Gary Lee - "Life in the In-Between" (March 7, 1999)
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| - | The second reading is from the gospel | 0:11 |
| according to Saint John, the fourth chapter. | 0:13 | |
| So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, | 0:17 | |
| near the plot of ground that Jacob had given his son Joseph. | 0:21 | |
| Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, | 0:27 | |
| tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. | 0:30 | |
| It was about noon. | 0:34 | |
| A Samaritan woman came to draw water. | 0:37 | |
| And Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." | 0:40 | |
| His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. | 0:44 | |
| The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, | 0:48 | |
| "Ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? | 0:54 | |
| "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans." | 0:58 | |
| Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, | 1:03 | |
| "And who it is that is saying to you give me a drink, | 1:08 | |
| "You would have asked him, and he would | 1:14 | |
| "Have given you living water." | 1:17 | |
| The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket. | 1:21 | |
| "And the well is deep. | 1:27 | |
| "Where do you get that living water? | 1:29 | |
| "And are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, | 1:33 | |
| "Who gave us the well, and with his sons | 1:36 | |
| "And his flocks drank from it?" | 1:39 | |
| Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks | 1:43 | |
| "Of this water will be thirsty again. | 1:47 | |
| "But those who drink of the water | 1:51 | |
| "That I will give them will never be thirsty. | 1:53 | |
| "The water that I will give them will become in them | 1:57 | |
| "A spring of water, gushing up to eternal life." | 2:00 | |
| The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, | 2:05 | |
| "So that I may never be thirsty, | 2:09 | |
| "Or have to come here again to draw water." | 2:12 | |
| Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband and come back." | 2:17 | |
| The woman answered him, "I have no husband." | 2:23 | |
| Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying | 2:28 | |
| "I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, | 2:31 | |
| "And the one you have now is not your husband. | 2:35 | |
| "What you have said is true." | 2:38 | |
| The woman said to him, "Sir, I see you are a prophet. | 2:42 | |
| "Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, | 2:48 | |
| "But you say the place where people | 2:51 | |
| "Must worship is Jerusalem." | 2:53 | |
| Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, | 2:56 | |
| "The hour is coming when you will worship the Father | 3:01 | |
| "Neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. | 3:04 | |
| "You worship what you do not know. | 3:08 | |
| "We worship what we know. | 3:11 | |
| "For salvation is from the Jews. | 3:14 | |
| "But the hour is coming and is now here | 3:18 | |
| "When the true worshipers will worship the Father | 3:21 | |
| "In spirit and in truth." | 3:24 | |
| "For the Father seeks such as these to worship him. | 3:27 | |
| "God is a spirit, and those who worship him | 3:31 | |
| "Must worship him in spirit and in truth." | 3:36 | |
| The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming, | 3:41 | |
| "Who is called Christ." | 3:46 | |
| "When he comes, he will proclaim all these things to us." | 3:48 | |
| Jesus said to her, "I am he, | 3:53 | |
| "The one who is speaking to you." | 3:57 | |
| Just then his disciples came. | 4:00 | |
| They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, | 4:03 | |
| but no one said, what do you want, | 4:05 | |
| or why are you speaking with her? | 4:08 | |
| Then the woman left her water jar and came back to the city. | 4:11 | |
| She said to the people, "Come, and see a man | 4:16 | |
| "Who told me everything I have ever done. | 4:18 | |
| "He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" | 4:21 | |
