Loaded for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Year A - 19th October 2014
The Backside of God
Written: July 30, 2006
Centennial United Methodist Church
Linda Loessberg-Zahl
A mother wanted to
talk to her young son about his behavior in
kindergarten. One day she picked him up from school, put him
in his booster
seat in the back seat and started for home. This would be the
perfect time.
She often used the time in the car to talk with him. “Jeff,
I want to have a
face-to-face talk with you about school.” They talked about
the concerns his
teacher had about his behavior. After he agreed to stop
chasing the girls at
recess, she said, “Do you have any questions?” He said,
“Yeah… how come
whenever we have a face-to-face talk, all I ever see is your
back?” Jeff
ended up with a different perspective than he expected. Have
you been
there? Have you ever ended up with a different view than you
expected?
Have you ever wanted
to see a particular play or concert, but you put
off getting tickets? You finally call Ticketmaster, (the box
office, ticket
sales company) and you’re surprised and excited to hear that
they still have
reasonably priced seats left. You think they are probably
way in the back of
the audience. The salesperson says, “Actually these are
pretty close to the
stage.” You figure they must have cut the price of the most
expensive seats
at the last minute so they could fill the place. You get to
the auditorium and 2
the usher takes your tickets and leads you from the back all
the way down
toward the stage. You go up a few steps and there are your
seats. You
realize that you are sitting to the side and almost behind
the stage - with a
perfect view of the huge speakers. If you lean to the left
and peek around
the speakers, when the performers come on the stage you have
a great view
of their backs! Jilted! You wanted a front and center seat,
so that you could
view the performers close-up, face-to-face, and take in the
full meaning and
glory of the experience. Instead, like little Jeff, you end
up with the
backside view.
Moses was hoping for
a face-to-face experience with God in the story
from Exodus that you heard today. Moses says to God, “I know
you say
you’re with us, but could I see you in your glory?”
“Couldn’t you just show
me your face?” I’d like to sit down for a tête-à-tête with
God, a face-to-face
conversation about the meaning of life. How about you?
Wouldn’t you like
to see God, face-to-face?
In the tradition of
the Old Testament, God tells Moses, “To see my
face would be too much for you, but if you’ll stand in that
cave in the rock,
I’ll put my hand over you until the last minute, then take
it away and let you
see my back.”
I wonder if Moses
felt a bit jilted. He had a front row ticket, but
ended up seeing only the backside of God. That’s the best
the rest of us ever
get as well.
Now God promises
Moses, “My presence will go with you.” This
conversation we overhear between Moses and God points to the
great
mystery that surrounds God’s presence. That’s God’s promise
to us too.
God’s presence goes with us as well. Often we also just
catch a glimpse of
the backside of God, as God walks by. Sensing God’s presence
is like
catching sight of someone passing by, out of the corner of
our eye. Have
you experienced that? Have you experienced God’s mysterious
presence in
your life?
We don’t always
recognize God’s presence for at least a couple of
reasons. First, we may be suffering from what they call
inattention
blindness, and secondly, we may not recognize God from the
back.
Have you heard about
what they are calling ‘inattention blindness’? It
has come up again in the whole debate about using cell
phones while
driving. At first the experts thought using a cell phone
with head phones or
a speakerphone would decrease the probability of having an
accident while
talking on a cell phone, because it frees up your hands. But
they found that
this wasn’t the case. Instead, it’s your attention that
needs to be freed up to
more safely drive a car. Scientists have found that our
conscious minds only
perceive a fraction of the information that is coming into
our senses.
In an article from
the Monitor on Psychology (Volume 32, No. 4 April
2001, “Sights Unseen”) Siri Carpenter writes “studies of
visual perception
have demonstrated how startlingly little people see when
we're not paying
attention.” Cognitive psychologist Brian Scholl, PhD, from
Yale University
says, “This research is showing us something that we didn't
think was the
case—that we can fail to perceive very major things going on
right in front
of our eyes.” Several fascinating studies have been done
that support this
startling fact.
For example, Simons
and Chabris showed people a film of two
basketball teams, one wearing black shirts and the other
wearing white. The
researchers asked participants to count how many times a
basketball was
passed between members of one team, ignoring the other team.
Many people
in the study didn't notice a woman who walked through the
scene carrying
an open umbrella, even though the woman was on the screen
for several
seconds. The participants were so focused on their counting
task that they
missed what was right in front of them.
