God the Master Artist

This is the sermon that I preached Sunday, August 14, 2011 at Chapel in the Pine Presbyterian Church in Hoover, AL.

Genesis 45:1-15


I am not sure if it is the fact that one of my favorite classes at Columbia was an Old Testament exegesis class where the Joseph novella was our primary focus or that this story constantly draws me back, showing me something new, or opening my eyes to something I hadn’t seen before. Regardless of the reason, this story of one of the fathers of our faith is one that I love to return to time and time again. And this morning’s text is the dramatic conclusion to the long Joseph story.

The story of Joseph is pretty well known to most of us much to the thanks of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and their masterpiece, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And yet the story we find in the Book of Genesis is considerably grittier and darker then its Broadway counterpart. In the Genesis account we don’t find many beautiful or funny songs sung to catchy tones. The Joseph story we find in Genesis is complex and messy. There is a very human and real feeling running throughout this long story. The Joseph story is a story that begins with betrayal and ends with an unexpected reconciliation. And between these two events are ups and downs, and twists and turns. That draws us in each time we hear it. The story captivates us because from time to time we can see ourselves in it.

In the story of Joseph we are brought into an already messy and dysfunctional family. A family where dysfunction has been the name of the game for generations going all the way back to its beginnings in Abraham and Sarah. It was Abraham and Sarah who after years of travel found themselves having to lie from time to time to protect themselves. And this elderly couple eventually had a son who Abraham nearly sacrificed, but that’s a better fate then being cast out with your mother as was the case for Ishmael and his mother Hagar. The trouble did not end their I am afraid, for when Isaac became an old man, his youngest son Jacob, Joseph’s father, stole his older brother Esau’s birthright with the help of his mother Rebekah. And Jacob the trickster was tricked by his father-in-law Laban into marring his daughter Leah, not Rachel as he had hoped to. But after seven more years of indentured servitude, Laban allowed Jacob to marry Rachel, Joseph’s mother.

And so it is not surprising that Joseph’s brothers, knowing their family’s story and being sick of playing second fiddle to their father Jacob’s favorite son, take matters into their own hands. And they throw the arrogant boy Joseph into a pit and plan to kill him. The brothers instead choose to make some money off this pain of brother by selling him into slavery. And it is this act that sets in motion a chain of events that takes Joseph from a pit of despair to head of house, back to a pit of despair to finally to a seat second only to Pharaoh in Egypt. A painful journey that makes the once arrogant boy Joseph unrecognizable to his brothers some years later.

In our text this morning, the brothers find themselves once more standing before Joseph unbeknownst to them. They had come to Egypt in search of grains to help them to survive a famine, only to be detained as spies. And Joseph taking advantage of his position of power sends all but one of the brothers back to Canaan to fetch their youngest brother Benjamin. And now exhausted from their journey all of the sons of Jacob are standing in the same place. Joseph clears the room of everyone but his brothers. A feeling of uncertainty hangs in the air. And he begins to weep; to weep so loudly that everyone who had been sent out could hear, as well as those in Pharaoh’s house. And in this long awaited moment, Joseph finally reveals to his brothers that it is he, their brother, standing before them. I am sure that the realization of this must have hit them like a ton of bricks, as one commentator put it . And as the realization washed over Joseph’s brothers they must have begun to tremble with fear as they remember their shameful act.

And yet their fear is met not with retribution but with an overwhelmingly powerful act of forgiveness. Joseph, having stepped back and taking a long look at his life must have seen something greater then himself and his suffering. And in his speech to his awe-struck brothers he reveals a profound faith. Joseph assures his brothers that God had been at work through his whole life saying, “for God sent me before you to preserve life.” And Joseph’s since of God’s divine hand in his life is so strong that he repeats this sentiment again and then frames his brothers shameful act of selling him into slavery in such a way that nearly removes any guilt from them. Joseph says to his brothers in verse eight, “So it was not you who sent me here, but God.” It is in Joseph’s threefold mention of God’s acts of working in, through and under the actions of the brothers that Walter Brueggemann sees as “the key speech in the entire Joseph narrative.” Brueggemann says, “This speech completely redefines the situation for all parties. Now the guilty fear of the brother is superseded. The grief of the father is resolved…The revengeful cunning of the successful brother is superseded… The guilt of the brothers, the grief of the father, and the revenge of Joseph are all used as means for this disclosure of the hidden call of God.” And it would be nice and tidy and neat to see the suffering of Joseph as simply the means for God to accomplish the saving of a whole people as well as God’s chosen family.

