Do You Believe in Miracles?

sermon by Carrie Eikler

I have a question easy to ask, but likely hard to answer.

Do you believe in miracles?

Yes?  No?

I’m not going to venture who among you would say yes and who would say no.  But I would venture to guess that among you, there is what I like to call a “but” response.  These but responses are very common among us, I believe.

Do you believe in miracles?    “Yes, but…” 

Do you believe in miracles?    “No, but…”

Do you believe in miracles?

 

Miracles are tricky things to talk about in a Western Christian context.  Add to that a largely Protestant dismissiveness of mystery and a twenty-first century skepticism and rationalism, it is easy to leave the miracles stories in the bible as nice fairy tales, but not things to hitch our hopes on.

When we encounter miracle stories--when we talk about the presence of these stories in our sacred text-- it is, for me, spoken with reservation.

Because our belief or lack of belief in miracles points to something.

It points to how we see God working in the world.  It points to what we do or do not believe is possible in the natural realm.  It points to how and what we put our faith in.

And we are nervous to share those possibilities with other people.  Either our church folk won’t appreciate our rational doubts, or our non-church friends will feel we are too…

I was presented with this…

In Allegheny Mennonite Conference there is a new church plant in Pittsburgh.  It is made up entirely of immigrants from the south Asian countries of Nepal and Bhutan.  You may remember a couple of years ago, a prayer request went out to pray for a baby named Simran.  Simran was born and not expected to live.  Her parents along with other sisters and brothers in the congregation gathered around Simran and prayed over Simran and waited on Simran and blessed Simran.

The doctors had said there was little hope.

Simran is alive and well today.  Was it a miracle?  Was it the prayers?

Then at the Allegheny Conference delegate gathering last October, Simran’s parents brought her to the meeting.  Simran was well beyond the age when most young children walk, but she showed no signs of being able to.  Her parents asked for prayers, prayers to strengthen little Simran’s legs, to help her walk.

The delegate body gathered around Simran and her parents, laid their hands on them and prayed.

We received word that the next day, Simran, who showed no previous ability to walk, took a step.  And then another.  And Simran walked.

Why did this happen?  How did it happen? 

I think what blocks me from fully embracing the possibility of miracles iswhy do some people get them, and some people don’t?  It’s the question Torin’s dad posed recently when preaching on Job…why do bad things happen to good people?

Why didn’t a miracle happen to those who died in the mudslide in Seattle, or the jetliner from Malaysia?  Why weren’t fervent prayers for a miracle answered by the mother who watched her young son die from leukemia, or answered by the young man who watched his partner die of AIDS?

These are the questions that have, in the past, bound me up and prevented me from embracing the possibilities of miracles.

I posed this question to my virtual community on Facebook.  I sometimes post things to generate conversation that might help me process my sermon.  So I simply asked “Do you believe in miracles?”  Here are some of the answers:

“Yes”

“No”

“Anything is possible”

“absolutely. Yet....I think that the miracle is in that we see what is already in place and happening”

"no. I believe in miraculous events, wonders seen and unseen, unexplainable phenomena and grace. But supernatural interventions are never going to be my thing because they are too hitched to a cosmology I don't follow."

"Yes. I believe creation is full of mysteries I will never comprehend, and some of those mysteries are miraculous."

"I believe life is miraculous on so many levels that it feels magical and unexplainable. I believe when incredibly good things happen to us…and being unexpected or unexplainable, we call it a miracle. But when something tragic happens that we can't explain, we don't call it a miracle."

"Miracles are everywhere, constant and ingrained in every cell of our body and every wee atom."

I loved all these answers.  And yet one, from our very own Elesha Coffman, who is now a professor of church history at the Dubuque Seminary responded to the question Do you believe in miracles with the following: Yes, but I’d say they are best glimpsed by not staring straight at them sort of like the Pleiades”.  She then attached a link to a question forum where someone asked the question

“I've noticed that the Pleiades but when I look directly at the constellation, it suddenly goes dim and it's more difficult to make out the individual stars.”  The Pleiades are a seven star cluster that is in the constellation Taurus.  But many have found that the clearest way to see these stars are not by looking directly at them, but to look around them, or to use your peripheral vision.  Once you try to look directly at them, head on, squinty to see the detail, it all goes fuzzy.

