The song “Fruitcakes,” from Jimmy Buffett’s album of the same name, has a verse to which many of us can relate:
Religion is in the hands of some crazy-ass people
Television preachers with bad hair and dimples
The god’s honest truth is: it’s not that simple!
Right?
That’s why I find it interesting that a local pastor is preparing a Bible Study series entitled: “Answers to Your Toughest Faith Questions.” The Facebook post then listed a small sampling of the theological questions that he would be giving answers to:
Who is God?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
What is salvation?
Now, I was raised going to church every Sunday. I hardly ever missed Sunday School class. I attended every Vacation Bible School and went to church camp every summer. I studied religion and philosophy in college, and I went on to get a Master of Divinity Degree, and then, a Doctorate in ministry. I did some math and deduced that I have written and preached over 1,500 sermons. So, you would think, that when it comes to theology, I would know a thing or two; however, the truth is that I really don’t know that much.
The only thing that I really know about theology is that the more I know, the less I seem to know.
Some of you are probably thinking about right now: “Well, if there’s a local pastor who giving answers to some tough theological questions, maybe our new pastor, bless his heart, should show up for a class, or at least Zoom in, and learn something!”
But here’s the thing:
I know just enough about theology to know that there many ways one can answer those types of questions. In our seminary theology classes, we studied several answers to those tough questions from several different theologians, and then we worked to form our own opinion.
This may surprise you, but when it comes to God and God’s relationship to this mystery we call life, with both the holy and the horrible parts of it, that’s about all I’ve got: opinions.
This is part of the reason I could not be happier today to be counted as part of Disciples of Christ. With the late, wonderfully honest and thoughtful Rachel Held Evans, I have always “longed for a church to be a safe place of doubt, to ask questions, and to [always] tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.”
I believe First Christian Church has a long history of being that type of church. We call ourselves “disciples” because we have decided to follow the way of love Jesus taught and emulated, not because we have figured out God. With the Harry Emerson Fosdick, most of us “would rather live in a world where our lives are surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that our minds could comprehend it.”
If you keep coming to worship here while I am the pastor, you may begin noticing a few words that I use more than other words when I am preaching. Besides “God” and “Jesus” and “good news” and “all means all”, the two words that I use more than any other are: “I believe.” “I believe this to be true…I believe that God works this way…I believe that God desires this…I believe that God wants us to do that…“I believe God is calling us to go, be or act…”
One day, a parishioner in one of my previous churches made an appointment with me to complain about my preaching. Which, by the way, was very common. He sat down in my office and began telling me how frustrated I made him by saying “I believe” so much, and if I didn’t stop saying it, he might have to find another church!
I asked him, “What would you rather me say?”
“I need my pastor to be more authoritative,” he said.
He wanted me to say: “I know,” “I’m certain,” “I’m confident,” “I’m convinced,” “I conclude…”; not “I believe.”
But when it comes to theology, that’s all I’ve got. I believe. I theorize. When it comes to this being or Spirit, or force, or power in, behind and over the universe we call “God,” I think. I consider, I ponder, and I wonder. I “lean more towards.” I surmise, guess, deduce, speculate, estimate and contemplate. I hope, which, by the way, infers that I also doubt.
And if that bothers some of you who come to this place Sunday after Sunday in search of concrete, black and white authoritative answers about God, all I can say is, I am sorry. You won’t find that here. At least, not from me.
When I was in my twenties, still fresh out of seminary, and still naïve enough to think I knew some stuff about God, I had the amazing opportunity to gather each Wednesday for lunch with a group of highly esteemed and seasoned clergy in Winston-Salem. Among those who attended the group was the Rev. Dr. Warren Carr, a retired pastor and renowned Civil Rights hero while serving Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham. What an honor and privilege was it for me to sit at a table each week this man who was a sought-after lecturer on college campuses for his wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise.
For a few years, a group of clergy, religion and philosophy professors in North Carolina gathered for a retreat at the Caraway Conference Center in Asheboro. I was absolutely giddy one year when I checked into the retreat center and was told that I would be sharing a room with Dr. Carr.
