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Predictably, the assembled audience laughed, but some did so
with an obvious sense of unease. In a few minutes, the night's
first winners, a female trio called TLC who were recognized for
the best Rhythm & Blues album and best performance by an R&B
group, came out with, "We bumped into God also, and He said,
'Don't forget to thank me when you get up there."
Not long after that, the Grammy for best female R&B vocal
performance went to Whitney Houston (whose daddy happens to be a
preacher). She also thanked God, and it was clear this was in
deliberate defiance of Rosie's remark. The hostess came back
after a commercial break and tried to put the subject to rest.
She said, "It's not that I'm against thanking God. I just can't
imagine He's up there in heaven and this is His priority tonight.
You know, like he's goin' 'I gotta end world hunger, I gotta cure
AIDS, and I gotta make sure Whitney Houston gets that Grammy
award!!!'"
Of course, these public expressions of piety are nothing
new. We hear them frequently. Sometimes they go beyond
expressing thanks to God for the victory (whether it might be an
award or a final score) and stake out a clear theological
position. For example, after the Super Bowl, the St. Louis Rams
wide receiver Isaac Bruce who made the game-winning touchdown
catch against the Tennessee Titans said this: "It was all God. I
knew I had to make an adjustment on the ball, and God did the
rest."(1) Sounds like the same confident mindset held by the
Psalmist when he offered this prayer of celebration: "You have
exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; you have poured over me
fresh oil. My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies; my ears
have heard the doom of my evil assailants."(2) YES!!!
So what do you think? Did God arrange for Whitney Houston
to win the Grammy? For Isaac Bruce to make the catch and win the
game? What say you?
A recent editorial in The Christian Century spoke for many:
Perhaps the result was simply predestined, set in stone from
before the foundation of the earth. Some folks believe that.
Recently, I have been in e-mail correspondence with a young lady
in South Africa named Rachel. She had come across our web site
and was writing for some help with a controversy that had arisen
between her and her fiancé about predestination, a bone of
contention that was apparently serious enough to be causing a
significant strain between the two. Now, I admit most couples do
not have serious relationship-threatening arguments over
predestination, but these folks did, so I wanted to help and have
been writing her ever since.
Is there some inexorable fate or some divine plan that
charts our lives, that says where we will be born, which school
to attend, what we will do, who we will marry, who will win the
Grammy or the Super Bowl, when we will die? Rachel said she
believed so. Her fiancé was not so sure.
Rachel is not alone. Lots of folks are fatalists. They
believe that when it is your time, it is your time - no avoiding
it. Soldiers head into battle with the conviction that, if there
is a bullet "with my name on it," that is it. I heard of a
fellow who was afraid of flying. A friend said, "Hey, why worry?
When your number's up, you're gonna go, no matter where."
The `fraidy flyer replied, "Yeah, but I don't want to go
when the number of the guy sitting NEXT to me is up." Hmmm.
I admitted to Rachel that many people find great comfort in
believing just as she does, that our lives are intricately mapped
out according to divine plan. I also admitted that I used to
feel that way, but no longer can. You see, if I believed that, I
would have to say then that it was God's plan for that little boy
in Kansas City to be tangled in his seat belt and dragged to his
death by a car-jacker this week while his mother looked on in
horror. Some of you know Curtis Patterson who, until his recent
retirement, was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in
Thomasville [NC]. Yesterday we attended the memorial service for
his wife Charlotte who for more than 20 years was a wheel-chair
bound invalid suffering from multiple sclerosis. If I believed
God had an intricate and immutable plan for Charlotte's life, I
would have to say God arranged for those miserable years of
suffering and pain. I would have to say that it is God's plan
for millions to die in history's regular demonstrations of man's
inhumanity to man - the holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda, Chechnya. How
could I avoid saying that if I insisted that things happen ONLY
according to God's plan? But what kind of God would plan such
things? That would not be a God, but rather some kind of devil.
Rachel's fiancé agrees.
For what it is worth, Rachel, I did grow up convinced that
all those horrible things WERE planned (although I would not want
to have shouted that out). NOTHING happened by chance - that is
what I believed. It was not by chance that I was born into a
Christian home, it was not by chance that I married Christie, it
was not by chance that we are the parents of David and Erin, it
is not by chance that we are at St. Paul. I would have happily
argued that a sovereign God, the God of all the universe, the God
who hung the sun, the moon and stars, the God who built the
mountains and carved out the oceans, is surely powerful enough to
arrange the events of my piddly life (and even those awful events
of other lives). No question.
But, through the years, I have come to learn even more. I
have come to realize that that great God loves me more than that.
Like a loving Father, God trusts me, gives me freedom, allows me
choices, gives me the chance to work things out for myself. I
try to raise my own children the same way - teach them, offer
them guidance, then trust them to make proper decisions. And
when they DON'T, be there for them to help them up when they need
a hand...just as God is there for me when I need a hand. Rachel
has been listening politely to all this, but she is not quite
convinced.
One more scenario arises, a situation of what is called
"special providence." We regularly hear from individuals,
following a plane crash or a boat sinking that has taken dozens
of lives, who express shaken relief that they had gotten stuck in
traffic or were supernaturally delayed and thus missed the
departure. Wow! God's hand!!! Must have been. OK. But what
about the ones who DID die, plus all the rest who were injured.
