When I was about 12 years old, my parents took me to a summer camp deep in the mountains of Western North Carolina. On those hot summer days there were plenty of activities to keep even the most energy filled adolescent busy: camping and hiking and even sailing on the lake when the sun burned the clouds away. But that wasn’t all. I'll never forget one afternoon when our counselor announced that we’d be “building teamwork” today. He took us up into the hills and led us through a rigorous ropes course, as the Carolina sun caused sweat to pour down our brows and soak our cotton t-shirts.
When we finished the course, our counselor, with a gleeful grin, led our weary group towards one final exercise: an aluminum step-ladder that sat in the shady corner of a soccer field. He told us that we were about to engage in a “trust fall.” For those of you who never had the pleasure of being a scout or attending a rustic summer camp, I’ll let you in on a little secret. A “trust fall” is as silly an idea as a well-meaning Boy Scout leader could invent. The basic concept is that a few lucky souls step up to the top of the ladder while their comrades position themselves in rows facing inward on either side. The trusting, (or perhaps foolhardy) young person falls backwards blindly into the supportive embrace of his peers, and not, as luck would have it, past them or through them.
At the front of our little group were the Eagle Scout types -- the ones that volunteered for the three-day overnight hikes, the ones who could scale the climbing wall in record time and who took pride in their ability to build fires with one match and some damp kindling -- and of course, they were the first to volunteer for the trust fall, jumping up and down, “Ohhh! Pick me!” But the counselor looked right past them, looked back towards the fringes of the group, and made an attempt to meet my eyes, which were probably focused squarely on the ground. “Dominic,” he said, in a paternalistic bass, “why don’t you give it a try?”
Trust. It’s something that we talk quite a lot about. We talk about trusting our vocations, trusting our hearts, trusting our instincts but not, as come to think of it, much about trusting God. We place our trust in all kinds of entities, from political parties to auto insurance companies, but are quite stingy with our trust in the Divine. “God helps those who help themselves” was Ben Franklin’s cynical comment, born of a Diest cosmology in which God was present only as a dis-interested architect, a blind watchmaker who worked out the blueprints of the Universe and then left it to run without oversight -- a Creator too busy, perhaps, with other things. Not that Franklin trusted human beings any more: “three people can keep a secret” he said, “if two of them are dead.”
What do we make then, of today’s Psalm, so heavy with a yearning and trust in God’s deliverance: “Your steadfast love is higher than the heavens,” the Psalmist says, “and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” What do we make of Jesus command that his disciples “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.”
I don’t know about you, but last time I took a long trip, I joined AAA! Like many Christians I am often a person of two minds when it comes to the issue of trust in God. On one hand I trust fiercely in the Grace of God that blots out sin and death and the reality and revelation of the Cross. But when it comes to the concrete workings of our present day, to the nuts and bolts of life in this Earth I very rarely find room for that kind of trust. Which is tragic really, because it is exactly those kinds of nuts and bolts: clothing and luggage and bread and staff that Jesus tells his disciples they can do without if they place their trust in God.
Which is why I think we really are charged to have faith and trust in God in concrete and practical ways. Not just trust in theologies or doctrines or liturgical movements but trust in daily bread and daily work. Trust that God will provide for us as we seek to be instruments of God’s will, faithful in worship, prayer and service to those whom Christ loves.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Place your trust in a theology of Justification by Faith, but if you’re smart you’ll get homeowners insurance with a low deductible!” No, Jesus says things like “Consider the lilies of the field,” and more ominously, “those who try to save their life will lose it.” I can’t even imagine what opinion Jesus would have held about the Church Pension Fund.
Now, I’m not telling you to cancel your medical insurance and rely on faith healing, but what I am saying is that our attitude towards God’s promises to us, our understanding of the New and Living Covenant is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. We should take this seriously. If we talk about God’s blessings and God’s promises but act as if they don’t exist, haven’t I, haven’t we, been hypocrites? What would it mean to work and live and act as if the blessing of God and the indwelling of the Spirit were present in us and as near to us as our theologies and prayers claim. What would it mean to fearlessly engage with the world -- to preach Christ crucified and the totality of God’s grace with a conviction born of embodied truth?
I’ve often found in my own life, in the times of trial, when I feared most and knew that there was absolutely nothing I could do to help myself, when I had no other option but to call out to God and trust, however feebly and brokenly, in God’s promises, that a kind of peaceful determination sprung up in place of my turmoil of spirit. A quiet confidence took hold in direct proportion to my fear. I had just such an experience in CPE this summer, terrified of my own weakness and inexperience and clinging to whatever shards of hope I could grasp.
Now in retrospect, I can say that the seeds I had planted in a weak and half-hearted way sprung to life -- because it was not my timid planting or watering that mattered, but it was God who gave the increase. Right now, sitting in these pews, I imagine that there are dozens of great ideas, sitting on the back-burner of your mind, smothered by a litany of “if onlys.” If only I had the funding. If only I had the support of the Bishop. If only I had the academic credentials. If only I had the time. If only... They write themselves don’t they? Imagine what would happen if you replaced that endless stream of “if onlys” with an equally endless stream of blessings on the seeds of ministry waiting to be sown and the notes of Gospel waiting to be sounded.
Imagine what you could accomplish if you knew in your heart that you could not fail. What outreach project, what work of scholarship, what ministry to the poor, what evangelization of the Gospel would you begin if success was assured? And how do you know it isn’t a sure thing, if only we could find the grace and courage to take that leap of faith? What if you knew that the funding will come in time, that the Bishop would come around eventually, that it was never about our trembling hands to begin with, but about God’s steady arms, “a rock besides which there is no other.”
Back at that summer camp, I walked to the top of the ladder, I took a deep breath, I crossed my arms over my chest, closed my eyes -- and I fell. Today I invite you to fall together in ministry, to keep taking chances for a Gospel that has always been, and God willing will always remain, a risky proposition.
Yes! The paperweight on my desk is inscribed with the words, "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"
ReplyDeleteYears ago, when I helped people in another community do what I had done - build a school, the prospective Head of School asked me, "What do you wish you had known ten years ago, before you started the school?" I had never thought of this, and I answered without thinking, "I wish I had known that God would answer all my prayers."