Luke 4:1-12 The Gift of Temptation"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         One last time during this journey through the Lenten season I invite you into the dark. We might envision this dark as dark woods or a dark wilderness, but however we imagine it, my hope is that we are learning to walk through it – with courage and strength – and not to fear it or let it belittle us. 

         Sometimes we think of our journey into the nighttime wilderness of the soul as a depressing jaunt or one that feeds on our guilt and self-loathing.  Sometimes we think, at first glance, that it does not provide the spiritual boost we crave when we come to worship after a hard week at work.

         However, as we journey together, my hope is that we are learning to trust this darkness even as we trust the journey.  Why? Because, along the way, each week, we have found gifts.  We have found suggestions about who we are and revelations about who God is.  These gifts are experiences that have the potential to offer us our next opportunity to meet God. 

         As UCC pastor and author Eric Eines writes, “The mystics taught that in the Dark Wood you discover who you are and what your life is about, flaws and all...

In the Dark Wood you bring all your shortcomings with you, not in order to purge them or be judged by them, but to embrace them in such a way that your struggles contribute meaningfully to the central conversation God is inviting you to have with life.”

         We do not always think of these gifts as gifts because we encounter them most often in times of struggle.  Consequently, we do not always want to receive them as gifts – the gifts of uncertainty and emptiness and weathering the storms of our lives and even being lost. 

         However, when we receive those gifts well – when we embrace the uncertainty, the emptiness, the stormy times, the being lost – and recognize that those gifts are all part and parcel of being human – we find that they are gifts that, in the end, we want to keep – and maybe even nurture.  Temptation is another one of those gifts.

         One blogger wrote about his experience in a restaurant not too long ago.  I am sure we all can relate to it.  It goes like this.

         The meal is over.  We are pleasantly full, and the server has just brought some coffee.   Before he leaves, he says, "Kindly allow me to tempt you with a little dessert."

         Well, we all know that the desserts in restaurants are never little. And, goodness knows, in the restaurant where we have enjoyed this meal, they are not cheap either.  As for the server, our blogger explains, well, he was a nice enough chap in a black shirt and pants with a haircut that completely hid his horns.  There was no sign of a red suit or pitchfork anywhere either.

         But, after all, he had been so nice to us....and worked so hard for us....not to listen seemed somehow rude. So even though we were both satisfied and satiated, we indicated a willingness to lend an ear politely, before refusing outright, of course. 

         Our blogger continues the scenario.  There was, of course, the carrot cake that the server described as "sinful." Next, he highlighted the crème brulee, which he labeled "irresistible." That selection was followed by the Bavarian torte (layered with mousse) that he offered under the heading of "obscene." And he concluded with the ever-obligatory brownie/hot fudge extravaganza known, in this restaurant, as "death by chocolate," which (he told us) was "surely to die for.

         Our blogger concludes by saying – quite triumphantly - that we skipped the chocolate thing.  However, we did choose a little something....one little something....accompanied by two forks....with each of us convinced that we would (out of kindness, of course) take one bite and then shove the remainder in the direction of our spouse.

         Seven dollars and several seconds later, the dessert was gone.... the server was gone....and we were gone....still wearing a silly grin, as if to say: "We did not really need that. But it sure was good."

         All of us have our weaknesses, right?  All of us have points of vulnerability where our willpower simply crumbles.  Ah, temptation!  We cannot avoid it, but how can it ever be considered a gift?

         You know, we always seem to think about temptation as those times when we are tantalized by what we define as being evil – or at least bad for us.  Whether it is that little voice in our head seducing us into turning a blind eye to that diet we are on when the dessert cart comes around, or having a history of hiding Playboy magazine or the like under our mattress, or pulling out the credit card for every impulsive purchase we find ourselves making, or whatever, we tend to understand temptation only as something to avoid.

        However, Eric Eines understands temptation much more broadly.  First, he writes that temptation is a way of defining ourselves, of better understanding just who we are.  The more choices – difficult choices – we make, the more prescribed and sharply etched we are as a person.  Surely that capacity for self-reflection and self-determination is a gift.  After all, we should not have someone else – or the world in general – spell out who we are.  We are what we choose to be – faithful or unfaithful, compassionate or hard-hearted, peacemaker or warmonger. 

