Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture:
Romans 8:18-28
18 I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth
comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For
the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the
children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected
to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who
subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself
will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the
freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We
know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until
now; 23 and not only the creation, but we
ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly
while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For
in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who
hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what
we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 Likewise
the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray
as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for
words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows
what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for
the saints according to the will of God.
28 We
know that all things work together for good for those who love God,
who are called according to his purpose.
I had a chance this week to read the new book by Colorado mountain
climber Aron Ralston entitled Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
You remember Ralston as the young man who, when he was trapped by a
falling boulder in Utah about a year ago, finally cut off his own hand
in order to set himself free and walked several miles to safety and
rescue.
He tells about this gripping story in his book and also tells about
how his faith and his courage helped him get through this crisis.
Ralston is a United Methodist, incidentally, and grew up in the church
in Indianapolis where Cindy Bates was one of the ministers. When he
was twelve his family moved to Greenwood Village where they all joined
Hope United Methodist Church and where I think Aron is still a member.
Cindy Bates saw Aron at the Tattered Cover last Tuesday night where
he spoke to an overflow crowd of 400 people and where she gave him her
card and told him she would be contacting him to come and speak here
at St Andrew after the first of the year when his book tour is over.
He tells about the agony he went through for six days being trapped
and finally figuring out the grisly way he could free himself. He says
that what happened to him was an accident, a fluke, and that he got
himself into this situation as he has in other risky situations
including an avalanche that almost killed one of his fellow skiers. It
is a sad thing to lose a limb – especially by one’s own choice – and
he has had to cope with some changes in his life that he had not
planned on. He has gone back to a life of adventure and climbing and
still taking some risks but perhaps not in quite so dramatic a fashion
as before. And he says that even in this tragic change of cutting off
his own hand, he has seen many good things come out of that event.
Tom Brokaw, after a recent one-hour interview with Ralston said
this: He would rather have fought this battle and won than never to
have fought it at all.
That is a bold statement and one that may be true for some painful
changes in life but not for others.
We are in the midst of a series of sermons on dealing with change
and the title is a facetious one – Change is Good; You Go First.
The irony in the statement is that not all change is good. Some
changes you and I will face in life will be tragic and immensely
painful and terribly unsettling. They will cause our lives to go
in an entirely different direction from what we had planned. They may
cause us to go into a temporary tailspin and wonder where God is and
how we can cope.
I can think of so many instances like this that I have seen as a
pastor. Thirteen-year-old Jameson Sulkin was to fly from Denver to
Florida to see his grandparents. This was twenty plus years ago now.
He was on the Delta flight that experienced wind shear in Dallas and
crashed and he was instantly killed along with 200 others. I remember
accompanying his parents, Art and Patti to the Colorado Springs
airport and receiving the remains of young Jameson. His tragic death
meant incredibly painful changes for his family including his
eleven-year-old sister. It took a long time for his parents to work
through all their deep sadness and anger and grief and there is a
sense that people really never get over a loss like this – that losing
a loved one, especially a son or daughter, always leaves a hole in our
hearts that is just there because we love each other and we have
dreams and hopes for each other.
It is the same grief, the same painful, dreadful change that the
parents of Samantha Spady are probably feeling the past two weeks
after she died at CSU from alcohol poisoning – and incidentally, I
hope all of us are even more concerned about the dangers of alcohol
abuse especially among students.
We don’t have to look further than the last three weeks of
headlines to see other calamities and tragedies including hurricanes.
And a friend of mine in this church after last Sunday’s sermon told me
about the wedding vows she and her husband had written years ago
including a phrase that where they promised their faithfulness in all
the circumstances of life – a powerful phrase the past couple of years
since an auto accident that has left him with a permanent disability.
An accident. Do you believe there are accidents or is everything that
happens a result of a cosmic plan? Both those ideas are in the Bible.
There are parts of the Bible that imply that God is behind whatever
happens, that it is all part of a plan. That idea is not in the
teachings of Jesus, but it is in other parts of the Bible. It is a
common notion today and it showed up five years ago after the
Columbine High School tragedy when a noted religious song writer sent
us a song he had composed about Columbine saying in that song that he
just didn’t understand God’s plan sometimes – as though the murder of
students and a teacher and wounding of others is part of what God
wanted – part of God’s plan!
When a woman in the crowd listening to Aron Ralston this week asked
him why all this had happened to him he said, It is because of the
choices I made. In other words I took some risks and got myself
into this.
God gives us freedom of choice. And says, Jesus there are still
some accidents in life. He says this in your words for meditation from
Luke: “That tower that fell on those people in Siloam, was that
because they were sinful and deserved it or that God was sending it to
them? NO, he says. In Jesus’ teaching, there are accidents.
