INTRODUCTION: Both of our Scripture readings today are from the writings of the Apostle Paul. Our second Scripture reminds us that for God, love is more important than anything else. Our first Scripture calls us to dedicate ourselves to God’s love. May God’s Spirit speak to us through these words.
Scripture: Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
I Corinthians 13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Sermon: “How Do We Know It Is God?”
My cousin, Jalane Schmidt, who is a professor of religion in Charlottesville, Virginia—received an award a few years ago along with 3 other alumni at Harvard Divinity School. My husband Paul and I were honored to be in the audience as Jalane received her award for speaking out for justice in the public sphere. After the award ceremony, each honoree was given a chance to speak briefly about his or her work.
The racial and ethnic diversity of the 4 alumni who received awards was striking: two of them, including my cousin, were African-American, one was Asian-American, and one was Indian-American. Three of them were Christians; one was a Sikh. The Indian-American man, the Sikh, was from Texas. He had brown skin and was wearing a turban. When he spoke, he joked that he had no idea why his parents thought that raising 3 brown-skinned, turbaned boys in Texas was a good idea. He smiled and asked, “What were they thinking?” But then his tone became serious. He said that after 9/11, when he was a young man in Texas, many people started treating him differently. He didn’t go into great detail, but it was clear that he had been threatened and feared for his safety. In fact, all of the honorees had been in circumstances where their lives were in danger, including my cousin, who, after attending a worship service in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017 ended up trapped in the church for hours, not daring to leave because self-proclaimed white supremacists stood outside surrounding the church building carrying torches and chanting English translations of slogans used in Nazi Germany to stir up racial hatred.
I don’t know about you, but if I was in my cousin’s shoes—or, perhaps more accurately, in my cousin’s skin, I would have been terrified. After being threatened by men carrying torches and chanting Nazi slogans,* I don’t know whether I would have had the courage to speak out in public and put myself and my family at risk. (That summer that racial unrest erupted in Charlottesville, my cousin had the courage to continue to speak out for justice, but she had to stay in a safe-house for a while, without her family, because her life had been threatened, and she didn’t want to stay at home and put her kids in danger.) But when my cousin spoke a year later to receive her award at Harvard, she was calm and she was clear. It was because of her Christian faith that she was speaking up and speaking out against racism and teaching other people how to engage in non-violent resistance. In addition to her work as a professor, she continues to work, in her words, “mobilizing others to be brave…and faithful to the gospel” because, she said, “the gospel calls all of us to be non-conformists.” I’m sure she was thinking of our first Scripture reading from Romans 12, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God…”
When my cousin spoke about feeling called by God and the gospel to do her work, her words made me think of Richard Peace’s Book, and today’s sermon topic—“How Do we Know It is God?” -which is the title of the conclusion of Richard Peace’s book, Noticing God. When we think we hear the voice of God calling us to do something, how do we know it is really God calling us and not some other voice inside our head or in our culture? How can we be sure we are really following God’s will?
As a congregation--in our Sunday sermons--we have just spent 8 weeks going through a book by Professor Richard Peace called Noticing God. To review: the premise of the book is that God is “deeply present in our world,” but we human beings do not always notice God because we haven’t learned “where to look or what to expect.” (p. 14) The book seeks to coach us in this learning; over the past 8 weeks, we have examined 7 ways to notice God: [SHARE THE 7 WAYS POWERPOINT SLIDE]
1. In mystical encounters,
2. in the ordinary activities of daily life,
3. in the still small voice,
4. in the power of Christian community,
5. in the written Word,
6. in Creation, Culture, and Creativity, and
7. in the church. [STOP SHARE SLIDE]
But even with all of these ways to notice God, God’s presence can still be somewhat elusive and subtle—we can never be 100 percent sure the things we’ve attributed to God actually are God. (p. 149) But do not despair--because even though “there is no such thing as absolute certainty” (p. 149) when it comes to noticing God, there is such a thing as discernment. There are ways to figure out whether what we noticed or sensed or heard is likely to be God—or not.
