God is Good... Even in October

Baccalaureate 2012

Greenville College

God is Good… Even in October

It was October.

Just a few months earlier, as Mariah mentioned I graduated from Greenville College- the proud recipient of a Bachelor of Science degree in Special Education.  I sat right where you are today, on those chairs, under this heat, in this glorious Rec Center at my Baccalaureate.  I got the diploma that you will get this afternoon.  I had the tear filled goodbye hugs and promises, that when someday after some kid from Harvard invents social media, we would reconnect, and I promised to look at all the pictures of kids, and vacations, and opinions on the upcoming baseball draft.

After these things… comes October.

So here I was, a young GC graduate trying to figure out what October after graduation meant for me.  Summer after graduation, was frankly just like any other summer, and September held delight.  I did not sit through another reading of the syllabus day, no one asked me to be on Baggage Brigade, or haul gravel for NSO… oh wait you guys canoed, never mind.  For the first time in my life during September, I felt like an adult, and it was cool.  But then, October hit me square in the face.

In October, there are no all-you-can eat cereal bins in the DC- you have to buy Coco Puffs, and they are expensive.  In October, no one says, “hey let’s just not work today and go on an All College Hike, or let’s just drop everything and spend the day in Common Learning … yep someday soon you will look back and miss CDL (too soon?).  If after GC someone tells you that you are in a Zombie Apocalypse… you just may actually be in a Zombie Apocalypse, and you should run and hide- fortunately we have prepared you for such things.  Walk- Abouts, Vespers, Agape they don’t exist anymore for you in October:  well… unless you come back and work for GC… and then the dream lives on.  Midnight Breakfast is actually the real reason my husband and I came back to work here.

I took Greenville’s mission seriously, and I wanted to live a life of “character and service”.  Frankly, I wanted to save the world… and I thought I could.  So I had accepted the toughest teaching position I could find, in fact I told my district after I was hired.  “What position do you have, that no one else wants.  I want that one.”  That’s GC tough, right there! Turns out they had one, and she gladly gave it to me.  Before I knew it I was in St. Louis, working at an alternative school for kids with severe Emotional Disabilities.  By October, I had been punched in the face, cussed out, spit on, and had an HIV test because I had been bitten.  At one point that October I had a dentist appointment, I clearly remember sitting in that chair, with a drill in my mouth… thankful for a break from living this “life of service”.  Turns out, service is really hard.

By October, I attended a different church every week.  Mega churches, trendy urban churches, churches that gave me donuts- holes when I walked in the door and churches that met in a pub. 

And here is the thing you need to know before you get to October… GC’s philosophy and religion department ruined you.  Ruined.  You will never again be able to just pick a random church, sit through any old service and say, “nice, let’s go watch the football game.”  You won’t.  All that critical thinking, experiencing authentic community, and building you into a person of character… it will leave you horrified at what churches are doing out there.  Turns out, community is really hard.

By October I got my first paycheck.  Real adult paychecks.  This was amazing, except with those real adult paychecks come real adult rent, real adult utility bills, and turns out toilet paper is not free, and as cool as it sounds to live off ramen… it’s not… not cool.  Turns out, money is really hard.

By this October, I had been dating a dreamy blue eyed artist for about 3 years.  We met during chapel… right over there, when in the address the speaker told the student body that, “All a girl really wants is a man that loves Jesus.”  From the pews came a very loud male voice yelling, “I LOVE JESUS!”…  He was amazing.  We would walk around Greenville late at night and he would say deep things like, “What color is that tree”, and I would say “green”, and he would say, “ahh look again, watch it in the reflection of the streetlight”… and I was a puddle.  During our time at GC there always seemed to be free hours to talk about God and life and dreams… but remember now I’m in October.  No more time, no more walks and he looked at me one day in October and said, that he needed to figure out who he was and who we were together, which apparently meant he couldn’t figure “us” out with me there.  Turns out, love is really hard.

I was head to head with life after college.  I was terrified I had picked the wrong major. Yep, even after college this still happens (particularly when student are throwing chairs at your head), I missed the Christian community that I had thrived in, I was broke, and I was lonely.  Think Alanis Morissette on a continual loop (you may not know who she is, but ladies, I’m telling you, if you ever go through a break up, look her up).  It was in this place that I remember a clichéd phrase that had somehow lodged itself deep into my unconscious, most likely from years of Christian summer camp: ‘God is good- All the time, All the time- God is good’.  But was He?  Was He really still good… even in October?
 

