Coincidence or Providence? Driving through Zelie

Click Here to Listen to This Sermon

Numbers 22:22-35

August 25, 2013

God’s anger was kindled because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand; so the donkey turned off the road, and went into the field; and Balaam struck the donkey, to turn it back on to the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it scraped against the wall, and scraped Balaam’s foot against the wall; so he struck it again. Then the angel of the Lord went ahead, and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam; and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?’ Balaam said to the donkey, ‘Because you have made a fool of me! I wish I had a sword in my hand! I would kill you right now!’ But the donkey said to Balaam, ‘Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you in this way?’ And he said, ‘No.’

 Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed down, falling on his face. The angel of the Lord said to him, ‘Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me, and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away from me, surely I would by now have killed you and let it live.’ Then Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, ‘I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now therefore, if it is displeasing to you, I will return home.’ The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, ‘Go with the men; but speak only what I tell you to speak.’ So Balaam went on with the officials of Balak.

            I think this story about Baalam is really interesting, and I think this for two reasons. The first reason demonstrates my immaturity, but the second reason has to do with the fact that Balaam’s story demonstrates how God often works in ways we neither expect nor appreciate.

            Let’s start with the reason that has to do with my immaturity. I’ve always found the Balaam story to be funny the way it was translated in the older versions of the Bible. In newer versions of the Bible it says that Balaam died his donkey to a tree and walked a ways to meet the king, Balak. But in older versions, where donkeys were called “asses,” it says that Balaam tied his ass to a tree and walked a mile. See, I told you I’m immature.

            Still, when I tap into my more spiritually mature moments, I recognize that this story reveals a lot about our experiences of God, and how God uses the supernatural to impact us. Our passage takes place after Balaam has begged God to let him speak to King Balak about the Jews. Neither one are Jewish, but Balaam is still considered to be God’s prophet. And he feels the need to speak to Balak, but God forbids it. Balaam begs, and finally God relents. Then, after further consideration, God decides that this is not what Balaam should do, so he sends an angel to appear to Balaam’s donkey, blocking the path with a flaming sword. Why not appear to Balaam, too? It doesn’t say, but I have a theory: it has to do with the fact that at this point Balaam is interested mainly in his own interests and plans, not God’s. Balaam is closed off to God. But the donkey, being a creature of God, is still open to God. The point is that whether we experience God or not often has more to do with our own openness to God then with God’s availability to us.

            This leads me to my own coincidental/providential experience, which eventually led me to come to Calvin Church. I had something of a Balaam experience the first time I drove through Zelienople. It wasn’t quite the same. There were no donkeys or angels that I could see, nor any beatings. But there were things going on in terms of where God wanted me to eventually serve as pastor.

            At the time I was in the midst of taking the year off to write my Ph.D. dissertation. I also had just begun the process of interviewing with churches for my return to ministry once my dissertation was completed. Diane and I were living in the North Park in a house surrounded by fields, trees, turkey, and deer. I was spending six to eight hours a day reading and writing. I had recently finished writing the first three chapters of what became a 10-chapter, 400 page dissertation.

            I had recently sent to my first and second supervising professors (we call them “readers”) my introduction and Chapter 1. Like many Ph.D. candidates writing their dissertations, I sent mine off, convinced (or hoping) that my erudition, insight, and writing would amaze my professors. I sent off a pristine package of pages, proud of my work and expecting the best. Several weeks later I received back these same pages, covered in red ink. Everything was torn apart. My sentence structure wasn’t good enough. My citations weren’t done properly enough. My insights were criticized. My conclusions were questioned. Almost all Ph.D. candidates have similar experience, and when we do we go into a bit of a funk since our egos have been squashed. I was no different. Receiving the first round of critiques from my first reader crushed me. Then he delivered worse news: “Scott, your second reader, should be sending his comments by the end of next week.” And when I received them, there was even more red ink. I was left feeling depressed.

            Diane, trying to talk me off the ledge, had an idea to cheer me up. She suggested that we go to Sharon, Pennsylvania to try the wings at Quaker Steak & Lube. You may not know this, but I am a big fan of chicken wings. In fact, having spent a number of years playing in lacrosse tournaments in the Buffalo, New York area, I became a bit of a wing snob. Back then I could eat wings all the time. Unfortunately, since then I’ve also found that you really can’t eat wings all the time because they’ll not only end up in your belly, but bulging your belly. Anyway, she tempted me by telling me that they had a reputation as having the best wings in the world. I wasn’t going to let that challenge go untested.

