“When God Lets Us Down” A Sermon by Dr. William P. Wood First Presbyterian Church Charlotte, North Carolina November 16, 2003 Text: “Why is my pain unceasing, my wounds incurable, refusing to be healed? Truly you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail” (Jeremiah 15:18). This past Monday I had the pleasure to hear John Grisham speak at the Blumenthal Center as part of the Public Library’s Novello program. The story that Grisham told is one that many people would envy. As a young man, he practiced law in a small town in Mississippi. By his own account he was not really headed anywhere. He was elected to the State Legislature where he served for a number of years, but for the most part, he was not headed for any kind of real distinction as an attorney--that is until he discovered a different interest--his interest in writing. His first book was entitled A Time To Kill. The inspiration for the book came from a situation Grisham had known firsthand--a father who took the life of a prisoner who had raped his daughter. Each morning before work Grisham would rise at 5:00 A.M. and work on his novel. When it was finally ready to be published, he had an extremely difficult time finding a publisher. It was only after he had written his second novel, The Firm, that he found his first real break. Paramount Studios had purchased the film rights to The Firm, a film that would star Tom Cruise. After that exposure the rest, as they say, is history. Today there are over 60 million Grisham books in publication. I. There is, I suppose, nothing quite as appealing as a real success story. Most of us take real delight in seeing a great athlete, a great storyteller, a great actor succeed. The same is true in the church. Commonly in our worship we praise God with hymns, rejoice in God’s promise of forgiveness, and generally acknowledge a great sense of contentment with our relationship with God. Realistically, however, the truth is that often times God appears to let us down. This painful collapse of trust in God comes in many ways, but most often it comes in those areas of our life where we are most vulnerable: in our marriages, with our children, in our jobs. Beyond such individual tragedies there is also a tragic element in our society that gnaws at us. Forty years ago in the face of racial injustice, many people--black and white--sang “We Shall Overcome.” But we have not overcome. Racism still infects our society. Eleven o’clock on Sunday morning still remains one of the most segregated hours in the week. Moreover, after decades of social programs, we still find ourselves with a public school system in trouble, with a collapsing family system and more and more poor children in single parent homes. So in spite of our best efforts, it sometimes seems that the odds are stacked against us and we wonder where is God in the middle of all of this. II. The Bible, of course, is an inclusive compendium of all of the experiences of the human soul, and throughout it runs a theme of those instances in which God appears to have let us down. Take, if you will, the case of the prophet Jeremiah. Of all the prophets, he stands closest to the New Testament. As a young man, he responded to the call of God. And yet the call of God is a burden to him. It is fire in his mouth; he cannot help but speak it. And yet, it is a great burden to him. He sacrificed himself on behalf of God at every turn, and yet it seemed that God had turned against him. With everything going against his family, his nation, and the world, he turns to God and says, “Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?”(Jeremiah 15:18). Anyone who has visited Israel knows what a devastating picture of God these words present. In the rainy season, as one travels through the Judean desert, there are streams and small 1st Presbyterian Church Page 2 November16, 2003 rivers. They appear to be permanent, but as any Palestinian will tell you, when the hot suns of summer bake them, these streams and rivers run dry. That is the metaphor Jeremiah applies to God. God is like a stream in the spring that promises water, but in the heat of summer the stream runs dry. When one thinks of all the grand metaphors by which we describe God, this is not one that usually comes to mind. God is a rock, a fortress, a king, a father, a shepherd, and a savior—but who among us would refer to God as a deceitful brook--as waters that fail. So what is a person to do when God looks like that? And where does the trouble lie? III. To begin, if we are to take our cue from Jeremiah, we ought not to try to solve the problem by giving up on God. Many people do this. So often the problems of the world seem so acute, the sufferings of individuals so great, that many are tempted to assume there is no God. This past spring I came across the recent book by Pat Conroy, entitled My Losing Season. In that book Conroy recounts the season in 1967 when he played point guard for the Citadel basketball team. Because his years at the Citadel coincided roughly with the time I spent at Davidson, I was particularly interested in reading the book as it brought back memories of Johnston Gym years ago. Pat Conroy has come a long way from that losing season. He is now a famous author and sought after speaker. In his book Conroy contrasts the lessons learned from winning from those learned from losing. “Winning,” he writes, “makes you think you will always get the girl, land the job, deposit the million-dollar-check, win the promotion, and you grow accustomed to a life of answered prayers.” “Losing,” he writes, “is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted, but clear- eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass.” Conroy concludes by saying of that losing season, “Though I learned some things from the games we won that year, I learned much, much more from loss.” John Hick once observed that the purpose of God in creating the world as a place for human life is very different than building a cage or a pen for a pet animal. The purpose of building a pen or a cage for an animal is to make the animal as comfortable as possible. God’s purpose in the provision of human life is not for comfort but for the possibilities of growth to human maturity. 1st Presbyterian Church Page 3 November16, 2003 IV. Then, too, if we are to handle well those times in which God appears to have let us down, we are going to have to recognize that God is greater, sterner, and more austere than a lot of sentimental Christianity has made God out to be. Sometimes those of us in the church paint an unflattering view of God in which God appears like an indolent parent, soft and often overlooking evil. But that is not the God of Jeremiah or Jesus. One of the most austere aspects of the universe in which we live is that natural and spiritual laws govern it. “Be not deceived,” writes Paul to the Galatians. “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap.” On that point God is inexorable. God does not play favorites. He has no softness. Age after age, year after year the law-abiding conditions in this universe wait, offering the blessing or the curse, and the curse falls as remorselessly or the blessing arrives as the conditions are fulfilled. Jonathan Edwards, one of the most brilliant minds of the 18th Century in this country, once preached a sermon, entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in which he depicted the wrath of God with such power that men and women screamed and fainted all through the church. Today, we are not likely to hear this kind of sermon. In fact, in most Protestant churches the image of God is one of a kind, loving, forgiving deity. But God is much more than that. In his letter to the church at Rome the Apostle Paul writes that the ‘wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” We are more apt to want to see God in terms of what is lovely, desirable, and beautiful. Our forbearers also discovered God in the stern, severe, and sometimes terrifying aspects of life. At any rate, long ago this prophet Jeremiah recovered himself from his low hours by a fresh grasp on the greatness of God. If fact, if one were to meet him today, one might be inclined to say, “Jeremiah, prophet of the living God, even you feared that your God was a deceitful brook. Moreover, the circumstances that led you to such despair were real. Disaster fell on your people, just as you said it would. They went into exile in Babylon and you died, an unwilling captive, in Egypt. But out of this came something you could have never imagined--a refiners fire.