WHAT WE WANT, WHAT GOD WANTS

A Sermon for Sunday, September 21, 2008

In the church there is an ancient spiritual practice, revived in recent years, called spiritual direction. When we have deeper questions in life, especially questions about our relationship with God, we might look for direction of a spiritual nature. Ours might be a clearly spiritual question, like, Where is God in my life right now? But there are other kinds of questions which, at first, may not seem spiritual, yet in fact are deeply so. Questions like, Is this the right job? The right relationship? What is my life supposed to be about, anyway?Mary Oliver asks a stunningly spiritual question in her poem “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long, Black Branches?”She asks, “Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”

When we struggle with serious, soul-searching questions, we can read a dozen books, search the internet for some hidden, unexpected clue or just wear God out with our prayers. We can also share our spiritual struggles with closest friends, seek out mentors or therapists or anyone we trust with such important things. But sometimes, the questions are so difficult, so deep, that we need a kind of doctor for the soul, someone well experienced with spiritual questions, someone educated and trained as a holy listener. Sometimes we need a special spiritual friend – the Celtic phrase is anam cara – someone who will love us enough to listen us into our own truth, someone who will listen with us for God.

A priest of my acquaintance went to see her spiritual director as she wrestled with some significant questions in her life. She brought her questions, her concerns and even her complaints to her spiritual friend who listened for a long time and then asked her, “What do you want?”

At first, the priest thought the question both silly and shallow. What do I WANT? But, as she prayed the question faithfully, week after week, it became the hardest question, the most complicated and profound question, the most real and lasting—and in some ways unanswerable—question of all. It was the question that went to the very core of her priesthood, to the heart of who she was as a human being. What, in God’s name, DID she want?

What do YOU want? Some Sundays, I want nothing more than to walk through the doors of All Saints’ Episcopal Church, to worship God and to be here with all of you. My heart is filled with anticipation and love. There’s nothing else I want. But (I’ll admit it) I also have moments when I want to fast-forward to afternoon, when our time here is done, so I can pile up my Sunday newspapers, curl up on the couch and read until I am overtaken by a nap!

In our gospel lesson for today, some of the workers in Jesus’ parable seem confused by these same questions. On one hand, we can sympathize with the laborers who worked all day and didn’t get a penny more than the ones who showed up at the very last minute. You and I might claim we want an honest day’s wage, but just like the grumpy parable worker, what we probably mean is: we want more than the next guy! But I wonder if we or he really consider what’s at stake here. Was the complaint really about justice, what’s fair and square? Or was it about some phantom need that remains unsatisfied, even when he or we get paid more? What DO you want? What would really, finally, joyfully satisfy your heart’s deepest longings? A new car? A new relationship? A new life? Having more? Being “one-up”? Being in charge of the whole vineyard?

The children of Israel thought they knew what they wanted—to be out from underneath Pharaoh’s thumb. After four hundred years in bondage, they said they wanted Pharaoh to let them go. The harder they worked, the more bricks they were forced to make and the less straw they were given to make them. It was impossible! They suffered and cried out for freedom. And God heard their cry and led them out of Egypt. But…how did they use their freedom? How much freedom did they really want?

In the passage we have just heard, the Israelites complained - not once, but seven times. At the end of the previous chapter of Exodus, and in the chapter that follows this one, they complained about thirst: “What shall we drink?” (15:24). “Give us water to drink” (17:2). Actually, the Israelites’ complaints run all through their forty-year wandering in the wilderness. In a way, who can blame them? After all, it’s a wilderness! Nevertheless, Moses and Aaron got pretty tired of hearing something like, Yes, you brought us out of Egypt, but what have you done for us lately? And just what kind of God-forsaken place IS this, anyway? No wonder Moses finally said to God, “What shall I do with this people?” (17:4).

In today’s reading from the 16 th chapter of Exodus the Israelites complained not about drink, but about food: “If only we had died…in Egypt….You have brought us out in the wilderness…to kill (us)…with hunger” (16:3). Moses and his brother assure them that God has heard their complaining. Then Moses begins to take it all personally: “What are we, that you complain against us?...Your complaining is not against us, but the Lord” (Exodus 16:7,8).

What is all this complaining about? Was the parable worker’s complaint really about being treated unfairly? Were the complaints of the wandering Israelites really about missing the fondly remembered delights of Egypt? Is our complaining really about how we have been wronged? How unfair the world is? How bad things are today? When we consider Hurricane Wall Street, as some are calling our country’s financial crisis, there is no lack of complaint.

Or, I wonder, is all our complaining about this: we really don’t know our own hearts’ treasure? Had the laborer in Matthew’s parable clearly known his heart’s true desire, he might not have minded his master’s generosity toward a fellow worker. Had the Israelites recognized in that desert the significance of the gifts of quail and manna that were given to them, perhaps their complaint would have dissolved into psalms of praise – psalms like the one their descendant David wrote and we prayed this morning, with people around the world.

What DO we want? Do we really know? Do we really want freedom? Or is bondage far too familiar a friend? Do we really want our due? Or is the pleasure of our work well done obscured by constant fears of “not enough”?

The astonishing claim of our faith in God is that Jesus Christ has given us freedom, joy, even new life. All this is being offered to us—it is available for the taking. But we must be willing to embrace it. Are we ready to embrace freedom and accept the responsibility that goes with it? Are we able to receive the joy and generosity of heart that is freedom’s sign? Can we honestly say to a friend: I want you to have what you want. And I want to give something of what I have to others, out of gratitude for all that God has so generously given to me.

Complaint is what happens when we say we want one thing, but really don’t have a clue, when we think we want freedom, but aren’t ready to let go of our bondage, when we say we want what’s rightfully ours, but have lost touch with our heart’s true desire to share. In other words, we complain when we don’t know or we’re not clear or we’re not yet conscious of our heart’s deepest longing. Centuries ago St. Augustine said it well: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you” (Confessions).

And so, my friends…Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life? What is your deepest longing, your heart’s desire? In what will your heart find its rest? What does God want for you? What do you want?

The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
All Saints' Episcopal Church, Frederick, MD
September 21, 2008