            We decided to drive there via route 19 to see the fall foliage, which meant we had to pass through Zelienople. I was singing along to whatever song was on the radio as we crested the hill to descend into Zelie. Immediately I was intrigued. I had never seen the town before because I had always passed by along I-79.

            As we drove through Zelienople, I kept saying to Diane, “Now this is the kind of place I’d like to live.  Look at this!”  Something deep was striking me about the town. It felt almost like I was driving through home. We drove around the town, looking, and as I passed by all the churches I commented on them, saying things like, “Now that church would not be a good church to be a pastor of because there is no room to grow. That church there has potential, but it is too close to the surrounding buildings.” We took a right on 68, just to see what was there. As we approached Calvin Church, I said, “Wow, that’s a church with potential. You can see that it has room to grow, and if you just look at the sign out front, you can tell it’s a church that isn’t stuck in the past” (you’d be surprised what you can tell about a place by even the most inane things). I then wondered, “What are the chances that they would be looking for a pastor?” I had asked that question more in jest than seriously. It seemed unlikely that I would consider Calvin Church because at the time I was working on starting a new church in the North Hills of Pittsburgh.

            We turned around, got back onto route 19, and I didn’t think much about it again. Eventually we got to Sharon, had our wings (which were good, but not as good as the ones from the place I consider to be the pinnacle of wingdom: Mammoser's Tavern in Hamburg, NY), and came back home via I-79.

            8 months later I was contacted about an opening at Calvin Presbyterian Church. It floored me. Was this the church I looked at? I had to find out, so I sent in my forms to be considered for the position of pastor. Still, it didn’t occur to me that I would actually come here. I was really just hedging my bets. As I mentioned, I had been working on starting a new kind of church in the North Hills area, and was working on it with Pittsburgh Presbytery. At first, that experience had been positive, but recently it was becoming more difficult. I was experiencing resistance from some of the other churches who saw this new church idea as a threat to their churches.

            The idea I had for a church was VERY different from new churches being developed at the time. Those churches were built on contemporary Christian praise music and small groups. I wanted to create a church grounded in spiritual growth, where pushing people to grow deeper spiritually through worship would be a focus. As to music, I had a novel idea. I had come to the realization that in life virtually no one listened to only one kind of music. When most people get in their cars, they listen to some sort of combination of pop, classic rock, country, r&b, classical, jazz, talk, and news. They move around the dial, looking for songs they like more than just genres that they like. Almost no one listened to just one form of music (in a poll this past Sunday morning, on how many just listened to classical, only 4 out of 200 in attendance raised their hands), so why only offer one kind of music in worship. Most people listen to a variety. So let’s offer music of every kind. I also wanted worship that integrated prayer, silence, praise, weekly communion, preaching in a conversational way, and a number of other ideas culled from different Christian traditions. No one had a name for this kind of worship. I discovered ten years later that a new name had since emerged, which is “emergent.” I was trying to start a church much like the Hot Metal Community Church on Pittsburgh’s Southside, but in the suburbs.

            While developing my ideas for that church, I also interviewed with other, more established churches. I had turned down offers from some because I felt more called to start this new church. In the midst of all this, the search committee from Calvin Church contacted me to interview me. Could they come and hear me preach? Since I wasn’t serving in a church, the best I could do was to have them come and see me teach a class at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon. The committee decided to drive down on a night of driving rains and high winds. The committee not only watched me teach, but afterwards decided to pull chairs in a circle and interview me. When members of Southminster suggested that the classroom was being shut down, and people were going to other events, the committee said, “That’s okay, we’ll straighten up and turn the lights off.”  We then had a 45-minute, laughter-filled interview. Once again, I was starting to become intrigued by Zelienople.

            Several months later, the committee invited me to be the next pastor. I turned them down, saying I was committed to seeing if I could start a new church. They wouldn’t let me turn them down. They said, “What if we just agree that you decide in December, after the presbytery decides whether or not to go forward. If they do, we’ll keep looking. If they don’t, you come here.” Again, an amazing response. It really seemed like God was all through my contacts with Zelienople and Calvin Church.

