Sermon - Do You Believe in Divine Intervention?

     That Sufi rascal Nasrudin was one day throwing handfuls of crumbs around his house. "What are you doing?" asked his neighbor. "Keeping the tigers away," answered Nasrudin. "But Nasrudin, there are no tigers in these parts." "That's right!" said Nasrudin. "That's proof crumbs work!" So, what is the truth? Did Nasrudin's breadcrumbs keep the tigers away-or was he simply believing what he wanted to believe?

     Several days after Hurricane Katrina, a story was published in USA Today. In the last few days of August, Edward and Bettina Larsen and their three children sailed their boat to the Florida Keys. As hurricane warnings were posted, the Larsens' friends were concerned that they hadn't returned. The friends notified the Coast Guard. But due to the high winds and rough seas, the Coast Guard was forced to call off the search. A day after the storm passed, the Coast Guard resumed the search and miraculously spotted the family of five on a mangrove island, stranded near their beached boat about 16 miles out at sea. One by one they were hoisted into a Coast Guard helicopter. Commenting on the rescue, a family friend said, "Sometimes there is a thing called divine intervention." Divine intervention: mere coincidence, good fortune or fate? It depends on how you look at it.

     Shortly after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and southern Mississippi, a post appeared on a Web site sympathetic to al-Qaeda. The post said "the hurricane was a divine sign against the corrupt crusading America. The hurricane should be taken as a warning to America that even with its military force and technology, nothing can be done to thwart the power of Allah who guides humanity as he sees fit." In other words God created the hurricane as punishment like the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Divine intervention--suffering as well as joy.

     Some saved from the storm believe they were saved by an act of divine intervention. Some claim the storm itself was intervention in the form of punishment. What we see depends on where we stand.

     Do you believe that God sometimes interferes or intervenes, altering the course of peoples lives or changing the direction of history? Most people I know would like to believe in divine intervention that takes a positive form, as in answered prayer.

     When people say God has answered their prayers, they usually mean they have gotten what they asked for. Then there is the old saw, "If God hasn't given you what you've prayed for, maybe the answer is no!" And then there's another point of view that what happens or doesn't happen has nothing to do with God. You are going to get what you get, don't blame it on God - good and bad things just happen because that's the way life is.

     In his early 20th Century Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder writes about an 18th Century Peruvian village and a bridge spanning a high gulf in the mountains over which hundreds of travelers passed every day. One day, a Catholic monk, Brother Juniper, stopped to wipe his forehead and gaze upon "the screen of snowy peaks in the distance, then into the gorge below him filled with the dark plumage of green trees and green birds. . . . He felt at peace. Then his glance fell upon the bridge, and at that moment a twanging noise filled the air, as when the string of some musical instrument snaps. . . . and he saw the bridge divide and fling five gesticulating people into the valley below." And immediately the thought occurred to Brother Juniper, "Why did this thing happen to those five?" At that instant he resolved to investigate the lives of the five victims.

     At the end of it all, Brother Juniper concluded that of those five, none was any better or worse - none was more religious, more righteous. They were good, well- meaning, normal people. "Why those five?" Brother Juniper asked. Why not some divine intervention to keep them from stepping on that bridge?

     When I was a six-year-old, my Aunt Juanita was preparing to catch a train from LA to San Diego. Just as she stepped aboard, her youngest son, Randy, began to cry out. Somehow she had kissed Randy's two older brothers good-bye but not him. Stepping back from the train she hurried to Randy, gave him a big, long hug and kiss. Turning around she saw the train move. She ran but couldn't catch it. It turned out that the train she missed later crashed, killing scores of the people aboard. In my family this story became a proof of divine intervention. A few of them even insisted God caused my cousin Randy to cry and yell out so his mother would miss the train.

     But one cannot help but ask if you are spared a train crash, a plane crash, what makes you think that you are so special as to be spared while others die? Belief in divine intervention is based on the premise that God is an activist - the word intervention implies that God steps in between us and the events of our lives.. A God that intervenes is also a personal God.

