April 23, 2011 - Easter Vigil, Year A (RCL)
Recently
a six year old girl in Scotland
was given a task in her church affiliated school.
It was a simple one, to write a letter to God.
And this is what she wrote.
“To God, How did you get invented?”
Her father
doesn’t believe in God.
So he decided to refer it to the experts. He sent her letter
to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
and this was the response:
“Dear Lulu,
Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –
‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.
Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.
But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’
And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.
I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.
+Archbishop Rowan”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100084843/a-six-year-old-girl-
writes-a-letter-to-god-and-the-archbishop-of-canterbury-answers/
Tonight
we have heard the story
of how God was invented,
or, more to the point,
the stories of some of those times
when God sent hints to people
to help them get closer to knowing
what God is really like.
We began with the story
of the creation of the world.
In the very beginning
before there was anything else
there was God.
And God decided to invent the world.
And began with the universe and put in it
our world,
and added the sun and the moon and the stars,
and the sea and the land,
and birds and fish and animals and plants.
And then, most important of all, at least to us, is that God invented human beings, and invented us
to be a little bit
like God.
And it was all
very good.
And then God had a rest.
And that story shows us
that God likes inventing things,
and God likes things that are good,
and that we’re a little bit like God,
and that after we’re done working, we should rest.
And then we heard
another story.
About God’s friend
Abraham.
God had given Abraham
a new place to live,
and a child, a son, called Isaac.
And God asked Abraham
to sacrifice his son.
Not because he wanted to hurt Isaac, but to see if Abraham
really loved him. And Abraham was about to do
what God had asked,
when God sent an angel to stop him.
And God knew
that Abraham really loved him
and would do whatever he asked.
And God blessed Abraham, and his son Isaac
as well.
And so we know
that God likes giving people gifts,
but God also wants us to love him,
more than anything else in the world,
and to do what he asks.
But God won’t deliberately
hurt us. In fact
he wants to bless us.
And the next story
was about God’s people,
escaping from the Egyptians.
God had made Pharaoh
let them go,
and they had almost made it far enough
that Pharaoh's army wouldn’t chase them.
But then they came to a big stretch of water
that blocked their way.
And God pushed the water out of the way,
and helped Moses
lead the people through.
And the army
couldn’t follow.
And God saved his people, just like
he promised.
And now we know
that God makes promises to people,
and what’s more,
God keeps them,
even when it means having to do something
dramatic.
The next reading
didn’t really tell a story so much as give advice.
It focussed on wisdom,
on how important it is
to be wise,
to use your brain,
to think
before you speak,
and not just to say things that are right
but to live them.
It sounds like common
sense,
until you realize
that in Proverbs, the book where we find these words,
wisdom isn’t just something abstract.
Wisdom is described as a person.
And if you remember from the New Testament,
in the letter to the Corinthians,
the person who is described as wisdom
is Jesus Christ.
Jesus is
the wisdom of God.
And so we know
that not only is being wise important, in what we say and in what we do,
and not only is God wise,
but God is at the very heart of all wisdom.
When we are wise, God is at work
in and through us.
And that’s exactly where God wants to be - at work in us.
The fifth story
was the story of a prophet Ezekiel, and his dream, his vision.
He saw a valley full of bones, long dead and piled up,
and God commanded him to preach to the bones
and suddenly the bones began to rub against one another, and then to rattle, and then they formed together into skeletons,
and the more he preached, the more they formed, and they got ligaments and muscles and skin, and became bodies,
and then a wind came up
and blew into them
and they came to life.
And the story of the vision shows us
that God is the one
who brings life to everything,
not just in the beginning, in creation,
but things that have died.
And anywhere there is destruction and death
God can bring life.
Five stories, five hints about who God
really is.
We know that God likes inventing good things,
and God made us.
We know
that God likes giving people gifts, and blessing us, and wants us to love him.
We know
that God makes promises to people,
and God keeps them.
We know
that God thing being wise is important, and
God is at the heart of our wisdom.
And we know
that God is the one
who brings life to everything,
even things
that have died.
We know a lot
about God.
But there’s one last story,
and that’s the most important one of all. It’s such a big hint
that it’s hardly a hint at all.
It’s like until now
we’ve had a whole bunch of arrows
all pointing us in a certain direction,
but now we actually get to see
what it is
that the arrows
are pointing at.
It’s Jesus.
And not just Jesus as a baby, with shepherds and angels,
or Jesus wandering round the countryside, teaching and healing.
This is Jesus who was crucified on a cross,
and Jesus who God raised back to life, defeating death
once and for all.
And so we know
that God loves us so much
that he sent his own Son,
to live and to die and to rise again
for our sake,
and we know
that thanks to Jesus
God forgives us, and promises us new life, now,
and when we die.
It’s the story of God,
that we heard tonight,
the story
not of how God was invented,
but how God invented this world of ours to be,
and us with it.
It’s the story of God,
and our story too,
we who have been baptized
and died with Christ
and now join him
in resurrection life.
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
The Lord is risen indeed! Allelluia!
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010