Creekside Church Sermon of February 6, 2000 "Faith in the Gaps" Mark 1:29-39	Rev. David Bibbee
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Fifty plus years ago the theologian Dietriech Bonhoeffer coined the expression, "the God of the gaps". His concern was that many Christians had an inadequate belief in God while the insights of science were quickly increasing. Physics and psychology for example were discovering facts about the world and human behavior which once people believed was the domain of God. This led to the idea that God is present wherever there is a gap in our knowledge. The problem was that with each new discovery, the domain of God shrank. As one humanist of the time put it, "The future is not with churches but with laboratories, not with prophets but with scientists, not with piety, but efficiency."

We all have been influenced by the belief that the further we go, the more we know. In many ways it's true. But it's also true that the sophistication of science is revealing the unexpected. Each new discovery results not in one less mystery, but several more. As science delves deeper and deeper into the complexities of creation, scientists are starting to sound like theologians.

But what does this have to do with the text? I'm glad you asked. In Mark, Jesus' ministry got off to a stellar start. After his first sermon, his fame spread like the wind. Our lesson finds Jesus in Simon Peter's house where Simon's mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. Simon tells Jesus about it, a seemingly unusual thing for a son-in-law to do for his mother-in-law, and Jesus healed her. By evening the whole city stood at the door. Lots of sick and demon-possessed people. Mark says Jesus imposed a gag order on the demons because they knew him. But why?

The next day he rose long before the sun, snuck out of the house and went to an isolated place to pray. But why? When the disciples finally found him, they said, "Everyone is looking for you." And Jesus replied, "Let's get out of here and go to the next town so I can preach there. That's my mission." Preaching took precedence over healing. But why? Preachers love crowds. Jesus was a hit from the start. Just a few verses earlier at his baptism he heard the voice of God say, "You are my beloved son and with you I am well pleased." He was the Messiah. Why not capitalize on the crowds? Why not let the vanquished demons give some publicity? Why not healing? Mark doesn't say, at least in an obvious way.

Jesus personalized the presence and power of God, but he also protected it and at times chose not to make it known. He drew close to people, but he also kept his distance, slipping away from the throne to hide with God in lonely places. But why? The more I study the scriptures the more I see a distance between what Jesus says and does and what we understand. There's much we do know of Jesus, but there are gaps between him and us; gaps of understanding, and these gaps of perception and awareness are intentional.

I don't like being left with questions. I don't like it, so I try to wear them down asking for hints. I don't like three words which appear at the end of dramatic, suspense-filled television shows..."to be continued." I know people who don't say goodbye at the end of phone conversations. They finish a sentence, then just hang up. I don't like that either. You can't end a song on a sustained chord. The ear begs for a resolution. It doesn't matter if the chord is major or minor, as long as it sounds complete. Most of us don't like to be up in the air. We want our questions answered and our issues resolved...black and white. It must make sense, add up, be applicable and useful.

People interpretate the Bible with a similar desire. There's truth in every text, and we can find it, if we just study hard enough and long enough; if we just pray and work at it. Then the mysteries won't be so mysterious.

The more we delve into the Bible, the more we'll know and the more it will become part of us. But nowhere does the Bible say we will grasp God or Jesus Christ with total clarity. Nowhere does it say we'll bridge the gap that God maintains. This means that we must hold two things at once...hungering for the meaning, but comfortable with its mystery.

Peter Gomes discusses this in his book on the Bible called, The Good Book. He relates the issue of meaning and mystery to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie. Her novels set up the contrast between the strategies of the police and the detective Poirot. The police approach a murder as a problem to be solved. Collect the evidence, catch the killer, case closed and then move on to the next as quickly as possible. They follow leads and jump to conclusions, often prematurely. Poirot, however, comes at it another way, not as a problem to be solved but as a mystery to be entered. He doesn't get caught up in the obvious. He's never in a hurry. He uses his imagination to explore relationships and possibilities. Poirot looks at what's "not there" and in so doing gets the murder the police missed.

I think it would help us in our study of scripture if we approached with humility and modesty. Many truths are self evident, but no all. Every biblical personality and every spiritually wise person in history who earnestly sought God, found the same thing...silence. Not an answer to every question, not a blinding light of insight, but silence.

