Reverend Marci Scott-Weis, MDIV
I have a few core beliefs that inform how I think about God and how I try to Minister and walk in this world. They go like this:
- God is Present
- God is Love
- My Beloved, I Give Thanks
They are the key understandings of my belief or my understandings about God. They ground how I try to walk in the world as a mom, as a partner, as a friend and as a minister. I think of them as my pillars of faith.
The one that I want to talk about first is a foundational pillar for me and my understanding of the divine. It goes like this… ‘God is Present’. First, let me acknowledge that I think it would be easy to assume that saying ‘God is Present’ is a naïve statement, a rose-colored optimistic understanding of the world, or a glass half-full approach to thinking about God, oozing with positivity. But for me, that witness of professing ‘God is Present’ comes not from rose-colored, happy times but instead it arises from times in my life where I experienced the deepest darkness.
And today I want to share a story with you all about how I came to find a way to put the experience of that divine presence into words. So, back on July 24th, 2011, I was scheduled to preach my very first sermon. I was fresh into Seminary and had not taken a preaching class and had completed very few of my theology requirements. But my sponsoring church invited me to preach. So, I spent weeks preparing a sermon, struggling over every word as I tried to explain the concept of salvation. Why I chose that topic for my very first sermon, I don’t remember, but I do remember heading into that Sunday feeling confident, prepared, ready and positive that all of the big esoteric words and concepts that I included were so very well researched and cited appropriately!
And then on the Saturday morning, the day before I was to give that probably way too long and way too dry and very boring well-researched and cited appropriately sermon on salvation, the world woke to the news that a gunman dressed in a homemade police uniform, had walked into a summer camp in Norway and opened fire. That gunman killed 77 people and injured dozens more. At that time, it was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone individual in modern history.
The news of those killings rocked the world. The images and stories that came out of the aftermath were absolutely devastating and horrifying. So, after watching the story unfold on that Saturday morning, I turned to that elaborate and deeply researched sermon on salvation that I was due to deliver the next morning and without a moment of hesitation, I threw it out.
All I could feel as I watched that morning’s news was raw pain, confusion, anger, sorrow and fear. And I knew that I was probably not unique in having those feelings. And I guessed that the words that I and probably most others who would gather to worship the next morning needed to hear, were words that saw and spoke to our wounded hearts.
And so that afternoon I sat in front of a blank page, often with tears streaming down my face, and I thought back to my own darkest days. I thought back to previous times when I had felt rage at the injustices of the world. Times when life had broken my body and my heart. Times in my life when violence was more normal than peace. Times when I had known betrayal and sorrow so deep that I felt like I walked around wearing massive weights on my heart.
And as I looked back at those times in my life that were sometimes moments and sometimes eras of darkness, I found a thread. Many of you have heard me describe this thread in the best words that I can find, as the feeling that I associate with the color that you see when you hold a jar of the purest honey up to the brightest summer sun. The warm feeling of the color that flows through that jar of honey, that rich yellow/orange/amber is what my soul remembered as the balm to my tender heart during all of my dark times.
The best I can articulate the feeling associated with that color, is this simple statement, ‘God is Present’. Sitting in front of that blank piece of paper that Saturday afternoon, I remembered that in my darkest moments, I was never alone. I remembered that when I felt fear, sorrow, despair, loneliness, abandonment, and rage, I had been accompanied. I remembered that through all of my times of darkness, that rich yellow/orange/amber colored Presence was with me, comforting me, and healing me.
And so that is what I preached that Sunday morning to that shell-shocked, grieving and fearful congregation, ‘God is Present’. And there is perhaps no greater story in the bible, no text, no quote that speaks more fully to this truth of God’s Presence than the story we heard earlier of Lazarus. And it is found in the simple words describing Jesus reaction to hearing of his friend’s death, “Jesus wept.” And that is the scripture passage I used that morning so long ago.
After I read the scripture, I told that congregation that I was not qualified to preach that morning with the shadow of those killings hanging over us. That I couldn’t make sense of what had happened. I told them that I simply did not know why evil existed in the world, I hadn’t had that class yet and I wasn’t sure that class even existed. I told them that I had no idea what the answer to the question was of, ‘why God, why do bad things happen?. No idea at all!
I told them instead, that I could simply turn to that story of Jesus weeping as he heard of his friend’s death and testify to them from my life, my own witness of God present in my times of sorrow. I could only offer them my lived experience that God was with us in the pain that we felt that morning, with us in our anger, with us in our horror and our fear. I could only offer them my witness and deep belief that we were not alone in this life, we are never alone.
And now a decade and some years later, I stand here at a different pulpit and I still cannot tell you the answer to ‘why God’ when bad things happen. I still don’t know the answer as to why evil exists in this world, why violence continues, why peace is so elusive and why harm continues to break our bodies and our hearts. Instead, often now I think that those aren’t the questions that truly matter anyway. For me, the questions that call me are ones like ‘In whose arms and embrace do I find comfort?’ ‘In my moments of darkness, sorrow, pain, loneliness, rage and fear, where does my heart rest?’ and ‘Who do I belong to and with?’
And my answers to all of those questions come back to that the story of Jesus crying with his friends in their shared grief. That image of Jesus, God Incarnate, weeping is for me, one of a God that is fully present with us in times of pain and sorrow. It is an image of a God that intimately feels our pain and sheds tears with us in deep empathy and feeling. It is an image of a God that stands with each of us, nearer than our breath, present in the grimy and often hard reality of being human.
And I don’t believe that ‘God is Present’ just in our individual lives. I believe God is radically Present in our world. I don’t believe in a distant God, somewhere up there, but instead I believe deeply in a God that is a part of all of Creation, calling us all forward into justice, peace and love. ‘God is Present’, in our lives and in our world. Even this week, maybe especially this week. God is present, in the mess and in the joy, coaxing us into love, justice and peace.
God is Present. This I have always known at some level in my life. Regardless of whether I am experiencing pleasure or pain, elation or sorrow, I have known and continue to know Presence. And I have been comforted and healed by that Presence. And because of those experiences, I believe with all of my heart that come what may, in our lives and in our families, in our communities and in our world…. we are ever accompanied by a God who holds us, comforts and consoles us, celebrates with us, heals us, works for justice and peace with us and most of all, loves us. We are never alone…
Praise God for journeying with us all…Amen
