Aug 7 : It's like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree

+It’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.

Quite an image isn’t it?

But the statement is a fitting saying for so many of our efforts. For me, trying to understand assembly diagrams is a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. I maneuver the paper this way and that, I think I just about have it…. and then the whole sticky mess ends up on the ground—leaving the product unassembled and me, frustrated.

Our readings today describe various efforts to identify, describe, [name] and prove God.

But our efforts to name God, our efforts to prove God’s existence, our efforts to conjure up a fitting image for God is a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. Just when we think we’ve got it, we end up with an unassembled sticky mess.

Of course, that doesn’t stop us from trying. In the First Book of Kings, Ezekiel tries to see God, to touch God, to know who God is. Ezekiel searches wind, earthquakes and fire trying to find a fitting image for God.

In Exodus, Moses tries to name God…he implores God---whom should I say you are? And God answers, simply, “I am.” God is. Period. Trying to explain it more than that usually leads us into a sticky mess. But just like Jell-O and that tree, we try. Some of us find God in an image of an old white grandpa- like figure sitting in a throne, overlooking creation. Others of us find God in nature, in a beautiful sunset or in the roar of waves crashing on the shore. Others think God is light. The images of God are as varied as the type of people in our world…people will always be searching for God, trying to find the one definitive image. But just as quickly as one person finds what they consider the image, another person comes along to dispute it.

The fact is, God has many different names, God has many different faces. God is found in all sorts of places and in all sorts of conditions. It really depends on your perspective. But, as Ezekiel discovered in the Book of Kings, he only finds God, once he and everything around him, quiets down. Only then does he discover where God always is, and always will be--right there, in the silence of the world, in the shear and utter silence of our souls.

The thing is trying to name God, as Moses did or try to image God, like Ezekiel did or to try and prove God in Jesus, as Peter did, isn’t the point. Faith is.

While God- and the faith we have in God, through Jesus Christ-may, at times, seem fleeting, evasive, hard to describe and difficult to see; God, the divinity of God’s Son, Jesus, and the faith in this which we proclaim, is never absent.

Only our ability to notice it is.

Only our ability to trust in it is.

Only our ability to accept it is.

Such was the case with Peter.

Jesus liked metaphors. Peter liked proof. Jesus used his faith in his mission to fuel his work. Peter questioned this faith and seemed always to challenge (or deny) the mission.

Peter, in his zeal to KNOW THE TRUTH, TO PROVE THE TRUTH, TO LIVE THE TRUTH, didn’t just try and nail Jell-O to a tree, he tried to jackhammer it:

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and began walking on the water…but when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, began to sink and cried out to Jesus, “Save me.”

Peter, who initially called out to Jesus in bravado and determination, ends up crying out to him in fear and trembling. What happened? What changed? Well, the sinking, of course…but what caused the sinking? Was it physics? Perhaps. But maybe, just maybe it was something else. Because, to me, the most important words in that whole section of scripture is “when he noticed.”

Peter was doing fine until he noticed what was happening. Once he noticed that he was walking on water, once he noticed the strong headwind, once he noticed that there was no safety rope, no life preserver; once he noticed that his walking on water was a sheer act of faith…. he began to sink.

Not because there was no life preserver, not because walking on water is physically impossible. No, he began to sink as soon as doubt took hold.

He sank because he stopped living his faith and started noticing his doubt.

He began to sink not because he lacked faith, but because he doubted he had enough. He began to sink because instead of going with it, going forward in faith, wherever it took him, he looked down, looked around and became afraid and full of doubt.

Doubt drags us down. Doubt sinks us, doubt is what defeats us.

Peter loved Jesus, but he didn’t want to walk on the water because of that love; he wanted to walk on the water to make Jesus prove himself. That’s not faith, that’s doubt.

Jesus knew that Peter doubted , that he questioned. He knows we doubt, he knows we question. But Jesus, just like with Peter, is always with us, ready to reach out an arm to save us from sinking into the despair of doubt. All we need to do is cry out, reach out and hold on. Trying to live our lives on our own, without asking for help, with out reaching out and holding on will leave us a sticky unassembled mess on the ground just like that jell-o and the tree.

Faith, isn’t something to be proven, it’s something to be witnessed.

And to be witnessed, our faith must be lived.

Living it means, walking on the water in spite of the wind. Living it means loving, forgiving and, most of all, believing. Believing in God means trusting that God is always here. Living our faith means knowing that, after all the noise of the world-- the screeching winds, the rumbling earthquakes, the rushing floodwaters and the blasts of battle stop, if we listen very carefully, if we look very closely, if we feel very honestly, we will discover that our Creator God, the God who loves and lives in, around and through us, is still here, deep within, where our souls rest in utter silence.

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