The last time I preached, I preached a one-point sermon. Jaime came up to me after that and said she was waiting for points 2 and 3. Stephen and Jimmy on the other hand said they liked it, since they only had one point to remember. Considering the various parties that went on last night, I thought it most appropriate to preach another one point sermon for your reflection on this first sunday of the year.
2 months ago during a Grapevines cell meeting, I asked the members to write down on a piece of paper the answers to 2 questions. Q1a: How has your understanding and perception of God changed since you joined Safehaven or FCC? Q1b: How has that new understanding changed your life? Each member sat in silence in their usual spots and scribbled down their answers. We then went round to share our answers with the group. Those in Grapevines will have to forgive me for not remembering all your answers. But I do remember a few which gave me the inspiration for today’s sermon. A few said that FCC opened their eyes and minds to appreciate that God can be much bigger and different from what they have been taught previously. There isn’t just one view of God, one correct view. Each sees a different side of God from his or her own experience, and understanding of scripture. I had expected answers along these lines when I first thought of the question. What about Q1b? How has this new understanding changed your life? There was a longer silence. This is not an easy question to answer. Very often we can point out new things we have heard, the latest gossip or relate a new experience. But our lives seem pretty much the same like the day, month or even year before. After some probing, a member said something that really struck a chord. He said, “ I miss the God I used to know.” To appreciate what he meant, let’s take a closer look at the FCC God that we are more familiar with in recent times.
The FCC God is a diverse God. He is somewhat diffused and ill-defined. Maybe I should say she is somewhat diffused and ill-defined. He/She is like a painting that is work-in-progress. Each one who comes to him, interacts with him, adds a little dab of colour here and a few lines there. It is mysterious. It is constantly evolving. The only certainty about this painting is the studio in which it sits. Actually it doesn’t even have to sit in any studio. But we place it there so that there is at least one unchanging factor about it. So from time to time we go to this studio, to see if any new strokes have been added. Sometimes someone draws something you readily identify with. At other times, some radical just splashes an entire tin of paint over it, threatening to deconstruct and redefine the painting you saw just the week before, the God you used to know.
The FCC God is also an all-inclusive God. He does not discriminate the way society discriminates. Are you fat? Better lose some weight. Fat people have lower market value, never mind the health issues. Are you effeminate? Better work on your broken wrists and how to walk straight because you are an embarrassment to your friends and you give them away. Somehow it is easier to see and appreciate this all-inclusive God if you were one of the marginalized yourself. Did God not create each one of us? Why accord a higher status to some over others? Why sideline someone just because he is the minority and somewhat unfamiliar to the majority? The all-inclusive FCC God means business when it comes to marginalized peoples. That is why he places high priority on social justice. The elderly and handicapped are remembered. The cause of the battered women must be supported. The helpless and disadvantaged foreign workers need a refuge.
All is well with the diverse God and the all-inclusive God in FCC. So what is the God that the cell member in Grapevines missed? He said ‘I used to feel a lot closer to God and that feel he understands even when nobody else does. I could feel that he cares for me. The FCC God is almost ideological. It is been like a battle of philosophies, with the unfathomable higher being and the champion of the poor coming out tops. It’s been a while since I feel the comfort of God in the challenges I face in my own life. The compassionate personal God is not often talked about in FCC. That’s the God I miss.’
Some of you may say,’Are you sure you want to talk about the God of comfort, the compassionate personal God? This is a bunch of inward-looking, emotional creatures who are prone to self-pity. They live in their little world and think that their problem is bigger than anyone else’s. They should go out and do more social work, and see how much more fortunate they are compared to so many others out there. That will help to put things in perspective. Actually, I wouldn’t argue with that. We do seem to have an endless list of issues that pervade so many areas of our lives. We often lapse in and out of depression for all sorts of reasons. But regardless of who we are and how problematic we are, God is still who he is.
I want to look briefly at the story of Jonah and attempt to find this God who seems to be missing in FCC. We will see how emotional and perhaps messed up Jonah was, how God God dealt with him. Many scholars believe that the book of Jonah is not a historical account. Perhaps it’s more like a parable where the author tries to convey a certain message and inevitably his understanding of God. In the story, God called Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh to preach against its wickedness. Jonah didn’t want to do it and ran away. He boarded a ship headed for Tarshish. God sent a ferocious storm and in order to save the rest of the people on board, Jonah asked to be thrown into the sea. A big fish came along and swallowed him up. Jonah spent 3 days and 3 nights in the fish belly. And from within the big fish, Jonah prayed,
2 He said:
"In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, 'I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.'
