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Welcome to Hillsboro United Methodist Church! If you are searching for deeper meaning in your life that includes lasting relationships, spiritual growth and service to the world you have come to the right place. We offer a safe place in which to ponder important life questions within an atmosphere of support. Our hearts, our minds and our doors are open. We hope that as you visit with us that you will find a place to call home.
Sermon - March 14th, 2010
Our Relentless God
Rev. Gwen Drake
Luke 15:1-3; 11-32
Prayer of Preparation: We give thanks, O God of sacred stories, for the witness of your word today. Through Scripture you challenge our assumptions, increase our awareness, nurture our imaginations, and touch our feelings. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our creator and redeemer. Amen.
I ran away from home a lot after my Dad was killed. I would saddle up my horse and head for the hills. Sometimes I was gone for hours. Occasionally I would ride to my best friend’s house over the butte. I didn’t plan my rides. I didn’t tell my Mom when I would be back. I was 14 years old and had a lot to work through emotionally, too much! Riding was my escape, my dream time, my connecting to nature time, my praying time, my “where the hell are you, God” time, my disengagement, withdrawing time. I always came back home.
It was my Dad’s own fault that he was killed, I found out accidentally a few years later. He was hunting, his gun went off unexpectedly when it was pointed at his chest, he died on the way to the hospital. After the accident was investigated, the sheriff told my Mom, his gun had to be destroyed because someone had filed down the safety, so it could be released easily, too easy. My Mom knew who that someone was—it was my Dad, who loved to hunt, loved to have the competitive edge. She had written a paper about it when she was taking a writing course through correspondence. The instructor kept giving her A’s on these papers she would send in. I got curious and picked one of them up from the dining room table and read it. That’s how I found out the accident was my Dad’s fault. He had made a fatal decision, when it came to handling guns, and in the end, it cost him his life.
Without my Dad, home did not feel like home anymore. People brought food, neighbors helped with the farming, the whole community showed up for the funeral. And I didn’t know how to be. I wanted everything to be like it was. It couldn’t be the same; a big piece was missing—my Dad. My Dad who loved horses, and farming, and the county fair, and playing cards, and telling stories, and making me laugh. He loved life. He was the perfect Dad. I worshipped him. He was my rock. He was gone.
I would run away from home looking for home, knowing in some part of me, that I was most at home on my horse, riding the hills and wheat fields of Eastern Oregon.
In the other parts of my life, I was numb, stoic, quiet. My sister, Susan was in college. I don’t know if my older brother, Doug, heard the preacher at the funeral tell him, he was now the man of the family, I didn’t hear or remember anything at the funeral. He didn’t step into those shoes at all. My Mom was furious at the preacher for saying that, I found out later. Everything, I found out later, because we didn’t talk. I don’t remember talking at all about the loss we all felt. So, someone had to act out all this bottled up grief and anger and fury. In my family, it was my older brother. The more he acted out, the more responsible I felt. My brother, whom I loved deeply, and looked up to, was wasting his life, messing up life even more than it already was, letting everyone down, letting me down. I had expected more of him. Maybe I did hear that preacher in our church tell him he was now the man of the family. Some part of me wanted him to be just like my Dad. Instead, he was the prodigal son, in a small Eastern Oregon town, not coming home when he was suppose to, not getting the cows milked. I watched my Mom learn how to milk a cow. I watched her struggle to keep the ranch running. I watched her struggle period. And my brother made it worse with his wasteful living. I was relieved when he enlisted in the Navy for six years.
Then there was my little brother, me, and my Mom at home. I was a freshman in high school when my Dad was killed. By my senior year in high school, my sister was working her way through nursing school, my older brother was in the Navy, my Mom was the County Juvenile Director and I was ready to act out. And I did, with my friends and a bottle of Seagram’s Seven. For the first time in my life, I got drunk, went to a rodeo dance in Heppner, threw up in the bathroom, and the next day, I was the talk of the town. Everyone and their dog had seen me. And if they hadn’t, they heard about it. I turned my responsible, miss goody-two shoes reputation around in an evening of getting wasted. I had declared to my little world, it was my turn to be the prodigal.
I lived a kind of double life after that. One life I lived was the smart, responsible, shy, self-reliant life. The other life was the get-crazy life, not-a-care-in-the-world life, numb-to-the-pain life. The responsible part of me would wake up with a hang-over on Sunday morning and play the organ for church. The responsible part of me did my homework, aced papers in college, played basketball, volleyball, went out for track, and tennis. The crazy part of me showed every so often. Still, I did not talk about what was missing in my life, or, the grief, or the anger. Not with anyone, it was buried deep, as far as I was concerned.
So, I graduated from college, went to Australia for four years as a physical education teacher, came back, and entered graduate school at University of Oregon to get my Master’s Degree in Phys. Ed. By that time, the universe was ready for me to wake up and begin living consciously. I wasn’t.