         Second, Eines suggests that much of the time we are not tempted by evil, but rather by good.  He goes on to explain that what often tempts us is the wrong good – the good we are not called to do, the good that others tell us is good but that does not ignite our hearts and touch our souls, the good that does not bring us the deep gladness that God invites us to embrace.  

         He uses the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness as a jumping off point.  We read in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) that, after Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness for forty days. There, Jesus determined the essence of his ministry and articulated more clearly his call from God.  Biblical scholar N.T. Wright suggests that "the devil's voice appears as a string of natural ideas in his own head. They are plausible, attractive, and make, as we would say, a lot of sense." The Gospel story tells us that he confronted temptation on three fronts. 

         First, there was the question of food.  “Turn these stones into bread, and eat your fill.”  After all, forty days with no sustenance is hardly a picnic, no pun intended. 

         Second, there was the issue of political power.  “All these kingdoms can be yours.”  Not bad when the alternative is a future under the oppressive thumb of the Roman Emperor.

         Third, there was the whole question of miracles.  “Throw yourself off the tippy top of the temple, and let the angels sweep you to safety.” Supernatural sensational acts would be rather convincing when it came to developing a following among the superstitious peasantry.  Grab them with a miracle – and then follow up with teaching and preaching?

        Think about these three temptations for a moment.  They were not bad things – not by a long shot.  Surely it crossed Jesus mind that:  First, if you cannot feed yourself and get out of this wilderness alive, how can you possibly feed others with your message?  Second, to control the political situation, to start anew and awaken from the nightmare of Roman occupation into the instant dream of God’s kingdom, how good would that be?  And third, to “Wow!” the world from the outset with a blazingly excellent miracle, so people would actually listen to what you are preaching? It sure would save time!

         These temptations are good things, but they are not the good things for Jesus at that time.  Jesus would not feed himself in the wilderness now, but one day he would feed 500 people on a hillside.      He would not politically rule the kingdoms of the world now, but one day he would lay the foundation for a kingdom whose power lay in healing over sickness, justice over corruption, love over not only all the petty resentments we harbor but over hatred and malice as well. He would not throw himself at death now in order to “Wow!” the world with a miracle save, but one day he would hang from the heights of a Roman cross on a lonely hill outside of Jerusalem, quietly trusting in a different miracle, that of love and life. Jesus was tempted by the good that he was not meant to do.

         I do not know what voices call to you, tempting you to do good things, but things that do not really bring that deep and fulfilling gladness to you.  I do not know if it is trying to be all things to all people in your job, all the while knowing that you will never succeed.  I do not know if it is staying in a marriage for the good of the children when the relationship is destroying you.  I do not know if it is being a rescuer – supporting and throwing a life ring out to everyone – but letting your own self drown.  I do not know what voices tempt you.  I do not know what good deeds you cannot resist.

         However, I do know that, if your life is anything like mine, as UCC pastor Kate Huey writes, “We don't often draw apart from the cacophony around us, or the incessant electronics of our lives, or the overload of messages and material objects, all of which seem to set up a smokescreen between us and God.”  I do know that it is so important to be intentional about where you put your energies and how you use your abilities and talents.  I do know that it is difficult these days to find a safe space to listen to the voice of your soul. I do know that, as we make the choices day in and day out that define us, those choices ought to reflect the priorities of our spiritual health, but seldom do.  I do know that sometimes we need to let go of some good things that are not ours to do right now.  

         And most of all, I do know that doing the good we are not meant to do at this time can be downright exhausting and soul sucking.  David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, once said, “You know that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest? … The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness… You are so tired through and through because a good half of what you do here…has nothing to do with your true powers, or the place you have reached in your life. You are only half here, and half here will kill you after awhile. You need something to which you can give your full powers.”

         Surely we are meant to engage in and be consumed by what makes our life meaningful.  And just as surely, to do so is very difficult.  However, to be more aware of the good that tempts us and more intentional in the choices that define us can eventually move us more toward living into the fullness of our lives. 