I found no comfort in this phrase: God is good- all the time.  It just made me angry and a little bitter (to be fair, as previously stated I was listening to quite a bit of Alanis).  I had some real problems with this idea, real problems.  Yeah… of course I read the whole- sometimes “no” is an answer forwarded email/spam thing. But this concept that God is good was not playing out for me… and I am not just talking about my first-world boy problems.  Those students in my class, they were not kicking and punching because they met ‘goodness’ throughout their short lives.  I wasn’t just listening to Prof Richards stories anymore… it was right in front of my face.  Jxxx told me what her uncles did … did you catch that, I said uncleS, I saw the scars on Txxx face and back and legs and hands, and every time Lxxx heard the voices, we all felt those after affects. 

But the lilies, right?  Remember those lilies of the field?  They grow- strong and beautiful, because God is good- all the time.  These two ideas: God is good and Life is hard- were crashing in my head, refusing to go together.

How can God be good and life be hard?  It’s that age old question that can never seem to fully be put to rest.  I know for some of you, it has already come up… but know it will come up again, because the odds are not in your favor.  It might come up around October… or in 10 years when you are unable to have children, and in 15 when your house burns down, and 20 when you lose your job, and on and on… as long as you are living life whenever it doesn’t, “just work out”… your mind will wander into that place of, “How can God be good?”

And here is the crossroad: 

At this crossroad, many turn refusing to believe in a God when life is bad. Jumping to the very understandable conclusion, that either God is bad, or God has no power and therefore is not real.   And I get it.  I’ve tried it on for about 5 minutes a couple of times, I certainly tried it on back in October… but it’s a really lonely and dark place.  And every time I tried it on, I found that I was meditating on God, even more than before, which just strengthened my belief in him.

So we end up back at that crossroad.  Others will believe in God, but simply deny the bad that is happening.  Denial, that right now the most recent statistic out of the United Nations, states that 1 in 7 people are malnourished and living with hunger throughout our world.  If one does not think about it, and only watches Tosh.O and reads US Weekly… bad does not happen.  And therefore God can continue to be good… all the time.  I really get this one.  It is certainly not lonely and dark- in fact there are flowers and ice cream and unicorns and it is not real.

The crossroad also divides off those who see the bad and still believe that God is good.  So they know that they need to just trust in his goodness.  “God is good.  It will all work out… just follow Him.”  However, this can slowly turn into “God is good… I just need to follow him better”, which evolves into “God is good- I need to follow harder-better-faster-stronger to receive that goodness and avoid a hard life”.  What happens then is that instead of greater faith, we feel blame and confusion, if the miracle doesn’t come when we think it should.  Slipping into ‘life is hard… due to my lack of faith’ is an exhausting, desperate, treadmill.   I’m German, so believe me when I say, I get this one too. In fact, I have tried this one on for way longer than 5 minutes.

The unfortunate problem is that I’ve heard Bible stories.  Pretty challenging to mesh the “If I follow God better … I will receive goodness” point of view with:

·         Joseph following God: hanging out in the prisons of Egypt,

·         Stephen following God: stoned to death,

·         Paul following God: jailed,

·         John the Baptist following God: lost his head,

·         Peter NOT following God: escaped the angry mobs- Peter following God: crucified on his head

In fact I do not remember one story from Sunday School that said… so and so following God: Living out the American Dream.  Not one.

So where does that leave us besides the most depressing Baccalaureate ever...  wishing I had just talked about gender today, aren’t you? (still too soon?)

