| "How Responsive Is Our Faith?” Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – August 7, 2011 Centenary United Psalm
105:16-22; Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 The question asked by the title of my message today is almost
impossible for us to answer accurately.
All of us could provide some answer.
What we do not know is how responsive our faith is until
life presents us with a
roller-coaster ride that is well beyond anything we have yet
experienced. We can read the
story of Job as many times as we want to and still not know how
committed we would remain to God’s faithfulness if we walked in his
shoes. Would we eventually reach a breaking point or would we remain
resilient enough to keep adjusting how we think and feel each time one
of these series of events occurs? Experiences do not need to be
catastrophic for us to abandon the values we claim our faith has given
us.
For example, as you listen to the following
page of a woman’s life, use
your imagination to describe your reaction if this experience happened
to you. This story describes a series of inconveniences.
Still, could such a series of reversals be interpreted as God
pulling out our dip-stick to check the level of the
motor oil governing the smooth operation of our faith?
While driving to
work one morning, a woman’s car engine threw a rod and stalled.
Her local mechanic indicated that the car was too costly to
repair because of its age and high mileage. Since she needed immediate
transportation and had decided on the make and model of the particular
car she wanted, she took a vacation day and went shopping.
She drove into a
dealership and was greeted by a salesman.
Once she found that the model and the color that she wanted was
in stock, she immediately wanted to take the car on the road for a test
drive. It was then that the
reversals began to happen. The sales
representative had given the keys to the car to a mechanic to get the
car ready for the woman. That mechanic was no where to be found.
Fifteen minutes later, the
mechanic appeared with a coffee in hand.
He had been on break.
Next, the salesman had to look through the owner’s manual in order to
disengage the car’s alarm system.
Another forty minutes had passed and she began to wonder about
the competence of the salesman and how the dealership was organized.
Clearly her patience was being tested while she waited for this
transaction to come together. Finally, she and the
salesman drove through the parking lot and ventured onto the highway.
Just as she was thinking how pleased she was with her choice, the
car began to sputter and hesitate. Finally,
the engine stalled several miles from the dealership right in the middle
of a busy intersection. This
was not a hybrid car so she realized there was a problem.
Drivers behind her began to blow their horns.
The light changed several times
allowing very few cars to get through the resulting gridlock.
Her eyes happened to
glance down at the gas gauge and the needle was way below the E
signaling that the car had run out of gasoline.
She was totally frustrated.
The salesman turned on the car’s flashing lights as he called on
his cell phone for the dealership to send a tow truck.
He apologized that the mechanic had not put gasoline in the car
which is why he had the key. No explanations or
excuses mattered to the woman; she had become extremely frustrated and
thought to herself, “What seasoned salesman leaves the parking lot in a
car with an empty tank?” As I
mentioned, this episode was not
the end of the world, but it is one that evoked a response that is
quite typical from people that have lost control over their time and
schedule. After he assumed
full responsibility for what had happened, he commented, “Just before
you arrived at the show room, I received a call from the hospital.
My mother had come out of exploratory surgery and was in the
recovery room. Her surgeon
told me that she has cancer that has metastasized to all her major
organs. He sewed her up and
said that there is nothing more they can do but to make her comfortable.
After work, I have to tell her.” Knowing that she was
dealing very poorly with her inconvenienced schedule, she realized very
quickly that she had judged this man very harshly, never giving any
thought to the possibility that something was wrong in his life.
Within seconds her self-induced stressed was replaced with
compassion and empathy. Think of all the
torment she could have spared
herself by greeting this salesman with compassion and empathy as soon as
these reversals began to happen.
We are all hard-wired
to become frustrated, anxious and stressed.
We are also hard-wired
to become a peaceful spectator even when the person we are dealing with
is having one of those days he or she would like to live over again.
Believe it or not, a similar circumstance happened to Joseph in our lesson today. His day started off like any other morning. He was not prepared, however, for how his day ended. No one can ever prepare himself for what happened. His world, as he knew it, came to an abrupt end. Yet, the responsiveness of Joseph’s faith helped him to maintain his character and integrity through every twist and turn his life would take. His brothers
smoldered with seething anger that Joseph had become their father’s
favorite son. Their response
took the form of selling their teenage half-brother to a passing caravan
of Ishmaelites that was headed for The men returned to
their father with the story that Joseph must have been killed by a wild
animal and they had his blood-stained
coat of many colors to prove
it. The blood, however,
belonged to a goat. The last
thing Joseph remembered by the day’s end was seeing Canaan become
smaller and smaller until the only land he knew
melted into a horizon that he
would never see again.
