Loving God, help us to trust in you more than we
trust in ourselves. Amen.
When it comes to most of life, if we’re honest, we have no idea what we’re doing. Almost twelve years ago, Tyler and I brought home a beautiful and wonderful daughter from the hospital, but she didn’t come with a manual, nor did her sister. As parents, we do our best, but there’s no way to know if what we’re doing is the right course of action. I was recently talking with someone who is struggling with a child in their early 20s in what we might call a “failure to launch” scenario. What’s the right response to motivate this young adult to get out of bed and off the video games – tough love or patience while they figure it out on their own? We pray, we get advice, we read books, but at the end of the day, we don’t know what we’re doing.
And
it’s not just in parenting that we’re clueless. Think about Wall Street – the whole
thing is based on speculation and uncertainty. If we knew what we were doing,
we all would have bought a bunch of Apple stock in the 90s and Amazon in the 00s.
I’m sure some of you are like me in that you wonder “what if?” I especially
think about college – when I chose to attend Wake Forest, I didn’t know how it
would play out or how I would deal with the student loans on the other side of graduation.
I had never chosen a college before – I didn’t know what I was doing. Ditto for
dating and getting married – once an emotion as powerful as love enters the
picture, not only do we not know what we’re doing, but we’re not able to think
clearly. While I wouldn’t change a thing about the result, I started dating
Tyler when I was 17 years old. We’ve figured it out, but I had no clue how to
build a life with someone at that age.
There’s
another area in which we have no idea what we’re doing – voting. In an election
year, we need to remember that we don’t know what opportunities and crises will
face us in the next four years. Yes, I’m sure some of you think that at least one
of the candidates for President is incompetent and incapable of doing the job.
Maybe you think that about both candidates. The point is, given all of the complexities
of the world, it’s impossible to say that this candidate will lead to
prosperity and that one to calamity. A little bit of humility would go a long
way when it comes to politics. I’m not saying we can’t have a preferred
candidate, it’s just that we don’t know what the future holds and we ought not
pretend that we do.
What
got me thinking about us not knowing what we’re doing is today’s Collect:
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we
ask and our ignorance in asking.” In other words, “Help us, O Lord, for we are
helpless and clueless.”
Can
you recall a time when you knew you were in over your head? Maybe you remember
a school test where you quickly realized that you didn’t study enough. Perhaps
a medical diagnosis sent you down a rabbit hole of procedures and medications
all with long and complicated names; so forget knowing the answers, you don’t
even know the right question to ask. Most of us are uncomfortable when we’re
not sure what we’re doing – we don’t like to feel incompetent or unprepared, which
can lead either to depression or inactivity. So, in order to avoid that, we
sometimes go with “fake it until you make it,” but sometimes that just leads us
further down the wrong path and makes us arrogant. Instead of giving up or
bravado, our faith would have us to trust in God’s wisdom more than our own.
Consider
the interaction between David and Nathan in today’s first reading. King David
has been enthroned as the King of Israel and built himself a lovely mansion. He
then decides, “Well, I’ve got a nice house and my enemies are defeated, we really
should upgrade God from that meager tent into a grand temple.” David shares his
plan with his close advisor, the prophet Nathan, who says “Sure, boss, sounds
great.”
But
that very night, the Lord God
Almighty spoke to Nathan and said “Not so fast.” Both David and Nathan had no
idea what they were doing, but that didn’t stop them from making plans. It’s
interesting that they don’t take time to reflect or pray, they just go with it.
I’ll admit that this is something I struggle with and something I’ve very
intentionally been working to address. We think we know what we’re supposed to
do, so why delay – let’s get to it. If, like me, you’ve ever charged forward
with a plan of action when you weren’t really sure what you were doing, we can
take solace in knowing that David and Nathan are in the same boat with us. And
just as God had compassion on them, God has mercy and forgiveness for us.
For
David, the issue might have been his misaligned priorities. He built himself a
house before he considered building one for God. When our priorities are askew,
our decisions often come out crooked. It’s a reminder that God gets the first
fruits, not the leftovers. In Nathan’s case, it could have been that he didn’t
have the courage to speak up to his superior and say “Maybe we should pray
about this” or maybe he had visions of grander of being in charge of this new
temple. Whatever their motivations were – David and Nathan didn’t know what
they were doing and lacked the humility to recognize it.