            In December of 1995 we took the new church idea before Pittsburgh Presbytery. Some pastors walked out of the meeting early, protesting the idea and stating that money shouldn’t go into this church, but should go only to inner city churches. The evangelicals complained that the idea wasn’t evangelical enough, with one pastor stating that only contemporary churches can work in the suburbs. Others complained that it wasn’t liberal enough. It was an awful experience, made worse by the fact that I wasn’t allowed to defend myself, or the church idea, because of procedural rules. Then, some of the pastors made false charges about my motivation for proposing the idea, with one pastor standing up and saying to the whole assembly, “Graham’s only proposing this because he can’t find a church anywhere else willing to take him!” By this point, I had actually turned down several offers from other churches, was holding onto an offer from Calvin Church and another that had just come in from Columbus, Ohio, and was in the interview process with three others in Maryland and Philadelphia. I understand why he said it, though. Three pastors of the North Hills had met with me two months before over lunch, and had said point blank to me, “We’re worried you are going to take our members, so we’re going to do whatever we can to make sure you don’t get this thing off the ground.” They had told this pastor that I was only doing this out of desperation. One of the three apologized to me three weeks after their lunch with me. He did speak on behalf of the new church idea at that presbytery meeting. Still, the meeting had become so toxic that the members decided to table the vote for the February meeting. I walked away knowing that this new church idea really wasn’t God’s will for me.

            I’m not sure whether the new church idea originally was God’s idea or my own, but the negativity and toxicity that had begun to surround it had become much like an angel appearing before the donkey and Balaam. Perhaps I was seeing for the first time what God really wanted. I walked away from that meeting, got home and cried for 10 minutes, called up the chair of the Calvin Presbyterian Church search committee, and told her that I was coming to Calvin Church. What had begun almost a year earlier with a trip to get chicken wings turned into a clear sense of God’s calling to come to Zelienople.

            From these coincidences, these God-incidence providences, I’ve learned a number of lessons, but I want to share two.

            The first lesson is that just because we don’t sense God, that doesn’t mean God’s not doing anything. We generally depend upon our seeing and hearing when deciding whether or not God is doing anything in our lives, or in life in general. If we can’t see or hear tangible evidence of God working, we tend to think with some certainty that God either isn’t doing anything, or that God doesn’t exist.

            I’ve discovered, through my experiences, that God is often doing many things beyond our grasp. Sometimes we catch glimpses, such as my driving through Zelienople, but because we don’t think it’s significant at the time we don’t attach it to God. In those cases, the most insignificant seeming things can eventually become the most. At other times we catch no glimpses, but time passes and we look back, discovering that God had been doing things all along, bringing events together, and making things happen in areas we never knew. For example, at the same time I was driving through Zelienople, Calvin Church was just hiring an interim pastor and getting ready to create a search committee. Just because I didn’t know that didn’t mean that God wasn’t doing anything.

            A second lesson I learned is that we have to learn to become spiritually sensitive, recognizing any moment or any experience as being potentially filled with God. I’ve learned that our inability to see or sense God often has to do with our own lack of sensitivity. We have to learn to become open to God, asking “what do you want,” rather than “God, do what I want.”

           

            The big question is, how do you get to be that open? For Christians there’s a simple formula: Way follows Will. If your will is in the right place, where you really put your will in a place where you want to discover God, the way will become clear. Often we confuse this, thinking that will must follow way. In other words, if God shows us the way, we will will it to be so. But in the Christian life, way follows will. This is a common message throughout Scripture. When we will what God wills, the way to discover God’s will becomes apparent because God reveals it to us. God leads us to learn how to pray, how to read Scripture, how to worship, how to live. The point is that we have to put our will in the right place, and if we do, God will help us to find the way.

            So, in summary, God is doing something in your life right now. The question is, are you ready to discover it?

            Amen.

Coincidenses or Providences? Why Was I Invited to the Wedding?

Click Here to Listen to This Sermon

John 2:1-11

August 18, 2013

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

            Over the course of the summer Connie and I have been exploring the nature of Christian coincidence, God-incidence, and providence in people’s lives. We’ve been telling stories both about ourselves and of others, digging in to learn what these coincidences can teach us about God and life.

            This morning I want to share with you a coincidence that changed the course of my life, not necessarily leading me to a change of careers or something like that, but to a change of focus. It was a coincidence that led me to permanently form a passion to Christian spirituality and for connecting with and experiencing God. 