In Job we read, "Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?" In II Chronicles 6 we read, "The Lord has said he will dwell in thick darkness." In Ecclesiastes 3 we read, "He has put eternity into man's mind, so that He cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." In Matthew 11 Jesus says, "I thank you, Father, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes." In I Corinthians 4 Paul declares, "This is how one should us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." Not solvers...stewards.

There are things of God and His son that are hidden from us. There are things which, this side of life, we won't know...a gap in our understanding but it does not exist to discourage faith.

I was struck by something said by a woman who had just cast her vote in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. Asked whom she voted for, she said, "John McCain". When asked why, she said, "Oh, that's easy. I asked him a question in a town meeting and he answered, 'I don't know.'" He got her vote because he admitted he didn't know. It's hard to say, "I don't know," isn't it? I remember the meeting I had with you on the eve of your vote to call me as your next pastor. I remember many of the questions. I recall one in particular. Delbert Billet asked it. Well, my mouth started answering before my brain did, and after a lengthy, laborious answer, I asked Delbert, "Does that answer your question?" "Sure does," he said. "The best answer I've heard a pastor give." And then I said to myself, "That's good, because I don't have a clue about what I just said."

Some people have an answer for everything. They may be wrong, but they are never in doubt. Some Christians resemble that statement. Nothing in the Bible creates a quandry. Nothing puzzling. Nothing about the mystery of God's silence. Like Agatha Christie's police, they approach the Word as something to be solved so they can move on to the next problem.

There is an ancient story of some elders who came to see Abbot Anthony and Abbot Joseph. Anthony decided to test them and brought the conversation around to the scriptures. Beginning with the youngest, he asked the meaning of this text and that. Each replied as best they could, but Anthony said, "You haven't got it yet." Then he asked Abbot Joseph, "What do you say the text means?" He replied, "I know not." Then Anthony said, "Abbot Joseph alone has found the way, for he replies that he knows not."

"I don't know" is not an acceptable excuse for being biblically illiterate. But the greatest interpreters of the Bible were not afraid to say it. For the person committed to following Jesus Christ, these three words are the door to deeper insight and faithfulness. It's the most important link to keep an open, searching mind and heart.

In the middle of the 14th century an English monk wrote what became one of the great spiritual classics. It's called, "The Cloud of Unknowing". To seek God, not for His goods, nor comfort, nor creatures but for God alone will lead us into darkness...a cloud between us and God. In the dark cloud we'll not see Him by understanding or feel the love of His affection. In the dark, you will feel far from Him, but God is not using the gap to keep us away or to frustrate us. Though we may feel far away, we are further along than when we entered.

God's beloved son came close and personal, but also distant at times. Jesus revealed so much of God to us. But there is much that remains a mystery. We don't have all the answers. We can't hold on till we have all our questions answered. On Easter morning, Mary wanted to embrace Jesus, but he said, "Don't hold me. But tell my disciples I go ahead of them into Galilee. There they will see me." He goes ahead of us, not to leave us or to keep us in the dark, but to call us to follow in faith.

I read about a World War II veteran who killed a German soldier close up. It troubled him because he thought it wasn't necessary, and the soldier looked like he was barely 18. The Army gave him a Silver Star for his "accomplishment", but he couldn't bear the weight of the star, and sought the counsel of three chaplains. Depressed and distraught, he walked into the office of the first chaplain, dropped the star on the desk and said, "Here, justify this!" The chaplain gave a simple answer, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." The soldier grasped the star and said, "To hell with Caesar!" He went to the second chaplain and was told, "Onward Christian soldiers." He went to the third chaplain who was a Southern Baptist preacher. He told his story, put down the star and said, "Justify this." The chaplain was silent. Then he broke down and cried. They cried together, and then prayed.

The chaplain had no answer. He didn't know. We all will find ourselves at some painful ppoint. We long for answers, but there are none evident. Our prayers seem absorbed in silence. The gap seems more like the Grand Canyon. We don't know what the future may hold, but we know who holds the future. Therefore, we can enter into the mystery, and we can follow Jesus come what may.

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes the partial will come to an end...for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.

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