The answer to this question has to do with eye structure, which one respondent went into great detail about.  It’s about how we use the rods and cones in our eyes.  The cones in our eyes are greatly sensitive to color and work best in bright light.  This contrasts the works of rods which are more effective in low light conditions.  These rods are located off the center of our retina, meaning we see more clearly at night when looking not at the center or straight on.  This is called “averted vision.”

So what Elesha was pointing to, and a way that helps me look at these miracle stories of Jesus is embracing this averted vision. Not averting as in looking away, but averting as looking around, or looking from a different perspective in the darkness…in the space around the object, the stars, the miracle.

Our rational mind wants to read the miracle stories, or think about miracles in how the story and the action bumps up and challenges our conventional thinking of the physical.  Or we look at the story and hold it up as a biblical truth that validates our traditional thinking of spiritual truths.  So would it mean to look at the miracle stories, not looking at them straight on, but glimpsing them indirectly?

Let’s look at our miracle story today, the raising of Lazarus, with this averted vision.

I like that this all goes down in the dark, so already, we are using a different sort of vision, aren’t we?  Getting those rods in gear.  If we look around the story, we will take our focus off of Lazarus for a moment and the miracles that happened to him and looking at the side at the mysterious miraculous things going on.

And so much goes on in this story, my friend.

My favorite thing that happens is that here Martha gets a chance to redeem her scarred reputation as a whirling dervish who was too busy to sit by Jesus’ feet where Mary was.  You remember.  Martha, Martha.  Why do you bustle about when you could sit here?

Well, here it is Martha’s doing that gets something done.  She runs out into the dark, while Mary sits…you guessed it…at home.  Now I don’t mean to diminish Mary here, but I have to say I’m glad Martha gets some good stuff her way.  This miracle story starts to illumine when can action, busyness, assertiveness…be holy. 


When take our gaze away from looking directly at Lazarus, we see something about Jesus that we don’t come across much: his weeping.  His being moved.  Or as commentator David Howell says, here we witness “that even Jesus finds death horrible and gut-wrenching and real. What a relief that Jesus is moved to tears by our tears when we mourn. There is, as the book of Ecclesiastes tells us, "a time to mourn" (3:4). Apparently even for God.”


And I think that this averted sight can help us not just look at the goodness of miracles in a new way, but the pain of tragedy.  When September 11 happened, many parents sought ways to protect their children from the horror of the event, but media made that challenging.  Mr. Rogers was still alive at that time and he recounted something his mother told him as a child.  When he would see some catastrophe on the newsreels at the movies (because Mr. Rogers didn’t have a TV until he was out of college), when he would feel scared by what he saw, his mother would tell him:
 
“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, he said, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world…”They are often on the sidelines, but they are there.  That’s where our focus should be.”

Even Mr. Rogers shares this wisdom.  Look around, on the sidelines.  Here you will see miracles taking place.  Small miracles.  Small acts of mercy.
 When we started looking around the miracles, our eye sight changes.  Or maybe it’s our heart. We may unbind the need to look at these stories as factual accounts, and begin to see them as stories that point to something else, maybe even something more amazing, more incredible, more miraculous.

Choosing this Day

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Joshua 24:1-28

Care of God's Creation: #6

(you need to move to about minute 3:25 before the sermon begins!)

What was the first choice you made this morning?

Well, likely it was something along the lines of: “Do I get out of bed or do I go back to sleep?”

But probably once that all important decision was made, your brain probably went on autopilot, your feet following the path of habits you have chosen a long time ago: 

bathroom, shower, breakfast, teeth, clothes.  Or

bathroom, breakfast, teeth, shower, clothes.

If you put morning exercise or a time of prayer, good job.

And then the question:  church, or no church?