            I want to take you back to 1989, when I was an associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. When I first became an associate there, my job was not to lead the youth group, but because prior to my becoming a pastor most of my life had been immersed in work with children and youth, I was asked to spend at least a year resurrecting heir youth program, which had lapsed to just 5 teens. I had worked with mentally retarded children during the summers while in college, had done an internship as a probation office for the Roanoke, Virginia, City Probation Office, had worked as a therapist in a psychiatric hospital, and had worked some with inner city kids while in seminary, it made sense to ask me to help.

           

            One of the things I really wanted to do with the teens was to expose them to a different way of thinking spiritually. I wanted to expose them to prayer, a sense of God’s immediate presence, and to a sense that God works in ways that go beyond rational thinking and typical human thought.

            As part of that process, I invited two young women to come and speak to the youth group about their spiritual experiences. One woman’s name was Betsy, and I asked her to come because her family had been heavily involved in leading people from around the country on pilgrimages to Medjugorje, a small town in what was then Yugoslavia, where 8 young people had been having apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Many people who had taken these pilgrimages had had both intense spiritual experiences and healings, and I wanted her to talk about them with our youth. 

            I also invited a friend of hers’, Anne, who had had her own healing experience in Medjugorje. Both Betsy and Anne \ had been classmates (I think) of my high school girlfriend’s sister, so I had known them through her. Anne’s story was inspirational, and Betsy was tremendous in adding other stories of events and experiences that augmented what Anne had to say.

            Back in the late 1980s, Anne had contracted what today is called the Epstein-Barr virus. At the time it was not recognized as a virus. Instead, it was called “yuppie syndrome” or chronic fatigue syndrome. The virus originally showed up among young urban professionals in New York City (yuppies), and because so many people had nothing but scorn for them, the illness wasn’t taken seriously for a long time. In fact, it was often considered to be a mental problem. Those suffering from the illness had chronic, debilitating fatigue somewhat like mononucleosis, except that it would not go away.  Anne suffered from this, and her doctors told her that it was all in her mind. 

            For Anne, her illness was so bad that she had trouble getting the energy to feed herself.  She told me that just bringing a spoon to her mouth took tremendous energy. She was on the verge of committing suicide. She had no energy, couldn’t work, and everyone told her it was all a psychological problem. Then her friend, Betsy, made a suggestion. She was going to visit Medjugorie, and invited Anne to come along with her. Anne was resistant at first, especially because the thought of making the pilgrimage would require more energy than she had. In the end she realized that she had to do something, so she went along. It was there that she experienced God.

            One day, she climbed a small mountain outside of the town where a priest, who was known for healing prayers, was promising to pray for anyone who joined him. Anne said climbing that mountain felt like climbing Mt. Everest. When she got to the top, she received prayers from the priest. Often pilgrims to Medjugorje report having an interesting experience immediately prior a healing experience. They smell roses. This is considered to be a gift from the Virgin Mary, since the rose is a symbol of Mary. Anne smelled roses on that mountaintop. The day was windy, and any sprayed scent would have wafted away, but this smell was constant and it filled her nose and body. As the priest prayed, something like electricity went through Anne, and she felt tremendously loved by God.  She heard a voice saying something along the lines of “My grace is all you need. I will be with you no matter what.”  She told me that for three days it was difficult to talk with anyone because this feeling of God’s love and presence overwhelmed her so.

            This experience didn’t lead to an immediate healing, but it did lead to a sense that God was with her and that God would help her overcome her illness. In telling all of this, the youth group was mesmerized. They had many questions for Anne and Betsy.

            A few weeks after they spoke to our youth, I received an invitation to Betsy’s wedding. I didn’t know Betsy well, and normally wouldn’t have been invited, but I think it was Betsy’s way of thanking me for inviting them, two Roman Catholics, to a Presbyterian youth group to talk about experiences of healing with Mary.

            Betsy didn’t know that this invitation caused a bit of strife between Diane, my wife, and me. We were dating then, and the day of Betsy’s wedding was the same day as Diane’s best friend, Maria’s, wedding. Diane insisted that since I didn’t know Betsy that well, I should skip her wedding and only go to Maria’s. I told her that I thought I should really go to Betsy’s, but I didn’t know why. We agreed I’d go to Betsy’s wedding, and then come to Maria’s reception.

