God is with us

There is a saying out there that goes, “God will never give us more than we can handle.”

Drives me nuts.

It’s one of those feel good phrases, that we will survive that which challenges us, that which breaks us even, because our faith is strong.

And though God will test us, we shall never fail that test because God will never give us more than we can handle.

Or there’s that other phrase, there but before the grace of God go I.

Am I better off than someone else because God made me better off?

Is someone worse off than I am because God wanted that person to be worse off?

I will admit, this second phrase is rather poetic.

Something about grace and God is striking, but I promise you, God does not favor one bit of creation over another bit.

God loves God’s creation just as it was created.

I will make another promise.

God does not test us.

God does not give us things, hard things to handle because he knows our limits.

God does not cause us to lose jobs because God knows another, perhaps even a better one is on the horizon.

God does not place us in bad or dangerous relationships because God knows we will survive them and then tell the story so that others might know they can survive as well.

No, God is not a chess master playing seven turns ahead of us.

God does not study game theory.

God does not push buttons, twist knobs, and pull levers.

God does not play with us as dolls.

God does not make us marionettes.

God is not our puppet master, there are no strings on us!

God does not work the train switches.

God does not test us.

God does not wish us to suffer!

And yet.

And yet.

And yet, we suffer.

We do go through those bad relationships.

We do go through layoffs.

And we do experience death.

And it hurts.

And we suffer.

We weep.

We rend our clothes and pull our hair.

And still, I say God does not wish us to suffer?

It’s hard to describe.

Why is there suffering in this world, in your life and in my life in particular, if God does not wish it upon us?

And if we do suffer, then maybe we suffer just a bit, just enough to handle but not too much.

Because God will never test us more than we can handle.

So we have this circular reasoning going on.

And I’ll try to explain what makes sense for me but maybe not for you.

There are plenty of books on why suffering occurs and a whole theological study around it called Theodicy.

Theodicy is the study and attempt to understand why suffering exists within the confines of our faith that perceives an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God.

So, that being sad, here is an idea that works for me and again, maybe not you.

We suffer because we are human.

We were not created as Gods or demigods.

We are not the half human/half god children of Zeus as Hercules was said to be.

We are human.

Full stop.

And God created us so that he might share in God’s creation.

God so loved creation God thought nothing better than to share in that creation.

And we get to experience all of it.

The heights of grand vistas showing off the lands below us as we witness the sunrise.

The feeling of a newborn placed in our arms.

Watching that newborn go through life progressing and growing and graduating to new and great things.

A first and furtive brush against the hand of the person who would become your spouse.

That is the beauty that God wished to share and yet within that beauty, there is loss.

Heartache.

Grief.

Why couldn’t creation have been created perfectly?

Well, here’s where God created us as human and not mini-Gods.

We are imperfect.

We war.

We invade.

We lie and cheat and steal and rob and give into temptations.

We sin.

Because we are not perfect, we are imperfect and mortal and hunger and thirst.

So that we suffer is one thing, but there is the greater thing.

God is with us.

Despite our human inclinations, despite our violence, despite our sinfulness, despite our mortality, God is with us.

And throughout our mortal, un-godlike lives, God is always with us.

Why there is suffering is one conversation, one area of study.

But let me suggest, the more important conversation that allows a better understanding of God is this:

God is with us in prayer, in mind, in body, and spirit.

God is with us.

And God is with them.

We’ve just returned from the Memorial Garden where we said the names of those we mourn for today we celebrate All Saints, one of the principal feasts of the liturgical year.

On this day, we are to remember the named saints, the saints who performed miracles and such, the ones who are recognized by the church as being exceptional.

Folks like St. James.

And St. Luke.

St. Theresa of Avila and St. Julian of Norwich.

And though technically we are to celebrate the lives of those who are close to us but not sainted by the church on All Souls Day on November 2, I think that if Paul addressed his letters to the saints in Ephesus and Rome, we can celebrate the lives of those we miss most of all on this Sunday too.

So, on this day, we say the names and pray for those whom we’ve lost.

We look to the doves placed on the altar and know they hold the names of those we love and that just as doves soar to the heavens, so too will our prayers to God.

For the repose and safety of their soles.

For their eventual reunion with all who have gone before them and, someday, with us.

And we pray especially in thanksgiving that they are reunited with Christ and God.

That is our want.

And maybe it boils down for you as it did for me following my grandfather’s death, that I just want to know they’re was okay.

That want can become faith,

That want can become hope.

For hope is a gift from God that keeps us going.

Hope for an end to all suffering.

Hope for arms to hold us.

Hope for God’s embrace.

We know God through hopeful prayers to God.

We know God in answered prayers.

We know God in the hopefulness of witnessing a world made new and a kingdom approaching with the good news of Jesus Christ.

We know hope just as we know the innate need to breathe.

Wants can be dashed, dreams deferred, but hope, that sense that all is well or that all will be well is deeper than just wants and dreams.

And with that hope and on this day, we pray for the souls of those who have died.

Souls once imperfect within this mortal coil, now perfect with God.

On this day, we mourn, we remember our weeping and gnashing of teeth, and we pray.

And we hope.

Hope, evidence of things unseen.

Hope, the light that pierces the darkness.

Hope that leads to communion, to community, to faith.

Hope in all things that all things are well and will be well and as St. Julian of Norwich wrote,

"He said, Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome." And "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

It is through hope that we see through God’s lens, God’s dream for all of us.

And so it is in sadness that we experience grief; and it is in joy where we can be paused by grief; and in our dreams, wakened by grief, but if there is hope, there is hope for the eternal.

We experience now the act of missing so many who have gone before us, but in missing them, we still hope, and through hope, know that they are at peace.

Hope.

Not to be tested.

Not to be challenged.

Not to be tempested nor travailed by God.

Hope.

Not distress.

Only hope.

And faith.

And God.

In Christ’s name, we pray.

Amen.