I bet for many of you that seems like a question with a forgone conclusion.  Sure, church.  That’s what we do.

But what accompanied that subtle choice?

Dread, because you don’t know how hot it might be in the un-airconditioned sanctuary? 

Resentment, because a bunch of other people you know are probably sleeping in or enjoying another cup of coffee?

 Relief, because what you need right now is to be with other people who care about you? 

Eagerness, because you need to hear some word of God right now that you just don’t get in you regular 9-5 life.

Now I may disappoint you, here: you may predict that with this line of reasoning I will say that since you chose to come to church, you made the right decision.  When faced with Joshua’s question, “Choose this day whom you will serve” and you say “OK, I’ll go to church”, you may think I will say choosing church means you chose God.

Well, I’m not.  Because Church does not equal God.

Not necessarily.

I hope I didn’t rain on anybody’s parade.  And please don’t walk out the door.  Because, while church does not equal God, I can assure you, you can find God here.

You have made the choice, consciously or unconsciously, to go to a building, to sit with people, to let words of prayer and poetry of song wash over you and bless you and yes, God is here.  And God is present to you here, in this place because you made the choice to be here and accept it.

Choice.

It is something of a human right, we might think, isn’t it?

We certainly see choice as an American entitlement.  Those without choice we think of, are those in autocratic regimes. We think of words like dictatorship.  communist. totalitarian.

Have you ever felt that maybe, just maybe, we have too many choices in our contemporary lives?  From the apps to our phones to varieties of yogurt in the dairy case, the choices we face can make our lives more complicated, rather than more liberating, as the clever marketers would have us believe. 

This is the premise of the 2004 book called the Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.  The premise in this book is that Americans are given so many choices, that our brains are actually exhausted and he argues that all the choices we have to face actually go a long way in eroding our psychological well being.

Just think about that as you flip through 900 cable channels and wonder why there isn’t anything on. 

Here’s an interesting fact for you I read this week: you know the craze of the K-cup coffee?  This is the process of making single-cup coffee comes in individual portions, encased in plastic capsules or packets that you put in a special coffeemaker to brew one cup at a time.  The draw is people can choose the type of coffee they want.  It appeals to our contemporary notion of choice, doesn’t it?

Apparently, with about 12 % of US homes have a single-cup coffee machine, approximately 100 million plastic cups are trashed…a day.  That’s 36.5 billion a year.  A small glimpse at the environmental impact of some of our choices…

But no one wants to give up choice.  We could perhaps do with fewer choices, but the capacity to choose is part of who we are.  And choice, and the blessings and woes of the results of our choices, have been present since the beginning of the Biblical story: God chooses to create…something.  Adam chooses the names of the animals, humans choose to eat of the tree of knowledge, Cain chose to murder Able.  Noah chose to listen to God and build an ark.  Lot’s wife chose to look back.  Miriam chose to lead her people with a tambourine into the promise land. 

And here we are.  Now in the promise land.  Joshua has taken over for Moses, who died just before reaching this land of milk and honey, after 40 years of wandering in the desert.  Joshua has the dubious task of setting before the people…yet again…another life or death situation.  As if the past 40 years weren’t enough.

OK, we’ve come this far, says Joshua.  Now here is the real test.  A clear either or choice.  Black and white.  Now that we are here, choose: who will you serve. 

As we sit here, together, we have been summoned.  Summoned to this moment.  Not to look to the future or to dwell on the past, but like the people summoned by Joshua we sit in a moment pregnant with potential. 

In this moment, I ask you the question: Who will you serve? 

Who will you serve? [pause]

*scoff* that’s easy!  We’re in church, of course you’re going to say God!  Who wouldn’t say God?

Now this moment we are in may not seem as momentous as I pictured Joshua, expansive above his people.

It may not be as momentous as the time you made a decision to follow Christ at age 8 or 16 or 25 or older.

This moment may not be as meaningful as the time you dipped your toe into the baptismal waters, or felt the cool water sprinkled on your head.