But before I delve into this concept of discernment - another concept from our first reading, let me say a word as to why it matters--why it IS very important to figure out whether my claims about noticing God—or your claims about noticing God-- or my cousin’s claims about noticing God--are likely to be true or not. It’s important because our claims about God determine our behavior. REPEAT
Richard Peace says this, “Unfortunately, we have a long history of people claiming to hear God’s voice and then launching into dumb, crazy, or even terrible acts. Remember Jim Jones in Guyana and all those people who drank the poison Kool-Aid [in 1978], trusting that they were following God?” 900 people died. And Peace gives other examples—some from our life-times, some from history, where Christians did horrific things because they thought they were following God. I will mention 2 more—but only briefly—I know these stories are hard to hear—but it is important to remind ourselves of how damaging the consequences can be when people think they hear God’s voice but are SORELY mistaken. Peace gives the example of a devout Christian man who thought he heard God’s voice calling him to kill a doctor who performed abortions--and the man did it—in 1994 the man killed the doctor and the doctor’s bodyguard. Chilling! Peace also gives an historical example: talking about how a Pope 1000 years ago stirred up Christians to kill Muslims because the Pope was convinced it was God’s will. In fact, “God’s will!” was the rallying cry as Christians engaged in the killing that launched the Crusades. (p. 142)
So, what makes us different from them when we claim to notice God or hear God’s voice? What makes my cousin’s belief -- that her Christian faith calls her to non-violent resistance -- different or better or closer to God’s will than the beliefs of the torch-carrying white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia back in 2017 who may well have believed that God ordained white people to be in charge? Or, to put another way, when we think we are noticing God, how do we know if we’re right? How do we know if what we are sensing is likely to be God or not?
Richard Peace proposes three tests or questions that help us in this important discernment. [SHARE 3 QUESTIONS SLIDE] If we think we are noticing God, and we think that the God we are noticing is calling us to respond in some way, we need to ask ourselves 3 questions:
Is what I am sensing in line with: 1) the Word of God, 2) the Community of God, and 3) the fruit of God? [Marlayna repeats]
Let me briefly explain each of these in turn. 1st question of discernment: “Is what I’m sensing in line with God’s Word?” (Meaning in line with the Bible.) Of course, the Bible is 1200 pages long, and people can—and do—find texts in the Bible to justify almost anything. So when we are looking to see if something is in line with God’s Word, we should NOT look for obscure texts to prove our own point of view. The best standard to use is the standard Jesus himself used. When a lawyer asked him, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answered: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: “’You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
So, if we think we are noticing God, and we think God is calling us to respond, if what we are noticing—and what God is calling us to do—is NOT LOVING of God, neighbor, and self, then we can be sure it is not of God. (And we need to remember that Jesus is very clear—the word “neighbor” does not just refer to people of our own ethnic group—in the Good Samaritan story, the neighbor was the foreigner who stepped in to rescue the injured man despite risks to his own safety.
2nd question of discernment. “Is what I am sensing in line with the community of God?” If we think we are noticing God and we think God is calling us to do something, then we need to run it by our fellow Christians—people we trust who are also seeking to follow God. People who know us, people who will pray with us, people who aren’t afraid to tell us when they think we are off track. Of course, says Richard Peace, “Christian Communities can become self-serving and blind to themselves,” (p 145), but if we are honestly seeking to notice and follow God’s will, and find other people who are doing the same, God will guide us through our fellow Christians.
3rd question of discernment. “Is what I am sensing in line with the fruit of God?” Richard Peace here is using the metaphor of fruit to talk about outcomes and consequences. He’s inviting us to play the scenario out in our imaginations: What would it be like if I responded in the way I sense God is calling me to? “Would the outcome [of my actions] be good for [myself] and others?” (p. 146) Would the outcome build up community? Would it further the development—in me and others-- of what the Apostle Paul calls “the fruit of the Spirit”—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galations 5:22-23)
So, to summarize: we have 3 questions to help us discern whether we are truly noticing God or not: Is what I am sensing inline with the 1) Word of God, 2) the Community of God, and 3) the fruit of God? May we remember to ask ourselves these important questions as we continue our quest to notice God. And, when we answer “yes” to these questions, may we have the faith and the courage to stick to our convictions, allowing ourselves to be transformed by God’s love and used by God for God’s good purposes. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Marlayna Schmidt
Frankin Federated Church
Franklin, MA
* for a summary of what happened in Charlottesville, see https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/trending-now/what-happened-at-charlottesville-looking-back-on-the-anniversary-of-the-deadly-rally/810428843/