As it has taken shape among us, however, secularism has a downside. We have come to a time when the legal structures of society are so intent upon not appearing to favor "religion" over "non-religion" that they appear to be in opposition to religion. In intellectual circles, the dominant belief that there are no absolutes has seemed to rule out the existence of God or of anything like "the will of God." In polite society, it is considered rude to talk about religion. Yet, many people seem to feel that it is appropriate to take every opportunity to ridicule religion and religious people. Now, we are given to understand that it is acceptable to have a religion, but we must keep it a very personal matter. That is to say, we may believe that there is a God, but we must live as if we don't. In that atmosphere, faith tends to wither away. Our beliefs are supposed to shape our actions. When they are not allowed to do so, our actions tend to shape our beliefs.
That has left a huge empty spot in the lives of many people and communities where something important ought to be. We rush ahead doing what seems profitable or pleasurable, with no source of moral restraint except the very pliable expectations of our culture. Many people experience a deep sense of emptiness that comes from living lives with no spiritual dimension. We may feel a deep sense of lostness and hopelessness that comes from not knowing about anyone except ourselves, and others like us, who can be counted on or trusted or looked to for help. I suspect that, at one time or another, every one of us has experienced at least some of this sense of being spiritually adrift.
God is still alive and present, even when we are living as if that were not so. Sometimes, God pushes into our lives and surprises us by being present. If we are open to God's coming and responsive to God's actions, we can make a discovery that will lead us into an entirely new way of life.
Jacob had an experience like that. That may sound strange to us. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham, the one with whom God had made a covenant, the one of whose descendants God had promised to make a great nation. Surely, Jacob must have heard the stories of Abraham. Surely, he must have heard about his family's heritage.
But if he did, it doesn't seem to have made much difference in his life. The Bible doesn't tell us of any encounters with God before the one today's scripture lesson tells us about. Instead, it tells us that Jacob lived a ruthless and selfish life, depending only on himself, looking out only for himself, and either manipulating, or exploiting, everyone around him to get what he wanted. In fact, that lifestyle had gotten him into trouble. He had made an enemy of his brother and taken advantage of his father so that he had to leave home. He was on a lonely journey into an uncertain future when he camped out that night on the way to Haran. Jacob, the heir to God's covenant, had been living as if there were no God.
We understand too well what it means to live as if there is no God, don't we? Most of us have been trained to live lives shaped by the values and expectations of our secular culture. The Apostle Paul called that "living according to the flesh." He contrasted it with another way of life that he called "living by the Spirit." Paul said that people who live by the flesh are very likely to fall into a life-shaping fear that will lead to death. Most of us have some idea what it would mean to be spiritually dead, don't we? Many of us know more about that than we want to. It is, to say the least, a life that lacks much of the joy and the excitement and the meaning and the purpose that we think should be parts of a life that is real life.
Jacob must have been experiencing life in that way when he pitched camp that night on the road to Haran. But during the night, something happened that surprised him. He had a dream in which he saw angels going up and down on a ladder into the heavens. And there was God. And God spoke to Jacob and initiated a real and personal interaction with him. Notice, when Jacob woke up, he didn't just blow it off and say, "It was only a dream." He knew that God had been there and that he had met God and that God was still there and that God would continue to be a presence in his life and that his relationship with God would become a new dimension of everything in his life. That realization would make a difference in the shape of Jacob's life from that time on.
God is still alive and at work in our lives and in our world, too -- even when we are living as if he doesn't exist. Sometimes, God pushes into our lives in all sorts of life experiences.
Sometimes, God's judgment pushes into our lives in those experiences that show us that we are not the people we would like to think we are. A certain clergyman traveled to India to help his church prepare to do something about the massive poverty of that country. When he went, he thought he had a pretty clear understanding of poverty in the world and what ought to be done about it. He had decided that he would seek a solution to the greater problem of poverty but that he could not respond to all of the individual needs of all of the poor people who would approach him. Then one day, as he was walking in the crowded streets of Calcutta, a certain persistent beggar, a gaunt little woman with a lethargic baby in her arms, fastened herself to him and pursued him through the crowded streets of that Indian city demanding something that the clergyman had resolved not to give. The few minutes during which that was going on seemed like a lifetime. All of his neat explanations of the troubles of the world were shattered. So was his self-righteous self-esteem. He realized that his responsiveness to the needs of the world were tied to his willingness -- or unwillingness -- to respond to the needs of each needy person. Later he realized that he had encountered God and experienced God's judgment.
