Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

preached by Winton Boyd on February 10 –

When I lived in Norway in 1980, one of the most popular “sports” among teenagers in that mostly wilderness country was “orienteering”. This involved finding ones way through the woods to various markers by use of only a compass and a topographical map. As a suburban kid who dropped out of Scouts as a bear cub, I had no experience with compass’ to speak. This was long before handheld GPS systems. But what impressed me was the way in which those rugged teenagers found subtle and nuanced markers, paid attention to details of terrain or the sun – all in an effort to find their way to the final marker.

Surveys consistently point out that among adults, one of the top 3-4 questions is always “How can I know God’s will.” When it comes to spiritual discernment, spiritual questions, knowing God’s will – wouldn’t it be great if it was as easy to learn as orienteering!

Diana Butler Bass, in her book, Christianity For the Rest of Us, has a series of chapters on the 10 signposts of spiritual vitality – 10 markers like those orienteerers might use – that point to lively faith, lively congregations, and lively spirituality. These markers are practices, disciplines, spiritual activities that she sees as central to vibrant faith. One of them is DISCERNMENT. Over the season of Lent, we are going to look at several of these signposts – in worship, in Java and Jesus during March, and on our website.

Bass defines discernment as “The capacity to hear, see, touch and feel God – a genuine sensing of truth and beauty through which we know God and know God’s will…(and our) tradition points toward …discernment as a practice that can be developed through participation in reflection, questions, prayer and community. (91 Bass)

It is the “most critical issue in postmodern religious formation. How does a person know that what one does, or thinks, or feels is right, or holy, or of God?” Frederick Schmidt, in What God Wants For Your Life? writes that “we live in an increasingly “first person singular world. Sadly, ” we often invite young people into this same first person singular world where at times selfish or self absorbed, over achieving, action oriented lives and good answers to first person singular questions are seen as “responsible.”

Much of what leaves people feeling strangely at odds with the lives they are living is the product of I questions asked and answered in ever greater isolation from deeper conversations with each other and with God.

Bass continues, “God questions are the basis for discernment…God questions shift our focus from what we do to what God is doing, by helping us understand where we fit in the larger economy of God’s hope for the world.

God questions are not God proclamations…God’s will not equated with some infallible doctrinal truth…rather it involves asking God questions and listening for the movement of the spirit in the world today. (95)

“Discernment does not simply confirm our hunches or intuitions. Instead it is a perilous practice that involves self criticism, questions, and risk.”

One member of our church wrote, “I understand discernment to be — holy listening for direction from God so I can align myself with God’s purposes (”will”), in God’s intended way. It’s an applied life question — not discerning that God wants peace, justice, love in general but discerning how I or we can participate in God’s way of peace-making, justice-making, loving with the real people, in the real places, in the real circumstances, of my life as it is now.”

I think our answer to this has both a theological and a practical starting point.

Theologically, asking how God is leading in my life…begs the question of our understanding of God and the ways in which we see God at work in the world.

We might ask the question, “What are the names I give to God?” Not the politically or theologically correct names – but the names that are deeply formative – that shape your prayer life, shape what we expect from God and what we don’t expect.

Some of the names we use are culturally inspired.

For example in the Roman dominated middle East of Jesus’ time the Pharisees answered the question “God’s name is separate, holy. A separate, holy God called for a separate and holy kind of people – with rules for Temple worship, the eating of food and certain sacrifices. They weren’t hypocrites – but operating faithfully from their “name” of God.

In contrast, Jesus’ name for God was “abba” – signaling an expectation of intimacy and compassion – and thus he expressed a faith based on compassion, the breaking of borders, the embrace of sinners.

We have other names, operative names, that grow out of our experiences, some painful…
The “in control” God – the God who has to be in control because I don’t feel in control
The God who “loves others but can’t quite love me.”
The God who “can’t be a father if being a father means being like mine.”

Some names are life-giving
God as the mountain, sitting solidly on the earth, rising majestically into the sky – all powerful, all knowing, immovable
God as mystery…
God as my companion
God as life, as energy, as love, as relationship
God the forgiver

Identifying these names is “not to suggest that a single set of names, let alone the names that are deeply formative for us, will capture a large enough vision of God’s presence in the world. But, “it is why the capacity to listen for the names that others use is so important.