         As David Henson writes, this journey into the dark along with this strange gift we have found – the gift of temptation - “invites us to experience it and to see it as not only a normal part of the Christian faith but also as an important, formative part of it as well.”

         All the gifts that we have reflected upon this Lenten season have not been gifts at first glance.  Should they depress us?  No.  Should they make us feel guilty or less faithful?  No.  Do they have the potential to be spiritually uplifting?  I think so. 

         However, we must be willing to acknowledge them in our lives.  We must be willing to confront them and dissect them a bit.  Even if they appear more like curses than blessings, before we dismiss them, we need to ask ourselves, as Eric Eines suggests,  “Do I ever experience any of these?” ... (And) if any of these experiences describe us, then .. we are in the best possible position to experience profound awakening and insight about who we are and what we are doing here.” 

         It is at that moment of awakening, that instant of insight, that we begin to find the Light that awaits us, the Light that has always been there with us in the darkness, the light that reminds us that the darkness too is God’s home. As Biblical scholar John Stendahl writes, " The Holy Spirit is there, within us and beside us. And if we cannot feel that spirit inside of us or at our side, perhaps we can at least imagine Jesus there, not too far away, with enough in him to sustain us, enough to make us brave."

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine

Psalm 42 "Lost!"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         The image that has remained with me is one of legs.  It is one of my very earliest memories.  I was quite small at the time, so the legs were rather large – in the sense of being very tall – like tree trunks.  Pants, most likely brown corduroy or beige gabardine, covered some of those legs.  Others of them were encased in nylon stockings.

         One minute I had been standing next to a set of the nylon-stocking legs (which belonged to my mother), and the next minute I found myself standing next to a completely different set of legs – also encased in nylon but legs attached to a body I had never seen before.  All of a sudden, it seemed that I was in the midst of a forest of legs – long adult legs surrounding me on every side and moving now in every direction. 

         I was lost – right there in a department store on Fifth Avenue in New York City in the midst of the Christmas shopping rush.  Oh, I was not lost for long – maybe a couple of minutes that, of course, seemed like an eternity to my childish mind.  Then my mother took my hand, and all was well.

         It was the first time I had ever been lost – and it would prove not to be the last time either.  There was the instance coming home at the end of an afternoon of catching frogs at Pinney’s Pond. My friends had gone along before me, and when I came - by myself for the first time - to that fork in the path, I was not sure which way to turn.  The path had always seemed straight and clear cut on previous afternoons when I had been with a cadre of fellow frog-hunters. 

         And then, of course, there was the day at Ghost Ranch just two years ago.  A dense fog blanketed the trail I was hiking, and the trail markers that had seemed so obvious when I was ascending now had seemed to disappear.

         I do not know if you have ever been physically lost or experienced times like those I just described.  However, I am certain that all of us here have been lost in other, even more life-threatening or transformative ways.

         For me, there was the night before I had to declare a major in college.  Would I concentrate on religion - or history – maybe even art history? 

        And there was the decision to go to seminary.  Could God really be calling me to New Haven, Connecticut?  Or was Yale Divinity School just a place that would be more intellectually stimulating and way more fun than living with my parents and working as a secretary and a Howard Johnson’s waitress on the weekends?

         And also there was the decision to leave the ministry for a while and go back to graduate school in something completely different.   Come to think of it:  I have spent a good portion of my life getting lost in what seemed at the time to be overwhelmingly dark and forbidding places. 

         However, in each case, somehow I had been found again.  And believe me:  The “being found” part has given me not only great comfort over the years but has also provided an impetus for me to take some risks I would not have taken otherwise.  And if you look at it that way, getting lost, then, has been a gift.

         As the Spirit continues to lead us on this Lenten journey, I hope that we are beginning to understand that those dark places in our lives that we keep coming across need not always be fear-filled.  They need not be places of weakness where we feel doomed to come up short or feel less than perfectly faithful.