            So, I went to the wedding. At the reception, Betsy’s Mother, Jan, pulled me aside and said, “I really have to introduce you to Father Rick Byrne. He’s the priest who celebrated the wedding mass. He’s also the executive director of the spirituality program at Duquesne. You both have a lot in common. You should talk.”  With that, she left Rick and me alone. I had heard of the program Rick directed several years before when I was serving as a summer chaplain intern in a hospital in Washington, D.C. I had thought then that I wanted to study there, and possibly get a Ph.D. when I’m in my 40s or 50s. I wanted to wait till after any kids I had went to college. Rick and I talked a long tie about spirituality. It was great. Afterwards, we both agreed we should meet again and talk about me going to Duquesne to get my Ph.D. in spirituality now, rather than later. We exchanged cards promising to call each other. Neither one of us did.

            I kept thinking about the program, but couldn’t figure out how to find the time to do it. I was a full-time associate pastor with a life. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. A month later, I was at my health club, having just finished playing racquetball. As I was changing in the locker room, peeling off my sweaty shirt, I accidentally elbowed in the chest then man next to me. I stammered an apology, stepped back and looked at him and realized that it was Rick. I had never seen him there before, and he said that he didn’t get there much. Both of us realized this might be the Spirit trying to get us together for me to go to Duquesne. This time we did make an appointment. As a result, I ended up going to Duquesne and getting my Ph.D. 

            Those studies in spirituality changed my whole life and ministry. From them I figured out a whole different way of being a pastor and doing church, a way grounded in prayer and seeking God’s will. The program at Duquesne was one that Duquesne University was most known for worldwide. It attracted not only Roman Catholics, but Protestants. And the students came not only from the U.S., but from Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia. We studied spirituality not only from a Christian perspective, including the mystics of Christian history, but from the perspective of other religions, the social sciences, philosophy, art, literature, and film. It was an amazing place that has not been duplicated elsewhere in both its depth and comprehensiveness. If Betsy hadn’t invited me to her wedding, who knows what would have happened (although I suspect God would have found another way for me to meet Rick or another person from the program).

            What going to that program at Duquesne meant for me was that it gave me insights on the spiritual life, rather than just the theological or religious. Our problem in the modern church is that so many outside of our churches proclaim that they are “spiritual but not religious,” and our answer is to train our pastors more in theology and religious studies. People are clamoring for a spiritual experience of God, and we give them theological speculation and religious beliefs. At Calvin Presbyterian Church, we try to be both spiritual AND religious, recognizing that being one or the other is limited. The program also gave me insights on how to sense God, hear God, and follow God. Finally, it gave me insights on how to create a church devoted to seeking and following God’s will

            From this experience, I’ve learned two major lessons. The first is that God has a purpose for all of us, and that God uses these coincidences to invite us to live out that purpose. This needs a bit of explanation. You’ve heard that God has a plan for everything?  I don’t agree. When we make plans, and plans don’t work out, things fall apart. Humans are way too free to ignore plans for God for God to have confidence that those plans won’t be dashed. So, if God has a plan for everything, it means either that God constantly lives with the disappointment of consistently broken plans, or that everything bad that happens to us is part of God’s plan, which means that God wills us to suffer, get addicted, get cancer, lose our jobs, get divorced, and more. 

            What I believe instead is that God has a purpose for us, rather than a plan. The difference is that a purpose is a way of living that can be adapted to any life context or situation. God has a purpose, a way God created us to live and be, and each event and experience—good or bad—is an opportunity God presents to us inviting us to live that purpose out. In other words, God created us with a purpose, which is to live according to God’s unique desire for us not matter what situation we face in life. And God calls us to take advantage of opportunities (such as my studying for a Ph.D. in spirituality) that allow our purposes to blossom together in God’s grace.

            The coincidence, the providence, of my meeting Father Rick said to me that part of my life purpose was to deepen my spiritual life, and to help others do so, too. Even if I had gone to Maria’s wedding, God would have presented me another opportunity to live out my purpose. God has a purpose for you, too, and God uses coincidences in all of our lives to give us opportunities to live out our purpose.

            A second lesson is simpler. God is always ready to offer us surprises, but we have to be ready to receive them. God stands around every corner of life, ready to surprise us with grace, love, and possibility. But we have a penchant for focusing so much on our plans, our goals, our passions, and our predilections that we often aren’t looking. But God doesn’t get discouraged. Instead, God keeps holding out these surprises for us, and once we start accepting them, we discover a life filled with surprise.

            The question for us, as we reflect on these coincidences, is whether we are truly open to living out God’s purposes for us, and whether we are ready to receive God’s surprises.

            Amen.

