Thursday 20 August 2015

12th Sunday after Pentecost 16 Aug 2015 Sermon

12th Sunday after Pentecost 16.8.15 Where is God?

In the face of suffering, and especially injustice, people ask: Where is God?

Let us locate Him, and find out exactly where He is, and what His intentions are.

The Good Samaritan represents Jesus Himself, as the one who comes to relieve suffering.

God has deep compassion for all who suffer, and He seeks to bandage them up – to apply the remedy needed for each problem.

He also bandages up spiritual, emotional, mental problems, not just the physical. He is concerned for every corner of human existence.

People will say: No, he does not heal us. He lets the sufferings continue and leaves us to our own devices.

It is true that not every problem is solved immediately, nor exactly as we would wish it; but we can discern God’s intentions and His way of acting in our world.

Sometimes - many times - He does work a miracle and all is set right (eg the various healings and raisings from the dead in the Gospels).

But most of the time God shows His love for us by teaching us how to love.

There is a saying to the effect that while it is a good thing to give a hungry man a fish, it is better to teach him how to fish!

We could say the same thing for how God loves us. He does help us directly, and often with a miracle; but His main way of healing us is to teach us how to do what He would do, to love as He would love – to be ourselves Good Samaritans.

If there is a hungry man at my front gate I don’t just pray he get fed; I feed him myself. And this pleases God because this way two people benefit, the one receiving and the one giving.

If we can solve even one problem it is an improvement. We cannot solve every problem or save every person from hunger etc, but we do what we can and where we can. Even one good action will have an atoning effect, and will contribute to better structures in our society.

God is concerned for everyone - the one suffering, and the one who should be helping, and the ones who should be concerned for the overall workings of our society.

He loves us first, and this, if we let it take effect, must spill over into our own attitudes and actions.

Our attitude will be kinder and gentler. Our actions will be practical and helpful.

We will learn to love the unlovable – those who oppose us, who hate us, who persecute us.

We seek, as Jesus did, to bring them the mercy of God, to bring them to a change of heart.

Charity towards them will mean prayer for their conversion and offering the word of truth. Some of them at least will convert.

So it is not just a matter of praying that God do something, though we always pray. We have to see that we are involved in the equation. God wants to heal us of our problems at the same time as the people more obviously in need of help.

He heals us of hard-heartedness, selfishness, indifference to the sufferings of others.

God could rain down food on the hungry, give sight to all the blind, heal every sickness – all in a moment. But most of all He wants to change the way we think; to change our minds and hearts.

So this is ‘Where God is’, as so many ask.

We ask God why does He not do something? He asks us: why do you not do something?

It begins with me. It is always tempting to put the onus on someone else, but I have to learn to be Christ-like. It is not so hard as we might think: He loves us first; and He give us the grace we need for every situation.

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