          I hope we are learning that good and wonderful things can and do happen in the dark.  Seeds begin to sprout in the darkness of the soil.  In the dark, sperm and egg unite, cells divide, and a fetus takes on human characteristics and matures enough to be born.  Caterpillars are transformed into butterflies in the darkness of a cocoon or a chrysalis.  And God only knows what actually happened in that tomb between Good Friday and the dawn of Easter!

         On this Lenten journey where we are learning to walk in the dark, we have discovered unusual and unexpected good things – gifts - along the way, gifts that we may not think of as gifts at first, but gifts none-the-less that we find at those times when we are most unsettled and unsure of ourselves. So far, we have found that times of uncertainty and emptiness, and even the madness and mayhem and chaos of the storms that inevitably rock and roll through our lives can, in fact, be gifts. 

         Getting lost – or feeling lost – is another one though it sure does not seem so at the time.  I mean, who likes that sudden sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, the sweaty palms, and the pounding of your heart when you suddenly realize that you do not have a clue where you are going.  Getting lost hardly seems like a gift then!  Rather, it is something we would avoid if we could.

         I mean, have you noticed that as long as the path we are on is straight – or, at least well marked – we do fine?  We have a plan for our lives.  We are happily married.  We have children, and they have children.  We have a job – maybe not the most exciting one we imagined having in our callow youth, but it will take us to retirement – when we will play golf and go south in the winter.  There it is: Life as we would have it in a nutshell!

         But what happens when our path unexpectedly turns left or right – with no clear marker to show us the way?  A child dies.  We lose our job. The cancer we never in a million years anticipated takes its toll.

         What happens when we come to a fork in the road?  The marriage that we thought was strong enough to survive anything as long as we both shall live unravels, and we cannot stop it. The stock market eats away at our 401K until we do not feel safe retiring.  We are bored playing golf. 

         What happens when our lives seem to be spinning out of control?  What happens when we do not know where we are going?  What happens when we are lost and feeling so alone?  What happens when, like the Psalmist, we lament:

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

My tears have been my food, day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

How in heaven’s name can those times that are so laden with stress and fear and a feeling that we are so alone:  How can those times ever be a gift?

        Wendell Berry once wrote, “It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”  Perhaps those times of getting lost force us to realize that, much as we might desire it, life is not a straight path.  It is filled with zigs and zags, and sometimes it even heads in the opposite direction than the one we thought we should be going. 

         Perhaps those times of getting lost remind us that the destination may not be the most important thing after all.  And if that is the case, maybe we need to breath a bit easier during those times we think we are lost.  After all, as Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien put it, “not all who wander are lost.” 

         Maybe we need to embrace the idea that life is about the journey – and all the twists and turns that come along the way.  Maybe, as UCC pastor and author Eric Eines writes, we need to embrace the idea that “from path to path we go.”

         Maybe the fact of wandering is not such a bad thing, and wandering does not necessarily mean that we are lost anyway.  As poet David Wagoner put it, “wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger.” Maybe, then, we need to enjoy the blessings that come with each step - even if we can only see one step ahead.  Maybe we need to just relax a bit – and enjoy the ride.  Enjoy the scenery.  Enjoy the journey.  As the TV ads for Ancestry.com all end with: “You don’t have to know what you’re looking for; you just have to start looking.”

         But what about those times of being lost that are too fearful and too dark to enjoy at all?  What then?

         Maybe those times of feeling lost can also prompt us to pay more careful attention to the little signs along the way that the Holy Spirit might be sending us – because surely the Spirit swirls about somewhere nearby. 

         Think about it: That is a fact we often conveniently forget when we are striding down the path of our lives so confidently that we barely look at where we are going, where we have been, or who we have stepped on getting from there to here.  Oh yes, we do tend to take things for granted.  We do tend to be less aware of and less discerning about where the Holy might quietly and subtly be nudging us.  
         Though we talked last week about God speaking in those flashes of intuition, those thunderous “aha” moments, God also speaks in the quiet times, the little times that we might miss were we not feeling a bit lost and alone, were we not deliberately seeking a path forward.  So – perhaps those times of getting lost can be times to step back and pay closer attention and to take stock of ourselves and of where we are in the silence – and who might be with us.