| They left the city and were on their way to him. | 4:24 | |
| Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, | 4:28 | |
| rabbi, eat something. | 4:30 | |
| But he said to them, "I have food to eat | 4:33 | |
| "That you do not know about." | 4:36 | |
| So the disciples said to one another, | 4:38 | |
| "Surely no one has brought him something to eat." | 4:41 | |
| Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will | 4:44 | |
| "Of him who sent me, and to complete his work. | 4:47 | |
| "Do you not say four months more, then comes the harvest? | 4:51 | |
| "But I tell you, look around you, | 4:56 | |
| "And see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. | 4:58 | |
| "The reaper is already receiving wages, | 5:02 | |
| "And is gathering fruit for eternal life, | 5:04 | |
| "So that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. | 5:07 | |
| "For here the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. | 5:12 | |
| "I have sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. | 5:17 | |
| "Others have labored, and you have | 5:22 | |
| "Entered into their labor." | 5:24 | |
| Many Samaritans from that city believed in him, | 5:27 | |
| because of the woman's testimony. | 5:30 | |
| He told me everything I have ever done. | 5:32 | |
| So when the Samaritans came to him, | 5:36 | |
| they asked him to stay with them. | 5:39 | |
| And he stayed there two days. | 5:41 | |
| And many more believed because of his word. | 5:44 | |
| They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what | 5:48 | |
| "You said that we believe, for we have heard | 5:52 | |
| "For ourselves and we know that this is truly | 5:55 | |
| "The savior of the world." | 6:00 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 6:03 | |
| - | Thanks be to God. | |
| - | Brian Clark lived across the street from me, on Ivy Lane. | 6:21 |
| Growing up we spent a lot of time together, | 6:25 | |
| riding bicycles, going to the park, swimming at the pool. | 6:27 | |
| One of our favorite spots was Brian's sandbox. | 6:32 | |
| We would spend hours digging tunnels, | 6:36 | |
| building fortresses, and playing out wars | 6:39 | |
| between the forces of good and the forces of evil. | 6:42 | |
| At the end of the day, our He-Man and GI Joe action figures | 6:47 | |
| would be buried in the sand, and I would be on my way home, | 6:51 | |
| already planning out our next adventure. | 6:54 | |
| Brian also had a clubhouse in his backyard, | 6:58 | |
| but that was one place you wouldn't likely find me. | 7:02 | |
| Although many of the kids on the block enjoyed | 7:05 | |
| spending time at the clubhouse, | 7:07 | |
| which was really a small room above the storage shed, | 7:09 | |
| the truth is, I wasn't all too fond of it. | 7:13 | |
| The room was cramped, dark, | 7:16 | |
| and unbearably stuffy during the summer. | 7:19 | |
| But I suppose the real reason I avoided | 7:22 | |
| the clubhouse had something to do | 7:25 | |
| with a slightly traumatic childhood experience. | 7:27 | |
| When Brian's father had finished the storage shed, | 7:32 | |
| the neighborhood kids came over to check | 7:35 | |
| out the newest thing on the block. | 7:37 | |
| One by one, we took turns climbing up to the clubhouse. | 7:40 | |
| I only wished that someone had warned me before I had | 7:44 | |
| climbed up that ladder that I would | 7:48 | |
| eventually have to come back down. | 7:50 | |
| Because when it came time for me to go home, | 7:53 | |
| I realized that I hadn't the slightest idea | 7:55 | |
| how to get back on solid ground. | 7:58 | |
| Not wanting to look stupid in front of the guys, | 8:01 | |
| I refused to call for help, and somehow managed | 8:04 | |
| to lower myself about a third of the way down the ladder, | 8:07 | |
| by holding on for dear life to the second story railing. | 8:11 | |
| But it was at this point that I started to go nowhere fast. | 8:15 | |
| My body was pressed up so tightly against the side | 8:20 | |
| of the shed that I could no longer see where I was going. | 8:23 | |