Coincidence or Providence? Buying Houses

Click Here to Listen to This Sermon

Matthew 7:7-11

August 11, 2013

Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

            While on a getaway with my wife in Ohio, back in the spring of 1995, I read something that changed my whole perspective on life, ministry, and church. We had gone there in celebration of my finishing my dissertation for my Ph.D. (400 of the most boring pages ever written). I had decided that I would get back to reading the spiritual and devotional books that I had put on hold for a long time while immersing myself in academia. I was sitting on the patio of the inn we were staying in, and reading a story in Catherine Marshall’s book, Beyond Ourselves. The story penetrated me. It captured me. I reflected on it for days. I kept thinking, “How can I live this story out in my life?”

            The story transformed how I understood ministry and church. I realized that there was another way that a church could, and probably should, be in its life with God. It helped me to see everything differently—in a way that made me realize that God was not only deeply immersed in all we do, but wants our lives and churches to be places filled with grace, love, and providence.

            I want to share this particular story with you, but it comes with a warning. I preached this story about 12 years ago, and had an interesting experience afterwards. A member came up to me and said, “Graham, something odd happened after your sermon. I was walking up the aisle and overheard a woman say to a number of others, ‘That was the worst sermon I ever heard.’” She then said that while standing in Fellowship Hall, she overheard another woman telling her friends that “That was the best sermon I’ve ever heard.” After listening to this sermon, it will either be one of the best or worst sermons for you, depending on whether this is a story you’ll let yourself believe. I knew both the members who said the sermon was the worst/best (both have passed away). The one who thought it was terrible told me later that she thought the story I told was all made up. Not by me, but by Catherine Marshall. The other loved it because it fit with what she had experienced so often in her life.

            So,… I want to tell you this story about George Müller, the man who inspired me so much. Müller was born in Prussia in 1805, the son of a tax collector. Looking at his childhood, no one would have suspected that this young boy would grow to become one of the 19th century’s spiritual giants. His childhood and adolescence were spent mainly seeing what he could get away with, and getting into trouble for the things he didn’t get away with. As a child, he started stealing money from his father, who was an accountant and tax collector for the Prussian government, and his life of trouble grew from there. Even when he was caught stealing or misbehaving, he did not think about how wrong he was to do the things he was doing.
Instead, his thoughts turned to how he could be more clever and get away with the same things in the future.

            George’s father sent him to a religious school, hoping it would straighten him out and prepare him to become a pastor, but Müller continued to rebel. The only things he excelled at were chasing women, drinking, gambling, and manipulating others. At times, he tried to change his life, but soon he would slip back into his old ways. This pattern of drinking and partying continued after he graduated from school and began attending college. As much fun as he had partying and drinking, deep in his heart he knew that he was living a self-destructive life. He kept tying to change, he yearned to change, but soon he always slipped back to his partying ways. He seemed to be destined for a life of self-destruction.

            It was in a bar one night that the seeds of his redemption were sown. He was in his third year at the university, and as he sat in a bar drinking, in walked a man named Beta. Müller had known Beta back in high school, although they had never been great friends. Beta and he struck up a friendship as drinking buddies. They spent much time together, including travelling around Europe. They had wonderful times together, although deep in Müller’s heart he still knew that this life was not right for him. Several months after their return from travelling throughout Europe, Beta told Müller about some of the new friends that he had been spending time with. He said, “For some weeks I have been attending a meeting on Saturday evenings at the home of a Christian... They read the Bible, they sing, they pray, and someone normally reads a sermon.”

            Attending a Christian meeting wasn’t the kind of thing that would normally pique George Müller’s interest, but Beta kept talking about how wonderful these meetings were. Müller was willing to try anything once, even though he was skeptical. So, he decided to join Beta at the next meeting. What he didn’t realize was that God was about to extend an invitation for George Müller to join God by walking the servant path.

            At the meeting, his new friends read scripture, sang, and prayed. Müller was deeply affected. He had never really seen someone pray deeply before, and he was caught by a contrast: “I could not pray as well, though I am much more learned than this man.” From that moment, Müller was caught by the power of Christianity, for he was seeing the Christian faith through new eyes. It wasn’t the dry, dead faith he had seen in church, but an alive, vibrant faith that transformed lives. This transformed Müller’s life. He would no longer live a life devoted to self-indulgence. He now would serve Christ.

