time you got married again. You're not getting any younger. Neither am I. Here's what you do. You know that nice man Boaz you've been telling me about all harvest? Well, tonight he's going to be winnowing late. So here is what you do.

Now do as I tell you—take a bath and put on perfume and dress in your nicest clothes. Then go to the threshing floor, but don't let Boaz see you until he has finished eating and drinking. Be sure to notice where he lies down; then go and uncover his feet and lie down there. He will tell you what to do. Ruth 3:3-4

Ruth did just what Naomi told her. She waited until Boaz had sacked out, exhausted and full of food and drink. Then she sneaked up, pulled up the bottom of his robe and lay down at his feet.

About midnight Boaz roused and discovered there was a woman lying at his feet.

"Who are you?" he asked. "I am your servant Ruth," she replied. "Spread the corner of your covering over me, for you are my family redeemer. "The LORD bless you, my daughter!" Boaz exclaimed. "You are showing even more family loyalty now than you did before, for you have not gone after a younger man, whether rich or poor. Now don't worry about a thing, my daughter. I will do what is necessary, for everyone in town knows you are a virtuous woman. Ruth 3:10-11

Boaz told her to be sure and keep their secret. “Don't let anyone know you have been here with me at the threshing floor.” He gives us a large basket of grain as a present to Naomi and sends her off before daylight.

Boaz was obviously thrilled. But even though he was rich and single, there were still hurdles to be cleared related to the way that people and land were connected. But nothing was going to stop Boaz now. He worked out a deal. He bought Naomi's ancestral land and in the process gained legal right to marry Ruth.

So Boaz and Ruth got married. She became pregnant. The baby was born. Life was good.

Then the women of the town said to Naomi, "Praise the LORD, who has now provided a redeemer for your family! May this child be famous in Israel. May he restore your youth and care for you in your old age. For he is the son of your daughter-in-law who loves you and has been better to you than seven sons!" Naomi took the baby and cuddled him to her breast. And she cared for him as if he were her own. The neighbor women said, "Now at last Naomi has a son again!" And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David. Ruth 4:14-17

If you had been there and watched Naomi cuddling her grandson, you would have smiled. You would have felt the story came out right. That sense of happy ending in no way would have trivialized the pain and grief both Naomi and Ruth had suffered. They had carried years of grief. And in their new lives, I'm sure they would still sometimes feel the ache of their losses. But, their story is not about loss and grief. It is about the happy ending. It is about the triumph of love.

I am reminded of the words of a country song, “God bless the broken road that led me straight to you.”

In a romantic story, there are always obstacles, hindrances, disappointments, apparent impossibilities. Then when the lovers are finally together, all of that becomes faded memories, hazy behind the glow of the joy of their union.

And our hearts declare that this is right. This is how it should be.

As believers we declare our confidence that the entire human story will come out right. God, the great lover, will triumph. Somehow history will come right. God and his bride will host a grand wedding celebration and the cosmos will be glad.

As we are approaching the beginning of another school year, I encourage you students to remember the ultimate romance, the romance of the triumph of goodness. As you take classes, prepare yourselves professionally and engage with other students, ask how you can help move God's story forward this coming school year.

Parents, God is dreaming with you of the sweet ending of the broken and crooked road that sometimes trips up our kids. Work to respond to your kids in the light of the triumph of goodness. Sure, some of them will break your heart. Some may even do stupid things. (Is that a surprise?) Keep loving. Try not to freak out over the detours and mistakes that seem to be an inescapable part of the story.

The triumph of goodness is sometimes unbelievable. Atheism seems to agree with what we see around us. It asks good questions. Still every time your heart thrills at a movie that comes out right, listen to your heart. It may know something wiser and truer than can ever be contained in formulas

Love wins. And when we train ourselves to be skillful in love, when we practice compassion and justice, we are cooperating with God. We are moving with God in the grand triumph flow of history toward triumphant goodness.