Looking for God in All the Wrong Places

Matthew 25: 14-30
Roger Lynn
January 24, 2016
(click here for the audio for this sermon)

The 14th-century Sufi poet Hafiz begins one of his poems with these words:

Fear is the cheapest room in the house.

I would like to see you living

In better conditions.

(from ‘Your Mother and my Mother’ translation by Daniel Ladinsky in “The Gift”)

And yet, so often we seem to find ourselves living in those cramped, dark, lonely places where fear leads us. Indeed, fear tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, giving us the very life we are so afraid will find us.

In Jesus’ parable about the servants and the talents I believe we see an illustration of what life looks like when we allow fear to rule us. If we approach the parable using the traditional interpretive lens, that it tells us about what God is like, then it quickly becomes very problematic. Do we really believe that God throws people into the ‘outer darkness’ because of their fear? But what if, instead of telling us what God is like, it tells us what we are like? When we take the risk of using the resources we have at our disposal (whether those are financial or personal, tangible or intangible), what we discover is that our lives are in sync with the divine source of life. “Enter into the joy of your master” is the way the parable describes it. But when we allow fear to define our reality, when we let it color our expectations not only of life, but even of God, then we will often find ourselves facing a world very much shaped by that fear. “Master, I knew you were harsh...” (Matthew 25:24) Why should it surprise us that when our relationship with God is based on fear we so often find ourselves in “the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth”? (Matthew 25:30) God doesn’t put us there, of course. We put ourselves there. God is a God of love and grace. The world is filled with abundance beyond our wildest imagining. But when we close our eyes and our lives because of our fear, we cannot see the light that is filling the room. The party can be in full swing all around us, but if we have buried our lives in a hole to protect ourselves, from a dangerous world or a dangerous God, we might as well be alone in the dark. We have effectively closed ourselves off from the life which God intends for us.

Please do not hear me even implying that opening ourselves to the full reality of God is safe. It absolutely is not safe. Such faithful stepping into the Great Mystery of God will lead us on adventures that make all the thrill-seeking sports in the world pale by comparison. In C.S. Lewis’ book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ (from his ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series) Mr. Beaver is telling the children who have wandered into the land of Narnia about Aslan, the great lion (the Christ figure in the series). Upon hearing the description of Aslan, one of the children asks, “Is he safe?” To which Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? . . . Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” If you seek only safety, then you may well be looking for God in the wrong place. But if you are willing to allow trust and faith to open you up to the possibility of doing something other than hiding the treasure of your life in a hole somewhere, then you are well on your way towards entering into the abundant joy of God. The poet Mary Oliver has this to say about life and love, which seems to me to describe quite profoundly what it is to recklessly seek after God.
You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. . . .When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable pounding –  when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life toward it.

(West Wind #2)

And what does this wild, dangerous life look like? Jesus offers us a glimpse into his vision of such a life with his parable about the sheep and the goats, which Matthew places immediately after the parable about the servants and the talents (Matthew 25: 31-46). When we can move beyond our fear and step out into faithful living of the sort which Jesus is encouraging, we find ourselves connecting with God (entering into the joy of the master) through the sharing of our lives with those in need. We see the face of Christ in the face of our hungry neighbor. We experience the love of God as we become the love of God for the homeless stranger among us. We are immersed in God’s grace as we share God’s grace with the last, the lost and the least in our world. And, sadly, the reverse is also true. We cut ourselves off from such opportunities for experiencing this deep and transforming connection with God whenever we allow fear to rule our choices. In another of his poems about truly living the life of faith, Hafiz writes:

Stay in the dangerous life that’s yours.

THERE you’ll meet the face 

That dissolves fear.

(from ‘The Danger,’ translated by Inayat Khan/Coleman Barks in ‘The Hand of Poetry’)

So often we find ourselves looking for God in all the wrong places – in the shadows of our fear, in the illusion of safety, in the comfort of the familiar, in the confines of judgment and exclusion. And then we wonder why our lives seem so dark and fearful and small. But when we turn our attention outward and take the risk of opening ourselves to the wild oneness with all of creation, we find ourselves coming face to face with the God of life and love and abundance. Heaven begins now, and so does hell. The choice is ours. We can live life in the outer darkness or we can live it in the joy of our master. We can live in fear or we can live in faith. May our choices be filled with wild, reckless abandon. May our choices be filled with God.