And
yet the grace of God triumphed despite their ignorance. God said, “David will
not build me a house, rather I will build him a house.” There’s some wordplay
going on in the Hebrew – as the word “house” can mean either a “temple” or a “dynasty.”
God says, “David won’t build me a temple, but I will build him into a dynasty.”
Even when we get it wrong, God does not abandon or reject us. Instead, God will
use our flawed intentions, our incomplete understandings, our honest mistakes, our
bad decisions and transform them into opportunities for reconciliation, growth,
and love. As St. Paul writes in Romans, “We can be confident that every detail
of our lives is being worked into something good through God’s love.” So even
when we don’t know what we’re doing, we can trust that God does. The challenge
is in admitting our ignorance and putting our trust into action.
Thomas
Merton, a 20th-century monk, wrote a prayer that might be helpful: “My
Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I
cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the
fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually
doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never
do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead
me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I
trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I
will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my
perils alone.”
It’s
a lovely and honest prayer that admits that we have no idea what we’re doing,
but it expresses a desire to please God in all that we do. Christians of good
faith can and often do disagree about what is pleasing to God, but if we can at
least recognize the purity of that intention in one another, we could find a
lot more common ground. It’s a prayer that might help us to not take ourselves
so seriously and leave ourselves open to the reality that there is always more
in God than we can understand. That’s essentially what God was saying to David
and Nathan – “I’m not going to let you build me a house because you need to understand
that no building or institution can contain all of who I am.” St. Augustine famously
said, “If you think that you have grasped God, it is not God that you have
grasped.” Again, we never completely know what we are doing and we never know
the fullness of God.
There
is a classic book from the Middle Ages written by an anonymous author called The
Cloud of Unknowing. It’s such a great title – when it comes to any human
knowledge, we are always in a cloud. One of the quote from this book is: “For God can be loved, but God cannot be thought.”
This wisdom is one way that we can work to trust God more than ourselves.
Instead of worrying about being right, can we focus more on being loving?
Instead of churches fighting about doctrine, can we put that energy into making
sure people know that they are the beloved of God? Instead of having all sorts
of strategies and plans, can we focus on love in each moment. As we will hear
in the lovely anthem based on a George Herbert poem, “love bade me welcome.”
What would such a loving welcome look like as a priority for us?
Our
Prayer Book has so many wonderful treasures in it, and some of them are hidden.
There’s a prayer on page 461 that I use every morning when I get to the office:
“This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me
ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand
bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help
me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make
these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus.”
It’s a prayer that helps
me to tarry and wait for God’s guidance before charging ahead with my agendas
and plans. When we tarry, it’s not the same as waiting. At a doctor’s office or
stoplight, we might be forced to wait; but we choose to tarry, to leave time
and space for the Spirit to speak and to guide. The prayer is something like a Yield
sign – check the surroundings, pay attention, and when God is on the move,
realize that God has the right of way in our lives.
There
is such a freedom found in knowing that we’re not supposed to know it all. In
one of the prayers of Confession, we say “we have gone astray like lost sheep.”
Not only is that honest, but it puts us in the perfect situation to be found by
our Good Shepherd. In Mark, we heard “Jesus had compassion on them, because
they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus is our Good Shepherd, who seeks
us out with compassion when we think we are going in the right direction but
are actually heading towards the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus will come
alongside us and guide us back towards those green pastures and still waters.
Will we follow the nudges of his rod and staff, or will we go our own way? Can
we be quiet and listen for the call of the Good Shepherd in the midst of such a
noisy world? Do we turn to prayer, Scripture, and holy conversations to make
decisions, or do we entrust our decisions to a Google search, influencers, and
the media? Can we not worry as much about how we are leading but who we are
following?
It’s okay that we have no idea what we’re doing, and blessed are those who can admit it. We put our trust not in ourselves, not in our resources, not in our plans, but rather in our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who’s got the whole world in his loving hands.