But I wonder if that is what Joseph is really saying here. Does Joseph believe that God had simply planned out all of these events with the end result being the saving of many people and a joyous reunion where Joseph would be the one who saves the whole family? Commentator Kathryn Huey urges us to stop here for a moment and reflect, saying, “As much as we appreciate Joseph's deep and positive faith, and as much as we see the purpose of the long Joseph story as explaining how the Israelites went to Egypt, we might want to linger a bit on his theological reflection on God's will.” And I believe it would be a mistake to read into this text a God who had planned this from the very beginning, making Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery so that God may accomplish the saving of God chosen family and thousands of others through the painful journey of one. Reading the text this way removes human freedom and we become nothing more then puppets. And Joseph’s powerful outpouring of love and forgiveness looses its edge and becomes less meaningful.

No, I believe Joseph’s claim about God in his speech to his brothers goes much deeper then saying that God has been manipulating the events of his whole life. Joseph’s claim about God is a claim about God’s actions and presence in his life. A claim that is far more mysterious and complex then can be reduced to a simple formula. It is a claim that acknowledges the messiness of Joseph’s life and that God has been, is, and will be present with him in the messiness of his life. Joseph’s words show God not to be a puppeteer, controlling all the events but instead describe an artist whose sees a bigger picture then we are able. An artist who, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Nothing is too bent to be used – not even tragedies, not even bad decisions, not even plain human meanness.”

“I think that's why I'm attracted to this image of God as master artist who continues to paint with the colors she is given, to mold and to shape even when he doesn't have all the right tools” my friend Carrie said me this week as we talked about this text. She continued by saying, “The most beautiful part though is that if we're made in the image of God we are artists too, and have the same ability to create with what we are given. Which means we have the choice to dump black paint all over the canvas and walk away if we want. Yet Joseph doesn't.”

Joseph in an act of overwhelming tenderness and love begins to make beauty out of an ugly act committed against him so many years ago. He chooses to pick the paintbrush and paint with the colors he has. Here before our eyes is Joseph, who was shown no mercy by his brothers, forgiving them, loving them, and now making plans to provide for them. For him or our God nothing was to bent or broken to be used.

This act of forgiveness could not have been easy for Joseph. As we look back through this story, we know that Joseph has had his chances to get retribution on his brothers. And yet Joseph, in this moment, sets aside his desire for retribution in favor of reconciliation. And I believe that Joseph’s choice to seek this path overwhelms and surprises even him, because he breaks down in tears, and he becomes overwhelmed by the chance to start again with his brothers, to be reunited with his father, and to share the good fortune he has experienced in Egypt with his long lost family. It is this realization that hits Joseph like a ton of brinks and brings him to tears. The possibility of creating a more beautiful masterpiece with his brothers could not be contained and came bursting forth, pouring out of Joseph as tears of joy.

I believe coming back to this text time and time again will always challenge us. Because Joseph’s outpouring of love is so grand on his brothers who were so easily willing to give him up into slavery that it unsettles us. We wonder if we could act as Joseph did, seeking reconciliation over retribution, forgiveness over vengeance, love over hate. And would we be able to see the masterpiece that is being created before our eyes and assist our master artist? Or would throw black pain on the canvas and walk away?

Creating works of art gets messy be it painting, sculpting or throwing clay. Paint gets spilled, clay gets on us, and before we know it we are covered with the stains of creating. And as we create, the clay or paint, metal or wood doesn’t always do what we want it to do, or take the shape we had hoped for. So we as the artist work with it, continuing to mold it, to shape it, to change color or brush stroke until it takes a form we want. And there are times when our soon to be masterpiece doesn’t take the shape we had hoped for, or what was in our mind’s eye is not what we see on the canvas before us. So we change our vision and go in a new direction, creating something brand new.