     But projecting onto God our egos and attributes, we shrink-wrap divinity. By its very nature divine intervention requires belief in a person-like being who thinks the way we think.

     I do not believe in a personal God. By this I mean that I do not believe that God is at my beck and call to answer my prayers or do what I need done. Your experience may be different. When I say God is impersonal I mean that God does not seek me out individually. God does not have human attributes - God is not ego driven. We see the world as made up of separate things we relate to personally. God is the all-pervasive divine spirit. God doesn't zap some of us and favor others. God is everywhere all the time. We experience God personally, but God is impersonal.

     If you go to the lake for a swim, you'll get wet. The wetness of the lake is a personal experience. But the lake doesn't come looking for you. It's vast and available but it's not going to find its way to you individually-it's there if you decide to get wet. It doesn't seek us out personally but if we want to jump in, we feel it.

     This is not a perfect metaphor, but it moves us in the right direction. It has not been my experience that God appears in my life like a pop-up on my computer screen, magically appearing between me and my difficulties, only to blow them away. Quite the opposite. I've never had a pain, a grief, a crisis, a hard time that I haven't had to go through without intervention. It's not that God has been absent, it's just that God hasn't jumped in to deliver me. God did not intervene between me and my manic episode some 13 years ago. God did not intervene between my car and the fellow that hit it, totaling the car and breaking my ribs 10 years ago. God has not intervened in my life, and looking back I see this was a good thing. Divine intervention is not an aid to spiritual growth but quite the opposite. Wanting, praying for an intervention is actually a defense against facing ourselves and facing our lives.

     In today's lesson from Acts we heard these words: "God is not far from each one of us, for in God we live and move and have our being." So many people want a God who is like a sugar daddy who bails us out by changing our circumstances - our external conditioning or at least defending us - a bulwark never failing - God the might fortress.

     I talk to a lot of people whose lives are in upheaval. They would like for God to defend them against pain, suffering and uncertainty. But this simply doesn't happen. They are going through a divorce or struggling with other family issues. They have lost a job, lost hope or lost their capacity to believe that life is meaningful. Whenever people come in to talk about what is happening in their lives, generally they come not expecting an intervention or protection. They come because they need someone to listen, someone to be present. They need to sit with someone who will hear them without judgment. They need a witness. I am often amazed that when they leave they say they feel better. I'm amazed because I haven't really done anything. The only thing I've done is to be as present as I can possibly be.

     We all do this for our friends and family all the time. It's not that we can change the situation; but we can be open, present and compassionate-and at a profound level this is what changes everything.

     Asking for divine intervention is to believe that God is a person-like being who will come to the rescue. Whenever I hear people jubilantly tell me that God has intervened, performed a miracle, saved them from death, I understand the momentary bliss. But I can't help but scratch my head. "Yeah," I think. "God has saved you this time, but do you expect God to keep getting you out of unpleasant situations? And one hundred years from now what difference will it make that you dodged this bullet?" More than an intervention, which lasts a few moments, we need the experience of an enduring Presence that lasts an eternity.

     Our deepest need is not for divine intervention but for divine Presence. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called this divine pathos-meaning that we human beings have an innate sympathy for God-one might even say we are heartsick for God-we are heartsick and homesick. We long not for a Presence that keeps us from facing life, but for a Presence that helps us to outshine whatever difficulty we are in. What we really long for is not a Presence that will change the current situation, but a Presence that will change us, regardless of our circumstance. The most astonishing truth is that this divine Presence is available and accessible all of the time to one and all. If from the depths of our hearts we ask for it, we will receive it. If with all our strength we seek it, we will find it. Better than a temporary fix, divine Presence satisfies our deepest longing. For what we fear the most is not that things won't turn out right, but that however things turn out, we will be alone. But once we know we're not, there's nothing left to fear.

Blessed be