National Baptist Memorial Church, Washington, DC March 13, 2005
The issue is not an academic discussion as to whether there is a God. Relatively few doubt or debate that. The issue is not whether God is real, but whether we know how to get real with God.
Let me play out a little scene with you. Picture a home in which there is a parent and a teenager. They live in the same house, they inhabit the same space, they sometimes even eat at the same table. They are family. But listen to their conversation:
Hi, how was school today? Okay.
Any grades to report? Anything special going on? No, nothin’ happened.
Well, do you have any homework? Do you need my help tonight? No, I’ll be okay.
Are you sure nothing special happened today? Not really.
Then what’s this I see on the evening news about the kids over at your school tearing up the place? Why is your principal screaming at the TV camera, and isn’t that you standing over there?!
If we can live in the some house and not connect, if we can be at the same dinner table and treat one another as if we didn’t exist, maybe it is no surprise that we treat God the same way! Maybe it is no surprise that we barely even acknowledge that God is around. We need to get real with God. God is real; that’s not at issue. It’s time that we got real before God; and when we do, we will find that everything is changed.
Jesus was the most authentic person who ever lived, for Jesus knew how to get real with God. Jesus not only believed in His mind that God was real; Jesus actually treated God as a living reality. Jesus played no games, but brought His full self before God. And the results were spectacular! You and I can learn from Jesus how to get real with God.
I
First, notice that Jesus got real with God by admitting His true feelings, even though they were not pretty. Jesus got real with God by acknowledging exactly how He felt, without varnishing anything over. Jesus trusted God with what He really felt. He said, boldly, “I am deeply grieved, even to death.”
Now that’s real. “I am deeply grieved.” That’s a genuine feeling. Jesus didn’t have to say that. He could have done what many of us do. We put on a front, we come to church dressed in our Sunday best, but with all kinds of pain inside, and make up our minds that come what may, we are not going to open up to anybody, any time, and least of all to God. We hide our true feelings.
A friend of mine told me about she hid your feelings. She was living with an abusive, alcoholic husband. Not only did he hurt her physically, but more profoundly, he injured her emotionally. She told me how she had grown a garden of beautiful flowers in front of their house, so spectacular that when people passed by they stopped and marveled at the color. She wanted some joy in her life. But, she said, when people admired her flowers it just drove her deeper and deeper into despair, because inside that house and inside that heart, there was no color, no beauty, no joy. There was only pain and anger. And she couldn’t tell anybody what she felt. She said, “I was unreal ... unreal.”
Do you have a hard time doing what Jesus did? Jesus admitted His true feelings and acknowledged His pain. “I am deeply grieved,” He said. “Even to death”. Don’t miss the depth of what Jesus is saying, “I’m suffocating here. I can hardly breathe. This thing that is hanging over my head – it is so awesome that I feel I’m about to die”.
Have you ever heard someone speak about being nearly ready to die, about just wishing it were all over? We need to hear that. We need to take that seriously. Sometimes others will say, “Ah, don’t listen to her. She just wants attention. She’s just a drama queen.” But I have to say, no, when somebody speaks about how she feels stifled and cramped, when somebody says his life is bolted down and oppressive, I want to listen. I want to take that seriously. I believe God wants to take that seriously. Brothers and sisters, if you feel you are on the edge, say it! Get it out! You do no one any favors – not your family, not your friends, not yourself, and not your God – if you do not admit what you feel, however painful it may be. Getting real with God begins with telling God what you really feel, even if it isn’t pretty.
And then something special begins to happen. John A. T. Robinson was a bishop in the Church of England, a scholar and a church leader. If anybody had it together, you would have supposed that he did. But Bishop Robinson got very sick and had to spend a long time in the hospital. It brought him face to face with who he was and what he felt; it took him to the absence of God! He found that he did not know God; he had never really spoken honestly with God. Oh, the bishop had said many prayers. Day after day, all the right things. Bishop Robinson knew the drill, sort of like a child with his “Now I lay me down to sleep” routine. But John Robinson says that until he became desperately ill, he had never trusted God with what he really felt. But when he got real with God, Robinson found first the absence of God, and then something more.