       A man once had a dream.  He was standing on a dock, looking out across the water, when suddenly another man he had not noticed standing with him on the dock jumped in. As he watched the man sink he knew he had to jump in after him.

       He started swimming down and down . . . and way down at the bottom he could see that the man was there. Then he realized he was running out of breath.

       He had to make a choice - to keep going down, or to lose the man, turn around and make his way to the surface and the fresh air waiting for him there.

       He decided to keep going. And as he went deeper, he realized two things. First, the man there in the sand, at the bottom of the lake, was himself. And second, as he went down, he discovered he could breathe under water.

       Surely his dream was reminding him that this journey of life – in addition to not being a straight line - can also be deep, and yet we cannot abandon ourselves in the depths. We cannot always remain lost – nor will we - because the dark night of the soul is not the end of our story.  There is always someone who wants to help us find our way out – a friend or mentor who grabs our hand, a cloud of prayers, a loving God. 

       As United Church of Christ pastor Ian Lynch blogged, “God is like that, leading us out into the wild yonder where we get lost in the vastness only to then assure us of how precious and incredibly important we are to God who loves each of us madly. Surely there are messages for us embedded in all the ‘here’s’ where we find ourselves.” 

       So – in those times you feel lost – do not panic.  Stop.  Take a breath.  And understand that wandering for a while may be moments to be savored rather than feared. 

       Do not panic.  Stop.  Take a breath.  And listen for the Spirit in the silence, nudging you until you find your bearings once again.

       Do not panic.  Stop.  Take a breath.  And if all else fails, and you still are lost, then maybe it is time to simply stand still and trust that you will be found.
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine

Job 37:1-5 "When Lightning Strikes and the Thunder Rolls"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

        On the Lenten journey we are taking in worship this year, this time of learning to walk in the dark, we have found all sorts of unusual gifts along the way.  We have discovered feelings and situations that we typically label as signs of weakness or faithlessness that are in fact indicative of our innate strength and fidelity  – at least once we understand them more broadly and embrace them as part and parcel of being human. 

         We have reflected on the gift of uncertainty as an impetus for us to grope for God’s hand while we attempt to navigate through the darkness of our lives, recognizing that we strengthen our faith when we reach out to find that God is there to share in our struggles.  We have also pondered the gift of emptiness and realized that only when we make room for God in our cluttered lives can we expect God to meet us there.

         So far we have concluded that, in the dark woods of our journey, God can be found in the emptiness and uncertainty - and perhaps that is the first step of learning to walk in the dark.  However, that recognition only seems to raise a second, more difficult question. 

          In a Q&A blog I read this week, one reader wrote this query: 

Hi there, I’ve been a Christian for quite some time now. Many people can hear God speak to them, and know his will for them, but I can’t seem to. I can’t hear him. I was wondering if you had any ideas of how I could hear God speak to me, and not just me talking to him. I’ve tried to listen, but nothing seems to be working. I feel lost.

Any ideas?

Thanks guys, any feedback would be much appreciated.

-        Sarah

         Though it may seem out-of-place to be writing to a faceless internet blogger about such a profound theological question, surely Sarah verbalizes something that haunts even the most cynical among us.  If God is indeed somewhere on this journey we find ourselves taking, how, in the midst of the uncertainty and emptiness and all the voices that call to us, how do we hear our God?  How do we know not only that is God speaking but also what, in heaven’s name, the Holy One is saying?

        And so we come to another gift as we learn to walk in the dark.  In his book, Gifts of the Dark Wood (which is the jumping off point for this worship series), author and United Church of Christ pastor Eric Eines writes about the gift of being thunderstruck.  He uses our reading from the Book of Job as a way to begin talking about that gift. 

“Whenever this happens, my heart stops—I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath.
Listen to it! Listen to his thunder, the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice.
He lets loose his lightnings from horizon to horizon, lighting up the earth from pole to pole.
In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice, powerful and majestic.
He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back.
 No one can mistake that voice—
His word thundering so wondrously, his mighty acts staggering our understanding.”

         Great bursts of thunder and lightning is a metaphor (not a literal meaning, mind you, but a metaphor) for God speaking, and it is one that characterizes most ancient religions.  When the gods had something important to say, you can bet they said it with thunder and lightning. 

