AGod and the Chaos Monster@, Baccalaureate Sermon, May 13, 2006, Austin College

Preacher: Jimmie D. Johnson, D. Min., Pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Waco, Texas

Texts: Lamentations 3:22-24, 31-33; Mark 1:9-11; John 20:26-29

I don't know if you can dedicate a sermon to a human being rather than God, but I seriously doubt that insecurity is a big issue for God. For preachers, yes, insecurity as a problem for God, no.

This baccalaureate sermon is dedicated to a beautiful, even when bald, little 6 year old named Pepper. She never had a college commencement. She never made it out of first grade. She died at the age of 6 in 1984 of a horrible cancer that stalks little bitties.

Her death on that Sunday afternoon in April was my first conscious encounter with the chaos monster. By conscious encounter I mean I have stayed with this clash of faith and fear since 1984 and have not let the monster drive me into a premature closure through magic, superstitious religious belief nor the palliative of agnosticism.

The context is I had become her pastor in December of 1982. A telephone call came from a friend, who was also a Presbyterian minister, and incidentally an Austin College grad.

He said, "Jim, a family from my church in McKinney has moved to Waco, and I would like for you to go visit them." I said, "Sure. Glad to do so." He said, "I am not really doing you a favor." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "They have two little girls." I said, "Great, I have two little girls. I was made to be a dad of daughters."

There was silence and then he continued: "Not like their's, Jim. Their first though beautiful and brilliant was born with a severe birth defect and is dwarf-like. But, it is the other one, named Pepper, to whom you need to go. She will probably die soon from cancer."

I telephoned and went to visit the family. So sure I would be competent and capable for them. This is why even today, I say, standing before you, about to turn 59, married 39 years, ordained for 30 years, a father of two and grandfather of 3, on my best day, I am still 9/10s fake. Why? Because I am full of fear. The difference today is I know it. Then, I pretended not to know.

Turns out, the McKinney Presbyterian Pastor had done me a tremendous favor. He introduced me to Pepper, and I have loved her ever since. Her little life and big death have been a primary lens through which I have tried to see God with belief, yet, be faithful also to my experience of the absurdity of the chaos monster. I used to go to the ICU and rock Pepper so her mom and dad could get a break. She loved butterflies and drew me pictures of the little beauties. Then I would sing to her. (Little Pepper Haynes' gonna fly someday, fly someday, God's little butterfly) The singing was silly, terrible, but she fiercely liked it and always giggled.

I never thought I would let her down. I certainly never thought I would run out on her, but I did. On that April afternoon in 1984, they called me to come to their home. Pepper had been brought home from Hillcrest Hospital to die. I went and upon entering her room encountered the God who both delivers the needy and abandons the crucified. And my faith has never been the same since. Even as I stand before you and preach, my faith dwells between the polarities of this divine contradiction.

Pepper was visibly shaking as I entered her room. Jay and Debbie, her parents, could see my immediate alarm. They tried to comfort me by telling me the shaking was from heavy morphine usage. They were holding her as they all huddled together on the bed. Pepper looked like the images I'd seen of Jewish children who had survived concentration camps. Her mom and dad were comforting her with hugs and ice chips.

I was able to stay in the room for 10 minutes at the most, and then I abandoned her. I made up the excuse that I would go into the other room and hold her sister who was half the size of her 6 year old baby sister. It was an excuse, though I did go and gather Shelly into my lap and sit with her.

All I knew was, I had to get out of that room and away from that shaking. I was abandoning Pepper because it seemed to me God was abandoning her, and therefore everything I had believed was being savaged. Her shaking death was shaking my faith to death.

She died within an hour or so. I was unable to go back into her room until after she had died.

Hemingway wrote: "Life breaks everyone. Some grow strong at the broken places." The only reason, I have come up with, that explains why some grow stronger, and some don't is an angel in their life. An angel. Don't romanticize. There's no need to be anti-intellectual, either. I am not witnessing to a fundamentalist form of faith. An angel is a messenger. And an angel, a messenger, can be a six year old who lets you rock her and sing funny made-up songs as she grins, yet goes about her work of dying.

Everyone one of you will have your angel. Your messenger. For those who have ears to hear, hear your angel, and for those who have eyes to see, see your angel. You are being given a message. Some of you have already heard, but you are frightened to tell anyone. The rest will be hearing your message. Sooner or later, life breaks everyone. Simply breaks you. It might be by your own doing, the work of your own betrayals suddenly rising up to betray you. It might be you are perfectly innocent. God makes life precarious, and the innocent do often suffer in this dangerous world. And this is why I believe God, too, will have to give an account of Godself to God's creation. Perhaps the final cleansing of creation will be the bathing of God's own tears until God has passed through God's own peculiar judgment before us.

This is why I wanted us to hear the beautiful verse in John's gospel about those who believe without seeing. John's gospel is usually a little too triumphal, a little too full of certain glory for me when it comes Jesus as God's human face. But, I think I have misunderstood John's witness and his take on God's glory. I now believe John's witness far more subversive than triumphalistic when it comes to power.

