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I
begin with three stories. Some years ago, a frontier nurse
wrote about a winter spent in an isolated cabin that was
remote from other medical help and even from supplies. One of
her patients late that winter was a man with badly smashed
knee. An artery had been cut and she had to have many clean
bandages. The few that she had available were soon used up and
there was no way to get any more, so she began to use whatever
she had. First she tore up one of her pillow cases, then
another one, leaving only the one that she used on her pillow.
One of her spare sheets went next, and later another sheet.
She was soon reduced, she said, to the necessity of washing
and drying and ironing all the same day. But she wrote that
she trusted in God and vowed to continue. The man’s injury
healed and he moved on. Then, along toward spring, she
received her long-delayed mail. In it there was a package
containing two sheets, two pillow cases and two towels. There
was no name on the package, and she never did learn who sent
them. (Cathy Luchetti, Under God’s Spell, San Diego:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1989, p. 169.)
Story
number two. A boy named Mark was walking home from school one
day and noticed that a boy ahead of him had dropped a bundle
that he had been carrying. Books, baseball equipment, a couple
of sweaters and a small tape recorder were scattered all over
the sidewalk. Mark didn’t know the boy, but he stopped and
helped him gather up his things, then offered to help carry
them. As they walked along, Mark learned that the other
boy’s name was Joel and that he liked video games and
baseball. He learned that history was his favorite subject,
but that he had trouble in some of his other classes. He also
learned that he had just broken up with his girlfriend.
When
they got to his house, Joel invited Mark in for a soft drink
and they watched television for awhile. They visited, had a
few laughs and, after a bit, Mark went home. They continued to
see each other at school, had lunch together a couple of
times, and both moved on to the same senior high school. They
continued to run into each other now and then, although it was
nothing special as far as friendships go. Just casual
acquaintances.
Then,
one day shortly before graduation, Joel asked Mark if they
could talk. He reminded Mark of their first meeting a few
years before and said to him, “Did you ever wonder why I was
carrying so many things home that day?” Mark said he
hadn’t particularly thought about it, and Joel continued,
“You see, I had cleaned out my locker because I didn’t
want to leave a mess for anyone else. I had stored up some of
my mother’s sleeping pills and I was going home to commit
suicide. But after we spent some time talking together and
laughing, I realized that if I had killed myself, I would have
missed that time and so many others that might follow. So you
see, Mark, when you picked up my books that day, you did a lot
more. You saved my life.” (Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen, Chicken
Soup for the Soul, p.35-36, via Dr. Erroll Smith, Lovely
Lane United Methodist Church, Baltimore, Md.)
Story
number three is autobiographical. One day in Korea, in the
winter of 1952, another Marine and I were digging a sleeping
bunker on the south slope of a ridge. One of our tanks was set
up on the other side of the ridge, occasionally firing at
North Korean positions up the valley. I had my back to the
hill and the other Marine was facing me. We were using our
entrenching tools, which, as you may know, are short handled
and require a different stance than a regular shovel. So we
were alternately bending over and standing up, lifting shovels
of dirt out of the beginnings of our hillside Hilton. There
was no whistle of incoming mortar or artillery shells, but a
round evidently hit near the top of the ridge behind us. At
any rate, as my friend stood up to empty his shovelful, I bent
over to fill mine, and a three-inch piece of shrapnel embedded
itself in the dirt between us. If I had been standing up and
he had been bending over, it is almost certain that it would
have caught one or the other of us in the back or in the back
of the head.
We
could probably spend the rest of the morning relating stories
similar to the ones that I have just shared—things that have
happened to us or to people that we know, incidents relatively
insignificant to incidents profoundly critical. These are the
kinds of stories that often come to mind when people talk
about the Providence of God, are they not?
But
what about it? Is that what Providence is all about? Are
events such as these the Providence of God or are they the
product of chance? About the time we are ready to say that God
always steps in to take care of us in some literal, physical
sense, there comes to mind the fact that there have been
plenty of Marines who did not bend over or stand up at
the right time. There have been
many youth for whom someone did not come by at
the right moment to help them gather up their lives. And
missionaries have not only struggled with poor equipment and
skimpy supplies without relief, some, like Dr. Glen Eschtruth
who served so faithfully in Zaire for so many years, have lost
their lives while giving faithful service to God.
