As a progressive Christian, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to a loving God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
Recently, Lee Bowman, the minister of administration for MCC San Diego, preached a powerful and poignant sermon. I wanted to share it with you – I know you’ll be blessed for reading it. Blessings, Pastor Dan
True story. Two years ago 75-year-old Marion Shurtleff went into a Christian bookstore in San Clemente and, at the last minute, picked up a couple used Bibles for her study group. Looking at them at home she noticed some old folded papers in one. It was a month before she took time to look at it them, and when she did she got what was no doubt the greatest shock of her life.
She recognized the writing right away and turned pale. You see, it was an essay that she had written some 65 years before as a Girl Scout in Covington, Kentucky 2,000 miles away. And while the Bible was old, it wasn’t printed until some 28 years after she wrote her essay! How did it get there and to her? An unbelievable coincidence … or was this an astounding God moment, a God wink?
Let us pray: God, it is no accident that you are here in our midst today. Guide my words and all of hearts to hear what you have to say to us this morning.
The 13th century mystic and poet Rumi said, “Life is like a gorgeous tapestry with each of us a thread. We can’t possibly see how it’s all being woven together, but I now know we can get glimpses through coincidence.” And I don’t think he was talking about what we commonly think of ‘coincidence’ but something much deeper and more meaningful and intimate.
In your tapestries, I bet each of you has stories, maybe not as dramatic as Marion Shurtleff’s, some you’ve perhaps never shared with anyone. It may be a phone call out of the blue from an old friend or an encounter at just the right place in just the right moment. Or it may come in the lyrics of a song, lyrics you then can’t get out of your head, or a poem. Maybe even a billboard or bumper sticker. Or, like a good friend of mine in Iowa that never liked cats, you have this absolutely amazing cat come into your life and now has for his water bowl a martini glass. Or you’re in a theater watching a movie and suddenly some words speak to you, and a big gigantic light bulb goes on, so bright you’re worried it’s disturbing the other theatergoers. It’s a little epiphany. Something has helped you connect some dots in your life, something has spoken to you. Or someone.
Have you written off such things as chance or coincidence or accident, fate or luck? Why? I’m serious, why? Did you feel that maybe, just maybe God was winking at you, really touching your heart and it was a little scary and if you told anyone, that they’d want to send you off to Shady Pines?
Woody Allen once said, “If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.” I don’t think that’s ever happened to you, but if it does, let us know. And please, tithe on it.
But we’re not Woody Allen skeptics. We’re people of faith. If we believe that God makes no mistakes – and we say that right on our Pride T-shirts – If we believe that God knows the number of hairs on our head, notices the lilies of the field and the sparrow that falls to the ground – then it’s not a giant leap to believe that with God there are no coincidences. If we believe God is only present in the big, splashy Hollywood-production type events in the world, isn’t that limiting God, depersonalizing a personal God?
Why is it easy for us to pray to God and believe God hears us … and we do believe that, right? And yet be skeptical that God talks back – through people, through song, through nature? Does God only hear and not speak? Is our relationship with God just a one-way street?
I believe God led me from Michigan to Denver, Colorado, some 35 years ago, which directly led me to coming out and finding MCC. Some of you know my story that as a man just beginning the coming out process, I walked into MCC of the Rockies, on my third attempt by the way, on just the Sunday that guest preacher Rev. Freda Smith was delivering her famous “Purple Grass” sermon, the perfect message for me to hear. I have always felt – no, I have always known – that I was meant to be there in that exact place on that exact Sunday. Nothing and no one can convince me otherwise. I believe God led me, called me, beamed me, whatever you want to name it, to be here in San Diego. Coincidences? No. Because these were events that impacted and totally changed my life. Deeply.
I find God moments in little things. When our friend Kaki Johnson always spoke here about living in the moment. When I hear Oscar Morris say “All is in divine order.” Words like “Namaste” call to me. When a blank page turns into words and sentences, that speaks to me. When I’m in the mountains or in Hawaii … everything speaks to me! Or walking at night in the park or at the harbor. Sometimes we just have to get away from all the noise and hubbub of life to hear it, to the mountains, the ocean, the desert or a meditation garden.
Much of the time when I go out walking or hiking, I don’t know exactly where I’m heading. Sometimes I just let the spirit guide me. Yet, 80-85 percent of the time I realize I’m just where I am meant to be. It may be the view or the peace and serenity or an inspiration or some words that come to me but it is a genuine sensation of fulfillment. One not explained or dismissed by the words chance or coincidence. (Indeed parts of this message came to me and got entered into my cellphone while hiking.)
In our Scripture from Jeremiah God tells us that there are plans for us, for our peace, not harm, for a future with hope. That, when we seek … or allow … God will let us find that holy presence. ‘Plans’ don’t sound like accidents; ‘hope’ doesn’t sound like something left to chance; and ‘God’ here doesn’t sound like some remote entity that has forgotten about us and not part of our life.
Words that have always spoken have in some way guided my life are from Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled.” I know them by heart.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In the movie The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which by the way, is almost as good as the first one, one of the elderly characters is being courted by two wealthy Indian gentlemen. Both have proposed and she’s having a difficult time deciding between the two. In one poignant scene her driver is taking her to visit one or the other and he keeps asking her, right or left, do we turn right or left? What she ultimately decides is truly a beautiful God moment, one I won’t spoil for you.
Yet, when we’re confronted with that proverbial fork in the road, whether it’s a move or a job or a person or just which trail to take, our ultimate choice is not by accident or whim or coincidence. Just be aware that when we’re deciding between A and B, that with God guiding us, the answer just, just might end up being C. And if so, go with it knowing that the C stands for confidence and connection, not coincidence.
One final true story. Some 16 years ago after living here just a few months, I was pumping gas at the Emerald station on El Cajon Blvd at lunch time near our old church on 30th Street. A guy in a tie-dye shirt in the next lane and I looked at each other and had the same thought: Do I know you? Have we met? While the answers were ‘no’, we chatted and ever since, Michael Sayre has been one of my dearest friends, a kind of spiritual guru to me and we’ve been mirrors for each other. All by a chance meeting at a gas station. Oh, wait, excuse me. I don’t believe for a second that that was by chance.
I sometimes wonder, as we all probably do, how different, how less rich my life would be if I hadn’t gone to Colorado or not been at that Emerald gas station at just that moment on that certain day. But you know, that’s irrelevant. That’s not how the story happened. That’s not the way it happened to Marion Shurtleff in San Clemente. And it’s not the way it’s happened for you many, many times.
Rumi also said, “We do act but everything we do is God’s creative action.” Everything we do is God’s creative action. That also doesn’t sound like much of a coincidence.
What I hope you take from this sharing today is as simple as this. What is accidental from our perspective is specifically allowed by God. Don’t be so easy to write off as flukes the little miracles that happen in your life; or some genuine inspiration or meeting someone, whether they are in your life temporarily or for a lifetime, as just pure fate. Whether you agree with me or not, don’t be so ready to dismiss that still small voice within that urges you to go somewhere or do something or call someone or take this road or that road. OK, if that small voice is telling you to have that 800-calorie Death-by-Chocolate dessert or buy a Maserati, that might not be God talking to you. Use a little discretion.
But be open to the possibilities. Be fully present and aware. Trust your heart a little more and your mind a little less. Seize the God moments. Go with them, grow with them. And that if this has spoken to you, please don’t write it off as a coincidence.
Let us pray: Thank you, God, for this time together. And whatever we take from here, may it be with your blessing, love and grace. Amen.
