1 Corinthians 13:11-12 "When You are Standing on the Edge"

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

         The local sheriff was looking for a deputy, and so he called one of the applicants in for an interview.  Now, as I tell you about that interview, understand that our job seeker was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so to speak.

         "Okay," began the sheriff, "What is 1 and 1?"

         "Eleven," came the reply. The sheriff thought to himself, "This guy is an idiot."

         Then the sheriff asked, "What two days of the week start with the letter 'T'?"

         The applicant thought for a moment and then replied, "Today and tomorrow.”  The sheriff took a deep breath and rolled his eyes.

         "Now, listen carefully, young man, who killed Abraham Lincoln?" he asked.

         The applicant crinkled up his brow and thought really hard for a minute.  Then he shook his head and finally admitted, “Sir, I don't know."

        The sheriff replied, "Well, why don't you go home and work on that one for a while?"

         The applicant left and wandered over to his buddies who were waiting to hear how the interview had gone. He greeted them with a “two thumbs up” and a cheery smile.

         “So, how did it go?” his friends asked.

         " Terrific! The job is mine,” he replied.  “First day - and I'm already working on a murder case!"  

         You don’t know what you don’t know.  But isn’t that part of what Lent is about anyway? Are not these next six weeks until we gather on Easter morning a time to look at what we don’t know – about ourselves, about our world, about our God? Isn’t Lent, if it is lived to the fullest, a time of inner exploration?

         I think it is, and so I propose that we approach Lent – and this Lent in particular - as a journey, a journey into the dark woods of our soul.  Light and shadows will play, one against the other, as we explore parts of ourselves we may seldom take a look at. 

        Put simply, we will be learning to walk in the dark, to use the title of our Lenten book study.  We will be learning that we need not fear the dark recesses we will come across along the way. 

         We will be learning that at least some of those things we relegate to the dark corners of our hearts because we think they are signs of weakness, indicators of evil lurking a bit too close, some of those things are far from being barometers of how faithless and undeserving we are.  Rather, they are gifts, precious gifts of the darkness, gifts to be acknowledged and explored and maybe even embraced.  Each week of our Lenten journey here in church we will be reflecting on a different gift.  Today we are going to look at the gift of uncertainty.

         “Uncertainty?  Yikes!  How can uncertainty be any sort of gift?” you might ask.  That, at least, is my initial personal response to such a suggestion.  Uncertainty?  A gift? 

         I, for one, like to know what is happening.  I pack my suitcase the night before a trip – and make lists of what to take and where to go ahead of time.  I read all I can about my destination - particularly about the best way to get from one place to another.  Cab?  Bus?  Train?  Uber?

         When I cook, I use a recipe and actually follow it. I do not throw in miscellaneous herbs and spices the way my cooking partner does. If something needs to be assembled, I read the directions and try not to take any shortcuts.  In most ways, for me, a proven path – some might call it a rut – is often a good place to be.  That being the case, then, this sermon is as much for me as it may be for you. 

         Because face it:  whether we like it or not, life is filled with uncertainty – and, at some point, that uncertainty becomes overwhelming for every last one of us - even those who never pack the night before and buy their ticket at the airport.  Uncertainty seems to be the lot for us ordinary people who, when you really think about it, live most of our lives in gray areas. 

         Numerous surveys and polls have indicated that, as Huffington Post contributor Tom Morris wrote, “the most unsettling thing about the world right now is the amount and degree of uncertainty we all face in so many ways. A thick fog surrounds us and keeps us from having any clear view of what's next.”

         He goes on to say:  “Politics has become its own reality TV show, with unanticipated plot turns whose implications (six months ago, no one would have guessed.  I mean, look at the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary). The economy is a wild roller coaster of unpredictable volatility. Unforeseen international problems seem to crop up now at an alarming rate, and with challenging consequences that catch us unprepared.”  No matter how much we want to know where things stand and who or what we are up against, it just does not work that way.

         There was another man looking for a job and saw that the local zoo had an opening for an unusual position.  It seems their gorilla had died, and, until they could get a new one, they needed someone to dress up in a gorilla suit and act like a gorilla for a few days.  All one had to do was sit, eat, and sleep.  Thanks to a very fine gorilla suit, no one would be the wiser.

         The zoo offered good pay, so the man took the job. He tried on the suit and, sure enough, he looked just like a gorilla. They led him to the cage where he took a position at the back of it and pretended to sleep. But after a while, he got tired of sitting, so he walked around a little bit, jumped up and down, and tried a few gorilla noises.

         The people who were watching him seemed to really like his antics. They clapped and cheered and threw him peanuts. Now - the man loved peanuts, so he jumped around some more and even tried climbing a tree. That seemed to really get the crowd excited, so they threw more peanuts.

         Playing now his audience and to his appetite for nuts, he grabbed a vine and swung from one side of the cage to the other. The people loved it and threw even more peanuts.

