Faith & Doubt Week Three: The Absence of God

Sometimes I get into conversations with people about God when I am not "on duty" as a pastor.
It happens mostly at parties or fund raisers.  As soon as people find themselves in my presence and they either are informed or already know that I am a minister, they invariably move our conversation in the direction of God, Church, Faith, etc.

I think it's because they think I won't have anything else in common with them.  I mean how could a pastor possibly care about sports, politics, art, music, movies...?  So, I'll hear things like, "So, you're a pastor?  Wow, I used to live near a church..."

Most of the time people will share their experiences in church or they'll give me their opinions about the state of Christianity (usually bad).  But from time to time I will run into someone who has been so incredibly wounded by Christianity that they can't believe that God exists--or if God exists, that God is good.

I have to admit...  The Absence of God is a formidable objection to faith.  I know because it's shaken my own from time to time.  When I say the "absence" of God, I mean the perceived absence or silence that we experience when we feel as though God is not "on the job."  We experience God's absence in the form of our doubts--doubts that become questions that burn within us:  "Where is God in the middle of loss?  Where is God in the middle of war?  Where is God in the starving children of the world?"

In medieval times when someone was up for sainthood, a lawyer-type was often selected by the church leaders to speak against their selection.  This person was called The Devil's Advocate.  The original intent for the Devil's Advocate was to give the decisions integrity.   Honest doubt is the Devil's Advocate that honest faith requires.  The Absence of God is one of those deep fears that each of us has to face in one way or another.  Even Jesus faced it on the cross when he despaired and cried out the Psalmist's prayer, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" 

This week I am preaching from I Samuel 3, and the story of the call of the prophet Samuel when he was a child.  It's one of those stories that I remember hearing over and again when I was a kid. Samuel was a miraculous child given to his mother Hannah when she had been unable to have children.  She vowed that if God would give her a child, she would give the child back to God.  As a result, when Samuel was of age, she brought him to the tabernacle to be placed into service there.  One evening, when Samuel was falling asleep, he heard a voice call out his name.  He thought it was the high priest, Eli, so he went to him to find out what he wanted.  Eli, of course denied he had called Samuel and sent him back to bed.  This happened several times before Eli began to wonder if God was trying to speak to Samuel... either that, or he just wanted to shut him up.  At any rate, God spoke to Samuel that night and so began the ministry of Israel's last judge and a great prophet.  

What I don't remember is anyone ever focusing on the first verse of the passage where it says something like this: "In those days the word of the Lord was rare."  

That's like saying, "God was silent in those days," or "Those were the days when God didn't really seem like God was around."  When you read the Bible you get this idea that God just sort of hung out all of the time talking to people through bushes, donkeys, pillars of fire, angels, clouds, thin air, dreams...  At least that's how it seems to me.  You never think about God being silent in the Bible.  But there it is. 

And then if you keep reading you read this... "The lamp of God had not yet gone out..."

I love this.  It's one of those phrases that you find in the Bible and you just know that there's more to it.  On the one hand it could mean that it was the time of day when the sacred lamp was still lit in the Holy of Holies... but on the other it could also mean that even when all seemed quiet on the God-front, God was simply waiting for the right moment. 

The story of Samuel's call is the story of how we sometimes think that God is far away or not there at all, and then we realize that we were the ones who moved... we were the ones who stopped listening... we were the ones who were too stubborn to finally open up to God's spirit.  Openness to God's leading is a choice, and the key to making the right choice is submission.  

I don't often get this right.   

In fact, I have three wishes that I sometimes wish I could have granted.  

1.  I often wish that God would just give us some tangible evidence of his presence.  Woody Allen once wrote that he would believe in God if he made a large deposit in a Swiss bank account in Allen's name.  The renowned atheist Bertrand Russell was once asked at a party what he would do if he died and discovered that his disbelief in God was folly.  Russell replied that he would say, "You sir, gave us insufficient evidence." 

Mother Theresa struggled with her doubts about God and God's goodness for 50 years.  In the end she came to realize that her craving for God and the desire to be in God's will was all the evidence of God she needed.  

2. I often wish for better Christians.  Seriously, there is no greater evidence against God than the people who supposedly follow him.  I've asked this question in sermons before, but it bears repeating.  "If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be any evidence to convict you?"  In other words, is there anything compelling about your life that suggests that God has somehow had a transformative effect on you?  

I think it's a tribute to the Gospel that it still changes lives despite the way it has been distorted by people claiming to be God-followers and Christ disciples.  Fredrick Buechner once wrote, “There is perhaps no better proof for the existence of God than in the way year after year he survives the way his professional friends promote him” 

And when I examine my own life in this regard, I find myself weighed, measured, and found wanting. 

3.  I sometimes wish for better answers to suffering.  Sometimes I wonder where God is in the midst of suffering.  Why would God allow my friend's only son to commit suicide?  Why does God permit the sickening exploitation of young women in the sex slave industry?  Why is there so much hunger, hatred and war in the world?  

There is an understanding of God that we don't often get.  God weeps.  God is not far away when these things happen around us.  The fact that God chooses not to intervene most of the time when we are bent on self-destruction is beyond us.  But what is not beyond us is the presence of a God who suffers along with us.  The shortest most powerful words in the Bible are "Jesus wept."  

When all is said and done, it comes down to a choice---like I said before.  And the choice that we make must be sparked by our submission to the will of God, which is more complicated and intricate, terrible and beautiful than we could ever imagine.  It has been said, "Don't doubt in the darkness what God has revealed to you in the light."  I love that.  I don't often agree with it when it lands on me, but I love it.  

In the 1800's one of the most renowned celebrities of the world was The Great Blondin.  The Great Blondin was a tightrope artist, whose most famous stunts took place over Niagra Falls.  Watch the video below for one particular story that I think fits right about here... 

 

So where are you?  Are you sitting in the crowd, saying that you believe in God, but not really believing?  Are you feeling the desire to step away from the crowd and out on to the wire with a God who invites you, calls you and who has been waiting for the right moment for you to finally listen?  

Take the step.  Get in.  Feel the rush. 

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