'Thus' An Adverb in the
Hands of God The Rev. Fred G. Garry - September 15, 2002
Texts: Genesis 30 and Romans 8 Ralph Waldo Emerson would be ashamed
of me. As someone who prides himself on possessing an Emersonian
way of living, my patron saint would not be proud. The source
of his shame is found in the breaking of a rule. Emerson said,
own your tools; don't let your tools own you. If you have a machine,
or a guide, or a measure, if there is something of use, then
be the master of it. Never be a slave to your tools, to your
possessions.
Well, I stand before you today to confess:
I am the slave and my computer is the master. No matter how much
Paul _____ has tried to convince me I can be otherwise, alas,
I am helpless child before the icon, the spinning disk, and the
Internet dial-up connection. Usually, my ignorance is tempered
by a theoretical appreciation. For instance, I cannot fix a car,
but I can wax on for quite a while about the nature of a combustion
engine. I am no physicist, but I can spin a good tale about the
difference between Newton and Einstein, and on a good day I can
even pepper this discourse with the likes of Niels Bohr and quantum
mechanics.
Yet, when it comes to the computer I
am an ignorant peasant being sent to the field to plow for my
food. Just like a tribesman of a isolated people seeing fire
for the first time or witnessing the power of the exploding shell
in a pistol, so am I before the RAM, the Gigabyte, and the right
click button of the mouse.
For me the computer is and for all intents
and purposes will be in the foreseeable future the coolest typewriter
around. It is until something goes wrong. Then I become one of
the ugly Americans who kick tires and bang the top of television
sets: I sit before the computer and begin to click icons in the
hope that one of these will magically transform my unhappy machine
back into what it is supposed to be: the coolest type writer
there ever was.
Now I am not one of those people who
click buttons out of curiosity and thus disable their computer
through wanton disregard of the computer god's wrath. I know
not to tread where dullards should not be; I know to stick to
my work of writing, keep my head down, and mouse within the word
processing document. I know this until something goes wrong like
the dreaded virus.
Things went wrong, south, bad this week
with my computer. For the last few days I have been entrenched
in my office hoping some click of a button, some new software,
even hardware would bring back the coolest typewriter of all
time. But, alas. There does not seem to be any mojo in my mouse;
there doesn't seem to be any magic. Having exhausted all potential
of magic and offended the patron saint of American intellectuals,
Ralph Waldo, I have resorted to the last resort: praying for
a miracle.
Miracles are a kind of the last ditch
in the baffle of life. Try, try again, or as Lincoln said, "endeavor
to persevere." If after many attempts and nothing works,
then read the instructions. If even this doesn't work, pray for
a miracle. I was taken a back recently by a new definition of
the miraculous that challenged this conception. Miracle to me
has always been the work of God defying the laws of nature. Like
Moses and the Israelites and the Sun standing still for the baffle,
a miracle was the suspension of natural law, and thus supernatural.
When your computer is trying to fix itself, there is always time
to think. Hence as I sat waiting for the super typewriter to
return I mused on this new and challenging definition.
The new definition I found was something
more along the lines of what Paul was talking about in Romans.
The new definition was provided by a brilliant man who recently
passed away. Writing about the Holy Spirit he said, the miraculous
is not the suspension of natural law, but the healing of creation,
the restoration of life. Miracle from this vantage is what Paul
called the freedom from decay. Miracle then is a not an overriding
of what is created, but a vision of life as it is supposed to
be. Miracle then is not only when things get back to the way
they were, but become something better. As I sat in front of
my computer with its failing systems I thought, "great,
now even miracle is out. Back to magic."
Miracle and magic are very powerful lenses
for looking at life. My newfound definition of miracle renders
it a profound part of reality, the pervasive power of the Holy
Spirit redeeming creation. Yet magic is a very present part of
our day as well. You might not know it but we are people who
look for magic all the time, like the song, "that magic
moment", we look for the groove, the glint in the eye, the
right moment so to speak, to act, to buy or sell. We do this
believing that if we say it with just the right tone of our voice,
magically life will go our way. We believe and hope for magical
outcomes just like millions and millions of people hope for luck
when they buy a lottery ticket.
In our scriptures there are very poignant
pictures of this. Elijah on Mount Carmel with the priests of
Baal; Naaman the leper; the Red Sea crossing. Yet the most profound
and personal is the one we read today. In these other stories
the stakes are national or political. In the story of Jacob and
Laban the stakes are more pedestrian, plebian. For in our story
we have one person who is bent on a magical outcome and another
who is looking for the miraculous.
Laban is like me before the computer
hoping for more magic. Laban, it would appear, was somewhat of
a hapless businessman until he got the magical herdsman. Laban
says so, "by divination" I have figured out what has
happened here. You are the lucky, magical son-in-law who has
increased my wealth big time. Whatever you do turns to gold.
Laban looks at Jacob like I look at my computer. He really doesn't
know how all this works, but he likes what it does. He likes
the fact that Jacob has brought him wealth.
