Calling Upon God

'When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you...you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.'

--Deuteronomy 26: 1, 11

'For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."'

--Romans 10: 12:-13

'After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.'

--Luke 4: 1-13

What does it mean to call upon God?  At some point in our lives every one of us has done it.  Whether it was here in a church, clasping our hands in prayer, or in the middle of a sleepless night when the everyday stress gets to be too much, or in the final days of the life of a loved one who is dying, we’ve all been there, crying out to God.  But what does that mean, and what is it that we hope to achieve with those cries? 

What we did at the start of our worship on Sunday mirrored the actions of the Hebrew people in the wilderness, taking the long road—as the choir and ministers did when we entered—all the while crying out to the God of our ancestors to hear us as we lamented our sins and prayed for God's world.  In the text from Deuteronomy Moses instructs the people that they are to, upon entering the land that God is giving them, rejoice and celebrate because God had heard their cries while they were in captivity in Egypt.  God had delivered them out of bondage, given them bread from heaven to sustain them in their journey, and now God was fulfilling the promise made to a wandering Aramean—to Abraham and to his children.  Those cries, and the salvific response of God is what would serve to define the Hebrew people because their very existence was (and still is) predicated on the fact that they had cried out to God and had been delivered. 

Such a message of hope—of God hearing those cries and delivering God’s people—is enough to inspire anyone to jump on board with faith in the God of Abraham.  Such a message almost seems to suggest that God will allow nothing bad to happen to those who love God and call out to God in their distress.  Yet we cannot escape the fact that there are times when our cries to God seem to go unnoticed, when the road ahead looks so foggy that we cannot make out any of the twists and turns, and we wonder if God is even along for the ride with us.  In those moments our faith may begin to wane, and we might wonder what the point is in calling on a God who doesn’t seem to hear us or even be present.

Perhaps the takeaway is not so much that loving God and calling on God result in rescue in any and all circumstances, but rather that we are never without God, that there is never a moment when God gives up on us.  The devil tries really hard to get Jesus to think that God isn't there in the wilderness and that Jesus' relationship with God is all about God getting him out of trouble or fulfilling a need:  turn the stones to bread if you are hungry, jump off the temple and God will save you, since God isn't even out here, turn your back on God and gain all the power on earth.  Yet with each temptation Jesus offers a fierce rebuke:  one does not live by bread alone, do not put God to the test, worship only God.  

What Jesus understands is that God’s all-encompassing care is not a commodity to be gained by human beings through wheedling, through flattery or coaxing or deal-brokering.  Jesus articulates something that the Hebrew people constantly forgot in their wilderness: no one ventures outside the realm of God’s care.  Paul gives voice to this when he reminds the Roman community, which had tried to make stipulations on who could and could not be part of their body, that they cannot control the number or identity of those who call upon God, that there are no distinctions such as Jew or Greek, that ‘everyone’ means just that, and that the grace and mercy of God prevent any human effort at defining who does and does not get to be heard by God and receive God’s care.  To call upon God, as Jesus does, is not to ask for power to be dispensed for the purpose of fulfilling our earthly needs, but it is to acknowledge the correlation between human finitude and divine providence.  In short, it is to be reminded that God’s presence with us everlasting, that it is binding at all times and in all places. 

We are tempted, much like Jesus, to believe that calling upon God is akin to asking our parent to do something for us.  In our moments of desperation we so often make that call—as Jesus himself does later in the garden of Gethsemane when he asks God to take the cup of his crucifixion away from him.  To do so in such moments is quite natural.  It makes us human. Yet the good news that is there for us is that, as Jesus knew even there in the garden, we are never alone in our struggles, and God is always with us. All of us! That is what our Scriptures have to teach us today. The Hebrew people time and time again had to be reminded of it.  Many of the folks in the Roman church community attempted to keep people out because they didn’t believe it. The devil tried to get Jesus to forget it, and Lord knows the devil is still trying to get us to forget it, too! Any notion that God does not hear us when we call, that God abandons us in moments of distress, or that God is only accessible to some, and not all, is a lie, brothers and sisters! 

To call upon God, even in the whisper of a prayer, is a primal scream that gives voice to the truth that not a single one of us is beyond the love and mercy of God.  Not one!  Even when we are desperate, when we can’t see the road ahead, or when our cries are met with silence, God still does not give up on us.  No one is beyond God’s care.  No one is beyond God’s love.  No one is without God.  The grace, love, and mercy of God will always abide with you because you are the longing of God.  Yes, you!!

A dear clergy friend this week shared the prayerful poem from the late, great Trappist monk Thomas Merton called The Road Ahead, which speaks to the enterprise of calling upon God far greater than I can. 

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. 
I do not see the road ahead of me.
 I cannot know for certain where it will end.
 Nor do I really know myself, 
and the fact that I think that I am following your will 
does not mean that I am actually doing so. 
But I believe that the desire to love as Christ loved does in fact please you. 
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
 I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. 
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always, 
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. 
I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone

This, brothers and sisters, is what it means to call upon God.