Recorded
Version
Finding God
David Orendorff · Matthew 11:2-6 · December 16th 2007
“Where is God” is a question we sometimes ask. Most often we ask this when we want something better than war, disease or hunger, better than our current experience. We ask it because we need saving from something from which we cannot save ourselves.
And sometimes our seeking for God is like me looking for the mayonnaise. Stick with me on this for a moment. I am particularly fond of mayonnaise. I will not eat sandwiches without it. Mayonnaise is important to my happiness. However, my need for mayonnaise sometimes collides with Vickie’s need to consolidate things in the refrigerator. Every so often the mayonnaise jar is retired and the mayonnaise goes to live in an old yogurt container.
So when I go looking for the mayonnaise I am looking for a jar that says mayonnaise, not for a yogurt container that says blueberry. I look and look for that jar, I move things around, but I cannot find the mayonnaise because though the mayonnaise is there, the jar I am looking for is not there. I am looking for the right thing in the wrong container. Now, I can conclude that the mayonnaise doesn’t exist because I can’t find it, and then I grumble in a low voice just loud enough to be heard, as I look for an alternative lunch.
I have learned over time though, that just because I can’t find it doesn’t mean it’s not there. My wisest action, as usual, is to ask Vickie. And when she tells me that it is in a blueberry yogurt container, I have an epiphany, a revelation, and behold the angles sing and there is mayonnaise and there is joy and peace in the world.
In the day and place of John the Baptist those seeking God went to the temple, this was the jar that held God. They were told that God had come down from Mount Sinai got into the Ark of the Covenant and wandered with the Hebrew people on their exodus. God then took up permanent residence in the temple King David and his son Solomon had built. Outside this jar, this particular vision of God, there was no God, or at least that is what the people had come to believe.
And if the temple held God then the priests of the temple owned the institution. By control of the temple the priests had become the mediators of God’s presence in the world. The priests determined who could enter the temple, set the temple tax, and directed the rituals of life. As far as the people were concerned, the priests had control of God. The voice of a prophet or an inspired believer was no longer to be tolerated. Only the voice of the priest saying the right prayers in the right season with the right authority and sacrifice was acceptable, or so the priests said.
But John the Baptist found God outside the temple jar. Rejecting the institutions of power John chose his own way. He dressed in camel hair, not the soft robes of those in authority. He ate locust and wild honey, not the refined foods of the wealthy. John had no building, no certificates or diplomas, no authority granted by any religious or secular order.
By his independence John was a threat to those at the temple. What had to be bought in the temple from the priests could be gotten free from John down by the river. John taught and practiced a faith of grace. And John taught that people didn’t need to go to the temple to find God but that God came to them wherever they were. John lived his life expecting to meet God in the next moment, in the next person. John set God free from the temple and all other places.
John moved the mayonnaise out of the temple jar and into the whole of the world. If we are looking for God and cannot find God, then perhaps we need to look differently, broaden our vision beyond jars and temples, beyond the stories of a bearded man from our childhood and beyond our categories of time and space.
While under arrest John hears of Jesus and sends some of his disciples to ask, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” It is the right question. If we are not going to accept the authority of priests and temples, if we, like John the Baptist, are not going to simply believe in this or that because the pastor said so, or the Bible said so, how are we to know if this one or that one is of God?
Jesus’ reply to John’s disciples tells us. Jesus says, “Report to John what you hear and see.” John’s disciples hear and see “the blind given sight, the lame made to walk, lepers cleansed, deaf made to hear, the dead raised and the poor preached good news.” Jesus is God present not because of wealth, status, education or any other source of personal power. Jesus is the one because of what he says and does to heal life.
I am a simple man and my understanding, my vision, of God is simple. God is servant love, period. Wherever I find servant love, I find God. And I find love everywhere. God is in every word of forgiveness and in every act of compassion. God is in a mother’s voice for her child and in a father’s acts for his family. God is in a lover’s first discoveries. God is in friends who understand, in charitable giving of wealth and time, in those who risk their lives for our sake. God is in the millions and billions of servant caring that happen daily in schools, churches, missions, hospitals, military service, on the street with strangers and at home. God is everywhere and in everyone if we will only have ears to hear and eyes to see.
Christmas is one of the best times of year to have our ears and eyes open for God’s gracious and omnipresent love. My favorite celebration of this truth is Christmas Eve. I know that many of you prefer the traditional service with beautiful music, familiar carols and candles. And that’s OK.
But I like best the Children’s Unrehearsed Christmas pageant. This service is only for the hardy. It is noisy, chaotic and unrefined. Babies cry, children move around at will, cameras flash as parents attempt to capture what can never be held. Unrehearsed, the children pick their costumes and they wander in (with some guidance) as animals and shepherds, angels and magi. One year one of the five magi came as Santa Claus. He wore red pajamas and a white kerchief for a beard. I looked down the aisle and wondered what a bandit in his red pajamas was doing here. But I didn’t have to look hard for the red bandit beamed pride while giving his gift to the baby of the world and I knew that God was present.
One year, one of the angels began disappearing behind the altar playing a game of “Hide and Peek” with the congregation. Her parents were mortified; the rest of us loved it for it revealed the comedy of God’s laughter with us. We’ve had shepherds on crutches, goats who lost their ears, young girls claiming the role of king. We’ve had it all, and all of it is there for us to hear and see on Christmas that God is with us.
There is no secret code to knowing God present. There are no right words. There are no right places. There are no holier people for every word; every place and every child is God’s word, place and child. All life is a witness to God’s love. God is everywhere, all the time, in all things. God is the content and meaning of all creation.
You do not need me or any other pastor. You do not need this institution or any other institution. You only need to look at the stars reflected upon the water while holding each other in forgiving and tender care and there is God. All the rest of it, the formulas, laws, creeds, scriptures, priests, institutions are to be aids for the journey. They are not God.
Are you looking for God? If so and you have been frustrated in your search, quit trying so hard to see the mayonnaise jar and look for the yogurt container of love. Relax, listen and see what is already present to you in your life as it is now. Listen to the cry of the baby. See how their eyes light with sight, their legs discover stepping, how their wounds from falling become their strength for running, how they hear the call of love with ear and heart, how they came from nothing and in their poverty they tickle and they laugh. If you have eyes to see and ears to hear then you have your answer and you have seen the one you’ve been longing for all you life. God is servant love and is continually born among us and for us.
Shalom and Amen.