God Decides What's Enough

What’s in your wallet? I just came across three raffle tickets I bought from my mother-in-law in Louisiana. The drawing was on April 30th. Since I haven't gotten a check in the mail, I'm assuming someone else won the money. There were three Hoosier Lottery tickets, all losers. What I usually say when I hold a fist-full of losing tickets is, "I never win anything." But that's not true.

Almost every night I lie down in bed and watch the late news on a TV I won in a free drawing. And a few years ago, my wife and I won an $800.00 trip to Florida, because we bought $10 worth of raffle tickets to support our sons' Little League team.

What I remember most about those winning experiences is this. I was thrilled AND disbelieving. In fact, when the announcer called my name, I still remember hearing myself say things like: that's incredible; I can't believe it; I never win anything; and, are you sure. Has anything like that ever happened to you?

Now I certainly don't mean to imply that my trivial experiences at winning prizes is at all as significant as what Luke tells us in the 24th chapter of his Gospel - BUT, it's as close as I can come to echoing, or sharing that feeling. Remember the scene? The disciples are locked in an upper room; their leader tried, convicted, executed and buried. Will the authorities hunt them down next? Suddenly, Jesus appears in their midst; up the stairs without a sound; through the locked door without a knock; and, into their hearts with a simple, "Peace be with you." The disciples experienced more than an emotional double-take - in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering. Can you feel it?

And frankly, on any given day, if the truth be told, it would be a lot easier to talk about my own state of wondering and disbelieving than my joy as a witness for Christ. In my wondering, I wonder if you sometimes feel that way too. Where does this statement of the risen Jesus, "You are witnesses of these things," leave us? More importantly, where does this statement of the Risen Christ find us?

Here's another piece of paper I came across the other day. It’s a prescription for a series of visits for physical therapy, following neck surgery. Now, I suspect that these physical therapists listed here are pretty darn good. I say that because the neurosurgeon who prescribed the visits is one of the best in the country. And, despite his eyewitness testimony to their skills, I'm here to tell ya that this stuff didn't work!

It didn't work because this paper never got translated from prescription to description. This prescription was never filled. I never acted on it. And though it plainly says do the exercises on him and teach him to do the exercises for himself, the prescription does not describe either my attitude or my behavior toward my own healing. You ever been there?

"I'm tough." I said to myself. The surgeon was terrific. He did a good job. Got everything lined back up just right. No need to bother havin' to learn to describe my activities any new way. Just be a little more careful. Don't carry such heavy things for awhile, and when ya do, follow all them rules for proper lifting techniques.

Problem is, the prescription wasn't issued to increase my toughness. It was delivered to increase my strength. The prescription was rendered so that the muscles that took on some extra work could be relieved as the repaired muscles got stronger, resumed their rightful place. But that doesn't describe what happened. See the difference?

As far as my neck goes, and the pain I still feel pretty regularly, I never made the connection between prescription and description. So now I spend a lot o’ days just tryin' to tough it out on my own. And since I committed to personal toughness over shared strength, I gave myself a prescription that makes me describe my attitude and behaviors in a new way. Can't do much liftin' any more. Don't even drive too long cuz I can get
pretty cranky as the pain wears on.

And the prescription from the trained and licensed physician who folks travel allover the country to strengthen them? I still carry it around - unfilled. Reminds me that I'm tough.

Some of us do that same way with our faith. We say this statement Jesus made, "You are witnesses of these things," is some pretty serious prescription. Looks like ya gotta be pretty tough to pull this off. And we spend a lot of our lonely days and not a few of our sleepless nights makin' ourself tough - for Jesus.

Seems like we go out of our way to turn most everything we read in the Bible away from a description and into a prescription that's just too tough to swallow. Ya gotta be tough to:
• take up Jesus' cross everyday - I'll just pick one my own self
• stop along the road and help the wounded - I'll just say a prayer
• forgive somebody 70 x 7 - I'll just not talk to them anymore
• give more o' my money to the church's mission - I'll just give the same as I did last year
• reconcile with my brother or sister before I go to the altar - maybe those folks would be better if they just toughened up on their own like I do.

You ever done mental gymnastics with Scripture; spend time turnin' the Bible on its head? But that's not what faith is. Faith isn't toughen in' up on your own. Faith isn't relyin' on yourself. Faith is more elastic than that. Faith isn't about carryin' around a prescription that somehow gets heavier and heavier the more we carry it all by ourselves. Faith isn't a rigid superhuman, precise adherence to God's laws.

Faith doesn't require that we close off our minds and harden our hearts to that joy that leaves us still disbelieving and still wondering. Faith is abandoning to God all our human disarray. Our: steeling ourselves against our own pains in the neck; writing the prescriptions for ourselves and everyone else; and deciding who gets in and who's excluded.

Faith is the simple acceptance of a relationship with God. We aren't made holy by strict obedience to codes, or toughenin' ourselves up to carry more and more prescriptions. Rather, our strength comes by trusting - alone and together -that stunning promise that God can be experienced in our lives. Trusting that God's gonna send some witness to come along and testify to the Risen Jesus by breaking themselves open and pouring themselves out. And it's OK, if in our joy at:
• hearing that promise, cuz somebody finally says, "You can count on me"
• feeling that promise, cuz somebody we never expected keeps us from falling
• seeing that promise, cuz somebody who said they'd never leave us alone hangs in there
we're still wondering and disbelieving. God's used to it.

God knows how tough it is for us to let God make us strong. God's got strength enough to deal with that. Listen to a few verses of the litany faithful Jews pray from the Haggadah, the order of service, for the Passover Meal. The prayer is called Dayenu! -Enough!

Had he brought us out from Egypt
And not executed judgment against them
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He given us their possessions,
And not divided the sea for us,
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He sustained us in the wilderness forty years,
And not fed us manna
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He brought us to Mount Sinai,
And not given us Torah
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He brought us into the land of Israel
And not built the Temple for us,
It would have been enough! Dayenu!

But all that it wasn't enough. Not for this God. God knows how tough it is for us to turn prescriptions into descriptions. So God sent Jesus to Share Plenty Good News. Good News means something quite different from the weight of an impossible ideal; something more glorious than the oppression of a prescription forever beyond our ability to fill it on our own.

Good News means God in Christ bearing me along from within. Christ the motive-power carries me on. Christ giving my whole life a wonderful poise and lift, turning every burden into contentment. "To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong."

Compared with the strength of this Good News, the religion which trusts everything on toughened up examples instead of joy that honors disbelieving and still wondering is pitifully immature.

Call it whatever you want to - what you call it matters little - to be a joyful, disbelieving, still wondering witness to the Good News of our forgiveness and acceptance by the God of Jesus Christ, is to realize that our creed is not something we have to toughen ourselves up to carry. It's something by which we are lifted and carried. This is what it means to be described as a witness. It's not a prescription. It's a release and a liberty - a life so strong it carries an endless song at its heart. It means seeing within you, as long as life here lasts, the carrying power of Love Almighty; and underneath you, when you come to die, the touch of everlasting arms. Dayenu! That's Enough!