Getting out of the Way (Mid-week Message)

 

 

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

Getting out of the Way

March 12, 2014

 

Last Sunday, I preached on the problem of evil and the disjunction between God’s good ultimate and final intentions and our day-to-day life. 

 

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote the following about God at work beneath and behind all our existence: 

 

“God is always at work, but that work is not always visible. God is always at work, but sometimes the world’s processes go with the grain of his final purpose and sometimes they resist. But if certain things came together in the world at this or that moment, the ‘flow’ would be easier and more direct. Perhaps a really intense prayer or a really holy life can open the world up that bit more to God’s purpose so that unexpected things happen. We’re never going to have a complete picture on how that works, because we don’t have God’s perspective on it all. But we can say that there are some things we can think, say or do that seem to give God that extra ‘freedom of manoeuvre’ in our universe. And whether we fully understand what’s going on or not, we know that it’s incumbent on us to do what we can to let this happen. We pray, we act in ways that have some chance of shaping a situation so that God can come more directly in. It isn’t a process we can manipulate; miracles aren’t magic, and we could never have a comprehensive manual of techniques for securing what we pray for. It would be very comforting if we knew the formula for success, but we don’t. All we know is that we are called to pray, to trust and to live with integrity before God (to live ‘holy’ lives) in such a way as to leave the door open, to let things come together so that love can come through” (Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief; Louisville / London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007, p. 45). 

 

It is important to avoid “magical thinking” about God: that somehow he is out there and only has to be convinced to intervene and fix things for us.  God is not a wacky Great Uncle whose love we may milk, or Divine Bureaucrat whose approval we must curry.   God is beneath, behind, and under all things; in God, “we live and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).   Since God is love, only good intentions lie in the heart of God.  Much of the bad stuff in the world comes from our stubborn standing in the way of God achieving God’s gracious plans:  bullying, coldness, hatred, selfishness, thoughtless unkindness, turning a blind eye to need. 

 

We need to get out of the way.  God invites us at all times and in all places to conform to his kind plans, and go with the grain, the beautiful and good grain, that God has laid in the wood of creation.   

 

Lent is about listening and observing, and trying to discern where that grain is, and then identifying ways to more fully go with it.   If we do this, miracles just might happen.