“GOD’S VOICE
AND ASLAN’S ROAR”
Date:
Rev. Fran L. Thiessen
Meditation: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that
the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything
else.”
C. S. Lewis, Weight of Glory
Scripture: Psalm 29
Genesis 1:1-5
Sermon
Notes for Reflection
REVERENCE
I love Charlie Brown Comics. Here are two classics.
Frame 1: Linus getting ready for
bed.
Frame 2: Lucy enters as Linus kneels in prayer, “I think
I’ve made a theological discovery.”
Lucy, “What is it?”
Linus, “If you hold your hands upside down you get the
opposite of what you pray for.”
And then there’s Peppermint Patty. Peppermint Patty is standing alone in the
night beneath a sky of stars. “Star
light Star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, I
have a wish I wish tonight… I wish I had a pony—
all smiles
She looks all around
and waits.
Last frame: “YOU STUPID STAR!”
Linus and Peppermint Patty are still novices in talking to
God.
Talking and listening to God is about a deep, reverent
relationship, a connection.
It’s not about how you hold your hands or whether you get
that pony or not, whatever your dream pony might be. Our best conversations with God can be
wordless, filled with an awareness of who you are and who God is.
The feel of a hand, the touch of a child, the tear in the
eye say more to us of love than most words can. And so it is with us and God.
Encounters like these are deep, unforgettable, and soul
stirring and they happen everywhere and all the time.
Let me give you an example of a very real, deep encounter
between two of God’s creatures.
Chris and Tom Mujica, as many of you know, go
on vacations to far-off places. Chris
keeps a detailed journal telling about her trip. A few years ago they went on a safari to
This is what she wrote: “Another few minutes we came upon another
lion in a grumeti tree. A grumeti tree
has a lot of branches, it is more like a bush than a tree and the lioness had
wedged herself in among several of the higher branches for a quiet nap. Sharp-eyed Kissima (the guide) had seen her;
we could barely distinguish her from the branches! We were able to get very close—about 8 feet
from this magnificent feline. She was
very large and we could see her massive paws [the size of dinner plates] her
face was beautiful and lying against a branch at eye level. I could see her breathing. All of a sudden she opened her eyes and
looked straight at me! Her large beautiful yellow eyes were locked on mine—I
shall never forget the experience. Two
females on the plains of
C. S. Lewis portrays a similar sense of
reverence and awareness of God in his classic, Narnia - the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is also a film.
Published in 1950,
it’s a story about four children who are sent to
A large lion named
Aslan pads around the edges of the story, appearing at strategic moments to
save the four lost children from danger and to guide them home. Hearing about Aslan for the first time from a
couple of friendly beavers, the children have doubts about whether they are
looking forward to meeting him.
“Is he quite safe?”
asks one of the girls. "I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a
lion."
"That you will, dearies,” replies Mrs. Beaver.
"And make no mistake, if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan
without his knees knocking, he's either braver than most or else just silly.”
"Then isn't he safe?” asks Lucy.
"Safe,” said Mr. Beaver, "Don't you hear
what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course, he isn't
safe, but he's good. He's the king, I tell you!” (p. 75-76, C. S. Lewis, the
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
That’s a statement
of faith based on experience. The experience of meeting God. It’s the
experience we’re talking about this morning.
God is safe; God
is awesome,
God acts, He’s not
our pet;
And God is good,
which means God can be trusted.
But we have to
work through our fear and reluctance and our busy-ness to climb on God’s back
and be with God because that’s different than God being with us.
Let God carry us
home.
But we have to make room for God’s voice in our lives, to have a deep
relationship.
From the very
beginning, God’s covenant relationship with all of creation was sealed.
1:1 When God began to
create heaven and earth --
2 the earth being unformed and void, with
darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the
water --
The Hebrew words could be
translated: the Breath of Elohim (a name for God) hovers over the chaos and
breathes through this fluttering. Picture a mother eagle-majestic and grand
hovering over her nest as her babies wait for food. God is in love with all
creation - hovering over it; breathing life - a deep covenant - God is with
us. That’s the game plan we are offered
in living our lives - God is with us.