| And since I didn't quite know what to do | 8:26 | |
| without my eyes to guide me, I just decided | 8:29 | |
| to stay put and not do anything at all. | 8:32 | |
| My paralysis soon became evident to my friends, | 8:36 | |
| and they assured me that I would be fine, | 8:38 | |
| if I would just take things one step at a time. | 8:40 | |
| But my feet stubbornly refused to move without the full | 8:44 | |
| assurance that I truly knew where I was heading. | 8:47 | |
| So there I was, hanging in midair, panicked at the prospect | 8:53 | |
| of having to spend the rest of my otherwise happy childhood | 8:57 | |
| on the side of Brian Clark's shed. | 9:01 | |
| It was what you might call an in between moment. | 9:06 | |
| I wasn't up or down, here or there. | 9:10 | |
| I was just floating, I was in between. | 9:14 | |
| Of course, I don't expect everyone here | 9:19 | |
| to have had ladder misadventures like I did. | 9:21 | |
| But I do suspect that we've all gone | 9:25 | |
| through some kind of in between moment. | 9:27 | |
| Life's in between moments come in a variety | 9:31 | |
| of shapes and sizes, but the one thing | 9:33 | |
| all in between moments have in common | 9:36 | |
| is that they are about change and transition. | 9:39 | |
| An unexpected death in the family. | 9:43 | |
| A difficult career decision. | 9:46 | |
| An approaching deadline for declaring a college major. | 9:49 | |
| In all of these situations, and at so many other points | 9:53 | |
| in our lives, we are challenged to adjust | 9:56 | |
| to new circumstances and expectations. | 9:59 | |
| Our in between moments involve leaving something | 10:03 | |
| of our old lives behind, and a willingness to embrace | 10:06 | |
| something new, even though it won't always be clear | 10:09 | |
| exactly what we are getting ourselves into. | 10:13 | |
| I hope that today's scripture will speak to us about | 10:17 | |
| these mysterious in between moments. | 10:20 | |
| We may find that they can give us perspective | 10:22 | |
| on both where we are coming from, | 10:25 | |
| and where we have yet to go. | 10:28 | |
| I expect that many of us are already | 10:31 | |
| familiar with our sermon text. | 10:33 | |
| Some of us as children learned about | 10:36 | |
| the great crossing of the Red Sea, | 10:38 | |
| and how Pharaoh's men drowned | 10:40 | |
| as they pursued the Israelites. | 10:42 | |
| We know of the Israelites' complaints for food, | 10:44 | |
| and how God miraculously provided quail and manna. | 10:46 | |
| And here, in the first verses of Exodus, chapter 17, | 10:51 | |
| we read of how the Israelites cry out for water. | 10:55 | |
| Now, perhaps there are some people here who, like me, | 11:00 | |
| grew up hearing many Old Testament passages | 11:03 | |
| being preached with the intention of demonstrating | 11:06 | |
| the failures of the Israelites. | 11:08 | |
| Shame on the Israelites for breaking God's commands, | 11:12 | |
| for testing the Lord, for being such a faithless people. | 11:15 | |
| It is easy to utter these condemnations, | 11:21 | |
| because the Israelites admittedly do some peculiar things. | 11:25 | |
| How could they have forgotten the dead bodies | 11:30 | |
| floating in the sea, or the miraculous provision | 11:32 | |
| of manna and quail, or the pillars of cloud by day | 11:35 | |
| and the pillar of fire by night? | 11:39 | |
| Indeed, if I were intent on shaming the Israelites, | 11:43 | |
| I would draw attention to the lack of faith | 11:47 | |
| and hardness of heart in these wayward people. | 11:49 | |
| I would make clear how foolish the Israelites were | 11:53 | |
| to doubt God's presence and power, | 11:56 | |
| how they should have been more patient. | 11:58 | |
| How they had sinned by testing the Lord. | 12:01 | |
| And then we could all go home through the chapel doors, | 12:05 | |
| determined to do better than those | 12:07 | |
| foolish and faithless Israelites. | 12:10 | |
| But hold on a minute. | 12:15 | |
| If we walk away from this passage | 12:17 | |
