Sermon, San Carlos Community United Church. September 11, 2022.

This past week, there was a gruesome murder just a few blocks from here.?The heat wave ended.

This week in history, Queen Elizabeth II died.

21 years ago on this date, terrorists from Saudi Arabia commandeered some airplanes and flew them into buildings in New York and Washington

83 years ago, plus ten days, on September 1, 1939, World War II began.?It was the most destructive war in history up to that point and it has not been equaled since.?A war in which Queen Elizabeth served as a car mechanic.?Her father was not supposed to be king, but his older brother abdicated and so he became King George 6th and she was his oldest daughter.

We do well to remind ourselves that things could be and have been worse and that our times today, September 11, 2022, all things considered, at least are not nearly so full of bad portent as September 1, 1939.?So let us be grateful.?

Last time I was I here, we were not here but up the street and Trinity Presbyterian Church.?I gave a sermon on St. Paul's Letter to the Romans in which he urged his congregation then and us now not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds.?

That's what we come to church for, to take a break from the usual whirl of our lives, to turn off whatever electronic media we follow, to sit still with others and contemplate what a very, very old book has to say to us.?

Let's begin with Habakkuk, chapter 2 verse 4:

Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

This line, repeated by Paul in Romans 1:17, and countless theologians ever since, inspired a young monk in Germany named Martin Luther to understand that the love of God was not something one earned or attained or grasped, but rather the love of God was freely given by God.

Here's what Paul said in Romans:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live."

Hear the connection??

Now, this week we also hear the "on the other hand": verse 18:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.

On the one hand Paul gives us the assurance of God’s love, on the other he warns us of God’s wrath.?All within the opening lines of a letter."

What are we to do?

I might add that these lines are important to me because I heard them under rather extraordinary circumstances, in Berkeley, at the daily mass offered at the Jesuit School at 5 pm on October 17, 1989.?The service began on time – the Jesuits are nothing if not punctual – and Father Griener – I’ll never forget – stepped to the lectern, just a few minutes after 5 to read the very passage we are studying this morning.?He read the verses of the Old Testament, from Habakkuk, then began Romans Chapter 1, verse 17:

"He who through faith is righteous shall live." But when he got to “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men . . . he paused.?He had to, for he had heard as well as everyone else the sound slowly building up from deep, deep under our feet.?It had started out rather faintly as he began the sentence so he kept on reading, but by halfway through it was a full-throttled roar like a locomotive and the building was shaking.?Then the walls and windows literally began to dance, as if a giant had picked up the entire building and was shaking it with a vaguely circular motion for about ten seconds, which felt like an hour.?Some people rushed outside, some stood in the doorway but most sat there stock still - Jesuits are nothing if not disciplined - then it stopped.

Fr. Griener resumed his reading, delivered his sermon, celebrated mass and we all filed out about half an hour later, to get the news at our homes or from strangers on the street that this was indeed a major earthquake, that a section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed, fires had broken out and the World Series postponed.?

We do not think much of the wrath of God any more.?We tend to discount the idea that God speaks to us in natural disasters, but this sort of thing - a natural disaster - in the form of a thunderstorm induced the young Luther to repent of his sins and give his life to God.?Without that thunderstorm Martin Luther may have quietly studied law and who knows what our world would be like.

But Luther did beg for mercy during a thunderstorm, something every bit as terrifying as an earthquake, when he was a young man,

he did promise to give his life to God

and fulfilled that promise by becoming a monk and a priest

and he did have a crisis of faith

and was healed by reading Romans Chapter 1, verse 17,

“the righteous shall live by faith”

and the rest is history.

So here we are on September 11, 2022, living in the aftershocks of Luther’s earthquake; after the Reformation, the English Revolution, the American Revolution et al. Grateful to be who we are and where we are and how we are, here in San Carlos, California.

What are we to make of the wrath of God in this day??How are we to have faith in the God who sends earthquakes and hurricanes, bloody Reformations, Revolutions, wars and all sorts of other awful stuff?

This question tormented Luther and it torments almost all of us at some point, sometimes in the profound form of why anyone has to suffer and sometimes in the simplest personal form of “why am I suffering now?”?“Why am I not getting what I want?”

There is no entirely satisfactory answer to these questions.?

Luther, tormented by these questions, turned to the Scriptures for guidance, most particularly to the letter to the Romans, to Chapter 1.?Here is what he wrote:

“I began to understand that the ‘righteousness of God’ refers to a passive righteousness, by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, ‘the righteous person lives by faith.’ This immediately made me feel as though I had been born again, and as though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself. (From that moment, I saw the whole face of Scripture in a new light.”)

In brief Luther had been trying too hard, trying to will himself to being grateful, trying to will himself into feeling the presence of God, trying to make himself have faith, trying to make himself righteous – and this one simply cannot do.

Finally, he had a breakthrough and experienced the Peace which passes all understanding, the peace of God, the love of God, the assurance of salvation –

He realized that the peace of God is a gift.?It comes from God.?We cannot just grab it.?We can’t go to the store and buy it.?It’s a gift.?Some people get this gift and some people don’t.?

That isn’t fair.?This bothers us.?How come life isn’t fair??How come God isn’t fair??Well, we don’t know.?God, Life itself, is beyond our understanding; we need to give up trying to make God, make Life conform to our expectations.?

For God, The Holy Spirit blows wherever it will - not that there is nothing we can do to earn the presence of God. We can do a great deal.

We can pray

We can do good works

We can be kind

We can bend, stretch and breathe.

“I am a dancer. I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living.?. . .?In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.”?- Martha Graham

In response to the question are you a Christian or are you a yogi or a doctor, whatever.?I practice Christianity, I practice yoga, I practice medicine . . .

Do the best we can.?The results are in the hands of God.

?

Habakkuk 2:1-4

[1] I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower,

and look forth to see what he will say to me,

and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

[2] And the LORD answered me:

"Write the vision;

make it plain upon tablets,

so he may run who reads it.

[3] For still the vision awaits its time;

it hastens to the end -- it will not lie.

If it seem slow, wait for it;

it will surely come, it will not delay.

[4] Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail,

but the righteous shall live by his faith.

?

Romans 1:18-23

[18]For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.

[19] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.?

[20] Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;?

[21] for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.?

[22] Claiming to be wise, they became fools,?

[23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.?