After an extensive and very academic group discussion that evening, much of which was over my head, we all retired to our rooms. As we settled in our twin beds like we were in youth camp and turned off the lights, Dr. Carr asked me: “Did you enjoy tonight’s conversation?”
“Yes,” I responded. “But to be honest, being in a room of full of wisdom with people like you reminds me that I still have much to learn.”
Dr. Carr laughed and then spoke words that I will never forget:
I have been a pastor and a serious scholar of scripture for sixty-five years, but all that I really know about God is that God is love. And God loves me. Therefore, I ought to love. And to be honest, everything else is fuzzy.
I was taken back by his honesty and didn’t know quite how to respond.
Then, after a moment of silence, he said, “But love is all I need to know.”
I wonder if that was what Paul was trying to infer in his letter to the Romans:
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. [The entire law code] …is summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
To the Galatians, again Paul writes:
For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (Gal 5:14).
And we’ve heard this before. Matthew records Jesus saying that the greatest commandment is to love God, [which means to literally love Love] and to love our neighbors as ourselves, and on this commandment hangs all of scripture (Matthew 22:34-40).
Mark remembers Jesus saying we are not far from the kingdom of God if we understand loving our neighbor as ourselves is more important than any act of worship (Mark 12:28-34).
Luke recounts Jesus telling a lawyer that loving our neighbors as ourselves is the key to inheriting eternal life. “Do this, and you will live,” says Jesus (Luke 10:25-28).
Not only is love all we need to know, all we need to understand about the scriptures, worship, and eternal life, Paul describes it as a debt we owe. Owe no one anything, except to love one another. John put it this way: “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).
And in our Epistle lesson this morning, Paul expresses an urgency to love. “Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” It’s time to wake up and love.
Lori and I experienced this urgency when we lost our first child in the 23rd week of pregnancy in 1993. A week or so after we left the hospital, a colleague and pastor immediately offered a pastoral visit. But instead of offering his love like it was a debt he owed me, with a confident, rather authoritative voice, he said:“Jarrett, I believe God knew that you were not ready to be a father.”
But, you know, I didn’t need his theology. I didn’t need his belief, his contemplation or his speculation.
As you know, Erin, our Christian education intern is in Illinois today after receiving a call this week that her grandfather, who she adored, and who adored her, had passed away. Although Erin is a seminary student studying theology, right now she doesn’t need our theological theories. She doesn’t need our ponderings or our wonderings. What Erin needs and needs urgently is our love.
Tripp, the seven-year-old grandson of Jim and Verna who has been on our prayer list for several years, will soon undergo treatments again to fight leukemia. Tripp and his family do not need our theology, our deductions or our estimations. What they urgently need is our love.
Having learned this week that their premature baby has suffered brain damage, Miles and Emily do not need our guesses or our opinions about God. What they need, and need urgently, is our love. In fact, the following words are from a text I received from Emily on Friday:
Send lots of love and prayers his way so we can have some clarity in the days, weeks, and months to come. We are in for a long journey with Henry, and we are just pouring all our love and energy into him by spending lots of time together reading, talking and loving.
Emily’s urgent plea was: “Send lots of love.”
A line from of one of Jimmy Buffett’s newest songs, released after his death, goes:
…when the journey gets long, just know that you are loved. There is light up above, and the joy is always enough.
The good news for people like you and me who do not have all the answers, who accept and even embrace the mystery of it all, who do more pondering than knowing and more wondering than concluding, is that we have experienced love— holy, sacred, divine, mysterious, incredulous but certain love. And although we cannot fully comprehend the power of love or the Source of love, we know with confidence that it is love that has brought us to this place we call church. And, with all our misgivings and misunderstandings, with all our doubts and unanswered questions, we somehow, some miraculous way, know that it is love that keeps us here.
And here is some more good news. I KNOW– even this one who doesn’t KNOW much about theology— who some say might not know much about anything, from a science book or from three years of the French I took— But I KNOW, without a doubt, with absolute certainty and with utmost confidence, and on good authority, that Love is present here in this church, and Love is calling us with an urgency to be love and to share love. And if we wake up and answer this call, what a wonderful world this would be.
Just Love 