     Eines writes:  “In every mythology in the Ancient New East, the elements of lightning and thunder are depicted in similar fashion:  as instruments for conveying the voice of the highest deity.  The imagery is the same whether one is examining the monotheistic Yahweh-worshipping culture of ancient Israel or the polytheistic Marduk-worshipping culture of Mesopotamia. It is the same with Zeus among the Greeks, Tahundi and Ivriz among the Anatolian cultures, and Baal among the Canaanites.  In their artistic representations as well as among their literature, each of these cultures envisions their most high (or only) deity speaking to us through lightning and thunder.”

         Eines goes on to say that we in modern times write off the significance of those mythological explanations as a primitive attempt to explain the origins of storms.  He insists that, in doing so, we sell short these ancient civilizations, undermine the breadth of their culture, and the depth of their queries about, and understanding of, life itself.  

         I agree with him. One need only look at the architectural marvels of Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, or the Nasca Lines in Peru or at the astronomical accuracy of Newgrange in Ireland, for example, to conclude that these ancient people were not stupid or mentally underdeveloped as we too often so arrogantly think they are.

         And so Eines maintains that their myths (including those of our Old Testament) are more than simple inventions, born out of fear and trembling.  These stories are not told to teach us the history of science. Rather, the myths (or sacred truths, in the very best sense of the word) seek to unravel, in this case, not the origins of thunder and lightning, but rather where the voice of God comes from and how it comes to us through intuition. 

         Eines would say that it has ever been so – in spite of the fact that we sometimes wonder why God does not appear to speak directly to us now as God seemed to speak in the stories we read in the Bible.  You know:  And God said this, and God said that. 

         However, Eines would say that Elihu in the Book of Job and the prophets and all the others were never intimating that God was audibly whispering in their ears.  No - they were communicating their recollections of those flashes of intuition, those moments of clarity when the world for once made sense to them, those “aha” experiences when their world was rocked like thunder, reverberating sometimes for decades before their reflections were finally written down.  These ancients were not being dishonest in their language about God but merely naïve in thinking that anyone would ever take what they had to say literally. 

         Perhaps then, God does continue to speak to us – just as God did in Biblical times - through those sudden and intense moments of clarity and intuition that the ancients would say strike us like lightning.  An electrifying way to learn, no pun intended! 

         Maybe God speaks to us in those moments when the storm is breaking over us and all we can hear is the thunder reverberating until it reaches the very essence of our soul.  Maybe the moments that are a sudden flash, sometimes even accompanied by a vision, that leave us changed, our perspective transformed, are the way God speaks to us.  And so we say we have “seen the light” or whatever it was has “rocked our world.”

         I remember the beginning of my own journey to come to the conclusion I have come to about gay marriage.  I had always favored non-discrimination toward the LGBT community.  However, when it came to marriage and how that fit in with the church and the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, well, that was difficult for me to grasp. 

         However, one summer – not all that long ago – I had the opportunity to meet my cousin Chris after years of only sporadic cottage-related emails. I had not seen him in literally decades.

         I knew that he had lived many difficult years working in a job he was not cut out for, then being unemployed and eventually retrained as a math teacher, and long ago coming to the not-so-happy conclusion that he was gay.  Chris was a pretty nasty guy for a long time.  On this particular occasion (a reunion of sorts), he and his partner were arriving at the cottage the evening before Joe and I were heading home.

         Looking back on it now, I realize that, as the four of us ate dinner together, a lightning moment was happening to me, a moment of clarity.  In watching the two of them interact, I saw clearly that they were as devoted, loyal, committed, and loving a couple as any heterosexual pair whose wedding I had ever officiated.  And so my journey began.

         I did not know what Jesus would have thought – but I did know that Jesus’ commandment as the Gospel of John records it and proclaimed to his disciples the night before he died was to love one another.  I also knew that, in every instance, Jesus had erred on the side of inclusion and radical hospitality. That dinner in the Canadian wilderness rocked my world:  You may not get it, God seemed to say to me, but I love you anyway – and you ought to do likewise.  

