Let us pray.
God, let us see the majesty and magnificence of your presence and know the power and the splendor of your sanctuary! Amen.
God, let us see the majesty and magnificence of your presence and know the power and the splendor of your sanctuary! Amen.
How do you know that God
is real?
That is a big question for some, an easy question for
others. The way each understands God in
their lives, how each defines who God is to them, can be vastly different from
another.
Last week I talked about how I understand each part of the
Trinity. It was a brief description for
each, and, of course, my understanding goes much deeper and requires a much
longer conversation. So much of how I
understand God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is centered on Scripture, the stories
of others and my own personal encounters with the Holy.
As a fellowship of Christians, or, as our Presiding Bishop
Michael Curry likes to call us, Jesus Followers, we get to explore the
questions of God, of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit. We get to learn to see God in places we may
not have looked before. Or hear God
through diligent, awakening ears. Or
verbalize, in song, in words, in new and sometimes challenging ways.
Though those experiences may be new to any of us at any
moment in time, they have been a part of the God story forever. As imperfect people, it can be easy to fail
to seek God, to see God, to even believe in God when lives are centered and
busy and occupied with making ends meet, being in communities that draw our
attention to the world in front rather than the world beyond, or when so much
of the world distracts from who God is in the world. It can be easy to worship idols, named or
unnamed, instead of worshiping God.
How
do you know that God is real?
Take Elijah. Elijah
had his work cut out for him. He was
God’s prophet when being so was radically different—when it went against what
society believed they needed or wanted.
He was God’s prophet during a severe drought, sent to turn Ahab to the
Lord with the promise that if Ahab turned to the Lord, the drought would end. Elijah was God’s prophet, sent to change hearts
and to remind the people that they were to follow the Lord God of Israel.
But the people had fallen into the trap of peer pressure,
of worshiping idols, of being distracted from God. They set their Lord God aside and began to
worship Baal, who was understood to be either a god of multiple personalities,
or was personified as many gods. Baal
was considered the god or gods of fertility, weather, rain, wind, lightning,
seasons, war and the patron of sailors and sea-going merchants as well as the
leader of the ancestral spirits.[1]
He isn’t real, so following him was not only foolish, it
was harmful. Even in a pluralistic world,
where some people believe there are many ways to find God, there are still “some religious views and
practices [that] are clearly false, harmful, and even despicable.”[2] Baal fit this category.
Elijah knows this, so he challenges the people, “If the
Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him (21).”
The scene began to sound a little like a competition:
“My God is better than your god.”
“Prove it!”
Elijah had to prove that God was better, yes, but it was
even more than that. He had to prove
that God exists, and so he created a test to help the people see not only that
his God was better … he proved that his God exists.
Elijah made this proposition to the 450 prophets of Baal:
Let two bulls be given to
us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on
the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on
the wood, but put no fire to it. Then you call on the name
of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord; the
god who answers by fire is indeed God.’
Baal never showed up.
Never responded to prayers. Never
stopped the men from flogging themselves to the point of bleeding. Baal never showed up because Baal does not
exist.
But
God came down in a firestorm, destroying the wood, the beast, the water. God came down, proving God’s presence with
humanity, with Elijah, with all, even those who doubted God’s existence. And the people believed. They said, "The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God."
And then, in the next verse, the one we didn’t read, Elijah
kills all 450 of the prophets of Baal. (Which
would be a great topic of a Bible study sometime.) A few days later, after Elijah’s seven trips
to the top of Carmel, and intense prayer, God sent rain, beginning with a tiny
cloud and ended the drought.
Sometimes to prove God exists something miraculous happens.
How do you know that God is real?
The psalmist knew. The
psalmist knew that God is present, in every day, as a new song, a new voice, a
new celebration in the world. The
psalmist knew that as God’s creation, we must rejoice in God’s power—in God’s
presence—in God’s delight.
The psalmist knew that we, as followers of God, are
instructed to share the wonder of God to others. To be evangelists into the world, telling the
world that God is real and needed and that God created each of us and
every-thing for a purpose known only to God.
The psalmist knew that God is real because the earth
responds with wind, air, water and fire, with thunder and lightning and
crashing waves and seasons. Because
trees rise up to the sky to celebrate, waving their branches with joy.
How do you know that God is real?
Paul knew. Paul had
a conversion that no one else could experience.
It was up to him to convince others that the conversion, that
life-changing experience, was real. That
Jesus Christ spoke to him and turned his life around to be devoted to the God
that Paul previously had never known, but now knew intimately.
What he didn’t understand is that others didn’t know. He didn’t understand how others could be
swayed and convinced to walk a different path, not following God, even though
they had become Jesus Followers. So he
went to people, like the Galatians, to remind them that God is real and that Jesus
taught the disciples to follow God.
How do you know that God is real?
Somehow, even the Roman Centurion knew. He knew that the God of his Slave, could save
that slave’s life. He knew to send for
Jesus, and did so. He knew that Jesus
could save his slave’s life, even from a distance.
Scholars don’t know why he knew.[3]
Even Jesus was amazed that he knew. And Jesus healed the slave. He healed without expectation. He healed because he was asked by an unlikely
person, unlikely to convert, unlikely to change his life to follow Jesus
publicly, Jesus healed anyway.
How do you know that God
is real?
I have a favorite song by the artist India Arie entitled,
“God is Real.” I’d like to share it with
you. It begins with a man on the radio
saying he doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see, refuting that God is
real. India’s song is a response. The song is a little bit long, so feel free
to close your eyes while you listen.
“God Is Real” India Arie, from the album, Voyage to India (time:
4:18)
[Verse 1]
Sweetest honey to the brightest flower the largest plant
Into the smallest atom, snowflakes in the bird kingdom,
Smaller than the eye can see,
Bigger than the mind can conceive. (oh)
Heard a man on the radio today,
Must confess I disagreed with what he had to say.
[Bridge]
How could he not believe that God is real,
I don't understand how he could feel that way. When
There's earth air water and fire.
So many different flowers, sunshine and rain shower,
So many different crystals and hills and volcanos.
[Chorus]
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance)
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance)
That's how I know that God is real (I know this is not by chance)
That's how I know that God is real
That's how I know that God is real.
[Verse 2]
In Saint Lucia, I jumped in the water.
For the first time I understood its power.
As I swam, I was cleansed.
If I had any doubts, this experience cleared them.
[Bridge]
Now I know for sure that God is real.
I know that it's the truth by the way it feels (uh-huh)
Cause I saw starfish and sponges,
Fish and black trumpets,
So many different colors I stayed
Out there for hours and I only saw a fraction of a fraction,
Of the deepest of the deep,
Of the great blue wide.
It Brought a tear to my eye.
[Chorus]
[Break]
We're made of the same stuff as the moon and stars.
The ocean's salt water just like my tears are.
You feel me the sun rises and sets every day without fail
[Chorus]
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance),
That's how I know that God is real (I know this is not by chance),
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance),
That's how I know that God is real
Earth, air, water, and fire
Earth, air, water, and fire
Earth, air, water, and fire
That's how I know that God is real
Sweetest honey to the brightest flower the largest plant
Into the smallest atom, snowflakes in the bird kingdom,
Smaller than the eye can see,
Bigger than the mind can conceive. (oh)
Heard a man on the radio today,
Must confess I disagreed with what he had to say.
[Bridge]
How could he not believe that God is real,
I don't understand how he could feel that way. When
There's earth air water and fire.
So many different flowers, sunshine and rain shower,
So many different crystals and hills and volcanos.
[Chorus]
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance)
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance)
That's how I know that God is real (I know this is not by chance)
That's how I know that God is real
That's how I know that God is real.
[Verse 2]
In Saint Lucia, I jumped in the water.
For the first time I understood its power.
As I swam, I was cleansed.
If I had any doubts, this experience cleared them.
[Bridge]
Now I know for sure that God is real.
I know that it's the truth by the way it feels (uh-huh)
Cause I saw starfish and sponges,
Fish and black trumpets,
So many different colors I stayed
Out there for hours and I only saw a fraction of a fraction,
Of the deepest of the deep,
Of the great blue wide.
It Brought a tear to my eye.
[Chorus]
[Break]
We're made of the same stuff as the moon and stars.
The ocean's salt water just like my tears are.
You feel me the sun rises and sets every day without fail
[Chorus]
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance),
That's how I know that God is real (I know this is not by chance),
That's how I know that God is real (all of this is not by chance),
That's how I know that God is real
Earth, air, water, and fire
Earth, air, water, and fire
Earth, air, water, and fire
That's how I know that God is real
How do you know that God is real?
Let us pray.
Elijah came as a
prophet to remind your people that you are real, O God. The psalmist sang your praises, bringing your
presence into focus. Paul repeatedly
taught the variety of people he met how to live in relationship with you. Jesus healed in your name, seeing the breadth
of your presence in all people. Help us,
O God, to know your presence, to be in relationship with you, to know that we
are embraced in your love. Amen.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal
[2] http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20130527JJ.shtml
[3] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/pentecost-2-c-welcoming-difference/