Our lives are much like this. As hard as we may try to keep our lives tidy and organized, we quickly find that our lives despite our best efforts become messy. We find that things don’t always work out the way we had hoped they would, or loved ones plans take precedent over ours. But we continue to work with what we have, molding and shaping, mixing colors and shapes until we step back and see the masterpiece that has become our life. And as we look closer at those places that we thought were twisted and mangled beyond use, we find divine fingerprints covering them. Because we chose not to throw those pieces out or cover them with black paint and walk away but hand them over to the divine master artist who transforms all of our ugly and broken pieces into something beautiful.

Hallelujah and Amen.


Citations -
- Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis . (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.) p346.
- Matthews Huey, Kathryn . "August 14, 2011 | Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A (Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 15)." The United Church of Christ | No Matter Who You Are Or Where You Are On Life's Journey, You're Welcome Here . N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Aug. 2011. .
- Taylor, Barbara Brown. "Listening to Your Life." Gospel Medicine. Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications, 1995.

Let's Try This Once More... Reflecting on a Sunday

As Lent is quickly approaching and as I continue to think about my vocation and how to live it out following seminary, I have returned once more to this blog. A place that when I began it was intended to be a space for me to reflect and ponder things that I had been exploring in classes or in the world. But quickly this blog became neglected and forgotten, as evident by an almost two year lapse in posting. But as I see my vocation not as one who preaches but as one who is called to teach and write, I feel I must begin to practice writing, reflecting and sharing.

So it is that my goal is to begin to write here once more. Posting whatever comes through my head and exploring ideas. So here goes...

It is Sunday evening and I have been reflecting all day on worship this morning. My Wife Ame and I have been attending Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta while I have been in seminary. It is a worshiping community that we have come to deeply love and are nurtured there. We have found it refreshing and challenging that the church as a community takes stands on what is happening outside of the doors of this beautiful downtown church. This active stance on Social Justice was evident this morning during worship as a member of the congregation got up to talk about the church's plans for Lent. The church is planning to focus the congregation's attention to social issues within the community of Atlanta. As the member described the church's devotional guide and how it could move the community to take actions to resolve the issues facing the community, she was moved to tears as she asked, "how can we be a people of faith and not find solutions to AIDS, homelessness, poverty and inequality?" (Those are not exactly her words but what I got from her words.) And as I sat and listen to this woman stand behind the table of our Lord, I was moved nearly to tears as I reflected on the brokenness of our world and our apathy and failure to do more.

Matthew 5:6-9

6‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Before I could throw myself a deeper pitty party it was time to pass the collection plate. I noticed a little boy in the row in front of me who I could see was eagerly awaiting the collection plate to come down his row. And as the plate reached him, he took it from his dad and took a couple of steps and passed it to the gentleman seated near him. And as this young child quickly ran back to his dad, I noticed a huge grin on his face. And a since of joy washed over me. This young child was so eager to just touch the plate that held the money that would help fund the mission of this church that he could hardly contain it. You could see that this mattered deeply to this boy and in that moment I saw how the church was to be, a little child with such excitement to just touch the mission work of the church.

It was just moments later as the congregation was taking communion by intinction, I saw a little girl who moving quicker then her parents was headed up to the front. She looked over her shoulder for her parents who were quickly in tow, giving a look of "hurry up." Again the excitement of this young child was a blessing. Again I thought, "This is how we should be. We should have an eager anticipation as we approach the table."

Matthew 19:14
"but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs."

So challenged with the Kingdom of God breaking but not complete I go into this next week. Fed at the table and challenged to act.

Speaking of God...

This week I had my first preaching experience in Seminary. We were told that we would be doing a five minute "sermon" about a passage of our choosing and we were to just speak about what it says to us about God and what it says to our community of faith. Below is what I wrote, I am sure that what is below is not exactly like what I said, but it gives the idea.