A friend of mine suffered a bitter loss. His little girl, ten years old, took ill with leukemia. This man and his wife waged a valiant battle. Their doctors did all they knew to do; it was one of those up and down things, where today you think the child is getting better and tomorrow she suffers a setback. It was agony. I’d love to be able to tell you that prayer turned this thing around, but it did not. The child died. All my friend could do was to weep and to wonder, “Why?” He was so numb with grief, he could barely function. But then a pastor friend sent him a telegram. Its message was brief and blunt, not very pretty or churchy. Said the telegram to this grieving father, “God is going to have a hell of a lot to answer for if He lets a child die.” Now you may not like that language, and you may think that is not proper, but let me tell you, that word released my friend. It freed him to pour out his bitterness to God. It started him on the path to healing, just because He could get real with God and acknowledge his true feelings.
Jesus admitted what you He really felt. “I am deeply grieved, even to death.” If you feel it, say it. God can handle it!
II
But the second step is equally important. The second step is vital too. If we are going to get real with God, not only must we tell God what we feel. We must also tell Him what we want, even though that may not be what He wants. Even though you know that what you want is not what God wants, don’t back off from telling God what you want. Discover the rock-bottom need of your own heart, and spit it out. Jesus did: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me.”
Remove this cup – you know what He is talking about: the cup of sorrow, the poisonous cup of death. Remove it, Lord. This is what I want. Take it away. I don’t want pain. I don’t want suffering. I do not want to go where it seems I am headed. Jesus boldly asked for what He wanted, right now. Did He get it? Don’t be too sure you know the answer!
The Bible tells us that we are to ask and we will receive, to seek and we will find, to knock and it will be opened to us. I believe that we fail to receive or find or have things opened because we do not discover and then tell God what we really want. The issue is that we do not know what we really want, down deep, rock bottom. We know what we want now, but we have not listened to deep in our hearts, to hear God’s heart, to figure out what our heart’s desire really is. When we stop to listen to the depths of our hearts, we finally come around to saying what Jesus said, “Yet, not what I want, but what you want.”
When I was in my senior year in seminary, I began to think about what I wanted to do after graduation. I knew that I was trained for ministry, and wanted to get started. I also knew that I had strong academic interests, and wanted to get into higher education, probably to teach. But in addition I knew that the two of us, my wife and I, were on the way to becoming three, and so I needed to work and support my family. A brisk prayer or two later and I was very clear: I would serve a church on the edge of a university campus and would enrol at that university to study in its doctoral program. Nice and neat, thank you very much, goodbye Lord, my will, your will, well done!
I should have known something was up when I spent a frustrating summer, preaching in churches near university campuses, but never getting a call to be anybody’s pastor. However, at the end of the summer, the most perfect situation you could imagine came up – a church eight miles from the best university in the country for what I wanted to study. They asked me to preach there for a couple of Sundays, and I thought I was all set. Plan A was working out – my plan, my what-I-want-right-now plan.
Except that it didn’t work out. They phoned and said, “Not you, not now. If we are going to have a pastor, we don’t want one who is going to school as well. Sorry about that.” I wept that night. I was so disappointed. God had forgotten about me. It wasn’t that I had forgotten about Him, you notice. He had forgotten me. Nonetheless, a few days later, I picked myself up, dried my tears, applied for and got a position doing campus ministry at a small college in eastern Kentucky, and said to myself, second best; not the real thing. Not my will. But within six weeks I knew that I was in God’s will, I knew that I was where I was supposed to be, for I had not really understood my own wants and wishes! I had not understood what I wanted, at rock-bottom. I thought I wanted to become a high-powered academic; but what I really wanted, but did not tell the Lord, because I hadn’t stopped to find out for myself, was to serve Christ in the world of higher education. I got confused. I didn’t really know what I was asking for until after I got it! Not my will but yours be done, for God’s will will be even greater and better than my will. I just need to dig deeper for my heart’s desire, and then I find that my bottom line coincides with God’s will.
Jesus learned what was in His own heart. He knew what He wanted, and He said so. He knew He wanted the cup of sorrow and death removed. He got real with God. But even though He did not get what He wanted on the surface, He got more than that. He lost His life, but He became our Savior, He was obedient and, the Bible says, God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name above every name!
Get real with God. Tell God what you really want; and you will find that what God wills is even greater than what you asked for.
III
But now there is a third step. There is another element here. Not only did Jesus get real with God by telling God what He felt, and not only did Jesus get real with God by telling God what He wanted, but also Jesus got real with God by enlisting others to pray with Him, even if they were inadequate, lazy, and imperfect. There is something about getting others to pray with you that steels you and strengthens you, even if they are not very diligent about it. Jesus got real with God by telling His friends, his imperfect friends, what was on His heart and by enlisting their spiritual energy alongside His own.