Did God care less for them than the one who missed the boat or
plane? Was this one life spared because this was a person of
unique promise who would leave an indelible mark on human
society? Perhaps. But I have not heard any more from those so
spared - no strides toward world peace, no great music or books,
no cures for cancer. Hmm.
To try to answer Rachel's concern, we must eventually get
back to the Bible. That is our source of authority. What does
scripture say? Any thoughtful reading would note that God allows
humanity incredible freedom, from the Garden of Eden, through the
lives of the patriarchs and the prophets, on to the time of Jesus
and the early church. Rather than mapping out every individual's
destiny or plan of life which must be followed, instead God
allows circumstances to occur, choices to be made, and then makes
a way for those circumstances and choices to be used for good for
his children. As our lesson has it, "ALL things work together
for good to those who love God, to those who are called according
to God's purpose." It does not say that all things ARE good.
Our faith convinces us that God can take awful things and turn
them into good. Or in the vernacular, God can take the lemons
life hands us and help us make lemonade.
Now, about that Presbyterian doctrine of predestination that
has so concerned Rachel and her fiancé. Our lesson discusses
that: "those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the
firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined
he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and
those whom he justified he also glorified." Do you hear what
Paul is talking about? Our family tie as Christians with Christ.
Properly understood, predestination has nothing whatsoever to do
with some divinely-ordained plan for the day-to-day events of
your life. Predestination has to do with our relationship to the
Lord. It was the term chosen by John Calvin and other reformers
to explain that our salvation is not simply the result of our
choice - God acts first in extending the invitation and providing
us an opportunity to respond. For Calvin, this doctrine was a
source of comfort in that "salvation does not depend upon our
faltering human efforts but upon the mercy and power of God."(4)
To go one step further, listen to Dr. John Leith, long-time
professor of theology at Union Seminary in Richmond: "Calvin
located the doctrine of predestination in the ordering of his
theology after his discussion of the Christian life. This
suggests that predestination can best be understood not at the
beginning but at the conclusion of the life of faith. It is the
testimony of the believer that what has happened in the life of
faith has not been the result of one's own efforts about which
one can boast but of the grace of God."(5) In other words,
predestination, from a human point of view, is simply 20/20
hindsight about how you and I came to Christ.
All right, if our lives are not intricately mapped out, what
then? Do you remember that wonderful movie a few years ago,
"Forrest Gump?"(6) It won the Academy Award for Best Picture (but
I don't remember if the producers thanked God at the ceremony).
As you recall it was the story of a rather slow-witted young man
with an IQ of 75 who was not only as good as his "brighter"
compatriots, but better. A recurring theme in the film is
destiny - Forrest's, his mother's, his friends'. On her deathbed
he heard his mother say, "I was destined to be your Mama. I hope
I did a good job."
Forrest replies, "What's my destiny, Mama?"
She responds, "I happen to believe you make your own
destiny. Do the best with what God gave you."
Others through the years have said the same. William
Jennings Bryan, one of America's best-known politicians of a
century ago said, "Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a
matter of choice: it is not a thing to be waited for; it is a
thing to be achieved."
Forrest Gump came to that conclusion. Here was a young man
from whom, under normal circumstances, we might have expected a
life of little or no accomplishment, lived on the periphery of
polite society, probably at the edges of poverty. Ha! He ended
up, in his term, "a go-zillionaire" because someone had suggested
he invest in a new fruit company...Apple Computer.
Do you remember the end of the film? It was bittersweet.
Forrest stands at the grave of his childhood sweetheart whom he
had just recently been able to marry and with tears streaming
down his cheeks said, "Mama always said dyin' was a part of life.
I wish it wasn't." (I agree, Forrest.) Then he says, "I don't
know if we each have a destiny or if we're all just floatin'
around, accidental like, like on a breeze. Maybe its both."
Young Rachel is not quite convinced. In her last e-mail to
me, she said she still has a lot of thinking to do. I
understand. As I say, at one time I wanted to believe in God's
moment-to-moment control - even who comes home with the Grammy or
who wins the Super Bowl. But I no longer concern myself with
that. Instead, I am content to affirm the absolute truth of
those wonderful words of the Apostle Paul about our ULTIMATE
destiny: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will
hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword?"
How about NONE OF THE ABOVE.
And why? He says, "For I am convinced that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in
all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord."
Oh, that is good news. That is GOD's news. In fact, that is the best news you
or I will ever hear. That is gospel. Hallelujah.
Amen!
1. Quoted in "God Squad," The Christian Century, 2/16/2000, p. 171 2. Psalm 92:10-11 3. The Christian Century 4. John Leith, An Introduction to the Reformed Tradition, (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), p.
105 5. ibid., pp. 105-106 6. Paramount Pictures, 1994
Though we hesitate to criticize any person for praising
God we do wonder on such occasions if the one being
praised is the God of Jesus Christ - the God who
disciplines those he loves and who sends rain on the
just and the unjust - or some more domesticated
gridiron god. Can we really discern just how God is
acting in the ups and downs of life? More to the
point: if God was positioning the Rams for a touchdown,
what did God have against the Titans?(3)
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