It took more than a nudge to wake me up; it took something like a sledge hammer! I was a runner, a bicycle was my mode of transportation, I taught exercise classes in the community. I had never been this fit in my life, not even when I played intercollegiate basketball. One night in February, on my way home, a masked bicyclist picked the wrong person for his next victim. Me. Something in my life had prepared me to run for my life (on my bicycle) and I did. We were on one of those narrow bike trails, so when he did try to overtake me and push me over, I cut him off, with my bicycle. I was riding along the Willamette River and instantly worked out a plan of escape. If I could not out run him, I would jump in the river and out swim him. I out-smarted him and out-ran him on my bicycle and raced to civilization about a half mile away, seemed like longer, like time had stopped. At the first house with a light on, I jumped off my bike, ran to the front door and pounded on it until a terrified little old lady reluctantly let me in. She had no choice but to let me in! I called the police and my roommates. The guy had disappeared forever and I went into post-traumatic stress.
It was as if everything in my life that I had been avoiding, everything huge and small, everything I had not talked about, which was literally everything that was painful—everything came out like a damn had burst and I had to talk, I could not keep it in any longer. I did a lot of firsts in my life after that. First time in a support group, first time talking about my Dad’s death, first time getting angry, first time feeling all of the grief, first time writing every day in a journal. First time waking up and living consciously!
And for the first time in my life, I started asking huge questions—like, why am I alive? Why is there suffering? What kind of God is there with this kind of stuff going on? My floating along the river of life going wherever the current took me was over. I was in the rapids and barely able to tread water. I had gone over a waterfall and was trying to get back up and breathe. I had no answers. And no one else did either. Nothing made sense to me except being able to talk about it and write about it.
My Mom was a United Methodist pastor over in Ashton, Idaho by this time. She told me to read Job. I read some of Job, didn’t help, he was in as much anguish as me, oh, maybe knowing that helped a little. She suggested I read some Psalms. Didn’t help. Except, for the first time I saw anger in the Bible. Maybe that helped a little. She must have suggested that I go to church because I did, finally, the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
This is the part of my story I have told many times. I chose the biggest United Methodist Church in Eugene—First United Methodist Church. I didn’t get there early, either. I went sat down right at 11 o’clock, near the back, next to no one. And it was fine that no one greeted me or paid much attention to me. I wasn’t there looking for community or human contact. I was there because I didn’t know where else to go for some kind of peace, for some sort of answers to the questions I had about my messed up world. Church was kind of the last resort for me.
What happened there, I did not expect at all! It wasn’t the music, although the hymns were familiar. It wasn’t the people or the choir or the space—the people left me alone, the choir sang perfectly, the space was enormous and beautiful. It was the love that the preacher talked about—the unconditional love of God. I went back the next Sunday. I don’t remember anything except the preacher, the Rev. Askew Crumbly kept telling me, only me, I’m sure, that God loved me no matter what I was feeling. And how did he know that? Because of Jesus. It was as simple and complex as that. I went back again and again. Every sermon was about God’s love for me as if that was what I needed. And I did need it. I had felt unworthy for so long, I had forgotten what it felt like to be loved without expecting anything back, I’m not even sure if I had ever felt that kind of love. I didn’t have to accept it, or give anything back, or do anything at all. God loved me. I could despise myself—God still loved me more than ever. I could feel like an utter failure—and you know what—God loved me. I could throw my life away in wasteful living—and you know what—God loved me. I could blame God for everything—and you know what—God loved me. I could ask a million and one questions—and you know what—God loved me.
I continued going to church there, sitting near the back, I don’t remember meeting anyone for a long, long time, I never stayed for coffee, I came in on time, and left immediately, not much happened except one huge enormous thing--- I met God there, and found that our relentless God loved me fiercely and always had and always will.
Eventually, and it took a lot of Sundays, I started to believe it and feel it. And then another miracle journey began. It wasn’t easy. I had heard God’s call and was on my way to seminary (I guess that was a miracle, too). There was one more issue I wanted to deal with before I left for Berkeley, California. I went to see a counselor about it before packing up for seminary. This counselor listened to me and then got straight to another issue I had been avoiding since I was 14 years old, my Dad. She asked me to write a letter to my Dad and bring it to the next session with her. I did. At that session, she read my letter to me and asked me to respond-- as my Dad. I started saying some things… I don’t know what; I don’t know how long… and then, out of my mouth came the words, “I’m so sorry. I wish I was there with you, now.”
Then the phone rang. It interrupted and jarred us back to the present—the counselor more than me. She was not happy. I was fine. I felt a warmth flooding through my body. I will never ever forget those words and that moment. I truly felt like I was finally held in the arms of my father, welcoming me home from a long, long journey. Those were the only words I needed to hear. That was the moment for me when the prodigal was taken into the father’s arms with tears and rejoicing and release and incredible, amazing love and grace. And I knew I would never have to run away from home ever again. Or, if I did, this amazing, relentless God we have would always, forever, no matter what, be with me, because, you know what? God loves me and there is nothing I can do about it!
Amen.