A sermon by Rev. Dr. Hugh Smith III   

     Paul says there are two general categories of religious inclinations in people.  One is those who need to have things proven to them.  These are the logical kind of folk.  If you do think you will get that.  Life is cause and effect.  When you see signs of God's power at work, you then will believe them.  In fact, you go through life looking for signs of proof.  Signs that you are good and acceptable, signs that God has chosen you, signs that God is in power.  These folks are externally driven.  Paul calls them the Jews because he was raised as a Jew believing that if you do certain things then you will get certain clear things.  If you are good, God will bless you, and if you are not, God will not.  The blessings of God are tangible.  You can see them.  You know who God's people are, and you look for signs of God.  The "sign seekers" are the externally driven who look for signs of God's love and acceptance and power you can see.  We all have a bit of the sign seeker in us.

     There are great gobs of people who have a cause and effect type of religion.  If I do certain things, live a certain way, do what's right, then God will make me happy, my children smart, my spouse faithful and loving, and give me the kind of job I like.  People go to churches all over the country because they want signs from God.  If they believe enough, jump high enough, learn enough, go through enough hoops, do the right thing, act the right way, then God will, in fact, give them the right stuff, the things they really want, that they think will make them happy.  The sign seekers are built on the very self-centered foundation that if I do things then God will do things for me.

     We have a code entry locked doors on the doors to our educational wing that lead to the nursery school.  I pulled into my parking space early one morning and there was a very upset mother at the door to the nursery school with her toddler.  I got out of the car and said, '"You seem upset, can I help you?"  "Yes" she almost screamed, "I'm late for work.  I can't get this door to open and I can't get inside."  "Did you use the right code?" I asked. "Yes!"  She again almost screamed.  "This is the code I have been using everyday and now it doesn't work!?" "I think they may have changed the code this week," I told her gently as I could.  It was then that she did begin screaming at me.  By grace another mother came and she went snorting in the door.

      Sometimes we believe we have the formula to successful living, we know which buttons to push, we get through the doors we want to go and then suddenly life changes the code on us and the doors lock us out from where we want to go.  We keep frantically pushing all the buttons we can believing that if I get the right one it will open.   Sometimes the doors don't open.  Our trouble is we keep knocking ourselves out trying to be a good person, trying to get the goods.  We try to be the perfect person.  We try to have everything perfect in our lives.  We try to do what is acceptable to God so that we finally will be acceptable to God and be acceptable to each other.  We wear ourselves out, run our hearts overtime, abuse our bodies trying to push the right buttons to open the door of God's blessing in our lives.  Then in the midst of doing things right and everything's working right, all of a sudden something happens and doors lock you out.  Some mindless evil comes and ruins all the things and makes life what it was not supposed to be.  It doesn't add up.  The codes doesn't work.  The crosses suddenly become the stumbling block to the system.  Something deep inside screams out, "The code I followed doesn't work anymore."  The kindest, most truthful, gentlest, loving, faithful, hard-working people are knocked down, crucified, hurt and smashed by life just as much as anyone else.  And these crosses, when the good seems to be broken, becomes the stumbling block to our faith.  The story doesn't get finished the way we thought it would be written.  Then you go through life stumbling over the crosses.  Cause and effect religion doesn't always work.  The cross stops us.  "If you are the Son of God then come down off the cross!"  "If you are the Son of God take away the cross I have to bear.  Show me.  There's a bit of the Missouri sign seeker in all of us.  Some of us were raised like Paul.

     There is a second category of people.  Paul calls them the Greeks.  This is the kind of person that many have learned to become.  We learned that life is supposed to make sense and have its reasons.  And wisdom is what we seek to understand.  They're the people who believe that everything that happens to us in this life happens for a reason.  And if you just sit long enough and think long enough you can figure out why things have happened the way they have to you.  There is a bit of the Greek in all of us too, I think.  There is a little professor in us that sits quietly by as the events take place in our lives and tries to figure things out.  "There's got to be a reason for this," the wise professor whispers inside.  There's got to be a way for me to understand my life and understand what's going on.  It becomes foolishness to the little professor in us to think that sometimes evil and chaos can come that has not reason but to hurt us, even to hurt God.  "Oh no!" the little professor screams.  "God has reasons."  It is crazy to the little professor to ever believe that there is a power of evil that makes no sense.

     Following the earthquake in Columbia, there was a picture on the front page of the Trenton Times of a woman who was crying out in deep agony.  Her husband and children and home has been smashed to the ground in the violence of the earthquake and she was waiting for some sign of life.  The paper was on the table as I ate my breakfast.  I tried to read other articles, but I kept being called back to her face.  I cleared the table and still her face was there.  How do you explain such agony, such loss?  You feel so helpless.  I found myself putting my hand on that precious, screaming face and praying for her.  There must be some way to remove that loss, to hold that pain.  I can't understand why little children are born deformed.  I can't understand why peoples' bodies are wracked with cancer.  There are so many different shapes to the crosses in this life.

     In the midst of these crosses when good is crucified for no apparent reason, and the little wise professor in me again begins to insist that there must be a reason in God's plan, that something else in me says, "No.  God doesn't plan evil.   It is evil that is trying to break the heart of God.  Of course, then the professor declares, "How ridiculous to think that God would allow Himself to suffer and be broken for no logical reason."

     It is here in the heart of this inner argument that I think a truly liberating faith is born.  There cannot be any plan for such heartache and brokenness in peoples' lives.  "No", says Paul.  The only plan is that God intends to stop the madness.  The only logic is the logic of love.  No matter what occurs for no reason except evil's attempt to break the heart of God, it is the willingness to trust God's love that holds us, and it is the conviction that in the end God intends to stop this that saves us.  It is not what occurs or doesn't occur that counts, but the saving awareness that nothing in heaven or earth will ever separate us from his love and caring for our lives.  God enters into your pain and loss and mine, into your failure, into my failure, into your weakness and my weakness, into your sins and a mine.  Christ takes it all as if it were his own.  Christ stands with you at the door of darkness that keeps you from the place of your own life fulfillment.  Christ stands with you at the door of darkness that keeps you from the place of your own life fulfillment.  Christ stands at the door of your loss, your griefs and brokenness that close us out, and Christ alone opens the door.  God takes it all as if it all were His own.  The God of the Cross joins me in all my crosses, joins you in all your crosses, and asks us to join Him in His cross.   We spend so much time trying to push the right buttons, doing the right thing, to understand, but we live in fear that sickness, brokenness, evil, and death will someday lock us out of life for good.  It is the belief that Christ is in the middle of the cross with me and it is God's love that brought Him to me and it is God's love that will cause Him to open the door for me.  God will not let me remain as a victim to any darkness.  God will restore us all on earth, even the woman who looked out at me in such agony and grief from the paper as I safely ate my breakfast.  It is the God of Creation who is the God who suffers in our pain.  It is the God of creation who will create newness even out of this, whatever this is for you.  God always creates new options and possibilities after the storm sweeps through.

     It is in the cross that we find the power of God and the love of God most clearly expressed.  It is not something you will ever understand with your head.  It is something that finally you accept with your heart.  The cross of Christ is the fullest expression of the love of God, the complete disclosure of the power of God.  No matter what life has done to you or you have done to life, there is One who takes it all as if it is His very own.  Christ alone can heal us.  Christ alone can forgive us.  Christ alone can open the door of hope to us.