| with the familiar lesson that we must | 12:19 | |
| continue to have faith in God, no matter how bad things get, | 12:21 | |
| we will have only scratched the surface. | 12:25 | |
| For I believe this narrative is not simply about | 12:28 | |
| how we should live with greater faith, | 12:31 | |
| this text tells us about who we are. | 12:34 | |
| What do we do in times of crisis? | 12:40 | |
| How do we react when it feels as though | 12:43 | |
| we are being torn between two worlds? | 12:46 | |
| Invariably, we have doubts and are afraid. | 12:50 | |
| And we look for signs of proof that God is present, | 12:55 | |
| that God sees, that God cares. | 12:58 | |
| In in between moments, we tend to bear | 13:04 | |
| a striking resemblance to the Israelites. | 13:07 | |
| Just a short while ago in the Exodus story, | 13:12 | |
| these desert nomads were still back in Egypt. | 13:15 | |
| True, they were poorly treated slaves there, | 13:18 | |
| but at least they knew what to expect in life. | 13:21 | |
| Instead, out in the wilderness, | 13:25 | |
| they were a people on a journey. | 13:28 | |
| But it was never made clear to them | 13:30 | |
| exactly where they were going. | 13:32 | |
| What was clear was that they had left behind | 13:34 | |
| a way of life that was all they had ever known, | 13:37 | |
| and they had not yet made it to the promised land. | 13:40 | |
| They were caught in the middle, too late to turn back, | 13:44 | |
| and almost too weak to press on. | 13:46 | |
| And even though they, more than any of us, | 13:50 | |
| had seen the truly mighty acts of God, | 13:52 | |
| the 10 plagues, the parting of the sea, | 13:56 | |
| the pillars of cloud and fire, | 13:59 | |
| they still couldn't manage to suppress the fears | 14:01 | |
| and frustrations that were welling up inside. | 14:05 | |
| Some people say that this simply shows | 14:10 | |
| how faithless these people were. | 14:12 | |
| And conclude that if we want to please God, | 14:15 | |
| we must do the opposite of everything | 14:18 | |
| the Israelites did in the desert. | 14:20 | |
| But I sincerely doubt if we could do any better. | 14:24 | |
| In fact, I'm convinced that we are doomed | 14:28 | |
| to be just as confused and disagreeable | 14:30 | |
| in our in between moments as this generation | 14:33 | |
| of Israelites was in theirs, in their difficult days | 14:36 | |
| in the desert, no longer in Egypt | 14:40 | |
| and not yet, as it turns out, not ever, | 14:42 | |
| able to set foot in the promised land. | 14:46 | |
| Maybe we are meant to identify | 14:51 | |
| with these less than perfect pilgrims. | 14:53 | |
| I don't mean to suggest that we should strive | 14:56 | |
| to imitate the Israelites, but I do believe that like it | 14:58 | |
| or not, we have a great deal in common with these people. | 15:02 | |
| Inevitably, as God beckons us to heed his calling, | 15:07 | |
| there will be times when we, like the Israelites, | 15:11 | |
| will feel compelled to leave behind some part | 15:15 | |
| of our lives before we know exactly what, | 15:18 | |
| if anything, will be waiting around the corner. | 15:21 | |
| The call to Christian discipleship doesn't guarantee | 15:26 | |
| a map to help us navigate through the uncharted | 15:28 | |
| wilderness of life, or at least if it does, | 15:32 | |
| I never got one. | 15:36 | |
| We are simply told to follow, | 15:39 | |
| and as it is in our human nature to want to be in control, | 15:41 | |
| to want to know the final destination, we, | 15:45 | |
| like the Israelites, are likely | 15:49 | |
| to get tired and frustrated at some point. | 15:52 | |
| In our in between moments, we will be pushed to the limit. | 15:56 | |
| And if we listen carefully to the heart, | 15:59 | |
| we may be shocked to realize that we, like the Israelites, | 16:02 | |
| sometimes wonder if the Lord is truly among us or not. | 16:07 | |
| At first glance, this might seem to be | 16:14 | |
| a terrible moment of defeat. | 16:16 | |
