This sermon was preached at St. Lydia’s on Sunday,
January 17, as part of our four month exploration of the book of Matthew. Read the text here.
I need to admit something. I haven’t really been able to even begin to process the news
of the earthquake in Haiti until today.
I don’t have a television at home. I get my news from the New York Times online. I’ve been looking at the photographs on
the front page, but not really able emotionally to explore the articles until
yesterday or so. I was in this
strange place of denial. I didn’t
want to look.
It seems inhumane, impossible, to come face to face with
news of such earth shattering destruction and loss, and then to have the
privilege of putting thoughts of that pain out of my mind and returning to my
work, my writing, dinner with friends, whatever it might be.
It’s not an easy thing to be a preacher in the face of
events like this. Where is the
good news? How can people of
faith, many wonder, go on believing in a God that allows such destruction?
I don’t believe that God did this.
I believe that God made the world. And when God creates, God also lets go. God made a world, set it spinning,
surrounds it in love, but like a good parent, relinquishes control.
Do I see God’s hand behind everything in this world?
No.
Do I see God’s hand at work at everything in this world?
Absolutely.
Many of the people of Haiti remembered this morning that
today is Sunday. And reporters
tell us that they gathered in the streets, outside fallen churches, to
pray.
There are times when there’s nothing we can do in the face
of suffering. We’ve made our
donations online, and still the planes can’t get in. This is why we pray.
We pray because it’s the only thing to do. We pray because they, somehow, in the
face of destruction, are praying.
And because we know that, in the midst of it, God’s hand is
at work, God’s grace is abundant.
This is the shock of Christ’s ministry, that of all the
people who gathered to hear him preach on this hillside outside Galilee, it is
neither you or I who are named as fortunate, as blessed. It is the people of Haiti, who come
first in the sight of God.
We share our sermons at St. Lydia’s. What have the words of the text and the
words I’ve shared evoked for you?
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