But this is what life is.  Moment to moment decisions of allegiance.

OK, I know that sounds dramatic, a flash back to the early days of the War on Terror when George W. Bush gave us the ultimatum: you’re either with us or against us.  So, I’ll take it down a notch:

 In each moment, with each action

            with each purchase we make

            with each person we choose to look at

            with each person we choose to avoid

            with each bite of food,

Joshua’s question is sealed in our hearts: who am I serving?

Am I serving the God who sent Christ to love the outcast, to turn fear into abundant joy ,to reach out to the margins, to bless God’s creation

Or I am going to serve and to value…something else.  Something maybe a bit easier

a bit prettier.

A bit more comfortable.

We think that the choice of following God comes with the big, dramatic decisions, but it is probably more in the small, unconscious decisions that we daily encounter this question, an faithful opportunity respond to Joshua’s invitation

Torin and I are learning about these unconscious decisions quite clearly these days.

Our family is ten days into  a “No Spend” month.  We are trying to not spend any money.

Now, the name “No Spend” month is a bit inaccurate.  We pay our bills, we buy groceries and gas, but that’s about it.  Apart from those, we are trying not to spend any money.

And the grocery thing is hard, because you know, we love our food! 

So this month we are giving ourselves $500 dollars for our family of 5 to spend on food and gas.  That is $100 less a month than we usually spend on groceries alone.

That belt gets tighter and tighter.

The first week down went pretty well, but I hear it’s the second and third weeks that are the hardest.  I’ll let you know on September 15^th how it went, if you’re interested. J

So why are we doing this?

Yes, it’s a way to save money, to kind of scale back a bit after the summer vacations

Yes, it’s a way to feel a little more in control of our spending.

But what is exciting for me in this No Spend month…at least 10 days into it…is that it forces us to step back and evaluate our habits.  This week I thought, “oh, I’ll go down to ZenClay, spend $5 on a drink and type my sermon there.”

Great idea!  Except…we’re not spending this month.

Alistair asked if we could go to Ogawa, our favorite restaurant, for lunch this week.  My initial thought was  “what a great way to celebrate Alistair going to PreK, one last lunch out!”

Great idea!  Except…that  will make it pretty hard at the end of the month when we have $25 less to spend on groceries.

But what I’m noticing, is that this is not just an exercise in deprivation.  It’s an exercise in observation.  An exercise in choice.  In consciousness.  And that somehow, feels like the opposite of deprivation.

I’m taking those regular reactions and spending habits out of the realm of the unconscious, and putting them into the light of choice, and it shows me something about myself.

In today’s culture of choices everywhere, for everything, that just may be the take away from Joshua’s speech to the realities we face: every choice has an impact no matter how small.  But every choice does have an impact.

An impact on the environment.

An impact on our relationship with others

An impact on our financial situation

Every choice has an impact on our self-worth

An impact on the self-worth of others.

And ultimately, an impact on our spirits.  Our souls.  The place where God resides in us.

And yet, it’s not just about me…or you…as individuals.

Joshua was speaking to a community.  His tribe.  Joshua is talking to the group.  He is talking to us, as a congregation.

Our decisions.  Our words.  Our worship.  Our resistance.  Our embrace.

With these things…what choice do we make? 

May we find courage to take our decisions out of the realm of

            routine and  the unconscious

And hold them up as momentous, every day responses of faith.

Amen.

 

 

 

Dwelling in the Word

[Torin and I have just returned full time to our pastoral duties after the birth of our son, Patrick.  While we were on parental leave, our congregation engaged in a process known as Dwelling in the Word.  For seven weeks we lived with Paul's words in Ephesians 3:7-21 and had seven different speakers, including Torin and myself, come with their thoughts and perspectives.