Jesus had an inner circle, Peter, James, and John. He took them into His confidence. His assignment was really rather simple, wasn’t it? “Sit here while I pray.” Just be with me. Just anchor me, just hold my hand while I struggle. Such a simple thing. But Jesus prayed and came back and found them sleeping. “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?”
I didn’t ask much, Simon Peter. Can’t you just stay awake for me? It’s a little thing. He went away and prayed some more, came back, and found the same three slumbering souls, sacked out on the hillside, and tried once more. “Keep awake and pray”
Do this for me, at least this. I really need a friend tonight. But the third time, the same story. Asleep again, all of them. They remind me of myself, when I cavalierly agree to pray for somebody and then maybe manage one thirty-second mention the next morning.
But here is the glory, here is the gift: Jesus announces anyway: “Enough! The hour has come ... Get up, let us be going..”
Enough .. let us be going. Jesus found the strength to do what the Father wanted, and his friends were a part of it, even though they weren’t very good at it. It was enough for Jesus. It was enough that they had been there, as imperfect and as ineffective as it seems they were.
Somehow, when we reach out for others, and enlist them to be with us, ask them to pray with us, we can reach down into our souls and get the courage to go on. The one thing we cannot do is to go it alone. The one thing we cannot manage is to take the difficult, slow, and painful steps, all by ourselves. To get real with God and to do what God wants us to do, we need the companionship of others, even if they don’t get it, even if they don’t seem to understand, and yes, even if they fall asleep. We need one another to be real with God.
A friend of mine laughed and told me that her life was so dull that her psychiatrist actually fell asleep during one of their therapy sessions. She told me she probably should send her check to her pastor instead of the psychiatrist, because I actually listened! But it is not always easy to be an active listener. It is not always easy to get into the needs of others. And yet this is what the church is about, this is why you have brothers and sisters in the church. Many of us are very imperfect and sometimes dull-witted and even sleepy companions. We don’t get it all of the time.
Some of us have our own issues to deal with, and so we are not very attentive to others’ issues. Maybe we have issues, like Peter, with our own egos. Maybe Peter went to sleep just because he was bored talking about anybody but himself! Maybe we have issues, like James did, with wanting places of rank and privilege, but not being prepared for all that involves, and so maybe James went to sleep because he felt guilty for asking to be at the Lord’s side in the Kingdom. Lots of people sleep off shame. Maybe we have issues, like John did, with being immature and emotionally needy, and so maybe John went to sleep because he didn’t want to face the possibility of losing Jesus, his prop. Whatever it was about them, whatever it is about us, we aren’t all that we could be, and we may not seem to be very helpful when others are struggling. We are, bottom line, very ordinary creatures, we church folks. But if you will enlist your brothers and your sisters, it will surprise you what that presence means. They will strengthen you, just by being there. They will help you stay honest, they will help you get real with God. They will be companions for the journey.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Dorothy said after the gale winds blew. She was in a strange new world. First Dorothy met a scarecrow, who didn’t have a brain, only stuffing in his head, who if he only had a brain could think of things he never thunk before, if he only had a brain. And then a tin man, all hollow inside, because they forgot to give him a heart – and if he only had a heart, he could register emotion, jealousy, devotion, and really feel the part, if he only had a heart. And finally Dorothy met a cowardly lion, who looked all big and brave, but if he only had the nerve, he’d be as brave as a blizzard, gentle as a lizard, clever as a gizzard, if he only had the nerve. Truly flawed, all of them. Quite imperfect. How could Dorothy depend on a straw scarecrow, a hollow tin man, and a cowardly lion? And yet, once they had shared their secrets and their needs, they were off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. And, in Emerald City, the Wizard gave each what was needed – Dorothy got her heart’s desire, to go home again; and to each of the others the Wizard gave what he wanted most – a brain, a heart, and a nerve.
If Dorothy, in a fanciful tale, stood before the Wizard with her friends and got the courage to go on, how much more you and I can stand before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and tell the truth and go on. If Dorothy, in a fable, stood before the Wizard with her friends and received her heart’s desire, how much more you and I can speak with Abba, Father, how much more can we be real with God and receive what He wants us to receive.
For when you have become fully real, before God, whatever cup you must drink, wherever you must go, you will be able, like Jesus, to announce, “Enough. The hour has come .. get up, let us be going.” That is getting real with God.