            Over time, Müller immersed himself more and more in the Bible, and eventually decided that God was calling him to be a missionary. After graduation, he left for England to become a missionary in London to the Jewish population. It did not take him long to realize that this was not his real calling, but it did lead to an invitation for him to try another ministry. He accepted an invitation to preach in a small Baptist church in Teignmouth, England. It was after serving there as a preacher for several years that he made another decision that would change his life and put an indelible stamp on his future ministry.

            Müller made a decision to surrender completely to God, and to rely completely on God for his welfare. He decided that would no longer take a salary or stipend for his preaching. Instead, he would rely completely upon God to help him and his family financially. He had already been moving in this direction for some time. Ever since he had become a Christian, he had always been struck by the passage in Matthew 7: 7 that says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Was this true? How do we find out if God will really give, reveal, and open the door if we ask, seek, and knock? He had been experimenting for years on giving more and more of his life to God. It seemed that whenever he had trusted in God completely, God had always come through. When he needed money to finish his university education, some wealthy American students had approached him to be their tutor. They paid enough money for Müller to finish his education. He had also experienced God’s providence when he first went to England as a missionary, and in his ministry in Teignmouth. Now, he was ready to extend this experiment to all of his life.

            George Müller’s life became a great experiment of faith. For years following his decision to rely completely upon God, he never received a salary. Instead, he continually went to God in prayer, and in the end money always came in. Sometimes Müller and his family would be on the verge of missing a meal or losing everything, but God came through every time, even if it sometimes seemed that God provided only at the last moment. Müller never had money in the bank, but whenever he needed anything, he would go to God in prayer and ask. Soon, someone would stop by his house with one, five or ten British pounds, saying, “I don’t know why, but I just felt you needed this.” His life was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Müller lost a fifteen-month-old child to pneumonia. He also suffered financial strains quite often, but whenever he had to have the money, something came through. He learned that when he relied on God, especially in difficult times, God always provided.

            As time passed, Müller felt called to care for the many orphans he saw on the streets. This was the time of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, when only the children of the wealthy were able to go to orphanages upon their parents’ death. The rest either went to workhouses or lived on the streets. People didn’t care much about children in those days. Müller walked the streets of Bristol, England, and saw orphans everywhere. Why didn’t anyone do anything about them? Why wasn’t anyone helping them? As time passed, he couldn’t get the faces of these children out of his head. Slowly, he felt God calling him to care for these children, but he also felt called to do so in a radical way.

            Müller felt called to start an orphanage, but to do so in a way that radically relied upon God and God’s grace. This would be an orphanage of God for God’s children. So, as he began to put his plans to paper, he sensed the need to set up certain guidelines that were grounded in faith. First, the orphanage would never ask directly for money. Instead, they would rely on God in prayer to provide money. If, at any time, the children missed a meal or could not have the things Müller felt they needed, he would close up shop and stop the experiment in reliance upon God. He also was pretty stringent in his demands for the children: each boy would have three suits; each girl five dresses; each child would have her or his own bed and cubby; two pairs of shoes each; three meals a day; fresh air and work; and all would be taught to read and write, which was radical in those days. In fact, he was often criticized for giving education to lower- class children. Today, we might not see these as being all that much, but you have to remember that in those days few cared about orphaned children, their condition, or whether they lived or died.

            In 1836, he started his orphanage with just a few orphans living in a small house in Bristol in a working-class neighborhood. By early May, though, he had nearly 30 girls, and from there the orphanage kept growing as he added young boys. When they outgrew this house, they bought another, and then another. Soon, they moved to a large tract of land in the country and started constructing new homes. And then they built more. All along, they never asked for money, but coincidences (or providences) kept happening that allowed them to continually grow. When the price of land was too high, the seller generously dropped the price into their price-range, which meant he would make almost no prophet. People Müller didn’t know came from nowhere to give him money, usually on a whim. Almost always what they gave was right on the button for what was needed—no more, no less.

            This is not to say that the whole process was easy. In fact, it often was a struggle. There were times, especially the years 1838 through 1846, when they barely managed to scrape by. During those years, there were times when, after breakfast, they had no money for lunch, and had to spend the morning praying for God to provide. Each time, God came through. Sometimes it was in the morning mail when several pounds would be included in a letter. Sometimes it was even more miraculous. One time, they finished breakfast with no money for lunch. The staff came to Müller and asked what they should do. His answer was to do what they always had done—pray. As they prayed, they heard a knock at the front door of the main house. It was the town baker. For some reason, he felt the need to bake bread for the whole orphanage that morning. A little while later another knock came on the door. It was a milkman. His cart had broken down at the end of the driveway, and he couldn’t fix the wheel unless he unloaded his cart. By the time he would have finished fixing the wheel, everything would have spoiled. Could the orphanage use his milk and butter? Things like this seemed to happen all the time to Müller and his orphanage.