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God.
7 "When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.
8 "Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD."
10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah then obediently went to preach in Nineveh. Much to his surprise, the Ninevites put on sack cloth and believed in God. God had compassion on them and did not bring on the destruction he had threatened. Now Jonah the drama queen started his emotional see-sawing again. Jonah chapter 4:
1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."
4 But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"
5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."
9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"
"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."
10 But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
Despite the issues Jonah had, the numerous times he wanted to end his life and how childish he may sound, God patiently tended to him. God spoke to him, provided for him, teased him with the worm, reasoned with him. Yet at the same time, he has not forgotten the 120,000 in Nineveh. He dealt personally with Jonah, not forsaking the 120,000 who cannot tell their right hand from their left. Likewise, here in FCC you may be another Jonah, full of nonsense and high drama, myself included. Is God the personal compassionate God who cares for you as he cared for Jonah. Of course he is. Yet at the same time, the Filipino sisters from HOME, the handicapped who performed for Nation in Concert, the old folks in Toa Payoh are also very much on his mind.
It is my personal belief, and no one needs to agree with me on this, if week after week we preach sermons that appeal to the emotions of our members, initially we will draw in great numbers but in no time there will be no one left in this church. We would have shipwrecked everyone’s faith. Human beings turn to religion to make sense of the world and their existence in this vast universe, Christians included. When we only use our emotional faculty to look at life’s problems, we become lazy and stop using our minds. It’s far easier to leave everything in God’s hands, hide behind the front of religiosity, God Hallelujah and Amen to everything, then to rationalize the relevance of a 2000 yr old bible to the issues we face today. One of the issues we face today is loneliness. Many of us are single and there is immense loneliness inside. We may hee-hee-ha-ha when we are out with our friends. But when we go home, we try to sleep away the deep longing for a special someone. Tell me where in the bible can you find answers on how to deal with loneliness as a gay person in Singapore? Am I saying God doesn’t care? Of course not. It’s just not there in the bible. It’s something we have to help each other rationalize and relate to our faith. Even the most religious gay Christian knows no amount of Hallelujah Amens is going to make a partner fall from the sky. Even if that happens, no amount of Hallelujah Amens is going to make the relationship work without a lot of common sense, hardwork and learning through experience.
When I first come out as a student in London, I met this American who was 10 years older. He was previously a US Marine during the cold war, outstationed in many exotic locations in Europe like Iceland and Madeira, trying to track Soviet submarines. That’s the wonderful thing about living in London. You get to meet all sorts of interesting people. Here in Singapore, we all have the same boring jobs. Anyway, it could have been another Jo & Jorg story, but it didn’t turn out that way. While I was a newbie in this business of relationships, Paul has been there done that. He knew what he was looking for in a relationship and had realistic expectations. He was able to look beyond my nonsense, and worked hard at the relationship. For some reason there was this strong need in me to be understood. Perhaps I felt no one understood me when I was growing up, I don’t know. Many of our problems arose because I didn’t get the understanding I wanted. 3 times I broke up with him. 3 times I went back to him and he said OK. In end I broke up with him for the 4th and last time. I knew I was wasting his time. Now many years on as I look back, I feel very sorry for Paul that he had to go through all that. I was fresh and green then. I had to learn more about myself and from mistakes. During those painful times, did I run to God for comfort? Of course I did. But I also knew, Christian or not, we learn how to relate to people through experience. Christian or not, if there are issues in our lives, we need to seek help to work through them.
In closing, let me summarise the one point in this sermon: It is clear from the experience of those before us that God is a personal and compassionate God who takes time to deal with his people sometimes at great lengths. Just as Jonah, Naomi, David, Job and even Jesus himself have beat their breasts and cried out to God in times of their distress, so can we pour out our hearts to God and expect him to be there. Let us also understand that there is no easy answers to life’s questions, and the answers do not fall off the pages of the bible nor just from hours of relentless prayers. We need to help each other rationalize and relate the realities we face in this world to our faith. May God guide us as a church as we do that this coming year. Amen.
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