Psalm 27: 5-14

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! ?Come, my heart says, ?seek his face!' Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation! If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Sermon Text

When I went to the Soviet Union on a peace trip in 1983 I traveled with a General Assembly colleague by the name of John Lindner. John is a pastor, and so is his wife, Ilene. I hadn't met Ilene until last week, where she preached at the concluding worship of the conference which Alice and I attended. What a wonderful preacher she is! What a story teller! I can't hold a candle to Ilene, but I'll do my best this morning to pass along a story she shared with us, for it bears upon the theme of my sermon today, which is this: that you are a child of God.

When Ilene's son was three years old, she took advantage of every opportunity to help him learn new things. Now that I'm a granddad, I know how wonderful that is. Watching my grandchildren grow is a kick. Everything is new to them. Every day is an adventure. Parents don't always appreciate that. Parents can get so busy with the responsibilities of child rearing, that they forget the adventure of watching their children grow. But Ilene didn't. She has a bubbly, inquisitive spirit. She enjoyed seeing the world through her children's wide eyes. One day she had her son with her as she was doing some errands, and decided to stop by the car wash. This will be exciting, she thought. He will really dig this! We'll go through the car wash together! That was before the new regs which that say you have to keep your kids belted into safety seats in the back, so her son was riding in the passenger seat next to her. "Watch!" she said, "this is gonna be fun!" Well, it was fun for a while, during the spray cycle, but then those huge brushes closed in, and that was another story. Her spry toddler was out of his seat in a flash, and into mom's lap, screaming "Stop! Stop!" She knew at once that she had made a terrible mistake, misgauging her three-year-old's relish for scary adventure. She tried to comfort him, the way you would an adult: "Don't worry. Nothing's going to hurt you. The brushes are outside and we're inside! He couldn't hear a word of it, because he was shouting even louder: Stop! Stop! Then, her mother's instinct kicked in. She hugged him close, and she rocked him, and spoke calmly into his ear: "I'm here. You're all right. Nothing's going to hurt you. I'm with you." And by that time they were into the wax cycle, and everything was all right.

Life can be scary. Not just for children, but for grown-ups too. This has always been so. M. Scott Peck begins his best selling book, The Road Less Traveled, by noting that life is difficult. Life is naturally difficult, because life is unpredictable. There is no way to be absolutely safe. No matter how diligent we are in minding rules that generally promote good health and safety, and no matter how conscientiously we may follow God's commandments, we still cannot insulate ourselves from misfortune. Yes, many passages in the Bible do teach that God blesses good, obedient people with health and prosperity; but not every biblical author agrees. The book of Job shows that very bad things can sometimes happen to good people, careful people, conscientious people. And the central story of the New Testament is that a lamb without blemish, a sinless person, suffers a monumental injustice, getting nailed to a cross like a common criminal. So, goodness cannot protect us utterly. Caution cannot protect us perfectly. Life is not a smooth sail; it is rough. So, like the frightened toddler who clings to his mother as the big brushes close in, scared adults, hemmed in by enemies, by sickness, by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, cling to God for comfort.

Says the psalmist: "Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! ?Come, my heart says, ?seek his face!' Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me." Ilene's son leaned into his mother. Her face was so very close to his as she comforted him. He was not reassured by her reasoning. He was reassured by the closeness of her face, and her strong arms around him. Even when he couldn't understand that the brushes would soon stop and retreat, his mother's closeness made things all right.

I was one scared young man back in 1970, as I went to bed with an M-16 locked and loaded and hanging on my bunk. Things were bad then, in the jungle. I can't imagine how bad they are now in Iraq, in the cities. Much scarier, I'm sure. Back then I took comfort in the words of Paul: "Whether we live, or whether we die, we are in Christ." I came to realize that my ultimate security didn't depend on whether I had cleaned my weapon just so, or whether I had memorized the tide table correctly and also the radio frequency used for air support. And it didn't depend, as the GIs were wont to say, on whether "the bullet had my name on it." I came to realize that my ultimate security didn't even have to do with my living or dying. It had to do with God's love for me, which is steady as a rock. I came to feel in my gut what my Sunday school teachers had been telling me all along: that I am a child of God, and that no matter what happens, God will be with me.

To gain comfort, we can cling to God, who gave us life, seeking God's face. Jesus said: "Seek and you will find." I don't think he was talking about some esoteric wisdom. That's not what spiritual seeking is mostly about. It's about intimacy--intimacy with our source. Jesus was talking about intimacy with God, the kind of intimacy a new born child generally experiences with his or her mother. Generally, I say, because not every mother is loving, and dependable, as Ilene was in our opening story.

I'm currently reading some sad pages written by my father's half brother. Through his pen he's trying to get all the hurt and resentment out, because his mother wasn't loving, and wasn't dependable. In fact, she beat him, rather often, with the handle end of a horse whip. That's very scary, don't you think? If mom won't comfort you, who will? The psalmist says: "If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up." If my father and mother forsake me?the people who should be kind and protective?if they, on the other hand, beat me, or sexually molest me, or treat me like a prince one moment and scum the next, then who, pray tell, will take me up? God will, says the psalmist. God will.

God is often portrayed in the Bible as a loving parent. Jesus speaks of God that way, as a wondrously loving papa. But the metaphor is cold comfort to many people, like my half uncle, who have been abused or neglected by their parents. What if one has never had even a good enough papa or mama?a guardian who is basically together--let alone one who is wise and kind and patient, like Ilene? How then can one find the safe intimacy one yearns for, the ultimate intimacy with one's source which makes all other intimacies possible? This would seem impossible, since God is so grand and so abstract, and we usually establish a relationship to God by way of metaphor, don't we? But what if we have no experience with good parents to help us see, even in a small way, what God is like? Are we then doomed to wander about life forever forlorn and frightened?

The psalmist says no, we are not. Back to his autobiographical language: "Even if my mother and father forsake me," he says, "the Lord will take me up." This is quite a remarkable human being, our psalmist. He is hopeful, isn't he, despite an apparently poor experience with parents. (I don't think he would have mentioned that business about his mother and father forsaking him unless there were something to it in fact). Yet, despite the likelihood that he has had a rough start in life, a very rough start, he says: "I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

Notice, please, not in some life after death. He has not written this life off. No, he expects to get what he's looking for: closeness to God, steadfast love, safe intimacy, in this life. He is hopeful, and he lets his hope be his counselor. He does not smother it. He does not let his resentment or his fear speak so loudly that they would drown out the Source's whispering in his mind's ear: Don't give up. Don't give up. I am with you. Don't give up! He senses this precious, rare kindness, speaking hope to him, as a good mother would who holds her babe tight when the world closes in; and he lets that insipient hope fortify him for however long it takes, the seeking: "Wait for the Lord," he says to himself. "Be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"

You are a child of God. You, and you, and you. This is a fact, whether or not you have felt it yet, in your gut. You may not have had a hospitable start in life, not even a good enough mother or father. That is sad; but it's not tragic, because you are a child of God. And the Source who gave you life loves you, no matter what has happened to you in the past, or may happen to you in the future. Realizing this can mean the difference between your wandering about, forlorn and frightened, or looking forward to new adventures, even scary ones, because you are not alone.