So we can appreciate the panic and the
attempt to trick him when Jacob seeks to leave. To his credit
Jacob doesn't ask for anything. He wasn't promised anything and
he does ask for anything. He is willing to leave just as poor
as he came. True he is leaving with quite an entourage, yet in
truth he is trying to leave as he came, as a wanderer. But Laban
doesn't want Jacob to leave. If he leaves so does the magic.
So he offers Jacob a chance at some wealth with the hope that
he can trick him like he did with his daughters.
Laban's trick is to offer something and
then insure it will never be realized. Per Jacob's request, Laban
offers him all the spotted and striped livestock. Jacob asked
for the "lesser" creatures and Laban consents. Only
Laban then instructs his sons to remove all of these from his
herds believing then that if only pure white and pure black livestock
remain, they will give birth to the same and thus Jacob will
be bound to increase Labans flock without any gain to himself.
Yet again Laban is like me before the
computer. There is a vague idea of how things work, but not a
level of understanding that can actually do something. Jacob
knows Laban and most likely suspected this and was not surprised
that the flocks he now tended were spot and stripe free. What
Laban didn't know was how animals breed, and how their appearance
will vary. But Jacob did. He bides his time and before long,
Laban's herds of livestock are quickly becoming Jacob's. To confound
Laban and his son's, Jacob puts out special sticks so to determine
the outcome of the herd. Jacob knows his adversary. He knows
he believes in magic.
In Jacob though we have a clear picture
not of magic, but of miracle. He is not suspending nature, but
trusting in the power of God. He is not like me with my magical
mouse hoping somehow the super typewriter will return. He knows
how to fix it, and he knows how to wait. He also knows his adversary.
When Jacob came he and Laban were two peas in a pod; they were
both men who were tricky and connived to get what they wanted.
Yet now we see in Jacob a new man. He is not trying to trick
Laban. Laban agrees to his request. Jacob didn't trick him with
his wages. He understood and he did what was right.
Now not many of us are goat herders.
I have nothing against goat herding, but I have to say I am glad
not to be one. The story of Jacob and Laban when it comes right
down to it is not about prowess in animal husbandry, just as
my lack of computer knowledge is not tantamount to life. What
is tantamount, what is significant though is this penchant we
have to choose magic instead of miracle.
Perhaps it is because our definition
of miracle is wrong. Like said, I had always understood miracle
to be the supernatural, the suspension of what is normal or natural.
Yet what if we look to this other definition, the one that is
close to Paul's view? What if miracle is not supernatural, but
the restoration of what is supposed to be? What if miracle is
not waiting for God to do the magic (see how that sneaks in there);
what if miracle is living in the patient unfolding of God's redemption?
Isn't that what Jacob did?
Remember Jacob came to Laban a broken
man who had nothing but a vision that God was going to bless
him. As Laban said, there seems to be some sort of power that
sustains everything you do. Laban saw this as magic. But was
it? Instead of magic, can we call it miraculous? Not miraculous
as fantastic or beyond what is real, but miraculous as the restorative
power of God making creation right. That is what was happening
to Jacob; he was becoming right; he was becoming a good man.
When Jacob fled from his home he was not a good man; he was trickster
like Laban. Had he stayed with Esau maybe he would have become
like his father-in-law. But Jacob left and became a new man.
Something better.
Whenever I write a sermon I try ask a
practical question, what does this mean for my day? Again, I
appreciate the husbandry insights that this story offers, but
I think there is something more. The more comes about when I
think of Jacob's transition, or transformation. He came to Laban
not yet a man of faith. I believe that. He had a start but he
wasn't quite the patriarch of the faith he would become. Jacob
will leave Laban as a man of faith, a man who has been made full
and right, the sort of man I hope to be. Whether or not this
means my computer will work is still up in the air.
This story has something more when it
becomes a question: am I looking for magic or miracle in my day?
Looking for magic is all about impatience, the quick fix, like
the old Calgon Bath commercials, "take me away." Magic
is what I hoped for in front of the computer, clicking icons
and hoping it would magically restore the world's greatest typewriter.
But magic is also what I am looking for when I see faults in
others and I telepathically convey my displeasure. Have you ever
done this? I don't like something, or someone, so I telepathically
try to convey my displeasure. In the old country" this was
called the evil eye."
I also look for magic when I confuse
ignoring something with patience. Remember Sergeant Schultz of
"Hogan's Heroes." "I see nothing; I hear nothing;
I know nothing." This was a magic spell meant to erase wrongdoing.
I don't know about you, but I try to magically erase things all
the time. If the truth be told, though, ignoring a problem is
not being patient. Ignoring a problem, just like not speaking
the truth, is becoming part of the problem.
Sadly, I could keep going here. Magic
is a very present failure, just as miracle is a very present
power. The good news is that God is at work redeeming creation,
redeeming us. Remember, there was a time when Jacob would have
looked at life just as Laban did. Yet with persistence and hope
he became a man of faith. So too it is with us. Each of us here
is a work of God, a soul being redeemed. Each of us is like a
Jacob a patient work of redemption. Amen.
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