Following Mark's funeral, I came to the conclusion that I need to write the sermon that will be preached at mine. Honestly, I just can't be certain that some yahoo minister won't come in and hijack the proceedings, subjecting my closest friends and family to their own pride-filled rant and saying things that I don't agree with! Since I plan to be cremated, I won't have the option of just sitting up in my coffin on the spot to redirect things and lodge my complain; thus the need to write that sermon while I'm here, attempting to be in control. To that end, I'm pondering the things I want to include in that sermon.
I woke early today and I was overcome with the love of God in my life and how my understanding of that love and acceptance has shaped my adulthood. As a child and in my early adulthood, my concept of God was harsh, judgmental, distant, and angry. I went to bed every night, certain that Jesus would return while I slept and I wouldn't be taken in the rapture because of some sin that I had neglected to confess during my bedtime prayers.
I will interject here that I always hoped Jesus would return in the night since I'm so deathly afraid of heights and I thought I might be able to manage floating up in the air to meet Jesus if it were dark outside...if Jesus returned in the daytime, you all know that I would die of cardiac arrest on the ascent...looking down to see the ground getting smaller and smaller!
Back to my sermon. I was a good kid who attempted to do right all the time, who didn't need to be spanked because knowing that my parents were disappointed in me was devistating! I was caught in "The Best Little Boy In The World" trap (google it...it's a GREAT BOOK!) However, my concept of God was unnecessarily harsh and was the product of growing up in a legalistic religious tradition where, under the guise of preventing other Christians from backsliding, we were raised with permission to watch everybody's outward appearance and outward expression. Were people dressing appropriately and did they come to church on Sunday nights? Did they
smoke or drink or go to movies or dances? Judging others and having them judge us was a constant and it was ingrained and expected.
Later in my life, as I finally came to terms with being myself, I was introduced to the embrace and the grace of God. This was a rather pain-filled time of great turmoil where, like peeling an onion, I shed most of the layers that made up my understanding of God to find that, deep inside God, there was this fountain of unmerited favor (grace). I have now experienced God's love of me in a deep, abiding fashion and it has changed everything about how God and I relate. Certainly, you know someone who lived in the home of an angry, controlling father who didn't express his love and acceptance for/of his children and for whom the kids could do no right. Those children often grow up emotionally stunted and unsure of how to be successful in relationships. Likewise, we people who grew up with the harsh, judging God are spiritually stunted.
I now know that God sees Philp Smallwood through love-colored glasses; viewing my daily happenings through the love -hue and concerned with how I express love. Do I displease God? Certainly I must, but I'm now certain that any displeasure is based on what happens inside my heart, rather than what happens outside myself. I hope that those people I care about most are able to experience the grace and love and delight of God in who they are at their very core because it is the source of such abiding peace. Like a child who is teased at school might look forward to their mother's embrace upon arriving home, many of us are able to exist while being outwardly judged looking forward to our God's embrace upon arriving home. May you know that God's love of you is all-reaching and all-embracing today.
fortunes we found in our cookies. As always, we resisted the urge to add, "...in bed..." after each one. Do your best to resist that urge, too, though the last two are particularly funny when you add that phrase.