Furthermore,
when it comes to looking at Providence as meaning benevolent
events that keep us from harm and supply our needs, when we
study the Scriptures, we find Jesus rejecting the Tempter’s
suggestion that God should change stones into bread to satisfy
his hunger or keep him from coming to harm if he jumped from
the pinnacle of the temple.
What
then does it mean to talk about the Providence of God being
something to hold onto? Does God take care of God’s own or
not?
Let
me begin with the affirmation that there is a real sense in
which many of us would agree with Corrie Ten Boom’s comment
that she had discovered that “time and again, God has
provided what I needed before I was aware that I needed it.”
The German theologian Karl Barth once said, “There is
nothing but God’s grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we
must live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the
universe.”
But I would
hasten to suggest that to look for the Providence of God
simply in the events of life is too limiting and even a
misleading approach. If by Providence we imply that God is
orchestrating things in specific detail—like making me and
my friend in Korea make the right movements at the right
fraction of a second, or seeing that someone mails a package
of linens to a particular missionary at a certain time—I
think we are asking for micro-management of the universe that
eliminates human freedom. I would suggest that God uses the
events of life in a grand design, but without requiring that
the events had to happen the way they did in order for God to
use them.
I
have a parable about Providence in my file. I have used it
many times. People in my Disciple and Christian Believer
classes probably know it well. I don’t claim that it is
original, but I don’t find a source listed for it, so if you
come across it sometime and I’m not cited as the author,
please let me know! I like to acknowledge things when I can!
The
parable is about an artist at the seashore, making a work of
art from the shells and driftwood, the bits of coral and rock,
the weeds and debris that had washed up along the beach. Some
of the pieces were found near the water line, gifts of the
most recent tide. Some were found in the dunes farther back,
left by some more violent storm. A group of children were
playing on the beach, and the artist invited them to help him
in his work. He tried to describe for them the particular
pieces he would like to have. Some of the children ran off to
look for what they thought he wanted and brought their
selections to the artist. Some of the children told other
children about the artist and invited them to help. Some of
the children ignored the invitation and continued to play in
the sand. Still others made fun of the artist, and some even
threw sticks and rocks and pieces of debris at him in
derision.
Some
of the pieces that were brought to the artist were not really
what he wanted, while some of the things that were thrown in
anger turned out to be just what he was looking for in his
design. The ultimate design and the outcome were within the
artist’s control; but once he invited the children to
participate, where the pieces came from and when or how he got
what he needed were not. May I suggest that Providence was
found in what the artist did with what he had to work with.
Some
years ago, Pulpit Digest carried an article entitled
“A Tale of Two Cathedrals.” The two cathedrals were Durham
and Coventry. Both cathedrals were historic Christian shrines.
Durham was built late in the twelfth century on a site where
there had once been a castle of William the Conqueror. The
cathedral at Coventry was also ancient, built during the
thirteenth century. Both Durham and Coventry were targets of
Nazi bombing during the Second World War.
On
the night that Durham was to be bombed, a mysterious, heavy
fog moved in, totally obscuring the target area. As a result,
the mission was a failure (from the Nazi point of view, that
is) and both the city and the cathedral were spared the
ravages of war. “An act of Providence,” the people said.
“God has saved the cathedral!”
On
November 14, 1940, the target was Coventry, and that night
there was no fog. When the flames had died and the smoke had
cleared, the city of Coventry essentially was no more. It had
become a victim of the infamous saturation bombing, aimed at
destroying an entire city and the morale of a people. The
cathedral was a victim, too. Some of you
have been there and seen what was done out of the ruins
of Coventry, and others no doubt know the story, but hear it
again as a lesson on the deeper workings of Providence in our
world.