A certain business man, driving to a distant city for an early morning meeting, was crossing a long bridge over a lake just at daybreak. Suddenly, he found himself enveloped in beauty. The sunrise painted the sky and the lake with brilliance and gave an iridescent glow to the forest trees. Water birds were flying in formation just above him and everything was so beautiful that he felt compelled to stop and turn around and drive back so he could cross the bridge again. He realized that God had surprised him with an experience of glory that put everything into a new perspective for him.
A certain young man, who was several years into his career and feeling proud of his accomplishments, visited his parents. During their conversation, he realized that his parents were doing without certain things because they were still paying off the loans they had taken to send him to college. When he realized that he had been the beneficiary of costly love, he realized that he had experienced God's grace.
After a person has been surprised by God, life will never be quite the same again.
Jacob experienced God renewing the covenant that had been made with his ancestors and promising to make a great nation of his descendants and to give the land where his family dwelt. And God made an even more personal promise to be with Jacob and to care for him and to enable him to do whatever life required of him.
When we wake up and find ourselves living in relationship with the living God, things change. Many people try to push the new consciousness back or try to shut it out. But if we don't, if we let God into our lives, that will add a new dimension to our lives, a dimension that will give life new meaning and purpose. That experience can give you a sense of never being alone, and knowing that there is someone at work out there who is greater than yourself adds a new dimension of possibility to life. We may not receive specific promises like Jacob did. But knowing God is at work out there can generate a new expectancy in us. It can encourage us to venture out beyond what we once thought was our "comfort zone" to see what can happen. It can teach us a new way of being alive.
When things like that begin to happen in your life, you may discover what Paul meant when he talked about living according to the Spirit. It is living a life that is shaped by a relationship with God. Better yet, you may discover what it means to experience yourself as a child of God. That may satisfy a hunger you may not even have known you have.
C. S. Lewis was one of the best known religious writers of our day. One of his books, which tells of his experience coming to faith, is titled Surprised By Joy. The movie Shadow Land tells the story of his life. One sequence in the movie is especially significant. Lewis was an intellectual. His whole life seemed to be contained within the walls and traditions of a prestigious university. He knew a lot about the Christian religion and what the Christian religion taught about God, but it was all pretty much on an academic level.
One day a woman named Joy Davidman came into his life. He eventually married her. She represented to him life as other people experience it. One day Joy saw a picture hanging on Lewis' wall. It was a landscape of a beautiful valley. Joy asked where it was. Lewis said he had never thought to ask that. He thought it might have just been a product of the artist's imagination. It never occurred to him that it might be a picture of a real place. Joy investigated and found that the picture was a painting of a real valley that was not far from the university. She insisted that they go to see it. They did, and they experienced the great beauty of the reality represented by the picture.
In a similar way, many of us still have some ideas about what God is supposed to be like and about what life is supposed to be like, according to the Christian religion. Unfortunately for many of us, these ideas have come to seem like pictures hanging on a wall or words written in a book, the products of someone's imagination, things that have no relationship to the real world in which we live. But the God that our religious ideas represent actually is a reality, someone who is real and alive and always present, and the life that our religion talks about is a real possibility in our real world. Knowing that, we should make it our purpose to go there and to experience that reality.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of a deep yearning, a hunger, a hope that is there in the very life and body of the whole creation as it reaches out to come into relationship with God. "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, and not only the creation but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:22-25).
Are you feeling that yearning in your own life? Then learn to live expectantly. The God whom you hope to experience is real and alive and never far away. If you are alert and open, someday you are likely to be surprised by God.