Unfortunately, I don't have the sermons from all of our speakers, and this Sunday was the concluding sermon in the series.  We hope you take some time to dwell with this text, and see how it may call you to a rooting and grounding in God's love]

Ephesians 3:7-21
Dwelling in the Word

Wow.  I can’t believe that it has been over two months since I last preached!  I don’t know how you feel about it, but it feels good to be here with you, exploring the word, dwelling in the word.  And yes, our seven weeks of dwelling in the word has come to an end.  I don’t know how you feel about that either.  Some of you may like to stay a bit longer and continue exploring what Ephesians 3:7-21 is working out in you.  Some are probably ready to get back to our regular routine.  At least, you’ve had enough of Paul, and need a little Jesus.  Or Moses.  Or even some Psalms for crying out loud. 

It is true that Paul can certainly be pedantic.  Long winded.  Confusing.  Boring.  Why would we want to spend 7 weeks looking at one of his letters?  Probably because he can be…pedantic, long-winded, confusing, and boring.  I mean if you just listen to one sermon on one part of his letters, it’s easy to dismiss him, to tune out, and wait till next Sunday when you get into more interesting, gospel stuff.  Spending 7 weeks with Paul, for some of you, may be like being stuck in the middle of the ocean on a boat with him .  You may want to jump ship, you may be searching for the shoreline when you can get off this boat.  But if you actually have a conversation with him, you just might learn something.  About him.  About yourself.  About God.

So yes, jumping back into the pulpit to face Paul—not just dwelling with him, but trying to make sense of him—seemed a bit exhausting.

And I don’t like being exhausted. Which is not good when you have two young boys and a baby.  So as you can imagine snatching small bits of rest in the day is crucial for me as a mother.  And for my naps I like to have book close by for those times when I wake up from a nap before any of the boys do, and I don’t want to walk around for fear they will wake up and demand something of me. And since I never know how long the quiet and stillness will last, I like having a book that has small segments with powerful thoughts.

A friend gave me the book Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry by Katrina Kenison.  One of the reflections is on nature, where she explored the ideas of Robert Michael Pyle.

Robert Michael Pyle is a nature writer, and a lepidopterist—someone who studies moths and butterflies.  And Pyle has presented in some of his works a rather provocative allegation.  He has observed that many children today—and probably many adults as well—suffer from what he calls “the extinction of experience.” 

Now at first, that sounds a bit counterintuitive because, as a mother, I know that there is an intense drive in contemporary parents to give our children experiences.  We want them to experience music, languages, art, dance, sports and so we rush around trying to get them signed up for this program and that lesson.  Will they ever really learn the piano if they are not in lessons by age 3?  Will they be severely deficient in our pluralistic culture if they aren’t learning Spanish and Mandarin by second grade?  We want them to know all these things, so of course we’re trying to get them experience in them, to have someone teach them, and have our children learn them.

But Pyle, being a naturalist, is not talking about this kind of experience.  He is referring to the extinction of experience with the natural world.  He says that unlike earlier generations, children do not have the kind of direct, frequent contact with the earth and its creatures that result in a passionate, lasting relationship with the natural world. 

Now it doesn’t mean that children are unaware of the natural world.  They know what a leaf is.  They know bugs.  And they certainly know about “the environment.”  In fact, Pyle suggests that our children are well versed in issues of the environment and may have “politically correct” response to whales, global warming, pollution, and rain forests; they  can speak to these major environmental issues—but far less grounded in their own visceral, firsthand experiences of nature just beyond their door.  Pyle of course, says it’s not enough to teach children about nature; we must allow our children to grow up in nature. 

The difference between knowing with our head, and a knowing, that Paul says, surpasses understanding.

 The difference between knowing and experiencing,

 between head thought, and heart revelation.

When Paul speaks to us about knowing the length and breadth and height and depth of Christ’s love;  when he speaks about knowing the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, I think he is on to us.  He’s on to our skeptical minds.  He’s onto our contemporary need to know intellectually. for sure. what the answers about God are.  To know what is true about Christ…

We’ve been watching these wonderful videos in adult Sunday School, a series called Living the Questions where popular theologians, scholars, and clergy take on a variety of topics and then invite us to continue the conversation.  A few weeks ago the topic was on the biblical story, and how, essentially, it is possible to take the Bible seriously without always taking it literally.  It looked at questions about creation, and the nativity story, and our hangups about saying things did or did not happen in a certain way.

