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A Few Words from Pastor Bryan
...and from one of my songs
This coming Sunday, unless something very unexpected happens in the world later today or tomorrow, I'm going to finish the message I started three weeks ago based on Jesus's well-known teaching in Matthew 6 about NOT worrying about the future. (Matthew 6:25-34).
As most of you know, prior to becoming pastor of our church in December, 2018, my ministry for over 30 years was focused primarily on songs that I wrote and recorded. Instead of preaching an actual sermon, I would share a few solo songs and mix those in with Scripture texts and offer a message in that way.
I don't often sing my solo songs during worship at our church. Now and then we sing a song of mine together as a congregation, but as you know, for the most part I just preach messages through spoken words. The main reason I don't sing my own solo songs much is because I don't want to turn worship into the "Bryan show." You get enough of me and what I have to offer each Sunday as it is. And of course I'm always racing the clock and trying not to let worship run too long. Plus you'd get tired of the music if I did that every week. That's why I moved from church to church each week during my musical ministry. Once in a while it's a nice change of pace for a congregation, but every week it would get old. Plus I don't have THAT many songs!
But there are times when songs communicate things in ways that mere words can't.
I won't have time to sing it this Sunday, but as I've been preparing this week, a song of mine keeps coming to mind. Here's a link to the recording if you'd like to listen to it. It's a piano song called, "In God's Hands" that you can also find on Spotify.
But there's a verse from this song that hits the nail on the head for me when it comes to Jesus's teaching about not worrying about the future. Here's how it goes;
There's no reason to be anxious
As long as we stay here
Rooted in this present moment
Where the one thing that is clear
Is that God is right here with us
And God will never go away
And when God's presence is enough
That's when fears begin to fade
It's that last part that gets to me. In fact as I'm writing this, it's bringing a tear to my eye. I've been in a number of situations with people recently who are understandably afraid and where the only thing I could say was, "God is with you, and God will be with you no matter what." And I'd remind them that I'm with them to whatever degree I can be and that the community of the church is too if they'll let us be. God's presence often comes to us most powerfully through other people.
But let's face it. Too often, even when we believe that God will be with us, it's just not enough.
And when that presence is enough...
For many if not most of us, much of the time, the honest truth is that knowing God is with us just isn't enough to change how we experience life on the level of feelings or emotions. It's just not enough to keep the anxiety at bay or to dispel all the anxious thoughts that haunt us in the middle of the night. Even when we want it to make a difference and just relax and trust God, we can't. If you're relating to this, don't feel bad. Most of us believe God is with us "and all that," but let's face it-- we still want and need something more tangible (like a lot more money in an account of some kind, you know) in order to feel secure.
I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. And I'm not blaming you or saying there's something wrong with you or your faith if believing that God will always be with you doesn't take away your fear about the future.
But I'm also not going to offer you or myself an alternative to what Jesus and the overall message of the Bible keeps trying to teach us. And that is that the only real and ultimate security we have is KNOWING that God will always be with us and that as you've heard me say lots of times now, "God will always give us whatever we need to face whatever we've got to face."
And when KNOWING that actually is enough, then we are at peace. Then we're free. One day at a time.
I put KNOWING in all caps for a reason. Because whatever it means to truly "know" that God is with us is the key. It's way more than believing it intellectually. It's way more than simply saying, "Yeah I think there's some Mystery or Higher Power out there that's watching over us to some degree." That kind of casual spirituality won't do it. It's certainly not a matter of having empirical proof or guarantee. God doesn't offer that to anyone.
Richard Rohr often teaches that the Hebrew word for "know" in the Bible is the same word that's used to describe sexual intercourse. As it says in Genesis, "Adam knew Eve and she conceived..." We're talking about intimate, personal, experiential union. When Fr. Rohr gets into this in his recorded lectures, it usually leads up to him playfully and provocatively sharing one of his favorite punch lines of sorts. He winds up saying something like, "what most of us need is to have more sex with God." It usually gets a laugh. But his point is well taken. It is only deep, personal, intimate experience of/with/in God's presence that touches us powerfully enough to BE ENOUGH.
Well that really is the issue for most of us. Is our spiritual journey that deep and powerful and central that it can touch us in the depths of our beings? And go easy on yourself if this seems ridiculous or just out of reach for you. It is for so many. It takes effort and willingness to open up to God over time in the way Rohr is talking about. But I guess what this is saying is that the Path of Jesus is an invitation to be on this journey--the journey of learning to know and trust God so completely that it actually IS enough for us. The journey of knowing that it IS possible to trust that God will always be with us and for that to be enough. No, I'm not always there either. But I've tasted it. And in those moments when I have to get real about some of my own insecurities and fears, "putting all my weight down" on God's Presence and Provision is the only thing that stills the storms of things unknown or the crashing waves of all the things we can't predict or control or prevent.
Can just knowing and trusting God--in community with others-- be enough?
I think it can. And more and more all the time for me it is. But it's a question we all get to work with as long as we're here on this broken yet beautiful earth in these broken yet beautiful lives of ours.
I'll help you with this stuff if you'll help me!
Hope to see you soon,
Pastor Bryan
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