Sermon Series: The Stories That Shape Us – August 24, 2014

Sermon Series: The Stories That Shape Us – August 24, 2014

August 24, 2014 

Luther Memorial Church       Seattle, WA

The Rev. Julie G. Hutson

The Stories That Shape Us:  Show Me a Sign! 

Psalm 138            Judges 6: 36-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

          Have you ever asked God for a sign?  I’ve seen some signs that I think might have come from God and some that I’m pretty sure came from somewhere else entirely.  In Decatur, Alabama there is a sign on a Beauty Shop  that says “Lord, Make Me Over!.”  The name of the salon happens to be the Praise Jesus Salon.  Just down the road there’s a big sign that says “Go to Church or the Devil Will Get You.”  I know that one isn’t from God.  I once saw a sign that read: “Bottomless Pit.  65 Feet Deep.”   Several years ago there was a whole campaign of “billboards from God.”    One said “Every Day I Get More Requests for Parking Spaces than Anything Else.  Think Bigger. – God.”  And one said “I love you. – God”  But my favorite was the very first one that read “Well, You Asked for A Sign.  – God.”

Asking God for a sign is nothing new.  In our summer sermon series, The Stories That Shape Us, we have a much lesser known story today from the Old Testament book of Judges.

In the portion of Chapter 6 that we read this morning, Gideon is asking God for a sign that God will actually do what God has promised, deliver Israel from the Midianites under the hand of Gideon.  It seems like a reasonable request, after all Gideon was young and not strong and he came from a family that had very little military clout.  Gideon had already asked God’s angel who commissioned him for a sign, so asking God for a sign wasn’t all that surprising. In fact, the Hebrew people asked God for signs all the time. Although it might seem like an odd way to request a sign, putting a fleece of wool on the threshing floor and watching to see if there is dew on just the fleece by morning, but not the ground.  What we don’t know is that in this time fishermen who lived on the desert islands used to lay out their fleece in the evening and by morning they would have enough dew on it to get water for drinking by wringing out the fleece.  So Gideon first asks God for this same sign and then…then Gideon has the nerve to ask God to work the sign in reverse.  And it is that reverse miracle that is the true sign that what God has said will happen, will in fact, come to pass.

What I’d like for us to think about this morning, then, are signs from God.  What signs do we have of God’s faithfulness and presence?

This week in my Wednesday mid week update I shared one of my favorite comic strips from B.C.  In it Thor is on his knees praying: “If you’re up there God, give me a sign” and a large, neon sign falls from the sky that says “I’m up here.”

Some days feel that way.  Days that are filled with challenge or hardship.  Days when we wonder where God has gone.  We ask God for a sign that we have not been left alone.  A sign that we will get through this.  A sign that all will be well.

Gideon needed a sign.  Life was hard for Israel and in order to be delivered, Gideon could hardly imagine that HE could be a part of that.  That HE would be the answer to Israel’s prayers.

So, here’s what I suggest about signs from God.  They are all around us.  The problem is that we are looking for ….well….looking for love in all the wrong places, to quote an old country song.  We are looking for God and God’s kingdom in some place that is yet to come or in the sky or on a cloud called heaven.  Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.  It is here.  It is now.

Far too often, the life of the Christian seems to be a striving toward a goal of getting somewhere….to heaven….or else the devil will get you, like the sign says.  So instead of living in love and compassion for all of God’s people and all of Creation, we put into place some sort of morality code.  No drinking, no dancing, no smoking, no rock and roll.  But those things don’t say anything about the God who has called us or Jesus who died on the cross so that we would not have to strive toward anything.  Our salvation is already taken care of!  Now, there’s a sign from God.  That cross….THAT is a sign from God.

There are other places where we find signs from God.  Last Friday I was offered a sign by one of our gardeners.  She handed me a bag of greens grown in her plot of the Giving Garden.  “The church has given so much to me” she said “I want you to have these.”  Those were some delicious greens, signs of God’s good Creation.  Signs of the regeneration of the earth.  And her sharing was a sign too.  A sign of how we are to live in the kingdom as it is now…sharing what we have in a spirit of gratitude.

Yesterday we gathered here to remember Stuarts’ life.  In our remembering, we saw signs from God.  The love of community gathered around.  The gift of music and story and prayer.  Our lives, are signs from God to the world.

The notes that were left around the church in recent weeks from the LOVE NINJAs are signs of God’s presence.  The two left for me – one in the pulpit and one at the altar were words I needed to hear at just that time.  God Is Always With You.  You are Never Alone.  Signs from God through the construction paper project of the Love Ninjas.

This morning and every time we come together for worship, we see sign and symbol from God.  In water we have the sign of new life…..of rebirth….of death and resurrection.  And in bread and wine, we have signs of God’s wide and gracious love for us, in the body and blood of Christ.  And when we gather for worship, our very act of gathering is a sign from God.  We form into the Body of Christ.  We become the sign.

This is what happened to Gideon as well.  He prayed to God for a sign that Israel, his people, would be freed from the Midianites.  And God answered his prayer, only Gideon was the answer.  Gideon was the sign.  Gideon was it.  “And that is a powerful legacy for all of us who are tired of hiding from the Midianites, who miss God’s wonderful deeds, and who ask God to show off by doing something spectacular.  I think we had better be careful what we suggest, because there is every chance in the world God will say ‘What a splendid idea!  I’m all for it; I hearby commission you.”  [1]

And like  Gideon we might say But wait!  But, I’m not qualified, But I don’t have enough time.  But I don’t know what I’m doing.  But I’m afraid.  But we’ve never tried that before.  But I need a sign.  But we  need a sign.

And that’s when God will respond with a But as well….”But I will be with you.”  And it turns out that that will be all the sign we need.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown.  “Show Me a Sign” in  Home By Another Way.