As we ask the questions of the direction of our life, it forces us to consider what we expect from God and whether we open to hearing and seeing God in new ways – based on new experiences, new reading, the lives of others, or the longings of our heart? Are we open to God making Godself known to us in a new way?

Practically speaking, this leads to several consistent recommendations writers of all faiths suggest when it comes to discerning God’s will for your life

1. Do it in Community

Some traditions call it the “corrective of community” – naming the potential for isolation to deprive us of deep wisdom in the hearts and lives of others. Quakers have “clearness committees,” Latin American Catholics read and study Scripture in “base communities,” Monastics have their orders, and we have congregations and small groups. It is simply true that we are more apt to understand the overall direction of God’s Spirit in the world and our individual place in it when we are surrounded by those who share this concern and keep us accountable. They encourage us and keep us honest.2Do so with Scripture –

2. Do so with Scripture

The value of it not as a rule book or a guidebook – but as the lived life of people of faith throughout the centuries – asking the same questions, seeking the same connection with God and with the world around us. Many of us believe and are guided by Love the lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind; and you neighbor as yourself – the rest is commentary. While it is a helpful general guide, there are many other stories, songs, and prayers offer nuanced ideas and understandings. The Bible is not infallible and it is not perfect and it isn’t without confusion – but it is our source book, it is the guiding text of our tradition and may, just may, have something for us even yet today.

If Mark Twain is right – it may that our aversion to the Bible is not because it is confusing but because it lays out quite clearly the will of God, but is uncomfortable.

3. Which may be a place for a third resource in our efforts at discernment – prayer.
“Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”

The simple verse from Jeremiah is an ancient example of simply asking for divine guidance. Offering our dilemmas, our fears, our confusions to God. It is a life stance that recognizes that if it isn’t all about me, then it isn’t all about me.
It isn’t up to me alone to carry this burden,
it isn’t up to me alone to understand this mystery,
it isn’t up to me alone to choose the good way.

Prayer, again, isn’t about the right words, or a certain amount of confidence. It is about the act of letting go, of giving away, of opening ourselves to the work of the spirit.

This week I was looking at pictures from a trip many in this church took to the Dominican Republic last spring to work with Habitat for Humanity. As photographers, most of us tried to zoom in to get close up pictures – of children, of hard working people, of palm trees, of rain and mud, of singing congregations, and even of architectural wonders. On the face of it, such pictures are about specific children, a specific day of work on that project, a specific era and style of architecture.

Yet, I imagine if we were to take that moment frozen in time, and to zoom our perspective out, we would begin to get a greater sense of God’s movement in that one moment.

A picture of several children zoomed out will reveal other children, families, the homes they live in, the relationships that are important to them, the hurts and sorrows of their lives, the context of their community, and their country. As we zoom that picture out, and as we open our hearts with the compassion of God, we gain a greater sense of how the Spirit is alive in their lives, how the Spirit is alive in our interactions with them, and how the Spirit has blessed our moment of connection and intersection.

From that zoomed out perspective, we then look for specific (zoomed in?) ways to share the greater love of God in that situation. That, it seems to me, is part of what it means to prayerfully discern the will of God in our lives.
As we move from what do I want to do, to what is God already doing and how might God be speaking TO me – we begin to address the basic human spiritual longings – the desire for connection and belonging, the need for wholeness and shalom. We are not looking for divine marching orders but rather we seek “a wedding of heart, mind and soul – the re-integration of our lives lived out in a society that promotes disintegration..” We seek, and we promote shalom, not as an achievement obtained by doing extra credit spiritual work – but as a divine gift that we are blessed to know and to share. We are blessed to carry a small portion of that wider shalom to those around us in real, tangible, meaningful and God filled ways.

Texts for this sermon:

Ephesians 1:17-19 – “
17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him,
18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,
19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Jeremiah 6:16
Thus says the Lord, “Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
Mark Twain
It is not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts I do.