FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING: Chapter 7: Where have you seen God in your life this week?

Where have you seen God in your life this week? That is a familiar question. I hear it many times in my church. It’s asked in many other churches. I mean, sometimes even the pastor starts off as sermon asking that question, and the answers are always predictable. It’s always a recitation of something happy and pleasant. I mean, oh, we see God, of course, in the great weather and someone was sick and they’re home from the hospital, renewed health and vigor, someone getting a new job, passing a test. I mean, of course there we see God and of course we don’t want to deny that God is involved in such things like that, but are those the only places we see God at work? I mean, what about suffering and loss? Just check your latest newsfeed and you will see an endless list of suffering and tragedy, human beings treating each other poorly.

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Everything from horrible weather to a horrible accident and a senseless cancer is God there. Can we see God? Is God only in the sunshine? What about the storms? Is he only in the good things or is he there in the pain? This last January, their Crossings community in our annual conference addressed this theme. The conference was entitled The Silence of God, which began with the famous novel written by the Japanese author, Shiko Endo, by that title, the Silence of God, and then went on to look at a variety of examples of life is what is the response of Christians to those situations in life where God is absent or seems to be absent, where we listen for God and only hear silence? Is God not there? And if not, where is God having a bad day? Is God angry? Is God losing control? Are we somehow not trying hard enough? If we only would, then we could see and hear God.

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When I hear questions like this, I think this is what people are looking for. They want to see some observable, verifiable, provable evidence for God. I mean, it’s like if you just took out your cell phone, snapped a picture there, you’d have the proof for God there. You could see God, or maybe you could turn on your recorder and your phone and you could actually hear God’s voice. I have had people come up in my congregation numerous times over the years and say, well, pastor, you’re always talk as if God is speaking to you. Well, I’ve never heard him talk. If you have, what does his voice sound like? Well, every time we try to see or hear a God that we can get on our cell phone, I say, without doubt, you’re not going to find anything.

That’s we call excuse the Latin phrase here in the church, the day of abs to us, the hidden God hidden, invisible from human eyes and experiences leaving us confused, bewildered, and even frightened. I think what we need to do obviously is change the nature of the whole question. This whole issue of seeing and hearing God is not up to us. Rather, we ought to be asking, where does God meet us in our daily life and work? Where is God not hidden but revealed? And the biblical tradition, the Lutheran movement makes it abundantly clear. If we want to see where God is revealed, we look to the story of Jesus. There God meets us to show us God’s heart and to speak his word. And that climax is of course in the suffering and death and resurrection of Jesus. And of course it looks insane. I mean, it looks ridiculous to the uninitiated.

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It is ordinary. God is still hidden. Even St. Paul says of Jesus, he who hangs on a tree is cursed. So when is all this cursing and bad stuff that happens to Jesus become good news? When do we see God there? When it is accompanied by the promise and we hear the word that all of this was intended for you. All of this suffering and pain, all of this that happens in the story of Jesus, and it is not what it appears to be contrary to the evidence hidden in all of this is the love of God, trusting that promise, and suddenly things change. We see God hidden in the ordinary. We suddenly have what the tradition calls the eyes of faith, and we see God’s people even in a bunch of ordinary fishermen. We see God present in the church filled with imperfect saints today and ordinary wine and bread and water of a font and words whispered and spoken and casserole delivered and flowers delivered given to the sick and food offered at the food bank. Such ordinary things. There God is hidden and with the eyes of faith, we see God’s love and we hear his promise not only in the sunset and the flowers and the pleasant, happy things of life, but even in suffering and tragedy and loss. There God meets us, hidden in Christ revealed to us who have heard the promise and had the eyes of faith.