Exodus 33:12-23, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22
Bruce Almighty is a movie, a comedy, starring Jim Carrey as Bruce and Morgan Freeman as God. Bruce is a television reporter who desperately wants the TV anchor position at the station where he works, but keeps getting assigned to soft news stories, such as the baking of the largest chocolate chip cookie ever. Sure enough, one day, the anchor position is given to someone else, Bruce gets fired after overreacting on the air to the announcement about the new anchor, and he gets attacked by street thugs on his way home. Bruce decides that God is out to get him, that God is bestowing blessings on other people, while letting bad things happen to him. After arguing with his girlfriend, Bruce gets in the car, and while driving down the road, has this discussion with God: “Okay God, you want me to talk to you. Talk back. Tell me what’s going on. What should I do? Give me a signal. I need your guidance. Lord, please send me a sign.” Bruce sees some prayer beads in his car, holds them in his hand, and continues his discussion with God: “Okay, alright, I’ll try it your way. All right, Lord, I need a miracle. I’m desperate. I need your help, Lord. Please, reach into my life.” And with those words, he drops the prayer beads, and as he reaches for them, he slams into a street light.
Bruce gets out of the wrecked car, and goes after God: “Fine, the gloves are up, pal. Come on. Let me see a little wrath. Smite me, oh, mighty smiter. You’re the one who should be fired. The only one around here not doing his job is you. Answer me.” And suddenly, Bruce is paged. However, he doesn’t recognize the number on his pager, so he doesn’t return the call. But, the paging continues into the next day. Even after Bruce has thrown the pager out of the window and the pager is crushed by a passing car, the pager continues to ring. Bruce finally returns the page, is given an address, and when he arrives at the address, he meets up with God, in the form of a maintenance man. And, God says, “You must be Bruce. I’ve been expecting you.” Since Bruce is so frustrated with God, God wants Bruce to understand what being God is all about. So, God bestows his divine powers on Bruce. This comedy offers a little bit of wisdom. God tells Bruce that along with his divine powers, he must follow this rule: Bruce can not mess with free will. We are co-creators with God. We can engage in dialogue with God, which necessarily means that we matter, that we have value, that our opinion counts. God guides us and we respond. We participate in the evolution of the Kingdom of God.
In our first reading from Exodus, Moses is engaged in dialogue with God. Moses says, “Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight.” God says, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Moses, holding God to God’s word, says, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us?” And, God says, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” We talk. God listens. We matter, we have value, our opinion counts. God even changes God’s mind.
Listen to this preceding passage in Exodus: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.’ But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’’ And the Lord changes his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (Exodus 32:9-14).
Walter Brueggemann offers wonderful insight into our understanding of God changing God’s mind. Brueggemann is an Old Testament scholar and a prolific writer. In his book, The Psalms and the Life of Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), Brueggemann discusses Israel’s particular need to be in dialogue with God: “Israel’s first speech to God is not a speech of wonder but of deep need. Israel’s primal utterance is not one of celebration or confession but an impatient, insistent protest. It is not submissive adoration but abrasive assertion. It is not an abdication of rights in the presence of God but an affirmation of legitimate need. In that act of insistent assertion, the speaker appropriates, enacts, and constitutes a speaking self. In this act of self-definition, the speaker discovers that he or she can be intimate with God, that God can be addressed, impinged upon, intruded upon, put at risk, placed in jeopardy, and changed” (pgs. 115-116). We have a speaking self. This understanding of our relationship with God does not mean that we get everything we ask for. What it means to have a speaking self is that what you think and what you do matters. We have free will, we are co-creators of the Kingdom of God: a responsibility and a glorious opportunity.
How do we imagine opportunity when life as we know it seems to be at risk? Our country is facing a financial crisis. We are worried about putting our children through college, about how long we might have to work, about how we will fund our retirement. And, of course, here at church, we worry about the timing of our stewardship drive in the midst of this financial crisis. Carrying these concerns, I attended my first Seabury-Western Board meeting this week. As Co-President of the Alumnae Association, I have a seat on the Board. Many of you are familiar with the financial crisis facing Seabury-Western in Evanston, one of our eleven Episcopal seminaries. Seabury-Western has been financially challenged for years. But, after years of deficits only talked about in hush-hush tones, something very important happened at Seabury this past year. They named the elephant in the room. No longer can Seabury provide the traditional, residential 3-year Masters of Divinity program and remain afloat. Simply put, there are not enough clergy candidates who can make that type of commitment. Clergy candidates come from all walks of life, varying ages, varying job and family commitments. The traditional educational model is no longer viable and perhaps no longer relevant as we understand that ministry begins with baptism, not with ordination. So, at Seabury, they made the very difficult decision to suspend the Masters of Divinity program and to make significant staff cuts while they re-imagine what seminary education is all about. Seabury is now poised to move forward understanding seminary education to be about educating lay people and clergy alike, partnering with universities and other seminaries, teaching with new technologies, and offering options in residential and distance learning. The most amazing aspect of this crisis at Seabury is that the remaining students at Seabury who are completing their degrees and the remaining faculty and staff will tell you how much they are enjoying life at Seabury these days. They named the crisis, and they are moving forward, living out the hope of a new future.
Seabury is addressing their liabilities and building on their assets all the while remaining compassionate with students, faculty, staff, alumnae, and friends of the Seabury community. We can learn from this model in our own lives. We can name our fears and we can name all for which we are grateful. As Ned says in the recent Parish Paper, we can focus on those things that are truly valuable in our relationship to God and to one another. How do we co-create? God tells Bruce in the movie Bruce Almighty, “You want to see a miracle son, be the miracle.” Miracles are in the every day, in supporting one another through crisis, in being grateful for all that we have and all that we are and all that we can be, in knowing ourselves and sharing our gifts with others, in having the courage to re-imagine our lives, in understanding our dependence on God, in offering praise and thanksgiving for God’s love and God’s trust in us to co-create a glorious Kingdom. Amen.