I have an early childhood memory, that I am guessing came when I was around 5 or 6.  My dad, mom, two little brothers and I were wrapped in blankets sitting cozy on the brown couches in our living room.   We were listening to my dad read about the adventures of 4 wandering kids, who happen to find themselves in a quite mysterious wardrobe.  As a 6ish year old girl, I sat mesmerized as C.S. Lewis carried me into his world of fauns, dwarfs and Turkish Delight.  My dad earlier explained to me that Aslan, the lion, was really Jesus, and I could not wait for him to come into the story!  You see these kids were desperate for some help, perfect timing according to me for this Jesus/Aslan character to come in and save the day.   That was until Mr. Beaver started talking about Aslan, “Safe? Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."  Clearly my dad misunderstood this whole ‘Aslan is Jesus’ thing.  My Jesus was not only safe, but he was warm gooey candy.  I remember trying to clarify this with my dad- who met my question with a terrifying question.  “Lisa- why do you think Jesus is safe?”

Life is hard, and God does not promise us warm gooey candy.  In fact He does not promise to keep us safe from the hardships and pain of life.   If the vision of our life, defines good as a trendy studio in the loft district, and a caramel mocha every morning… we are redefining the good that God promises.   We are using our measuring stick, and due to our culture, that measuring stick is one that has been created by American media.  God’s goodness is not defined by safety and protection from life, but by his goodness, when it is not. He gives us a vision of him, and he promises to be good, to love us, and faithfully walk with us.  As the Psalmist wrote in our reading today: “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations”

 

I do not understand fully why life is hard, and here is the thing, neither does anyone else.  If they tell you they do, instead of October, you just may be in a place called November… and they just want your vote.  But when life is hard, God promises that He is good, He is here, and He offers us a friendship that ensures us that the bad we face… it is not ok with him either.  He gives us a vision of himself.  We get to have a dialogue with a good God that sees where we are, and where we will be in 10 years and what we will become after we leave this earth.

Tony Campolo’s simple line, “It’s Friday… but Sunday’s coming” captures this idea and gives us a different path on that crossroad.  When it’s Friday (or so I do not change my metaphors on you) When it’s October, and life is not what you planned…  Sunday’s coming.  There is hope for the Christian during October, because we have a vision of Him… and Sunday’s coming.  But there is also a call for the Christian during October; we must focus our energy and work on living a life of service for others.  We work harder-better-faster-stronger for the good of the weary, the poor, and the marginalized.  That 1 in 7 hunger statistic, it doesn’t work in this room.   You cannot look down your isle right now and assume that 1 out of 7 of you are malnourished, because the hungry are not here… you have to leave this room and go to them. 

And this is where those lilies make sense; we grow strong and beautiful, because we are a reflection of his goodness to others, in a life that is hard.   Not because we have toiled and worried about avoiding life’s hardships, and gaining material goodness for ourselves.        

Having a vision of Him, meant that I did not quit my life of service, and after October those students in my class, they grew. I got to sit front row as God worked miracles in their lives.  I got to watch Jxxx begin the healing process, I got to see Txxx learn how to independently read a book- for the first time in his 13 year old life, and I got to witness Lxxx find peace in the plants growing in our greenhouse.   A life of service may be hard, but it is crazy rewarding.

Having a vision of Him, meant I was willing to face the awkward and seek out a new community. And because GC’s philosophy and religion department ‘ruined’ me for the easy fluffy churches, I was able to recognize an authentic one.  It wasn’t in McPeak's barn, but it was good.  My new community, outside of Greenville helped me see Christ in new ways, and it was just as genuine as ours here, (plus they had donut holes).  Community may be challenging to find- but it is out there.

Life is Hard AND God is good AND faith accepts both at the same time. You are not done growing, you’re just asked to be a grown-up, ready or not. Your faith will continue to mature, bend, and strengthen and it has nothing to do with getting a diploma today. It is because you are not done becoming who God wants you to be, and you are not done showing his goodness to others.  Sometimes, that is hard.  But you are promised a vision of a good God who will walk with you as you do this.   I grew as a Christian at Greenville- but I became a woman of God, in October.

In 1912, exactly one hundred years ago Eleanor Hull versified the beautiful Irish text Be Thou My Vision into one of our great hymns.  When that art boy figured out that he had made a ridiculous mistake and came running back, we sang it at our wedding.  A month ago KellyRae sang it for us at her senior recital- her voice rang out… 

                                      Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

                                      naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

When you hit your October and the fear sets in, remember this song.  There is a long tradition of other before you, who found comfort and direction in this hymn.  My prayer is that someday you will as well.  You serve a good God and He is your vision, your inheritance, He is your dignity, He is your delight.