Matthew 20:1-16

The Labourers in the Vineyard

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; ⁴and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” ⁷They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” ¹³But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ - scripture from oremus Bible Browser

^*

Upon hearing about this assignment I knew exactly what text I was going to us. My mind immediately jumped to God speaking to Job in the whirlwind, I know it’s an odd text, but it helps to keep my ego in check. But the passage I just read has been nagging me all week. It just seems to keep popping into my head. This all started when I read a sermon by Barbra Brown Taylor on this passage. I read it and thought, “oh how nice.” But I began to think about this passage and the more I thought about it the more is began to get angry. I began to sympathize with the workers who had been there all day. I began to feel like one of them, spending all day breaking my back in the sun only to get the same payment as those who worked only an hour. I began understand their frustration and anger towards the landowner. I mean, I have worked hard. I have spent my time volunteering, going on mission trips, for crying out loud I worked with middle school youth, and now I am here at seminary. I think a lot of us can relate. We are all good people; I mean we are here are we not?

We have heard this phrase, “the last will be first and first will be last” so often that we have forgotten how radically counter-cultural it is. It is not capitalism. I mean if we are going to get the same reward in the end as those who come to the vineyard in the eleventh hour, then why work all day? Why not use the system to our advantage? Only the good die young right? Is this not what this passage is saying?

Throughout the week, Matt and Anna have driven home that it is God who is to be the center of our preaching not ourselves. So looking at this passage that way, I stop looking at in the since of my understanding of what is fair, I stop looking at what I do, what have done, and what I left undone, and I stop worrying about where I am in the line, am I somewhere near the front or in the middle and the reward of others. And shockingly I begin to feel free. The things I have done that I shouldn’t have and the things I left undone begin to matter a little less, I stop comparing myself to others and what they have done or not done. For this passage has very little to do with what I have done and yet everything to do with what God has done. This radical grace that is given so freely to everyone is so great but yet so simple. This passage gives us freedom to live. It gives us freedom not worry about where we are in line, what reward others are getting and how it compares to ours, our payment dose not depend on what we do. We have been set free to live in grace that has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God. Hallelujah and Amen

Image by Habub3

What is the Gospel?

This is a paper I turned in for an Evangelism class I am taking. I enjoyed writing it and was pretty impressed with the result...

The question of, “What is the Gospel?” is a challenging questions with no simple answer. Attempts to answer the question oversimplify and reduce the gospel, limiting the gospel’s vast mystery and possibly attempting to control the gospel to fit our cultural needs. The gospel effects people, it works in people and through people. This makes the gospel personal, giving the gospel its complexity and vastness. For each person the gospel may mean something different. For those who are oppressed the gospel is freedom, for the hurt and broken the gospel is healing and wholeness, for the lonely the gospel is comfort, for some the gospel is life, for others is it the belief that there is something bigger than themselves at work in the world. My simple definition is the gospel is God’s loving work, beginning at creation, carried through the people of Israel, shown fully in the life, teachings, death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, God’s son, now expressed by the church, Christ’s followers empowered by the Holy Spirit. This work is for the restoration of creation, the bringing in of the Kingdom of God, bringing all of creation into right relations with each other, and God our creator from the bringing of time through the ends of the ages.

My working definition of what is the gospel comes from my encounters with the gospel. Like many people of the Old Testament their encounters with God are described by God’s actions. It is easier to describe God by God’s actions. We are able to see the results of God’s actions, and can easily describe these actions. For me the gospel is much the same. For the gospel is the good news of God’s redeeming love through Jesus. It is God who created the world and all that is in it. Yet humans having been created in God’s image wanted to be like God and ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge separating us from God. God removed humanity from the Garden of Eden. However God never gave up on creation, God called Abraham and Sarah to be the beginnings of a great nation who is called to be a blessing to all peoples of the earth. God continued to work in and through these people, giving them land, an identity reminding them of their purpose, being a blessing to the world. Yet every time the people forgot, God would raise up a leader to call them back to God.

God’s love for God’s creation is fully expressed through the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus. God, still loving what God created, comes in the likeness of a human being, Jesus. Jesus comes to fulfill what God has spoken through the prophets and begin to bring God’s creation back to a right relationship with their creator. Through Jesus’ life and teachings we are invited to be apart of God’s kingdom on earth; a kingdom where love abounds, where justice flows like a mighty river, where our identity comes not from what we have or what we do but from who created us. This kingdom of God is in conflict with the culture that surrounds it. Jesus’ calling for a new and better way of life lead him to be tried, convicted and executed for challenging the culture, for pushing the cultural norms. Jesus teachings went against what the world was calling for. Jesus was calling for people to love their enemies, to walk an extra mile with those who were ruling over them, challenging the status quo, and celebrating the small and lowly, calling the first to be last and last to be first. Jesus was calling for a world flipped on its head. This radical living brings healing to broken, food for the hungry, love to the unloved, communion for the outsiders, hope for the hopeless, and comfort for the afflicted. It brings peace not with the sword but with acts of love. It is not just for the downcast, afflicted, marginalized or left out but it is for all people. It is this upside down world where God has invited creation to join God and to be in communion with the Creator.

It is through the God’s ultimate expression of love, the resurrection of Jesus from death to life, that we are able to truly see and experience God. Jesus bore all that afflicted humanity, setting us free from those things that hold us down, and bringing us back to being who God created us to be. We have been set free from the bondage our self-centeredness has placed us in and our culture has reinforced in us. We are free to bring the good news to all people, to help restore creation. Following Jesus’ resurrection, his followers were called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus mission. This mission goes all the way back to Abraham and Sarah’s call to be a blessing to all people, and is expressed in the sharing of the good news of what God is doing in the world in and through God’s people. It is through this work of restoration and love in which believers, empowered by the Holy Spirit, become the hands and feet of Jesus, continually working to bring in God’s kingdom. It is through our fumbling and bumbling encounters with those around us, we can begin to piece together what God is doing in the world.

Part of gospel is engrafting ourselves into this story of God in the world, and continuing it, and adding our own flavor to it. The gospel is the good news that God is at work in this world. It is through God’s love of God’s creation that we are able to be freed through the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is good news that we are free to love and care for those around us because we have first been loved by our Creator.

Class with Peter Rollins

This week one of my classes had a guest lecturer, we were privileged to have Peter Rollins come and speak to our class. Peter Rollins is an Emergent Philosopher, co-organizer of an Emerging Church Movement collective called Ikon. He is also the author of several books, How (Not) to Speak of God, The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief, and most recent The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. Oh yea he is also from Belfast Ireland.

So Peter came to our class this week while he is on tour speaking about his new book. So our class had the privilege to have him as our guest. It was pretty apparent from the beginning of the class that Peter is truly an Emergent Philosopher. He told us his style of speaking was like shooting a machine gun. So here are some thoughts and responses to things I took from this lecture.

Naming God and Un-Naming God...
No matter how great our theology and understanding of what we thinking God is it is limited and reductionist view. Every time we say God's name we must un-name God. This is an idea we are somewhat exploring in some of our readings. Darrell Guder talk about the idea of reductionism in his book The Continuing Conversion of the Church. Reductionism is a reality and a danger. We want to be able to describe God and in that we will inevitably reduce God to something we can grasp. But in our reduction we run the danger of limiting God. So we need to un-name God every time we name God. I see the importance of celebrating the divine mystery of God, while balancing the a human grasp of the concept of God. God is more wondrous then our concepts of God no matter how good our theology.

The Bible as Art
One of the coolest ideas from this lecture was Rollins idea that the Bible should be viewed as art. Not in the since that it lowers its value, but that different people can take different things from it. The Bible offers more than we can take in. The Bible gives us more and more, and it changes as we change and are impacted by the Bible.

Revelation as Trauma
Rollins said there were three stages of response to revelation from God. He compared these stages to that of trauma. Here are the three stages Rollins gave us...

1. Incomprehension - When we experience a revelation from God, our first response is just how can this be we are unable to comprehend what is taking place.
   
2. Bedazzlement follows once we have accepted the revelation. We stand back in aw of what is taking place after accepting the revelation from God.
   
3. Transformation follows once acceptance has taken place and our being in aw is calmed.
   

There is much more from this lecture, but I am still in the process of thinking through it and figuring our how I feel about it.