| But in reality, this might just be the most important | 16:19 | |
| part of our spiritual journey, for it is in moments | 16:22 | |
| like these that God can work at correcting | 16:25 | |
| our feeble understanding of who he is and how he works. | 16:28 | |
| It is the in between moment that forces us to come to grips | 16:34 | |
| with how frail our faith can be. | 16:38 | |
| When faith falters, how does God respond? | 16:42 | |
| Notice what God does with Israel in this situation, | 16:48 | |
| or rather, note carefully what he does not do. | 16:51 | |
| What God doesn't do is get angry. | 16:55 | |
| He doesn't ask why do I put up with such a faithless people? | 16:58 | |
| He doesn't burn the outskirts of the camp, | 17:02 | |
| hurl lightning bolts from the sky, | 17:05 | |
| or send forth an earthquake to swallow | 17:07 | |
| up the worst of the complainers. | 17:09 | |
| In this passage so full of conflict, | 17:13 | |
| it is easy to overlook God's response. | 17:16 | |
| He provides. | 17:20 | |
| In spite of the shortcomings of Israel, | 17:22 | |
| God chooses to bless them with water from the rock. | 17:24 | |
| And more importantly, he chooses to bless | 17:27 | |
| them with his continued presence. | 17:30 | |
| Strangely absent from this passage is any mention | 17:33 | |
| of God scolding or condemning these people. | 17:36 | |
| And in all of Exodus, even in the worst moments, | 17:39 | |
| when Israel explicitly disobeys God's commands, | 17:43 | |
| he never abandons them. | 17:47 | |
| I find great comfort in seeing | 17:50 | |
| how patient God is with the Israelites. | 17:52 | |
| As incredible a miracle it is to bring | 17:55 | |
| forth water from a rock, I marvel much more | 17:58 | |
| at God's steadfast willingness | 18:01 | |
| to guide his people through the desert. | 18:03 | |
| And just as God was present among the Israelites, | 18:07 | |
| I believe that he is willing to bear with us | 18:10 | |
| as we wander in the wilderness. | 18:13 | |
| At least when I look at my own life, I'd like to hope so. | 18:16 | |
| The first significant in between moment | 18:23 | |
| of my lifelong spiritual journey is being | 18:25 | |
| lived out right now as a college student. | 18:28 | |
| As is the case with in between moments, | 18:32 | |
| I can see that I've left behind | 18:34 | |
| certain parts of my past life. | 18:36 | |
| For example, I am no longer the little boy | 18:39 | |
| who could confidently raise his hand in Bible study, | 18:42 | |
| knowing that the answer had to be God, Jesus or love. | 18:45 | |
| It seems that I used to have all the answers. | 18:52 | |
| But now I only have questions, and lots of them. | 18:56 | |
| Coming to college has forced me to grapple | 19:00 | |
| with a world much more complicated than I had ever been | 19:02 | |
| able to acknowledge in my youth or adolescence. | 19:05 | |
| It had never crossed my mind before to think about | 19:10 | |
| the social responsibilities of the church. | 19:12 | |
| To consider how to go about interpreting the Bible. | 19:15 | |
| To ponder the relationship between historicity and faith. | 19:19 | |
| Or to pay attention to the cultural and social issues | 19:23 | |
| that threaten to bring further division | 19:26 | |
| to an universal church that increasingly | 19:28 | |
| seems to be anything but universal. | 19:31 | |
| Having come to this rich university setting, | 19:36 | |
| I have been presented | 19:39 | |
| with an overwhelming variety of options. | 19:40 | |
| I only wish that someone were around, as in my childhood, | 19:43 | |
| who could explain to me how this world makes any sense. | 19:48 | |
| Someone who could answer all of my questions, | 19:53 | |
| and ease all my fears. | 19:56 | |
| But somehow I doubt that will ever happen. | 19:59 | |
| Where is God at work in all of this? | 20:04 | |
| That might seem to be an innocent enough question. | 20:08 | |
| But if I've had a particularly difficult day, | 20:12 | |
| there are other questions, more pointed questions, | 20:15 | |
