What I say to people who try but cannot connect to God

Many people have come into my office and ask some for of the following, "How do I find God?"

The assumption underlying this question is that God is somewhere else and that it is our quest as human beings to find where God is. Like Dorthy looking for the Great Wizard, we seek out a path that will take us to the one we desire to see. 

Most of the time, these people come with a sense of exhaustion and defeat. They have been trying to find God and yet it seems so illusive. They have tried all sorts of things, but nothing seems to draw them closer. So in their desperation I tell these weary travelers, the same thing:

Stop trying to find God. 

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The entire Christian message of God coming in the life of Jesus Christ is a story about God finding humans. Jesus even shared different parables that expressed this. Such as a Shepard leaving his flock in order to find the one that is lost. The one sheep is not able to find the Shepard, but the Shepard can find it.

This coming Sunday marks a new year of the Christian calendar, we call this first season Advent. Advent means coming. That is to say, God is coming into this world in the life of Christ.

God is coming to find us all who are lost. God is coming to the broken world. God is coming to all of us who are unable to find him. God is coming to all of us. 

What the Dwarf teaches us about Christmas

A previous post highlighted a story told about John the Dwarf of the Christian tradition. It was about his willingness to water a dry bit of wood for three years until it bore fruit. Continuing to share some sayings of the desert from Merton's book here is another John the Dwarf story:

ONCE some of the elders came to Scete, and Abbot John the Dwarf was with them. And when they were dining, one of the priests, a very great old man, got up to give each one a little cup of water to drink, and no one would take it from him except John the Dwarf. The others were surprised, and afterwards they asked him: How is it that you, the least of all, have presumed to accept the services of this great old man? He replied: Well, when I get up to give people a drink of water, I am happy if they all take it; and for that reason on this occasion I took the drink, that he might be rewarded, and not feel sad because nobody accepted the cup from him. And at this all admired his discretion.

In this season of gift giving, we can forget that gift giving can be a form of power. In the words of Bishop Will Willimon:

"We prefer to think of ourselves as givers -- powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we -- with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities -- had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was receive it."

So may we all be givers like the very great old man in the story. And may we also be like John the Dwarf who was humble enough to receive so that others can experience the joy (and power) of giving a gift. 

What year is it?

While we were driving to worship we told our son that today (November 30, 2015) was the first Sunday of Advent which means this is the first day of the new year in the Christian year. We then said, "Happy New Year!" in a way that was far too enthusiastic for a six year old boy at just after 7am. 

More puzzled than excited, he asked, "So what year is it now?" 

We tried to explain that the Church year does not have numbers like the "regular year". He was puzzled and asked, "Then how do you know how old you are?" 

"I guess you don't ever know how old you are in the Church." We replied. 

My son is like most of us in the West who view time as a line. There is a start, there is a middle and there is an end. And perhaps that is how time works in some ways. In other ways time is less like a line and more like a circle. Our sisters and brothers in the East have a better grasp on this idea than we do but the Church talks about time as both a line ("In the beginning...") AND as a circle (through the calendar).

Advent, the season we have just entered, is spoken about as the "start" of the Christian year. And to a degree this is true. But it really is the same "start" that we have had for hundreds of years. We tell the story of the birth of God in Jesus and tell stories of humility, hope, and anticipation. 

We may never really know how old we are in the church, and there is a beauty in that. We all are as innocent as children and as wise as an elder. We all have the ability to die to ourselves and be born again. So I say to you, happy new year and welcome back to where we started.