THE DIFFERENCE GOD MAKES IN OUR LIVES PART 4

THE DIFFERENCE GOD MAKES IN OUR LIVES PART 4

 

 

Today is the fourth installment of this series called "The Difference God makes in your life." Ray was an atheist friend of mine who was also one of the nicest, most generous people I knew. This conversation that I had with Ray brings up some very fundamental questions_

If religious belief and church attendance don't necessarily make you a good person, and nonattendance and rejection of religion don't necessarily make you a bad one, what is the point of being religious? What does the religious person get nut of his or her faith that the nonreligious person has to do without? Is there something we would all be better off having, or something that only some people - the weak and the insecure, the spiritually inclined - need, and the rest of us can do without? For the religious mind and soul, there is no question about the existence of God, but the question, really for the atheist, agnostic, and Christian, is what difference does God and religion make in the way that we live our lives?

In weeks past I spoke about the moral laws and guidance that God gives. When we ground our conduct in God we can stand tall and confident, to do the right thing when the right thing may hard, inconvenient, unpopular or expensive.

I also spoke of a sense of community that God gives us. God doesn't just call people to Him but calls people to reach out to each other - to consider our neighbours feelings and to love our neighbour.

Further I told how God takes our lives seriously. It is only to God; it is only to the church that we can come with our entire lives, our joys, our sorrows, our celebrations and our shames. God takes our private pains and joys and allows us to share them with God and with our Christian brothers and sisters.

 

Finally, God gives us the power to be human in a world that tries to strip the humanity from us. In a world that sets us against each other, God compels us towards kindness. In a world where we are surrounded by strangers, God tells us that they are our neighbours. In a world full of fear, God compels us to love. In a world where our worth is measured in dollars and cents, God's measuring sick measures our compassion and mercy. When the world calls on us to be the best and to look out for number 1, God calls to something greater than lust individual achievements and satisfying our pleasures^.. In a world where we can get cancer, alstymers, or MS regardless of how nice we are or the way we live our lives, God gives us understanding, perspective, and comfort.

I am reminded of a story of two friends who experienced a death in their lives. On the day of the wake the first friend arrived at the second friend's home so they could go together. The second friend was not ready to go and was crying inconsolably. The second friend said that she wasn't going to the wake. The first friend was shocked at this announcement and said she had to, that this was a way to celebrate the life of the deceased and to both give and receive comfort. The second friend continued to cry and said "What should I celebrate? The wife he'll never marry? The books he never finished? The children he never had? It is okay for you to go, you have God. I ... I have nobody."

This is perhaps the most significant difference between a Christian and a morally committed atheist. We can both be good and kind people, honest, helpful, and generous. We can both work for peace and racial harmony. The difference in our religious commitments comes when we have exhausted ourselves in caring for the hurt and grieving, when we have fought the demons of injustice and bigotry and they seem lust as strong as when we started, when our husband or wife or child dies or becomes sick. How do we go on giving, how do we go on living when we have nothing left to give or our purpose for living disappears?

The atheist for all that they may be a good person, believes that strength and love can only come from within. There will come times when they look for more and may well find that they have run dry. We have the advantage of believing in a God beyond ourselves, a God who renews our strength when we turn to him, who replenishes our capacity to love, to care, and to work. It is God who gives us the strength to face each new day when we thought the sun would never come up again. It is God who gives us the ability to go forth again, again, and again into an often unfair world and share our strength with others who need it.

In a world without God we would be all alone - no one to help us when we had to do something hard, no one to forgive us when we had disappointed ourselves or others, no one to replenish us when we had come to the point of using ourselves up, and no one to promise us that, even when it was all over it is not truly over.

In his days of the flesh Jesus walked this earth and healed the leper, he fed the hungry, and he loved the outcast. Everywhere he went in this world, even to the cross, he sought out the broken of spirit, the battered of body, and the humbled of soul and gave them the power to be human again. He loved and welcomed the outcast. He healed the leper. He fed the hungry. He comforted the downtrodden. Everywhere He went he gave people what they needed to be human and to live bravely, fully and meaningfully in this world. As Jesus said in our scripture passage today “I have come to give life, and to give it abundantly.”

Our Lord is now the Risen Lord and is still with us this day. Christ is still there comforting our sorrows, giving peace to the heart, and strength to our soul. In the brightest of day or the darkest of night Christ is with us helping us to reclaim our humanity and to live as humans in this often unfair world. This is the power of God. This is the purpose of religion. This is the duty of the church. When we ask who needs God, the answer is we all do.