Being a Professional but remembering the Joy of being an Amateur

In one of my classes this week we talked about the dangers and pitfalls one faces when becoming an ordained minister. One of the big ones has to do with how much training it takes to become a minister, we call that training seminary. And in our training we spend three years thinking critically about everything; theology, the Bible, the church, God, Jesus, etc, etc... And with this critical thinking we begin to objectify everything. I know I have fallen into this objectifying of everything and being overly critical about everything, especially the church. And we justify this objectification, or at least I do, by saying we are reading, studying, hearing lectures from scholars, and spending the time in deep critical thought. It is that time that I use to justify my objectification. But this I am finding is a dangerous road to travel down. It is not an authentic lifestyle, it is not the way the one we are called to follow lived.

I have been told one of the best things about becoming ordained is instant creditable. And as one who has been discredited for looking young while working for a church, having that instant creditability was something I was looking for. This creditability comes from the time in seminary. And sometimes this creditability leads us down the road mentioned above, it is an excuse to hide behind, an excuse to objectify the life of faith, a way to reduce faith into something simple and understandable. It hinders us from being who God created us to be.

The idea of being a professional athlete comes to mind for me. A professional athlete is someone who gets paid to do something they love as a job. It is more than what they do, it becomes who they are. I remember as a child that I wanted to be a professional soccer player in Europe. I wanted to spend my days going to training sessions, playing in games, working out in efforts to get just that much better, all because I loved the beautiful game. I wanted my identity to be wrapped around what I did. Of course my life went in a different direction. Don't get me wrong I still love the game, I love it so much that I spend my spare time coaching young players who have similar dreams. But it is that love, the love of the game that drives me now. As I move to being an Ordained Minister I can remember the love that brought me to following God's call on my life, and out of that love remember to walk into my faith, and live authentically not objectively.

Being Enchanted Again

Yesterday I was blessed to hear a wonderful speaker talking about becoming enchanted again with God. And these ideas have been rolling around in my head for most of the past two days, which is not a great thing when you have classes you need to be paying attention in. The speaker opened with a story I will share below from a C.S. Lewis book.

This idea of being enchanted by God, has stirred something deep within me. It may have just been that I now have more words to express what I see and feel and hope for the church. OR it may have also ignited something deep with in and brought it to a full fire in my heart. This might be an interesting reflection... since I do not know where it is going or where I want it to go.

I remember as a child, being outdoors and being totally awestruck and amazed at the Rocky Mountains, the snow, the changing of the seasons, the workings of the human body, the list could go on and on. And as I grew and took science classes I was shown why things happened in the universe. Yes I did enjoy science and all these things that brought wonder to my young mind enriched my time in science classes. It also has diminished the awe that I was able to see. When I saw the snow falling, I know that snow is a form of precipitation of falling crystalline water ice. Or how the Rocky Mountains were formed. All of these things I found wonder in as a child were explained in simple, rational and scientific ways.

I remember one of the first times I went backpacking in Colorado, I was standing on the top of Cannibal Plateau. It was around sunrise, and you could see for miles. I was blown away at how small I felt. I was also amazed that God spoke and made all of this. I was awestruck! It was wonderful.

In C.S. Lewis' classic series The Chronicles of Narnia there is a scene in the Prince Caspian book. The young Prince Caspian was told of the days of old Narnia, which had fallen silent. The young Prince began talking with his uncle the King and retelling these wonderful stories. His uncle responded by saying this... "'stop that noise,' said his uncle, taking Caspian by the shoulders and giving him a shake. 'Stop it, And never let me catch you talking - or - thinking either - about all those silly stories again."

I have seen the modern world attempt to explain everything, never being fully comfortable with the idea of mystery. And the church has gone along with this movement. We as a church have attempted to explain everything in simple answers for all to understand. But when it comes to mystery we have ignored it or have said, "stop that noise, stop talking or thinking about those silly stories."

I feel this has done a great disservice to us all. We have allowed rationalism to rule, not God. When we do this I feel that we stifle the spirit, we reason away or attempt to explain all that God is doing, and we do not just stand back in awe. Do not get me wrong, Science and reason are wonderful and for me are sparked by the experience of wonder and awe. Science and Reason have their place in our world, an important place. But we also need to step back from time to time and just be in awe. Be enchanted by what God has done, is doing and will do. Find time to be in awe and spend time in the wonderful.