On
the morning after the bombing, a small group of people walked
through the rubble of the church. One of them was Jack Forbes,
a stonemason and caretaker of the cathedral grounds. He was no
theologian in the formal sense, but he had a deep sense of
Christian truth and he did a thing that morning that will
never be forgotten. Digging through the ashes and ruins of the
church, he freed two charred beams from the ancient roof and
fastened them into a large cross which he planted in the midst
of the rubble of the cathedral.
The
Rev. A. P. Wale, a local priest, took three nails from among
the hundreds that littered the ground and fashioned them,
also, into a small cross. The words of Jesus, “Father,
forgive,” became their benediction over the ashes and the
dead. Two months later, Mr. Forbes built a rough altar from
the stones of the cathedral. Behind the altar he placed the
cross of charred wooden beams, and on the altar, a cross of
nails. You will find a new cathedral in Coventry now, but the
ruins of the old one have been left. One approaches the new
through the ruins of the old, passing before the altar with
its crosses and the words “Father, forgive.” (Story from Pulpit
Digest, March/April 1985, p.31ff.)
Two
events and two cathedrals. Is Providence to be seen in one of
them more than the other? Is the sparing of the cathedral at
Durham more an act of Providence than the raising of the cross
in the ashes of Coventry? I would suggest not. Both human
choice and divine grace are involved in that last event. The
cathedral in Durham was spared because some pilots could not
see their target. The cross was raised in Coventry because men
called on the grace of God to help them rise above revenge and
hate.
We
can give thanks to God for the mists that protected Durham, or
for events that preserve or improve or enhance our lives, but
in all honesty, I have to say that I believe that the grace of
God is more
operative in the aftermath of what happens in life than in the
events themselves.
Are
we ready to believe that God programmed the lives of the
thousands of people in the World Trade Center on September 11,
2001, and caused some to miss work that day and others to be
on the floor where the planes struck, some to make it down the
stairways and others to be trapped inside? A life may be
spared, but the real question is: “What is done
with the life that was spared?”
This
is why, when we gathered in this sanctuary on the eve of the
World Trade Center attack, I chose the two passages of
scripture that I choose again today. I think that the
twenty-eighth verse of the eighth chapter of Paul’s Letter
to the Romans is the best description of Providence that you
can find, but I find it helpful to remember the Preacher of
Ecclesiastes’ stark statement about chance and accident to
keep it in perspective. I believe that there is chance and
accident in our world, but in the face of that sometimes-harsh
reality, the Providence of God is active as well.
Providence is not just about happy events or the
avoidance of tragic ones.
I
don’t know which translation of the Bible you usually read,
but this verse is one of those verses where study Bibles offer
alternate readings in the footnotes. The older King James and
some others read: “All things work together for good for
those who love the Lord.” That is the way I memorized it
years ago, but I have come to much prefer the reading that
says, “God works in all things with those who love him to
accomplish good.” (Romans 8:28) I don’t believe that ‘things’ work. You see, I don’t believe that everything that
happens, happens because God wanted it to. And the alternate
version that I quoted affirms that it is God
who works, and also suggests that it is not entirely
a matter of God’s work; God works with us.
What
I am trying to say is that the events of life do not have to
be controlled by God for God to be active in our lives. A
farmer once inscribed “God is Love” on a weathervane on
top of his barn. A visitor asked him if he was saying that
God’s love was as changeable as the wind. The farmer
replied, “Not at all. I am saying that God is love no matter
which way the wind blows.”
I
would like us to affirm that claim in some other words of the
Apostle Paul in that same chapter in Romans. You will find
them in the back of the hymnal, the Act of Worship numbered
887. Let’s stand and affirm it together before we sing our
closing hymn.
Leader:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress,
or persecution or
famine,
or nakedness or peril or
sword?
People:
No!
In all things we are more than conquerors
through the one who
loved us.
We are sure that neither
death nor life,
nor angels, nor
principalities,
nor things present, nor
things to come,
nor powers, nor height,
nor depth,
nor anything else in all
creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Now
that is an understanding of Providence to hold onto! Thanks be
to God!
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