"Gifts of the Dark Wood: The Gift of Uncertainty" - Sermon, March 8, 2020
Community UMC, Quincy
“Gifts of the Dark Wood: The Gift of Uncertainty”
Rev. Andrew Davis
March 8, 2020
John 5: 1-15
This has been one of those super-busy weeks with our administrative meetings Monday, a trip to Sacramento on Tuesday for my ordination assessment, JAM and Lent formation group Wednesday, Housing First training on Thursday, then celebrating the life of Rose Marie Heater yesterday afternoon. Leading up to this week has seen its share of uncertainty, especially while preparing for Tuesday’s assessment for ordination, not knowing how I would answer several questions, or what follow-up questions I would face, or if I would be approved for ordination by my assessment team. Thankfully, everything came together and the Holy Spirit was moving, as I was able to answer everything to the team’s satisfaction, leading the way to ordination as an elder in full connection in the UMC at Annual Conference in June by Bishop Minerva Carcaño. It’s not entirely a done deal yet, as there is a vote by the CA-NV Conference Board of Ordained Ministry (BOOM) at the end of this month and at clergy session during ACS. However, I feel confident both votes will pass, although I admit there’s still that feeling of uncertainty I can’t shake.
Whenever we face uncertainty in life, it can cause us a great deal of anxiety, whether it’s in the moment or looking at the future. As we are a week and a half along our journey through the season of Lent, there is constant uncertainty along that journey, as we cannot take each day or moment for granted. While we find ourselves beginning the second full week of our Lenten journey and series, we come to the “The Gift of Uncertainty” in Rev. Dr. Eric Elnes’ book, Gifts of the Dark Wood. Although we talked a little bit about this last week, one constant in the seven gifts we’ll be exploring is that “these gifts may appear more like curses” although “before you dismiss them out of hand, ask yourself, ‘Do I ever experience any of these?”[i] I think it’s safe to say we all experience the gift of uncertainty at one time or another.
Amidst living in a world where anything is but certain, there is a deep yearning for certainty. We want to know exactly what is coming next, what’s going to happen, or for everything to be neat and tidy. Except it seldom turns out that way. Many of us, myself included, tend to set expectations and standards on ourselves and others, yet we are likely to wind up disappointed or discouraged when things don’t necessarily turn out the way we hoped they would. Look at our Gospel lesson this morning, as we come across a beggar in John’s gospel who is paralyzed and begging at the pool of Beth-zatha/Bethesda when Jesus heals this man on the Sabbath, something this man did not expect. And it wasn’t just any day, but on the sabbath, an absolute no-no to the religious authorities at the time. Instead, this man is used to a way of life, to being paralyzed and begging by the pool of Bethesda which is about to change and lead to uncertainty for him. It’s a “story [that] illustrates the lengths we will go to hold onto our security, and the lengths that the Spirit will go to take it away in order to heal us.”[ii]
This man had been sitting by the pool for thirty-eight years, almost two years short of the time I’ve been on this earth, yet this begging is all this person knows, even when Jesus offers to make him well (John 5: 6). For this person, being healed would lead to uncertainty, to ask what’s next. Eric Elnes explains that
This man had no interest in being healed. After all, he’s making a good living. He’s got the respect of his peers. His social, religious, and economic world revolves around the pool. His life is defined by his limitations. To heal this man would disrupt everything he knows and has become accustomed to in this world. It would take away his certainty.[iii]
Perhaps certainty is why it’s so difficult to break habits or when we only know one way of life. Like the paralyzed man at the pool of Bath-zatha, making any kind of change takes away such certainty in life. Sometimes, we find comfort in certainty, even though it may not be healthy and do more harm than good. As I shared a few years ago during a Lenten series on rehab, I battled depression and anxiety during my teenage years, until it became apparent that I needed help. Like the paralyzed man whom Jesus offered to heal, I resisted help mostly out of fear of the unknown, or having to make changes I felt I wasn’t capable of making. I was a lot like Charlie Brown, or Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh books by A.A. Milne, which frustrated the few friends I had and my family who wanted me to be well. While it was not a happy time of my life, I did get the help I needed through medication and therapy, although making such changes was not easy. However, it never eliminated any uncertainty in life. Even today, when trying to adapt healthier habits in eating and exercise, it’s hard to do. Any kind of change is difficult because it disrupts our certainty and comfort.
When we think about uncertainty, Eric Elnes writes that
To most people, uncertainty seems more like a curse than a gift. When you cannot see the endpoint of your journey, or the path ahead is not clearly marked, you grow nervous. If you do not have rock-solid assurances that everything will be OK, and that path ahead is perfectly safe, you tend to dig your heels in.[iv]
When we go on this journey through Lent with Jesus, we go with Jesus through the dark wood, wilderness, and valley to Jerusalem, the cross, grave, and new life. We just don’t necessarily know what exactly who or what we will encounter on that journey. This journey may have some surprises and may not always be super clear. That is the time when we need to put our faith and trust in God when on such a journey, even amidst our struggles, failures, and doubts we encounter along the way. At the same time, there are faith traditions that preach certainty, although Eric Elnes cautions that “faith built upon certainty is a house of cards that falls apart when the ‘unshakeable foundation’ shifts even slightly.’[v] Some writers actually claim that the opposite of faith isn’t necessarily doubt, but certainty.
I know when I experience such a foundation shift, I tend to get frazzled, maybe irritable. While we might crave certainty, look at some of the characters within the scriptures. Abraham, Moses, Peter, Paul, and even Jesus faced their own challenges and uncertainties.[vi] Looking at our reading from 1 Corinthians 13 that tends to be read at almost every wedding I’ve been to, “according to the Apostle Paul, those of us who have a high need for certainty in life are being childish” because “to have an adult faith is to put away our desire for certainty.”[vii] As we saw in his letters to the Corinthians in our last series, Paul didn’t mince words. In this morning’s Epistle lesson, “Paul is saying that a mature faith is one that embraces life as a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved – that accepts uncertainty as a gift, not a curse.”[viii] It allows for mystery in life, but shows us to turn to our faith, especially in a world full of uncertainty and everything we see.
Every day, we never know what we are going to face, although like those commercials from Covered California that come on during open enrollment time remind us, we know too well that life can change in an instant. We can never take anything, or any day for granted. Yesterday as we celebrated Rose Marie’s life, it was a reminder of how quickly things could change. I was going to come over and visit her the day before she died, although she didn’t feel up to it, then it was too late to reschedule. However, she had a steadfast faith and trusted God each day, even when some days were more challenging than others and she shared a few times in our visits that she was not afraid of dying. It gives me pause each day I get older of my own mortality at some point.
In the midst of not knowing where the next step may lead us, or what will happen next, times of uncertainty is where our love can shine through the most, that our faith in God helps to assure us that we are not alone on the journey, or in our fears, struggles, failures, or doubts. Even in the Dark Wood, we can encounter and receive an unexpected love along the way of this journey with Jesus. The good news is that when we face uncertainty, we can fully trust God in such moments. Like last week when we were invited to give our fears, doubts, struggles, and failures to God, we can fully embrace God in the midst of uncertainy, as “uncertainty teaches us to let go of all concerns but the ones we truly face, giving us the courage and power to face them. In so doing, uncertainty provides us the unexpected invitation to live our lives wholeheartedly” as we continue on our journey to the new life of Easter.[ix] This week, how will you embrace the gift of uncertainty in your life? How will you give it to God? Offered to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let the church say, Amen.
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