         Wow, this is great, he thought. So he swung higher, and the crowd grew bigger and more excited.  He continued to swing on the vine, going higher and higher until, all of a sudden, the vine broke! The man in the gorilla suit swung up and out of the cage, landing in the lion’s cage next door.

         He immediately panicked because there was a huge lion not twenty feet away, and it looked very hungry.  The man in the gorilla suit started jumping up and down, screaming and yelling, “Help, help! Get me out of here! I’m not really a gorilla! I’m a man in a gorilla suit! Heeelllp!”

         The lion quickly pounced on the man, held him down, and said, “Will you keep quiet! You’re going to get both of us fired!”

         You don’t know what you don’t know.  Life is uncertain – and it always has been.  Uncertainty will forever be a constant companion.  However, instead of uncertainty leading us only to think ill of ourselves or bring us to the point of ongoing fearfulness, I believe that uncertainty can be a gift.

         The Apostle Paul talked about such uncertainty in his first letter to the church people in Corinth.  He used the image of a mirror.  “Now we see in a mirror dimly.”  And that, by the way, was the only way you could see in an ancient mirror – just the outlines, hardly the details.  The more contemporary Bible translation, “The Message,” puts it this way: "We do not yet see things clearly. We are squinting in a fog, peering through the mist.” 

         And in the mist, I would suggest, lies a deep and profound mystery – a mystery that cannot help but sharpen our senses.  We don’t know what we don’t know, and we can’t see what we can’t see, but if we look deeply into the mirror, into the fog, perhaps we notice something as if for the very first time, something we have long taken for granted – a person, a relationship, or even the subtle rhythm of changing seasons – and, in the presence of the mirror, the fog, the mystery, something shifts in us.  We recognize that nothing in this life stays the same forever, and that newfound knowledge leads us to see our world and all who inhabit it a bit more clearly as blessings.  Could those sharpened senses springing from the mystery of just not knowing everything perhaps be a gift?

         And what about our relationship to this pervasive uncertainty that seems only to darken the world?  As Tom Morris speculates:  Maybe it is meant to remind us that: “You and I are here to shine our light into that darkness and help others to see the path forward a little better. Maybe we're here to encourage others to let the uncertainties around them spur them on to new, inventive forms of success, attained with the courage and persistence and faith that have always led the best people to their best results, throughout the entirety of the human journey…This condition that we tend to dislike, regret, bemoan, and even fear may ironically be the thing that allows us to do and become all that we most admire (and, I would add, all that God meant for us to be). And of that (Morris writes), I'm pretty certain.” Could these opportunities to shine our light into the uncertain dark, to be light-bearers for those more fearful than we perhaps be a gift?

         And if uncertainty is indeed a gift and not a curse, could it be that, in the end, we really do not want to be told all the answers? Could it be that maybe we need the mystery to envelope us?  Could it be that the very best kind of faith is the sort that embraces uncertainty?

         As Christian author, Cindy Brandt laments, “We sing about a Blessed Assurance and hold intensive meetings to discuss the essentials of faith. We share testimonies of God stories to shelve any doubts of God's existence. We preach the same sermons, pray the same prayers, tell the same stories, week after week to convince ourselves it all is still true.

         I (she continues) am longing for the gift of uncertainty, a type of profound mystery that welcomes questions, a faith that requires a leap of faith to sustain. I don't want to be told the answers to life's pain, I want to live through the darkness and grope for God's Holy Hand.” 

         Maybe, during this season of Lent, then, it is for us to embrace rather than fear all the uncertainty we know in our lives – all the questions about who we are and where we are going and whom we will meet along the way.  Maybe, during this season of Lent, it is for us to uncover the faith that requires a leap of faith that lies somewhere deep in our souls, uncover it and nurture it.  Maybe, during this season of Lent it is for us to say: “I have no idea where this is going. The end is completely uncertain. It is like standing on the edge of a cliff and peering over into a vast, thick, foggy soup of nothingness. Do I dare leap?

         And maybe during this season of Lent it is for us to say:  “Yes!  Leap!  Always!” Why?  Because, as we heard when our very first light and dark quote was read last June, “When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen:  There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught how to fly.” 

        And if it is too scary there on the edge, if the darkness looks too dark, and the light seems non-existent, if the uncertainty is too much to contemplate alone, then maybe during this season of Lent, it is for us to reach out into the dark, grope around until we grasp God’s hand (and we will find that hand to grasp) because, well because, as the ancient Psalmist declared:
For God says: “Because you trusted me,


I will give you more cause to trust;


Because you knew me enough to ask for help,


I will help you.


When you call, I will answer you.


When you fall down, I will pick you up.


I will accompany you through a long life;


I will never leave you lonely and afraid.”

         It is like the final verse in today’s Bible passage, once again, in “The Message” translation:
“It will not be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright. We will see it all then, see as clearly as God sees us, knowing God as directly as God knows us. But for right now, until that completeness comes, we have three things to do. Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly."

         It is the gift of uncertainty, a gift from the dark, a gift for Lent.

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