Bidden or Not Bidden

Live Oak, April 7, 2007

Easter Vigil

Rev. Kathleen Ellis

I was walking through the neighborhood the other day and stopped at a house for a closer look. My attention was taken by a stone etched with these words: “BIDDEN OR NOT BIDDEN GOD IS WITH YOU.” I took those words with me for the rest of my walk. Presumably God went with me, too—in fact, I’m sure of it. I think it must have been the Not Bidden God, because I had been absorbed in admiration of the beauty and color from blossom to blossom. The words, though, were enough to raise my awareness that this is God’s world, not my own. And there were signs of nature’s resurrection everywhere I turned.

People tend to look for God in houses of worship. Those who fail to find God there prefer to wander the highways and byways of God’s world. My cousin Martin was like that. After years in Dunlap Presbyterian Church, when the building was sold and the congregation merged with another one, he just never got back into the new system. He and his wife Linda found God more readily in the woodlands, hills, rivers, and bayous where they wandered. They saw God in a variety of wildlife and in their own gardens. Orchids and iris were his favorite flowers. Sacred music lifted his heart far beyond any church experience.

Countless millions prefer the natural world to feel close to God. Still . . . major holidays that celebrate the birth and death of Jesus draw millions of Christian believers into crowded churches to hear once more the ancient stories with which we grew up or encountered as adults.

“The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation,” writes the psalmist in thanks for deliverance in battle. “His steadfast love endures forever.”

Though I have not been engaged in battle, there have been troubled times in my life when I was grateful for the sense that God was with me. Pain became my shroud and shield from further harm, yet God could whisper in my ear, bidden, as my spirit cried out for sustenance. As a young child, Jesus was my friend and companion especially when I was lonely or afraid. Today I am more likely to speak of the Spirit as that third aspect of God who resides with me and flows through us and around us.

We need for God to be with us, bidden or not bidden. God shows up when we need support and we don’t even know how or why to ask. Love one another, taught Jesus. But how? All the time? If you want more love in the world, it will have to start with you and you and you and me.

When I was a chaplain at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, I became acquainted with a 17-year old and his family—father, mother, and younger brother. They expected me to come to his room every day to pray with them. They also summoned the chaplain-on-call whenever there was additional medical news, good or bad. I was very much impressed by how cognizant they all were of God’s presence with them in all times and all places.

The good: When their son’s brain scan was clear, they called me in and we gave thanks. The bad: When the blood counts went down, we prayed to invite God ever more deeply into our hearts and for his ultimate recovery. The outcome: In the end, the young man died—relief from pain and illness came only through death. I know God was with him and his family. God was with the hospital staff when we had our quarterly services in memory of all who had died and in celebration of their lives.

Years later, I was chaplain to families whose sons and daughters were killed or injured in the collapse of Bonfire at Texas A&M University. Families arrived on campus and one of us accompanied them to find out about their kids. Phone lines were jammed, so we sent runners with lists of students who had been pulled out and taken to one of the hospitals. The twelfth student died the day after his family and I prayed over his bed in ICU. Friends, families, brothers, sisters, and complete strangers called upon God to be with them in their time of sorrow and disbelief. And God was there, bidden. These were extreme and traumatic moments—and the people called out to God. The memorial has become a sacred place to remember and to pray.

Over two thousand years ago, there must have been a similar response. Jesus died, He was entombed, and on the third day the tomb was empty, the stone had been rolled away. Sorrow, fear, and disbelief washed over his people. They prayed. Alone or huddled in sorrowful little groups, they prayed. Then Jesus appeared among them. Was he real? Was this illusion? They never let him die and he lives today.

The end result is that over time, the people came to believe that this indeed was the Messiah who had lived and walked among them. For lo these thousands of years and these hundred or more generations Christians have declared that God is with us no matter what. Jesus, the son of God, was one of us.

In ordinary times, away from Christmas and Easter and away from trauma, we can blissfully go on our way without even acknowledging God’s presence. God is very patient with us. The beauty of creation shines through the bone-chilling wind and freezing rain; the beauty of humanity’s potential shines through the life of Jesus.

A progressive Jew, Jesus radically transformed the spirit of the law by making it require of us more love, more light, more service, more prayer. Let the teachings of Jesus enter your heart. Rejoice that he continues to live on—no grave could hold him; no hardship could overcome his followers. May we continue to live in the spirit of an extraordinarily wise one: one of us.

Amen