         I was experiencing the gift of being thunderstruck – and those of you who have had similar experiences know they are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we live for them.  Those close encounters with the Divine are exhilarating – especially in hindsight. 

         However, we are also terrified of them.  After all, they force us to move out of our sureties and break down the constraints and boundaries that we have established to keep our lives in check, understandable, and under control. 

         I have to wonder how much we really want those “aha” times.  The flashes of insight, the brief moments when our minds are split by something akin to a lightning bolt, when what we have seen or heard stays with us, rumbling and reverberating like thunder down to the deepest recesses of our hearts and souls, perhaps for years on end, the times of absolute light and clarity, the experience of being led by a hunch or intuition:  Oh, do we really want God to be singling us out and speaking to us – and likely in the midst of a storm to boot? 

After all, we are taught that thunder is a warning sign, and lightning is dangerous.

         Both of our sons are Eagle Scouts, an honor of which I am very proud.  However, I am more proud of the fact that they achieved this rank by most often completing merit badges on their own and not in a troop or camp setting.  One of those badges was the camping merit badge.  I do not know if it is still true, but it used to be that boys could count at least some of their nights at troop camp toward the number of camping nights required to complete the badge.

         Our youngest son, Tim, never went to Scout camp due to family vacation plans and other summer commitments.  For the camping merit badge, he was allowed to count a few nights sleeping in a tent on our cottage property instead.  Sounded easy enough!  However, never in a million years would Tim sleep by himself in a nylon tent in the woods when you could hear the crazy call of loons at night and occasionally the howling of wolves and most certainly the rustle of small nocturnal animals scuttling by on their nighttime forays – to say nothing of the ax murderers that might approach silently in a canoe in the dark. 

         The result was that Joe and I took turns sleeping with him in the tent - proving true the old adage that behind every Eagle Scout is a parent, usually a mother, who is willing to go to great lengths to see that her son completes whatever requirements are in question. 

         One of the nights I stayed with Tim was not (unsurprisingly) restful to begin with.  That being said, at about 4:30 A.M. – in the in between time between night and the first inkling of dawn – we heard the sound of thunder in the distance.  After 10 or 15 minutes, we began to see flashes of lightning.  It was pretty clear that the storm was swiftly heading our way. 

         The thunder became louder, and lightning began to light up the woods and sky all around us.  Tim and I both lay silently in our sleeping bags, counting the seconds between the flashes of lightning and the rolls of thunder.  Both of us were terrified, yet neither of us wanted to call it quits.  I mean, after all, we had made it this far….

         Finally, Tim could stand it no longer.  “Mom,” he asked.  “What time is it?”  “Five o’clock,” I replied.  At that moment there was a brilliant flash of lightning followed immediately by a terrific clap of thunder. 

        “Is it close enough to morning to count this as one of our nights?”  Tim asked in his own logical, rational way.  “You bet!”  I replied, and we both vaulted out of the tent and made a run for the closest sleeping cabin, arriving just as the sky opened up, and it began to pour.

         Experiences of thunder and lightning are indeed terrifying.  Being in the midst of a storm is no fun.  And yet, the storms of our lives seem to swirl endlessly about us.  The claps of thunder that rattle our very bones and the lightning bolts that zig zag up and down and sideways are enough to make us shut our eyes to block out the light and cover our ears to deafen the sound.  All we want to do is hide.  All we want is for the storm to go away.  And yet, as evangelical pastor Nathaniel Bronner wrote, “Sometimes to get where God wants you to be, the only path is through the storm.”

         Sometimes it is in the madness and mayhem and storms of our lives, when the lightning is flashing and the thunder is rolling that, if we can face the storm rather than hide from it, if we can see the lightning not as life-threatening but as an opportunity for an insight that may be life-giving, if we can listen to the thunder’s rumbling not with fear but rather with an open heart, we can catch a glimpse of our God and hear a snippet of what God is trying to tell us.

         Maybe that is what this gift is all about this week – the gift of being thunderstruck.  Maybe it all about remembering that, in the end: “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass…it's about learning how to dance in the rain!”

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine