Sermon, July 28, 2002
10 Pentecost; Proper 12, Year A
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Readings – Romans 8:18-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-41 

One of the gifts of childhood is a natural sense of intimacy with God. Most of us can remember times when God seemed very close and real. And then we grow up. We learn a lot of things, and for many of us, the notion of God becomes more problematic. Then, many of us go through a long process of exploration which sometimes leads right back to where we started in the first place – a natural sense of intimacy with God, but now we understand more.

My grandfather’s house was across the street from the Methodist parsonage and church. There was something about that place that made God seem very real and very close. Maybe it was the experience of unqualified love from my grandfather. Maybe it was that spiritual openness that seems to accompany going away from the everyday familiar. I can remember walking down the sidewalk in that holy place and thinking, "God’s watching me walk down this sidewalk. And God can see the cracks in the broken concrete that I’m seeing. I hope God’s enjoying being outside with me as much as I’m enjoying it. I’ll bet God enjoys it even more than I do."

Catholic teacher Richard Rohr remembers as a child putting a rock in his shoe for Lent. It was an act of self-denial. And he treasures remembering the intimate excitement he experienced. God really cares deeply and personally for me. God is watching little Dicky Rohr walk with a rock in his shoe, and God is proud.

Paul reflects on that intimacy in today’s epistle speaking of the Spirit that dwells deep within us, interceding for us from within our depths. A divine presence and intimate knowing that is deeper even than our own thoughts and feelings. Always praying. And Paul also says there is a transcendent intercessor, Christ Jesus who is raised from human death. Think of that. We have God’s intimate, real care through the deep Spirit and the risen Christ, both interceding for us, sometimes with sighs too deep for words.

Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest in Georgia. She tells about her disorientation during her first year at seminary. "I was further away from home than I had ever been, everyone seemed to speak a foreign language, and I was not even sure why I was there. I was dreadfully lonely, and afraid, and desperate for some answers."

At the end of her rope, she had one of those crazy notions. Next to the seminary was an old deserted Victorian mansion, boarded up and crumbling. She decided that she would climb the metal fire escape up the three floors to a platform outside an attic dormer window and pray until she got an answer. So she did.

The view from the top was beautiful. A salty wind blew off the Long Island Sound. She writes this, "Once the edge of my fear was gone, I began my prayer, asking God to reveal his purpose for me, to point me in the right direction, to give me a sign. It was a pretty good prayer, as formal prayers go, but I did not hear or feel any answers. So I tried again, getting madder and madder as I did. What good was God if he would not even answer a simple prayer? I talked and talked to God until the words ran out, and then to my great surprise I heard myself begin to sing – or chant, really, something between plainsong and the howl of a dog answering a siren. No words came out, just mournful sounds that seemed finally to say what was on my heart, and when I came to the end of them I had my answer. It was nothing specific, which was what I had wanted. I had expected a fortune cookie answer, like ‘Take the next boat to Samoa and dig latrines in Pago-Pago.’ But the answer I got was the deep conviction that I was loved, and what I was called to do was to love back in whatever way allowed me to love the best and most – as a housewife and mother, a nuclear physicist, a gas station attendant, an ordained minister – the specifics did not seem to matter to God. What mattered were my relationships, and the love in them, chief among them was my relationship with God. Saint Augustine summed it up 1500 years ago: ‘Love, and do what you will.’" (Mixed Blessings, p. 106-7)

In a way, that’s not a very helpful answer. There are so many possibilities and so many decisions to make. The heavenly advice, "Just love" leaves a lot unsaid. But the experience of going deep within, letting your heart’s needs be released, and listening even deeper is a discerning practice.

I have people who ask me very specific questions to try to solve very specific problems. "Lowell, what does the church say about this?" or "Is there something in the Bible about that?" And the church and scripture are sources of wisdom and guidance. But the Holy Spirit also speaks within you. The Spirit and the Risen One intercede for you in a relationship of intimacy and care.

Years ago I was praying like that. I had started with a scripture, but I let it go and from a place too deep for words I begged to know God. I’ve never had words adequately to describe what I experienced. But there was a living presence in the room with me. And when my mind whispered "Is that you, God? Is this what God feels like?"... I sensed an overwhelming "Yes!" The best words I’ve found is that it was like a Cosmic Laugh. Boundless powerful joy.

I’ve held on to that pearl. It’s like a seed that keeps sprouting new life. It’s like yeast that invisibly sifts through one’s consciousness. I became convinced that the foundation of everything is a living, powerful joy. A love so full that it explodes across the universe like giant laughter.

God wants us to play with him. Like a child, you and I can walk down the sidewalk again and share the fun of the cracks with God. We can curl up in a fetal position and groan about the heartaches and pains that threaten to break us. We can speak our fears, even unto death. For the One to whom we speak has known pain and knows death from the inside. We are a people who live within the powerful joy of Easter’s Cosmic Laugh that burst open the dark tomb so that mysteriously all things can finally work together for good. "If God is for us, who is against us? ...It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn."

God is enjoying you right here, right now. Enjoy that. Enjoy God. Pray in the Spirit. And walk out of here with that real and intimate sense of God’s closeness and care for you. Who knows? This Lent you may even want to put a rock in your shoe.

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