Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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“Just When You (Thought You) Had It Figured Out” Dr. Julie Adkins
Text: Luke 24:13-35
Well, given that tomorrow is April 15,
I’m a little bit curious …
How many of you do your own tax return?
I mean, figure out all the computations,
and fill out the forms all by yourself,
or at least enter it into the tax software all by yourself
and let the computer run the calculations?
I’ve always done my own,
though it was a lot easier back when I started,
and was a student,
and could use that nice short 1040-EZ form!
I’ve read the little IRS publications
about tax and social security for members of the clergy …
I keep up with other helpful pamphlets and booklets
from other places,
like the Board of Pensions sends us one each year …
Each year, I used to have to call the I.R.S. with specific questions;
now I go to the website and download forms
and instructions and booklets …
And each year, as I fill out
the seven or eight pages I have to use
in addition to the 1040,
each year, there comes a moment when I think
Wow! I’ve finally got this figured out!
And I mail the thing off,
with the fond hope that next year
it won’t take me quite so long,
because now I have it figured out …
Only next year’s return comes,
and the laws have changed just a little bit,
and the forms have changed
just enough to be annoying,
and the instructions are written in some language
that pretends to be English, but isn’t,
and it’s like having to learn it all over again.
Have you ever heard someone say,
“Just when I figured out how to make ends meet,
someone moved the ends”?
That’s sort of how I feel about my taxes:
just when I finally figure it out,
somebody changes the rules.
And I think that must be
sort of how those two disciples walking to Emmaus felt.
They had thought they had everything figured out.
Jesus of Nazareth had come:
he was “a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people.”
They had quite naturally concluded after a while
that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
But then he got put to death,
and that certainly didn’t fit the scheme …
and just that morning,
the women had gone to the tomb, and found it empty.
Figure that out.
It’s no wonder they looked sad as they traveled.
All those things they had understood,
and accepted as true,
and committed their lives to,
were taken away.
Someone had changed the rules,
but hadn’t bothered to tell them.
Sort of like a monstrous practical joke,
only it wasn’t very funny.
And I imagine that most of us,
if we take our spiritual journey at all seriously …
most of us have had times
of the same kind of confusion and frustration.
Times when it seems like,
just a few minutes ago we had this all figured out,
but now someone has thrown a monkey wrench into the works.
Just a little while ago,
we understood God’s teachings,
and we felt close to God,
and loved by God,
and everything was going great …
and now, God seems far away and hidden,
and nothing makes much sense,
and, no, things don’t seem so great.
We can take some comfort from knowing
that this kind of thing seems to have happened
to all the giants of the Christian faith
at some time or another.
They may refer to it as a “dark night of the soul,”
or a “wilderness experience,”
or a time of spiritual dryness …
but the descriptions of the experience
are all very similar.
We feel abandoned by God,
at least, temporarily.
And it seems as if those things which worked before
to bring us closer to God,
aren’t working any longer.
Someone has changed the rules,
and hasn’t left us a new set of instructions!
We may notice it at first
when it seems that no one is listening to our prayers.
Or perhaps Sunday morning worship
suddenly loses its meaning for us.
Or Bible study becomes a dry intellectual exercise
instead of the living word of God.
Or a particular piece of music
no longer brings a lump to our throat or a tear to our eyes.
Now, instead of drawing us nearer to God,
these things only remind us, painfully,
of how far away God now seems.
Just when we were starting to get it figured out,
and locked in place,
somebody pulled the rug out from under it.
And it may surprise you at first
when I say that that somebody is God.
God does change the rules on us,
but it’s not in order to be mean,
or capricious, or arbitrary,
or to see if we’re paying attention.
It’s not even to “show us who’s boss.”
When we get things all figured out,
and God messes with them,
it’s because, at some level or another,
we need something different.
Even if we are unaware of it at the time,
which we usually are,
because God is usually several jumps ahead of us!
Go back for a moment to the Emmaus road,
and those two dejected disciples.
They thought they had understood:
Jesus was the promised messiah
and would rescue them and all the Jews
from Roman domination and oppression.
But those weren’t exactly the rules
God was playing by.
And it’s not until
the stranger-who-turns-out-to-be-Jesus
begins to explain it to them, that they understand:
they have been rescued, they have been redeemed,
but in God’s way, not theirs.