The verse about believing without seeing is not in any gospel but John. "You believe because you have seen me, but blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe." Why? Why are those who don't see the miraculous considered blessed? I suppose it is because for them their faith comes without seeing. Without validation. We believe with the awareness that our belief is always in dispute, never imperialistic in its triumphs.

Some of us find we can only believe because Jesus himself underwent the experience of encountering the deafness of the universe, the chaos with trembling, questions about abandonment and the clear absurdity.

I believe His baptism is about all of this. Though a first read rarely makes the connection. It is why I wanted the baptism text read. I believe there is a connection. There is a connection between him and us that refuses to become discouraged. A connection between the start of his brief parade on that day of his baptism and your parade which begins this weekend A connection between his baptism and the chaos monster's absurdity, too.

Sooner or later, heaven no longer opens up. Grows silent. Our parade lurches to a grinding halt. It did for Jesus as well. Now, you can participate in religious shell games which propose all kinds of answers that enable you to pretend you still have your miracle. That you are still seeing signs of Heaven and hearing Heaven's Voice. And you can always find a preacher and a congregation that will vouch for your miracle. Any damn fool, can fill a church. But at what cost?

The grand undisputable sign that there is a God and that life is worthwhile, and makes sense, and always turns out to be alright- all this will disappear and grow silent. In every life there comes a point where all is lost. Nothing is there but a trembling absurdity. You find your faith devouring itself. Divided between the God who delivers the needy, and the God who abandons the Crucified. And this violent contradiction will stare you right in the face. It's silence deafening. And, I guarantee you, you will blink first.

For me, there only is one miracle. The miracle that we are loved. Loved by God, specifically. When Jesus was baptized, isn't it an expression of this one true miracle? I have never seen the baptism of Jesus as exclusivistic in the sense that Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, agnostics and atheists aren't chosen. On the contrary, I see his baptism as his being the brother of us all. When I used to say evening prayers with my daughters, I tried to convey to them this notion that God's arms reach around the whole world to include all. I would say the same prayer every evening: "Dear God, thank you for the high honor and privilege of being Shannon and Shalyn's dad. And, thank you for their baptism which is a sign they belong to you, and not only them, but all children whether baptized or not. In Jesus' name, Amen." I wanted them to sense the connection between their baptism and the neighbor.

Who knows all the reasons for the baptism of Jesus? For me on this evening with you, it is enough to believe he was baptized to show his willingness to be drenched in the swirling contradictions of full, human life.

Jesus sees and hears that day, according to Mark. Jesus hears and sees the sounds of the heavens being torn open, the Spirit appearing something like a dove, a voice declaring the pleasure of God. Jesus hears and sees validation.

Surely like something you experience this weekend. Every one surrounding you with "hoorays" and proper pride ---producing pleasurable hope. And appropriately so, for you and all who love you.

But don't forget Jesus will be the same one who later in life cries prayerfully out to God, "Why have I been abandoned?" His protest on the cross will not be his baptism speaking this time, but Jesus speaking in protest to his baptism and to God. And for him, too, the silence is deafening.

And, of course, in that beautiful prayer about the experience of holy abandonment, where he legitimizes both the presence of God and the absence of God, he takes our own lives more into his. For when you cry out such a prayer of painful abandonment, calling for God to get God's good in gear, you are praying his prayer which, of course, was the prayer of his own Jewish people in their lament literature in the Older Testament.

There are days and evenings in life when we see and hear the miracle of God's presence, pleasure and joy, and as assuredly, there comes the day when all is lost; and the authentic, genuine, religious experience of God is one of abandonment. Because Jesus was baptized into the experience of being given no exemption, no free pass from the chaos monster, I can say this evening in worship with you: "I believe though I have not seen." I can profess Jesus is my Lord and Savior because, first, I profess him as my Brother who endured and endures the chaos absurdity with me.

If you had had a video camera at the Baptism of Jesus, all I believe you would later see on the video is a human being joining us. No sounds or sights of heavenly voices and thundering affirmations. Just a human being participating in a public religious ceremony that anyone could say is silly, plebeian and meaningless. But, the next time we are in the contradiction of chaos, all miracles gone, the silence deafening, the nauseous absurdity spinning us---let us remember there is Someone at our side who joined us and will never run out on us. He joined us not to grant God's love, but rather to take our suffering and dying and righteous protest into God's love and keeping.

The chaos monster of life, Leviathan, still gives me the shakes. We can not and ought not deceive ourselves .The innocent suffering, the strutting of death and oppression, are all an absurdity in God's world. It will remain an absurd, irrational fact and final word, unless we join with God in becoming weak in power in order to become strong in love and give ourselves to the calling message.

That message will be something like the one spoken by the mysterious fox to the little boy in St. Exupery's classic story, The Little Prince. When at long last the secret message is told it is this: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Your angel will say something like that.

"Blessed are those who believe without seeing."

Enjoy your parade.