Jack Hardaway
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I bump into things.
Bumbling around in the dark, or not looking where I’m going, distracted by something, or just past the edge of my peripheral vision, or blinded by the sun in my eyes.
What I don’t see leaves me black and blue.
What I don’t see has consequence.
So, I move a little differently after each bump, more carefully, more slowly, pausing, looking both ways, hands outstretched, reaching out
We bump into each other. We don’t see each other. Who are the people that I don’t see?
We bump into God all the time. The unseen creates all that is seen.
It is what we don’t see that gets us. It is what we don’t see that creates us.
Walking by faith, reaching out to what is unseen, being guided by something and someone as we bump along, missing so much of what is going on all around us.
Some people see the world as evidence of God. What is seen is evidence of what is not seen. Existence proves that there is a God.
Other people see the pain and the mess and they wonder how there could be a God.
I suspect many of us are both, bouncing back and forth between being astonished by the miracle of creation, and life, and then horrified by how much will there is to do harm, by how much pain there is.
I think scripture is the documentation of those who reach out into this wonderful and painful world and find God, and trust God, often despite of what they see and don’t see.
I think the best way to read scripture is not to find points of doctrinal and moral conformity, but rather as the example of those who have gone before trusting in the invisible and learning from their bumping around with the unseen. A long procession of saints, the vast cloud of the communion of saints.
I think the right way to read scripture is to see our lives continuing, and completing all the stories, and encounters, and experiences of God to which scripture bears witness, continuing the procession, continuing the communion.
Abram and Sarai walked by faith leaving their home, to find a new home, and their barren life became the beginning of a people, and faith as numerous, and awesome as the stars in the sky, count them, count the stars. What was empty became the fullness, and brightness of the entire universe. We are still counting the stars. Will we ever finish?
We continue that journey of faith, and our lives document how we reach out to more than we can see, or know, and we trust, we learn to trust as we go.
Faith. Our lives continue the witness of scripture that God is involved, and present, and can be trusted, even when life is empty, especially then.
And that faith is expressed in so many ways.
For Paul that faith and trust is founded on Jesus being raised from the dead, Paul looks back, and finds what carries him forward.
In the reading from Hebrews this morning the mysteries author finds God to be worthy of trust, not by looking back at what has happened, but by looking forward to what is promised, to what is hoped for, a kingdom, a new world, the city of God, prepared for us, waiting for us. The future is bright, it is full of stars. Jesus is there.
In Genesis Abram offered hospitality to strangers, and opened up a whole new world, full of stars, more than can be counted.
Luke shows us faith by waiting, by being prepared, by sharing, as God approaches unseen like a thief to steal us away, to graciously serve us a surprise meal.
Waiting for the unseen one who shows up when least expected.
Expect the unexpected by being generous beyond reason, and practicing gracious indiscriminate hospitality. Grace is preemptive, that is what happens by trusting in the unseen.
The wrong way to read these stories is to use them to find pretty ways to say hate and exclude. That isn’t what the Bible is for, that isn’t what words are for. That is using God for our own vain purposes, that is using the Bible to take the Lord’s name in vain.
The right way to read todays scripture is to encounter the unseen and to live in a new way.
How does our life continue that witness of faith? That is how we go forward by being people of the book. That is how we become part of the life of God in the world.
Keep bumping around with the unseen, keep counting the stars, reaching out, and love, and love, and love. And when trust is betrayed, and the world is full of pain, love even more.
The invisible beckons to us.
Our lives are the living document.