DO: Do Pause to Know God

A kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew pictures. Occasionally, she would walk around the room to see each child’s work.

“What are you drawing?” she asked one little girl who was working diligently at her desk.

The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.” The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.” The little girl replied, “They will in a minute.” (1)

On this second Sunday in Lent, we pause to know God more in each  season.  We might not be able to draw a picture with the same confidence as the kindergartner, however, we pause regularly to meet God and know God more in relationship.  With the confidence of children that God wants to be known and can be known, we seek God, pausing to know God more.

The first part of our passage from Corinthians reminds us that we embrace knowledge at different levels at different ages. (2)  It would be inappropriate for infant needing milk, to eat solid food.  It would unnecessary for growing Christians experience God in ways that would overwhelm them.  We find that God meets us where we are.

The Crown is a realistic fiction series based on the life of Queen Elizabeth.  This portion of an episode I am going to show you is from 1958 when Billy Graham first meets the Queen Elizabeth, at her request.  She has heard about the Crusades.  The success has reached beyond the American  experience to the European theater.  Queen Elizabeth and Billy Graham begin a friendship.  She requests for him to preach in a parish church, where the Queen can experience his preaching for herself.  Take a look. (3) (Play the clip)

To be a simple Christian.  Queen Elizabeth’s wish and Billy Graham’s clearly state desire to know God.  To know God is to be in a long obedience in the same direction. (4) Knowing God is not a single choice one day.  Knowing  God is not a single choice for us or by us but rather a life long relationship that we grow into and through struggle against and with.  To be simple Christian is a life long work is to pause and seek to know God.

For someone who has complex and ethically nuanced decisions to uncover to seek biblical faith to ground those decisions in is truly inspiring, as we find in Queen Elizabeth.  For someone who spent all of his life, illuminating the scriptures in such a way that rulers and ordinary folks alike could understand, I find that equally inspiring.

On this week in which we are remembering Billy Graham in death, there are always more things that any one of us could have done.  More commentary that might have been added or ways that we might have used our influence for.  There is always more knowledge, more nuance, more possibility for which our faith life and public ministry can impact. And yet we  pause today, knowing that many knowing God more because of Crusades in real time, or on TV, the radio, books read, or stories told. (5)

However, lest we forget.  Paul’s wisdom in the letter to the Corinth extends beyond only his time in the church.  Paul writes of relationship of God and knowing God.  Some of us will know God directly by pray and  revelation.  Some of us will know God through the preached word and reading the writings of others.  Others of us will hear some one reflect on a book or sermon that some has read or heard someone read or heard.  In other words – One will plant, another will water, but it God who gives the growth.

John Wesley in the Methodist movement understood this well.  He encouraged those attracted to hear messages out in the coal mines, open fields, and preaching houses – go back to your parishes to receive the sacraments.  Billy Graham did a similar thing.   As the Crusades were moving through a community, they would connect with the churches in the area, so  that the local community could support the spiritual growth awakened in that person.   As we pause to know God more, we need one another.  We need the ones in the here and now, who illuminate the scriptures as we ask the questions.  As well as the ones in the years to come, who join us on the journey as we still uncover knowing God more.

When we come to know God, we first learn God’s character.  God is inclusive at God’s nature.  God involves all people.  In our gospel lesson, Jesus is teaching this shocking lesson.  The religious leaders are surprised that Jesus is not just planning on spending time with the most influential. Jesus is planning on eating with sinners and tax-collectors.  Jesus is filling his time with those who are disregarded and hardly with the time of the  Pharisees.  ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

How easy, it is for us in the church, to say.  In the church, it is a safe place.  We don’t want people in the church to have to go through that.  We forget that many of us were once in the place of being less desirable and more in need and it was in God’s nature to draw us in and care for us.  Would it not also be in the nature of God, as we continue to get to know God more, to draw others in and care for them?

In the end, it is God, who gives the growth.  It is God, in the pauses who makes God’s self known.  In this Lenten season, when you are faced with mystery and quandary, curiosity, and ethical dilemma, it is God, who gives the growth and the knowledge.  It is God who is knowable and searchable.   It is God who a young girl feels she can draw.  And it is God who an old man knows has never left him, even in the darkest moments.   As Billy  Graham said often, “This world is not my home.  I am just passing through.” (6)  That may be, but it home long enough that we welcome that one that feels unwelcome as if we are the door keeper at the grandest place.  On the strength on the Markan passage, we welcome each one as if they were the very face of Jesus.   The sick in need of a doctor, the unrighteous in need of God.  Let all God’s people come into the house of the Lord.  Pause to know That God wants to be know.

This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.

  1. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/05/marlo-thomas-laugh-of-the-day-picturing-god_n_1745538.html
  2. Corinthians 3:2
  3. Netflix, The Crown: Season 2: Episode 6: Vergangenheit
  4. Eugene Peterson’s concept from the Psalms: A Long obedience in the same direction of a life lived in faith.  Both Queen Elizabeth and Billy Graham in their nineties embody this.
  5. Based on Nearing Home: Finishing Well By Billy Graham, 2011 as well as commentary about his complicated relationship with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. : Billy Graham and the Beloved Community: America’s Evangelist and the Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Michael G. Long, 2006
  6. Just as I Amby Billy Graham, 1997

New Testament Lesson:  1 Corinthians 3:1-6

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

Gospel Lesson:  Mark 2:13-17

Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Meditations For Your Week                                           

Sunday, February 25th ~ Saturday, March 3rd

Sunday: “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?” 1 Corinthians 3: 2-3.  When we pause to know God, we pause to know God where we are in our own journey.  When we are children, we learn as children, as we grow, we learn more.  Ask God to open your heart to know God more.

Monday: “For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?  What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3: 4-6.  God uses us to help others to know God more.  How is God using you to teach others about God?

Tuesday: “Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them.” Mark 2: 13.  People have always drawn near to Jesus.  Pause today to drawn near to Jesus.

Wednesday: “As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.” Mark 2: 14.  Give thanks for all those in your life who have followed Jesus.

Thursday: “And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him.”  Mark 2: 15.  Pray for those who have not yet followed Jesus.

Friday: “When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’” Mark 2: 16.  Where is God calling you to ask hard questions.

Saturday: “When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’” Mark 2: 17.  Contemplate today the ways in which the church can open its doors more to those in need of the healing powers of the Great Physician.