| that sometimes haunt me as I lie in bed, | 20:18 | |
| trying to fall asleep. | 20:21 | |
| Questions like, why, God is it so difficult | 20:23 | |
| for me to know what you want from my life? | 20:27 | |
| Why is it that I've been following for so long, | 20:30 | |
| but still understand so little? | 20:32 | |
| God, do you get some sick, sadistic satisfaction | 20:35 | |
| out of seeing me drown in my confusion? | 20:39 | |
| Do you, God? | 20:42 | |
| I'd like to know, do you? | 20:43 | |
| I don't mean to be irreverent. | 20:47 | |
| I don't mean to offend anyone | 20:50 | |
| with my seemingly faithless questions. | 20:52 | |
| But let the truth be told, because there are honestly | 20:54 | |
| moments in my life when I question | 20:56 | |
| if God is with me, really with me. | 20:59 | |
| When I struggle with important decisions, is God there? | 21:03 | |
| When faith seems to, when reason, rather, seems to tell | 21:08 | |
| me that faith must be for fools, | 21:11 | |
| why doesn't God just get my attention and prove me wrong? | 21:14 | |
| God, are you present? | 21:18 | |
| Don't you see, don't you care? | 21:21 | |
| Up until a couple months ago, I would have been horrified | 21:26 | |
| at the thought of asking such things. | 21:30 | |
| But in examining this text, I came to realize | 21:34 | |
| that deep down inside me, there were these questions | 21:37 | |
| and complaints being stored up, just waiting | 21:40 | |
| for an opportunity to bubble over. | 21:43 | |
| And after having had some time to look closely | 21:47 | |
| at what was in my heart, the exasperation, the fear, | 21:49 | |
| I found that I'm not so different | 21:55 | |
| from these wayward Israelites. | 21:57 | |
| A friend of mine aptly observed that the faith | 22:02 | |
| I had at age 10 can no longer sustain me at age 20. | 22:05 | |
| How about the rest of us? | 22:11 | |
| Are there some among us who at age 40 are still trying | 22:14 | |
| to follow God in exactly the same way that they did at 30? | 22:17 | |
| Will the faith we had at 70 continue to foster | 22:23 | |
| a sense of purpose when we approach 80? | 22:26 | |
| To sum up, can any of us ever expect | 22:31 | |
| to get out of this wilderness that we call life? | 22:35 | |
| Maybe not. | 22:42 | |
| My suspicion is that life is one long | 22:45 | |
| string of in between moments. | 22:48 | |
| An ongoing period of change and transition. | 22:51 | |
| But rather than despair over my present confusion, | 22:55 | |
| or worry about in between moments yet to come, | 22:58 | |
| I take comfort in knowing that God is ever present, | 23:03 | |
| ever concerned, and ever faithful. | 23:07 | |
| Especially in those difficult dark nights of the soul. | 23:10 | |
| In the 17th chapter of Exodus, the sixth verse, | 23:15 | |
| God tells Moses that he will be there. | 23:18 | |
| He was there for Moses, | 23:23 | |
| he was there for those troublesome Israelites, | 23:25 | |
| and I dare say he is also with us today. | 23:28 | |
| Jerome Miller once said, "It is in anguish | 23:34 | |
| "That the word God ceases to be an abstraction." | 23:37 | |
| Once again, it is in anguish that the word | 23:44 | |
| God ceases to be an abstraction. | 23:49 | |
| Perhaps it is in our confusion and suffering | 23:54 | |
| that God becomes more real than ever before. | 23:58 | |
| In our desert wanderings, we are wrenched away | 24:02 | |
| from our comfortable illusions, | 24:05 | |
| and pulled into a harsh reality, | 24:07 | |
| where our sustenance can come from God and God alone. | 24:10 | |
| In our in between moments, our ability to rely | 24:15 | |
| upon ourselves is stripped away, and we realize | 24:18 | |
| just how weak our faith can be. | 24:22 | |
| But the good news, the great news is that for both | 24:27 | |
| the faithful and the faithless, | 24:31 | |
| God is present in times of spiritual crisis, | 24:35 | |
| giving us not only strength to endure, | 24:40 | |
| but strength to enjoy | 24:44 | |
| and embrace life in the in between. | 24:47 |