            By the time he died in 1898, the orphanage (which still exists today and has a record of all of the events described here) had 2,050 residents on a campus of 25 acres. There were many times when they had no money, but God always provided in the end. They never asked for money, but over the course of his life, Müller raised over $3 million simply through prayer. Today, this would be in the neighborhood of $50 to $80 million. Before he died, Müller became one of the most popular speakers in the world, speaking to churches and gatherings worldwide. It’s amazing that so many have forgotten this man. It is easy to doubt him, except for the fact that he and others meticulously recorded all of his feats, and they are on public record in England.

            What this story got me thinking is about whether we could create a church of coincidence, where prayer leads to providence. It’s from this story, and my subsequent reading of several Müller biographies, that I developed a belief that if we truly seek God’s will in prayer, amazing things will happen to bless what we do together. I started thinking about whether we can bring prayer into how we make decisions, how we budget in a church, how we invite people into stewardship, what we decided to do in mission, and so much more.

            This story had an impact on what I started emphasizing when I came here to Calvin Presbyterian Church. One of the first things I did was to create both a healing prayer group and a regular prayer group. We built a prayer labyrinth to help people learn to open to God. We began intentionally praying and seeking God’s will on session. As a result, this story had a direct impact on experiences we started having here.

            Back in 1998, we had one such experience. We embarked on the first capital campaign of three that we’ve done at Calvin Church over the past 16 years. In that particular campaign we did several things over the course of three years that were intended to seek and follow God’s will. The first year of the campaign was devoted to renovating our sanctuary. Most of you would not recognize the sanctuary today in comparison to what it was before the renovation. In fact, many people who grew up in this church, but moved away, have come back and have been awestruck by how the sanctuary looks now. The renovation was a large one that cost us $125,000.

            The third year of the campaign was devoted to creating an endowment fund, and to tithing our campaign10% so that we could devote $33,000 to mission. The second year was a “George Müller” year, although no one titled it that at the time. We left the second year of the campaign undesignated. We knew we had to build out or up if we were going to continue growing the way we were. We needed more classroom and meeting space, but we weren’t sure what to do. So we decided to wait to see what God would call us to do. We told people that we were collecting money in the second year to be available to what God wanted. This was a bit controversial because some people said to me, personally, that they couldn’t give if we didn’t say what we were going to do with the money. But we couldn’t do that because we knew we’d only be putting money on something artificial just to get people to give. We were waiting for God.

            So in the process we created a task force to look at the future of the church. We hired an architect to consult with us, and he told the task force in a meeting, and me specifically in a one-on-one meeting, that if we were going to continue to grow, we either needed to move our church to a better location near I-79, or twe needed to buy three houses behind the church. In his meeting with me, he said, “Have you looked at the middle one of those houses, which is for sale?” I responded, “There’s a house for sale?”  That was a Friday. On that Saturday I contacted the real estate agent and toured the house, and found out that the price had been reduced $10,000.  We had a regularly scheduled session meeting for the following Tuesday, so at the meeting we discussed it and had the elders go outside and peer through the bushes at the house. Over the next week, elders took tours of the house, and by the following week the session put a tentative bid on it, which was then confirmed by the congregation a week later. Providentially, because we had money collected from the capital campaign, as well as money from the sale of our church manse, we were able to buy this house outright within three weeks. We now call that house “Faith House” because we believe that we had faith and God provided.

             Just as providentially, the house next to it (what we call Charity House) became available the following year, and we were able to buy it outright with money left over from the sale of the manse.  And two years later, the house we call Hope House became available, and combining the rent from Charity and Hope Houses, we were able to secure a mortgage, which is now part of our Further in Faith mortgage. We believe that all of this happened because we followed the example of George Müller, who demonstrated that God wants us to do well in serving God, but that we have to have the courage to seek in prayer what God is leading us to, and then to follow in faith.

            You’ve heard from the movie, A Field of Dreams, the idea of “If you build it they will come”? These experiences have taught me that if you build a life of prayer, God will come.

            Amen.