They have to learn all over again
about who God is, and how God works.
And, then,
just when they’ve got this new stuff figured out,
when they’ve begun to understand
how God had things planned,
and have recognized the stranger as Jesus …
Whoosh! He vanishes.
And once again,
they are invited to expand and extend
their vision of God at work.
Once again, they must work at
figuring out how things are now.
Are we getting the picture?
God changes the rules at those points in time
when we need to grow and are ready to grow,
even if we don’t know it yet.
It’s precisely at those times
when God seems hidden and/or far away,
and everything we had figured out
that made sense and worked before
doesn’t make sense and isn’t working now …
It’s at those times that we must have faith
that God has not abandoned us.
God is simply up ahead,
around the next bend,
inviting us to come closer,
encouraging us to go farther on the journey
than we’ve even gone before.
This may seem a strange analogy at first,
but what it reminds me of is
the summer my mother taught me how to swim.
She’d get in the pool,
in water about chest-deep on her, so ‘way over my head at the time …
She would stand no more than six or seven feet
away from the side of the pool,
and then she would say,
“now jump in and swim to me.”
Well, I could jump at least half that distance,
so it didn’t seem too scary.
So I jumped in and paddled to her,
and she said, “That’s very good,”
and turned me around and I paddled back to the side.
“Now let’s try it again.”
So I jumped in again,
and just as soon as I had my face in the water
and wasn’t looking,
she started backing up!
She changed the rules,
and it was too late for me to do anything about it!
And I remember being a little scared,
‘cause I knew the water was over my head,
and I wasn’t sure I could swim ten feet.
And I was also confused,
because here was my mommy whom I trusted
trying to pull a fast one on me.
And when I finally got to her,
I was indignant:
how could she do that to me?
But she was right, and I was wrong …
Mom knew, better than I did,
that it wasn’t ever going to do me a bit of good
to be able to swim a grand distance of six feet.
So I needed to be encouraged,
and indignant and confused, if necessary!
Whatever it took for me to learn and grow.
And by the time I was nine or so,
I could easily swim a half-mile or even a mile.
But it couldn’t have happened
if my mother hadn’t been a sneak
and changed the rules on me!
Now, I’m not suggesting that God is a sneak, necessarily …
though some days I wonder …
But God does, usually, have to change the rules
in order to invite us ahead into growth.
And the sad irony, perhaps,
is that it is just at those times
when things are going great
and we do have it all figured out,
that God is most likely to change the rules on us.
It’s as if God is saying,
okay, you’ve proven you can swim six feet,
and I’m very happy with you,
but now, you have to learn to swim ten.
What you have figured out
was fine for that time in your life,
but now, more is asked of you.
You’re invited to journey farther.
Farther than you’ve been before.
It’s okay to feel scared and confused, and maybe even indignant,
but it’s not okay to quit the journey.
God is up ahead,
calling to us, drawing us onward.
And if we can be patient with ourselves,
and with the time of not-knowing,
God will reveal to us the path that lies ahead,
and will give us the gifts or skills or disciplines we need
to take the path, and come to God,
and get things figured out again at a new place.
It’s hard to accept, sometimes,
that we will never “arrive.”
That we will spend our whole life
growing and journeying.
Like those two disciples on the road …
Thought they were journeying to Emmaus to spend the night,
but they got there, and everything changed,
and instead of staying,
they went running all the way back to Jerusalem.
We journey,
we reach a stopping point
where it seems that things are comfortable and they make sense,
and just then, God says,
“Don’t get too settled in just yet.
You won’t believe the view
just around the next bend in the road.”
So we keep moving.
Sometimes the way is not always clear,
sometimes dangers confront us,
sometimes we must leave things behind.
But God is always ahead …
And if we can stay tuned to God’s voice,
even when it seems small and quiet,
even when we can’t see where it’s coming from …
we will do just fine.
Better, in fact.
Like the disciples on the Emmaus road,
we are on a journey.
As with them, Christ is with us.
And like them, we will encounter things we didn’t expect
and go places we hadn’t imagined.
There is always change and adventure ahead.
Let us walk forward to meet it.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
© 2002 Julie
Adkins (e-mail: Drjadkins@aol.com)