The Other Good Book

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September 4, 2016

“The Other Good Book”

Scripture: Psalm 139 (a responsive reading)

LEADER.

     O LORD, you have examined me, and you know me.

CONGREGATION.

     You alone know when I sit down and when I get up.

     You read my thoughts from far away.

     You watch me when I travel and when I rest.

     You are familiar with all my ways.

LEADER.

          Even before there is a single word on my tongue,

               you know all about it, LORD.

CONGREGATION.

     You are all around me--in front of me and in back of me.

     You lay your hand on me.

     Such knowledge is beyond my graph.

     It is so high I cannot reach it.

LEADER.

     Where can I go to get away from your Spirit?

     Where can I run to get away from you?

CONGREGATION.

          If I go up to heaven, you are there.

          If I make my bed in hell, you are there.

          If I climb upward on the rays of the morning sun

               or land on the most distant shore of the sea where the sun sets,

                    even there your hand would guide me

                         and your right hand would hold on to me.

LEADER.

     If I say, "Let the darkness hide me

          and let the light around me turn into night,"

               even the darkness is not too dark for you.

CONGREGATION.

                    Night is as bright as day.

                    Darkness and light are the same to you.

LEADER.

     You alone created my inner being.

     You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

CONGREGATION.

     I will give thanks to you

          because I have been so amazingly and miraculously made.

               Your works are miraculous, and my soul is fully aware of this.

LEADER.

     My bones were not hidden from you

     when I was being made in secret,

     when I was being skillfully woven in the depths of the earth.

CONGREGATION.

     Your eyes saw me before I was born.

          Every day of my life was recorded in your book

               before one of them had taken place.

LEADER.

     How precious are your thoughts concerning me, O God!

     How vast in number they are!

          If I try to count them,

               there would be more of them than there are grains of sand.

                    When I wake up, I am still with you.

CONGREGATION.

     Examine me, O God, and know my mind.

     Test me, and know my thoughts.

          See whether I am on an evil path.

               Then lead me on the everlasting path.

Sermon:   “The Other Good Book”

This morning’s sermon begins with a little game.  I’m curious to see how many of you are book lovers like me.  So, I’ll give you the opening sentence of a well-known book, and you give me the title and the author.  Got it?  Here we go!

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

(Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

“It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

(George Orwell, 1984)

“Call me Ishmael.”

(Moby Dick by Herman Melville)

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

(J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

(Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

(Tolkien, The Hobbit)

“All children, except one, grow up.”

 (J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan)

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.”

(Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen)

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…”

(Genesis)

Whether we read them, or watch them, or tell them, story is the language of our souls.  Story is the first way we engage with the world as children, and when we grow old, sharing fond stories from the past brings great joy.  Maybe it took a writer to say it best…Margaret Atwood once wrote, “In the end, we’ll all become stories.”

And then Psalm 139 says it another way.

   “In your book were written

    all the days that were formed for me,

    when none of them as yet existed.”

It is a lovely thought; that God has every day of our life recorded in some good book.  But on a deeper level, it’s also a troubling thought, thinking about God being in on tragic illness and too-soon death, or a puppet master toying with humanity, forcing us down the intended path for us, with no room for free will. 

In reality, we won’t know what it means that God has each day written in a book of our life until this life ends and we get to ask God.  But I do believe some things about this other good book:

I believe our story is written by the One who created everything there is.  (In other words, the most creative writer in all existence.)  And maybe the book of our life is less a dictated path and more like the Choose Your Own Adventure stories I used to read as a child, where free will is woven into each and every page. 

I believe that the God who knows us completely, knitting us together in our mothers’ wombs -- the God who knows when we sit, when we rise, when we fall over, what we do, what we say, what we post, what we think -- this God does chart a course for each of us. 

I believe this because there are these key moments in my story –   

-encouragement from a stranger on a airplane right before a big, scary ordination interview

-my sister’s urging to look at church positions outside of Texas, maybe even (gasp) in North Carolina

-a feeling of peace and excitement just before walking into a place I’d never been to meet a friend, and happening to be next to a stranger who would become my fiancé

I’m sure you can name these sort of plot twists in your own story to yourself.  Moments when you had the choice of right or left but one way just felt in your gut to be the one to choose.  And so the page is turned, a new chapter begins, and we read on.

Sometimes, though, if we’re really honest with ourselves, we stop reading our own story.  Like an old family tale we’ve heard over and over again, or an well-worn book we’ve read dozens of times, we cast it aside, and think we know every word, every paragraph.  We especially begin to think we know the ending, and so why bother to keep reading?

But the beautiful thing about these stories of our lives written in God’s good book is that they’re not just for reading.  We get to partner with God in writing them.  And this means that we can allow our imaginations to run free.  We are not bound to the past.  We are not bound to the future, either.  We are created by God to be creative souls, who make sure that when the book of our life is closed, it is not a dusty, forgotten thing, but a passionate, imaginative tome with ink still left to dry on its pages. 

I lost a dear friend this week after a very brief battle with cancer.  At her funeral yesterday, as I listened to the beautiful music and the comforting words, I read the poem printed on the bulletin called “So Brief Our Days” by Sybil Arms.  It captures the importance of seeing our life as a story worth writing and reading, for every moment we’re given.  It says:

         So brief our days, so very brief

         Like an autumn rose with its falling leaf,

         A moment’s light, a glance of sun

         And then our pilgrimage is done.

         As the rainbow fades in the summer sky

         As the green grass flourishes to die

         This moment’s triumph, too, will wane

         And none shall call it back again.

         Write quickly, then, while the candle glows

         A little while and the book will close,

         So carve your figure of renown

         For soon you must lay your chisel down.

         Use well this hour’s joy, its grief,

         For life is brief, so very brief.

What is the story of your life?  Would it be drama, comedy, romance, horror, even? 

What is the story of the life of our church?  Would it be adventure, history, fantasy, poetry?  

God has written all of our days in a good book.  But this cannot be an excuse to stop living now!  If anything, this should reassure us that, no matter what happens, God is keeping an eye on us.  If anything, this should free us from controlling our destiny to instead embrace this fragile, fleeting life with imagination and creativity. 

Looking back on your past, re-read your story. 

Looking forward to the future, re-write your story.  Follow those bookmarks along the way that God uses to bring you grace and meaning, and never think you know the ending before it’s here.

Because, I’ll tell you a secret, a spoiler, even: our book doesn’t actually end with this life, and we can’t even begin to imagine the adventures that await us on the other side.  But that’s another story for another time…

Amen.