British theologian Leslie Weatherhead echoes that insight in his
60-year-old book on the will of God. Does God will disease and
tragedy? Then Jesus, in his healing ministry would actually be
fighting against God. And physicians who are working in research to
make life better are also fighting against God.
But we tell people some terrible things when a tragedy has occurred
– sometimes because we don’t know what to say, or because we don’t
realize the impact of our statements. Rabbi Kushner tells about this
in his classic book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He
tells of a woman who was told after a tragic death in her family that
God did this to her because God knew she was strong enough to handle
it and she said to herself, if I had been a little weaker my loved one
would still be alive? Or the relative who said to a child whose mother
had died that God needed his mother in heaven and the child thought,
so I didn’t need my mother enough?
We can do some theoretical thinking about this until it happens
close to home. Last weekend in a period of twenty four hours I
officiated at a joyful wedding celebration for Chris and Lara Markwell
of this congregation and celebrated their covenant of commitment and
faithfulness to each other and then just a few hours later on Saturday
afternoon presided at the memorial service for fifty-six-year-old Dr.
Linda Crnik of the University of Colorado Medical Center. Linda died a
few days earlier in a bike accident where she did something she just
never did – she rode without a helmet. It was just less than a mile
from the retreat center where she and her friends were staying to the
lake where they wanted to see the sunset but she fell and had a brain
hemorrhage and she died.
Her death is a loss to the international genetic research community
and to families of kids with special needs. Judy and I had met Linda
only recently when she spoke at the national convention that Judy
planned in August for families of individuals with Down Syndrome and
we had a memorable lunch meeting together just three weeks before her
accident. Linda is survived by her husband and a 13-year-old son. I
talked with her son when we met to plan the service and said that he
might hear some bad theology from people who would tell him that God
caused his mother to die and that I didn’t believe that and that the
God I know is weeping with all of us when a tragic accident happens –
as Jesus himself wept when his friend Lazarus died.
When tragic change, calamitous change happens, where is your faith,
where is your rock, where is your strength? My help, the psalmist
says, is in the Lord who made heaven and earth. My faith, another
psalmist says, is in the God who is like a shepherd who walks with us,
travels beside us even when we walk through the valley of the shadow
of death – not around, but through that valley. The same psalmist
says, in Psalm 23, that because God is with us we can fear no evil. He
does not say we will meet no evil, because we will.
Our help is in the God who promises us four things in life, says
Tim Hansel who is in pain the past thirty years from his climbing
accident. God promises us four things: peace, power, purpose, and
trouble. Our faith and strength are in Christ who says; In this world
you will have trouble! BUT be of good courage; don’t give up, because
I have overcome the world.
Our faith is in the God Paul tells us about in our scripture when
he makes this audacious statement: in all things God is able to work
for good with those who love God – in all things – even accidents and
tragedies and losing a limb or losing a loved one. That is different
from saying God causes all things but God is big enough to be at work
in all things.
Do you believe that whatever painful and difficult changes will
happen to you, that you and God can handle them together? Do you trust
God to be with you to see you through even the darkest valley when you
look to God and to the community of God – the church – to be a
resource for help and strength?
Jim Moore at St Luke’s church in Houston tells about a father in
his late twenties whose young wife died, leaving her husband and a
four-year-old son. The evening of her funeral, the father and son were
finally alone at home. The father put his son to bed but the boy felt
he just had to be with his father so the father lay down with him for
a few minutes. As they both lay in the darkness numb with sadness, the
boy, still not understanding all of what had happened said, “Daddy,
when is mommy coming back?”
The father tried to get his son to relax and sleep but the
questions kept coming from his young mind. Finally the boy reached out
his hand through the darkness and placed it on his father’s face,
asking, “Daddy, is your face toward me?” Seeing that his father’s face
was toward him, he said, “Daddy, if your face is toward me, I think I
can go to sleep.” And in a little while he was asleep.
Jim Moore says that as the father lay in the darkness, he lifted up
his own needy heart and prayed a prayer something like this. “God, the
way is very dark right now and I confess that I cannot see my way
through yet; but if your face is toward me, somehow I think I will
make it.”
The words of the prophet Isaiah are full of hope and promise:
When you walk through deep waters (of change) I will not let them
overwhelm you because I know you and love you. I have called you
by name and you belong to me.
Sarah McLachlan talks about that faith and assurance in another
song from her latest album: “I will be the answer at the end of the
line; I will be there for you while you take the time.” This is God
speaking to you and to me.