God is with us.
Moses and the burning bush: (Exodus (3: 1) Paraphrase the story
God calls Moses twice
just to make sure.
Moses says here I am.
God tells Moses to
remove his sandals, to feel the earth to connect with the dirt of this world,
to be ready to listen.
God says: I am the
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob.
Moses turns away. He
cannot look at God, But he asks God who are you? Tell me so I can tell the people and they
will follow me.
God says I am who I am
- this could be a “Who’s on first?” routine.
It gets better - God
tells Moses that he will be the one to lead the people out of captivity in
Moses cannot do this
and says so.
All God says, I’ll
be with you.
When the children in
the Lewis classic doubt they can carry out the mission, the beavers assure the
children, Aslan will be with you.
But our God world is often silent. Why does God seem so far away?
It seems to me that what’s lacking is
reverence.
That has to be in our hearts before God’s
voice can break through.
Reverence toward God, ourselves and each
other. It’s more than respect.
“By having a reverence
for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world; by practicing
reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.”
Albert Schweitzer
Jesus showed us
how: HE was a man of deep feeling, reverencing his own response to life. He shares his fears to his disciples, he
expressed joy, he cried at least three times we know of; he loved to praise
people. When he worked a miracle he
deflected the credit back, “Your faith has saved you.”
The Gospels show
that Jesus touched people from that inner place of reverence:
The woman at the
well; the fishermen on the lake. When a cringing woman offered him an
extravagant act of devotion Jesus received the gift gratefully and defended her
against her critics. Jesus drew out something deeper from people because he
truly reverenced them. And Jesus was God.
At worship we sing
of reverence and praise: Each week we sing the Doxology - Praise God, and Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy
Spirit. Don’t treat worship like a
reference library; worship is part of your library, too. Take the Doxology with you -- all three persons. Bless God, yourself, and others in
everything you do. We can grow in
reverence with God.
If we treat ourselves and our lives
reverently, we see prayer deeper and differently.
Prayer becomes an awareness of all -- the
good and the bad -- of our day;
The odd silence inside when something good
happens;
The stammer of pain at someone else’s pain;
The stammer of joy at someone else’s joy; all
this is prayer.
Prayer is a reverence toward our own lives,
knowing we are not alone.
Prayer is a reverence knowing God is with us.
This reverence can cause transformation in
our lives.
In all we do a
sense of reverence opens us up to a loving life, a life we are summoned to lead
as disciples of Jesus; whether we are at church, at home, in the mall, behind
the wheel—it’s difficult but God calls us to allow God to permeate all of our
lives: receiving as well as giving; replacing the prevalent rudeness,
arrogance, and smugness with the gentle grace of gratitude; encouraging each
other rather than criticizing each other with words or with silence.
Reverence leads us
to build up God’s kingdom on earth and not tear it down.
The Hindus have a beautiful greeting, which
is a prayer.
They say Namaste - They bow and
say Namaste - A reverence-the God in me greets the God within you.
To hear God’s voice say Nameste
We are
men and women of the world, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve as C. S. Lewis
would refer to us. We share in the sad unbeliefs of this world about the
meaning of life, what’s really important—how to acquire and keep success,
money, power, and love. The Bible is relegated to the lowest shelf; glory of
the manger becomes the glory of power and might.
We
silence the deeper part - the part where our dreams come from, the part that
once believed totally the mystery and knew that God is within us.
Now relegate
what is possible to the realm of childish fairy tale.
The
forgotten and neglected child in us holds back from believing; from believing
that maybe mystery is around us;
that
maybe what aches our souls in the middle of the night is a missing relationship
with God;
That
God IS in each of us and we are in God;
“The
moment we have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the
moment we stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that
moment we are free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and we are
free. [live freedom as children of God]” (Swami
Vivekananda)
That
reverence is the key unlocking the mystery.
Namaste.
The
pastor encourages you to meditate during the week on these passages.
She
welcomes your insights on the Scriptures and comments on the sermon that was
preached.
The pastor, Rev. Fran
Thiessen, will gladly welcome comments or questions related to her sermon. She
can be reached at the Church Office. Thanks.