Whether You Call on Him or Don't Call on Him

'there are some things I would be willing to bet maybe even my life on. That life is grace, for instance - the givenness of it, the fathomlessness of it, the endless possibilities of its becoming transparent to something extraordinary beyond itself. That - as I picked up somewhere in Jung and whittled into the ash stick I use for tramping around through the woods sometimes - vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit, which I take to mean that in the long run, whether you call on him or don't call on him, God will be present with you. That if we really had our eyes open, we would see that all moments are key moments.

-Originally published in Now and Then

Weekly Sermon Illustration: Hosea and Gomer

In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On July 31, 2016 we will celebrate the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the book of Hosea:

Hosea 11:1-11
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. They shall go after the LORD, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west. They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the LORD.

The following is originally from Peculiar Treasures and later published in Beyond Words:

Gomer

She was always good company-a little heavy with the lipstick maybe, a little less than choosy about men and booze, a little loud, but great on a party and always good for a laugh. Then the prophet Hosea came along wearing a sandwich board that read "The End is at Hand" on one side and "Watch Out" on the other.

The first time he asked her to marry him, she thought he was kidding. The second time she knew he was serious but thought he was crazy. The third time she said yes. He wasn't exactly a swinger, but he had a kind face, and he was generous, and he wasn't all that crazier than everybody else. Besides, any fool could see he loved her.

Give or take a little, she even loved him back for a while, and they had three children whom Hosea named with queer names like Not-pitied-for-God-will-no-Ionger-pity-Israel-now-that-it's-gone-to-the-dogs so that every time the roll was called at school, Hosea would be scoring a prophetic bulls-eye in absentia. But everybody could see the marriage wasn't going to last, and it didn't.

While Hosea was off hitting the sawdust trail, Gomer took to hitting as many night spots as she could squeeze into a night, and any resemblance between her next batch of children and Hosea was purely coincidental. It almost killed him, of course. Every time he raised a hand to her, he burst into tears. Every time she raised one to him, he was the one who ended up apologizing.

He tried locking her out of the house a few times when she wasn't in by five in the morning, but he always opened the door when she finally showed up and helped get her to bed if she couldn't see straight enough to get there herself. Then one day she didn't show up at all.

He swore that this time he was through with her for keeps, but of course he wasn't. When he finally found her, she was lying passed out in a highly specialized establishment located above an adult bookstore, and he had to pay the management plenty to let her out of her contract. She'd lost her front teeth and picked up some scars you had to see to believe, but Hosea had her back again and that seemed to be all that mattered.

He changed his sandwich board to read "God is love" on one side and "There's no end to it" on the other, and when he stood on the street corner belting out

How can I give you up, 0 Ephraim!

How can I hand you over, 0 Israel!

For I am God and not man,

The Holy One in your midst.

(Hosea 11 :8- 9)

nobody can say how many converts he made, but one thing that's for sure is that, including Gomer's, there was seldom a dry eye in the house.

What It Means To Be a Christian

Click here to listen to the interview clip of Frederick Buechner and his description on what he believes it means to be a Christian.

God

Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep.

-Originally published in Beyond Words

Weekly Sermon Illustration: Ask For It

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In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On July 24, 2016 we will celebrate the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the gospel of Luke:

Luke 11:1-13
He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ""Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples."" He said to them, ""When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."" And he said to them, ""Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. ""So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!""

The following is an excerpt from the sermon 'The Power of God and the Power of Man' from The Magnificent Defeat:

Maybe some say, ""I know human love, and I know something of its power to heal, to set free, to give meaning and peace, but God's love I know only as a phrase."" Maybe others also say this, ""For all the power that human love has to heal, there is something deep within me and within the people I know best that is not healed but aches with longing still. So if God's love is powerful enough to reach that deep, how do I find it? How?""

If that is really the question, if we are really seeking this power, then I have one thing to say--perhaps it is not the only thing, but it is enormously important: ask for it. There is something in me that recoils a little at speaking so directly and childishly, but I speak this way anyway because it is the most important thing I have in me to say. Ask, and you will receive. And there is the other side to it too: if you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it-I mean really asked, expecting an answer.

I am saying just this: go to him the way the father of the sick boy did and ask him. Pray to him, is what I am saying. In whatever words you have. And if the little voice that is inside all of us as the inheritance of generations of unfaith, if this little voice inside says, ""But I don't believe. I don't believe,"" don't worry too much. Just keep on anyway. ""Lord, I believe; help my unbelief"" is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.

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Belief and Unbelief

"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.

-Originally published in The Magnificent Defeat

The Stewardship of Pain

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This sermon by Christian author Frederick Buechner was first aired on the Chicago Sunday Evening Club TV program on 1/27/91. Duration: 11:43.

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Weekly Sermon Illustration: Amos

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In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On July 17, 2016 we will celebrate the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the book of Amos:

Amos 8:1-12
This is what the Lord GOD showed me--a basket of summer fruit. He said, ""Amos, what do you see?"" And I said, ""A basket of summer fruit."" Then the LORD said to me, ""The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,"" says the Lord GOD; ""the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!"" Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, ""When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat."" The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt? On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day. The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.

The following excerpt was initially published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words:

When the prophet Amos walked down the main drag, it was like a shoot-out in the Old West. Everybody ran for cover. His special target was The Beautiful People, and shooting from the hip, he never missed his mark. He pictures them sleek and tanned at Palm Beach, Acapulco, St. Tropez. They glisten with Bain de Soleil. The stereo is piped out over the marble terrace. Another tray of bloody Marys is on the way. A vacationing bishop plunges into the heated pool.
With one eye cocked on them, he has his other cocked on the Unbeautiful People-the varicose veins of the old waiter, the pasty face of the starch-fed child, the Indian winos passed out on the railroad siding, the ragged woman fumbling for food stamps at the check-out counter.
When justice is finally done, Amos says, there will be Hell to pay. The Happy Hour will be postponed indefinitely because the sun will never make it over the yard-arm. The Pucci blouses, the tangerine colored slacks, the flowered Lillys, will all fade like grass. Nothing but a few chicken bones will mark the place where once the cold buffet was spread out under the royal palms.
But according to Amos, it won't be the shortage of food and fun that will hurt. It will be the shortage ""of hearing the words of the Lord"" (Amos 8:11). Towards the end, God will make himself so scarce that the world won't even know what it's starving to death for.

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"Why Did You Get Out of the Ministry?"

People sometimes say to me, 'Why did you get out of the ministry?' I find that deeply unsettling, because I don't in any sense think of myself as giving up the ministry. But I do think of writing as a ministry.

-Originally published in the Wittenburg Door

We Must Never Forget

There is plenty of work to be done down here, God knows. To struggle each day to walk the paths of righteousness is no pushover, and struggle we must, because just as we are fed like sheep in green pastures, we must also feed his sheep, which are each other. Jesus, our shepherd, tells us that. We must help bear each other's burdens. We must pray for each other. We must nourish each other, weep with each other, rejoice with each other. Sometimes we must just learn to let each other alone. In short, we must love each other. We must never forget that. But let us never forget Lyman Woodard either, silhouetted up there against the blue Rupert sky. Let us join him in the belfry with our feet toward heaven like his, because heaven is where we are heading. That is our faith and what better image of faith could there be? It is a little crazy. It is a little risky. It sets many a level head wagging. And it is also our richest treasure and the source of our deepest joy and highest hope.

-Originally published in The Clown in the Belfry and later in Secrets in the Dark