Sometimes we may have
‘inattention blindness’ when it comes to
God’s presence in our lives. We get so focused on whatever
we are doing,
that we fail to see the powerful presence of God in our
lives. It’s not that
God is not present to us, it’s that we are not present to
God. Did you catch
that? It’s not that God is not present to us, it’s that we
are not present to
God.
Is there something in
your life that is taking your focus away from
God’s presence with you? Look for God’s guiding presence
with you, and
God can help you with whatever has your attention.
Is there something
distracting you from God’s purpose for you? Like
Moses, God has important work for you to do in your life.
Pay attention to
God’s presence with you and you will find a renewed sense of
purpose in
your living.
Maybe you’re very
intentional about looking for God’s presence in
your life, but you haven’t seen anything. Sometimes we miss
God’s
presence because we don’t recognize God from the back. Did
you know that
God looks like other people from the back? Sometimes God
looks like
someone from our family or a close friend, who loves us and
wants to help
us grow into the people we were intended to be.
Sometimes God looks
like people like Cathy Arends. Cathy is a
minister and nurse who works with pregnant women who are
incarcerated at
the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women. Wendi, an
expectant
mother in the pastoral care program, says: "Ms. Cathy
was the only person
that saw any good in me. I knew from the first time we met
at the prison that
she saw me as a child of God with potential. It didn’t
matter to her what I
had done. She saw my future and was willing to stand by me.
Without her
presence during my long labor I don’t know what I would have
done. She
stayed with me throughout the night - she didn’t have to -
she wanted to. I
saw the face of God in her. Now I know God loves me, and I’m
never
coming back here." The mother of Shawanda, another
young woman wrote
to Cathy: “Without your steadfast love for my daughter, I am
afraid she
would have tried to kill herself. She told me she can feel
God’s love every
time you come to the prison. You have done more positive
things for her
than anyone in the past 7 years. I truly owe it to you that
she made the parole
board.” Shawanda and Wendi caught a glimpse of God when
Cathy Arends
walked by.
Pastor James Fenhagen
found that from the back, God looked a lot
like a group of Israeli and Palestinian parents who he says
“came to this
country to bear witness to the possibility of peace in the
Holy Land as seen
not by the political leaders, but by a number of grieving
parents.” “The first
speaker was an Israeli business man from Tel-Aviv who just
several weeks
before had lost his son in the conflict that is tearing the
Holy Land apart. He
was followed by a Palestinian woman who told of holding her
daughter in
her lap as her child died of gun fire. ‘We are here tonight,’
she said, ‘to tell
you how we have been brought together by our grief. We have
moved
beyond politics. We are together because we care for all our
children.’” That
night, as he listened, James said, “I saw the face of God in
the faces of those
men and women who had come together to share their lives
with us” (From
The Gift Of Pentecost, Pentecost, 2002 - Washington National
Cathedral,
The Rev. Canon James C. Fenhagen).
The scripture (1 John
4) tells us that God is love and wherever there is
self-giving, healing love, we can be sure God is there. Have
you seen
someone who looks a lot like God from the back, someone who
seems to
bring God’s love when they come into the room? Is there
someone you may
not even know personally, someone in the news, someone in
the community,
who seems to shine with the love, the compassionate face of
God?
You probably heard in
the news this week about Charles Moore, the
homeless man in Detroit who found $21,000 in bonds. He went
to his
counselors at the neighborhood service organization for help
in finding the
owners. He only received $100 reward money from the family.
A lot of
attention in the community and news was focused on the
stinginess of that
family, but my attention was glued to the generosity of the
strangers who
learned about it. Charles is a roofer by trade who lost his
job and became
homeless. Did you hear that he has received over $4000 which
he plans to
use to find a home, and the offer of a job? Those caring
strangers inspired
me. I caught a glimpse of God walking by.
More than anyone,
Jesus puts a human face on God. Jesus Christ
gives us a portrait of God’s concern for justice, God’s
tender compassion,
God’s healing power, God’s inclusive vision. God’s presence
was so
powerful in him, when Jesus walked by people said, “I think
we just saw
God.” So, first and last, look closely at the witness of the
life of Jesus and
the presence of the risen Christ in your own life.
Dare to discover
God’s presence in your life. Be present to God’s
presence. Pay attention to the ordinary gifts of grace and
love you are given,
while you’re taking care of other business. Notice those in
your life and in
our world who inspire you, who have a resemblance to God
from the back.
Look at the divine features in the face and life of Jesus.
You’ll catch a
glimpse of the back of God, as God passes through your life.
That’s more
powerful than anything you’ll see through Ticketmaster! Amen
All sermons appearing on the Centennial United Methodist Church
are licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.