And I could tell, especially with the group gathered that day, it was a welcomed conversation.  And someone said in the midst of the conversation, “But how to you know it’s the truth.”  Of course, I wanted to get all sagely and philosophical and ask “Well what do you mean by know.”  and “well what is truth?”

If anything, this is where I know I can get hung up, most certainly.  I’m asking the questions, I’m seeking the answers.  I want to know when this was written and by whom and was it Paul or wasn’t it who wrote Ephesians.  I wonder what is the politically correct thing to think about the gender or lack thereof of God?  What is the right thing to believe about God’s  working in the world?  What is the limit that I can believe if I still want to be seen as intellectual?

If I’m honest, I’m so busy thinking about me when I approach God, there isn’t much height or depth or length or breadth to dive into.  It’s more like I’m…standing in a kiddie pool with not much water.

Sure, we know a lot about God, from what we learn from sermons, or books, or Sunday School, or bible studies.  I can say what so-and-so has said about God, I rehearse arguments about God, I can do theology.  But is that the same as knowing of God? 

Just like many children and adults know about the environment, we too have thought about God…but can you say you have experienced God? [pause] Not only that, but can you say you are filled with the fullness of God?  Daily living out of the divine spark within you?

So as we prepared to dwell with this challenge, I was asking myself “how do we know? how do we know?”

And what I’m left with, after these seven weeks, is a surprising invitation.: Stop trying to know.  Stop trying to find the answers that fit neatly.

Now I’m not saying don’t ask the questions, and it’s not a get out of jail free card with the response, “well, we never will know so let’s just live in the mystery”.  But it does require us to think about how we “know” in a different way.

Hear some of Katrina Kenison’s thoughts on knowledge, as she continues reflecting on our experience with nature.  You could probably switch out some of the words about nature and replace them with God, to more clearly see where I’m going with this.

Our children offer us an opportunity to rediscover the marvels of nature for ourselves.  You don’t need any special knowledge, any equipment, or even much of a plan.  You don’t need to be a naturalist or a teacher.  In fact you don’t need to identify a single bird or flower or constellation.  All you need is a willingness to go, to look, and to drink in the mystery and beauty of the world before your eyes.  I used to wish I had more knowledge to impart, a better foundation in the earth sciences, so that I could explain the world to my children instead of simply experiencing it with them.  Certainly our outings gave rise to more questions than answers.  But as we watched and wondered together, I came to suspect that our shared experience was probably more valuable to my children than any education I could provide.  In time, they will acquire knowledge, too—but first they need the time and space to develop an emotional connection with the land, forging their own relationships with plants and animals, earth and sky.  [The naturalist Rachel Carson reminds us,] “It is not half so important to know as to feel.”

So maybe the same is true with how we approach our lives with God.  And maybe in a way, our faith life can be a bit like Paul.  A bit pedantic..talking through ideas, figuring out who we are, criticizing bad behavior of others, trying to know, defending our position.  But thankfully, Paul surprises us with a blessing.  A blessing that tells us to let it all fall away

To not get hung up on trying to understand with our minds, but to live a life that open to experiencing the love of Christ.  And this love of Christ can and does compel us to plumb the deepest of our fears, and soar to the highest of what makes us joyful.  Christ’s love entices us to broaden our arms to welcome into our lives the unexpected: the unexpected person, or event, or possibility as well as encouraging us to go to lengths we may not have ever known possible.

So to conclude this portion of dwelling in the word, J I’ll just bestow on you the same blessing in a different way. 

What you know is not nearly sufficient to experience the Christ.  In snatches of moments,

Feel Christ’s love working through you. 

Hear Christ’s love as the wind blowing through the trees. 

See Christ’s love in great acts of courage and small acts of devotion.

Engage your whole self in being part of Christ’s love, moving past what you can understand intellectually

and open yourself up to being filled with the fullness of God.