The difference between the woman who was
buying the new car and Joseph is that Joseph had developed an
orientation to life that helped him to become immune to interpreting his
experience in any way other than “Life always has something to teach
me.” As we review
Joseph’s life after he was sold into slavery, several things become
apparent. He knew he was in uncharted territory.
He also discovered that life reveals its storyline one day at a
time.
Joseph’s attitudes and thought
patterns were completely controlled by his unshakable faith that his
life had some purpose that would some day provide meaning to the sudden
shift in his life’s fortunes.
(Genesis 45:5)
The Joseph story makes us wonder how
peaceful our lives would become if we lived without making judgments of
each unforeseen change or inconvenience.
There is a quote on the back of the bulletin that says, “Never
judge the quality of any circumstance until you discover where it leads
you.” In other words, delay
judgment and become the observer.
In this way, we would avoid the wasted energy of creating strange
interpretations for what may be happening to us.
Several weeks ago a
man wrote a letter to the editor in one of our local newspapers
describing an incident that occurred while driving his motor scooter.
A young man drove up beside him on his scooter and began scolding
him for cutting him off.
Then, this young accuser caused the man to have an accident on his bike,
one that slammed him to the pavement causing extensive injuries and
badly damaging his scooter. The wounded driver
said, “I had no idea that I cut off anyone and would have apologized if
I had. He could have killed
me! I have three children at
home and I just brought my wife and our newborn baby home from the
hospital yesterday. This young
man drove off leaving my rescue to other people who made arrangements
for an ambulance.”
This entire drama happened
because of a judgment that the young man responded to, a judgment that
could have robbed a family of
six of its husband and father. After his arrival in One day, Potiphar’s
wife attempted to seduce him and he refused her advances.
She may not have been used to being rejected by men so she got
even. She told her husband,
“This Hebrew slave that you brought into our home came into my bedroom
and tried to rape me. I
screamed and he ran leaving his robe beside me.”
After hearing his wife’s false testimony, Potiphar had Joseph put
in prison. There was no
justice. Again, Joseph made
no judgment about this event. He decided to remain an observer to
another sudden change to his life. He
became such a model prisoner that the jailer placed him in charge over
the entire facility. While
there Joseph interpreted the dreams for two of the prisoners, a baker
and a wine steward that were both officials in Pharaoh’s court. The
dreams came true just as Joseph had predicted.
When the wine
steward’s dream came true, Joseph asked if he would seek Pharaoh’s
approval to pardon him. The
wine steward promised to do so, but once his freedom was secured, he
quickly forgot Joseph’s request. Joseph’s
time in prison was extended with no end in sight. A time came when
Pharaoh began having dreams. All
of the wise men and magicians in The rest of the
story is well known to us.
Pharaoh said, “I will put you in charge of my country and all my people
will obey your orders. I now
appoint you governor over all The powerful lesson
of the Joseph story is one that we can use everyday.
Our own judgments are what turn every major change, every inconvenience
and every perceived barrier to our dreams and goals into ones that can
either victimize us or create
stepping stones for crossing a
river of life experiences that we could never have imagined or
planned. How many times have
people cut their life-adventure short because they felt victimized by
some experience? Joseph had
every right to feel this way, but he had a responsive faith that allowed
him to bloom in a household, a prison and finally Pharaoh’s court.
When life creates
frustrations within us, perhaps we would be well served by asking
ourselves: What lessons are we to
learn as we experience this trial? For
that matter, how do we learn patience, forgiveness, compassion and
empathy until we find ourselves in circumstances where these responses
are among countless others that are far less loving?
Asking ourselves
these questions enables us to develop, grow and stretch an increased
responsiveness to our faith. Try
it. Look at it as if you
were going to the gym for a strenuous and sometimes exhaustive work out.
If we want to become angels in the flesh, we have to reveal
angelic qualities every time, every day.
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