Divine GPS

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on November 23, 2008.

When Peter and I got our little Honda hybrid, it came with a GPS system. We both looked at it and thought, “we’re never going to use that!” Apparently, I underestimated my excitement over knowing where I am at all times. I am now unabashedly head-over-heels in love with GPS. The woman who lives inside my dashboard is unfailingly patient despite my intentional messing with her. When I change the route she has given me, she graciously reroutes the little map and her “If you must…” is left unspoken. I appreciate that about her. The only thing that might make her better would be if on command, she would let me know where all of you were. I take that back—it's kind of creepy.But when you think about it, the divine GPS does just that. God never actually loses track of anyone. It’s more like we wander off, intentionally leaving our cell phones at home. The calls keep coming in, but we are not there to answer them all.

The OT reading today says, “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.” How will God do that? If we believed in God as some supernatural being, then we might indeed think that God can find us like some celestial posse. But we are seeking a more enlightened understanding of God’s nature. We want to grasp how God’s greatness is embedded in all aspects of life, a divine spirit energy that communicates not only with but through all creation. We are that part of creation that is aware enough to decide to listen and try to comprehend – that’s spiritual journey work. Of course, we also choose to put our hands over our ears and go La, la la, I can’t hear you.

What might be happening with God when we try to hide? If God is Energy, it would obviously be even more “patient” than the woman in my dashboard, calmly adjusting the desired route to the one we have chosen, but always with the same destination in mind for us. However, like our GPS system, we arrive at our destination most efficiently when we follow the route guide has suggested.

Here is where things get a little more interesting, however. It might surprise you that I spent this week researching the Second Law of Thermodynamics for some help with this topic. After all, if divine energy is in all things and the Second Law applies to all energy, there must be something useful we can learn from it.

Frank Lambert, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Occidental College here in LA explains on his website that “The second law of thermodynamics says that energy of all kinds in our material world disperses or spreads out if it is not hindered from doing so.” The greater the dispersion, the higher the entropy. I had a delightful email exchange with Professor Lambert, who cautioned me, in the strongest terms, not to try to use entropy as an analogy – he was most insistent it only applies to atoms and molecules. He worried for my reputation as a preacher. It was very kind, but I’m going to ignore his advice.

One of the first things I did was send the professor’s email to my science geek husband, and sure enough, he jumped in with entropy as one of the central tenets of information theory. Of course it has applications outside atoms and molecules.” Professor Lambert not withstanding, physical laws do provide great metaphors in the search for spiritual truth.

Think of light – we know how fast it travels, we know how it behaves. And as a practical matter, we also know how it disperses. You can read by a candle right next to you but not one across the room, because of how much the light has dispersed. But think of what happens with a laser. With lasers, the light is concentrated into a powerful beam, and it is projected in just one direction—very little dispersion.

So here is our metaphor—God’s Spirit, the divine energy, is everywhere—sometimes highly dispersed, sometimes laser like in its focus. We are also being searched out by that energy, that Spirit, and sometimes we sense it focused on our lives.

The question then becomes, what is OUR role in how divine energy either diffuses and becomes highly entropic or turns into a clear expression of God’s love? Containing the forces of entropy always require work of some sort. For God’s love to become a manifest reality, we must provide some measure of that work. We do so in community and apply ourselves toward the many ministries and programs that help those in need. Without it, the energy of God, no matter how pure and divine, diffuses into the atmosphere. That is why we hear in our Gospel message today Jesus speaking of how important it is that we visit, feed, and clothe the least in God’s Kingdom.

A couple of weeks ago the collect of the day was about scripture. “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.” This collect is acknowledgment of the need for us to respond. If you never consider what wisdom the Bible has for you, if you avoid it by leaving the book closed you will never benefit from the word of God that lies in it as a baby lies in a cradle, to quote Martin Luther. We are only lost when we don’t want to be found.

When we don’t want to be found, we don’t want to hear God’s call to thoughtful stewardship of our lives, our time, our relationships, our planet. We keep stepping out of the way of God’s energy hoping that it will dissipate and finally stop trying to get our attention.

I want to go back to our hybrid car because I think it’s a wonderful analogy for how our “work” can combat entropy in God’s Kingdom on Earth, and the life of the church. A hybrid takes energy that would otherwise be dissipated into the environment during downhill coasts and braking and channels it back into its battery system, recharging it. We can do the same here at Faith. When we come together, we bring a great deal of energy, and naturally some of that dissipates when we leave and rejoin our weekly routines. But instead of allowing it to dissipate completely, we can stay better connected throughout the week and perhaps even occasionally mesh together some of the extra energy we have to expend and share it in a new form of “work” to ward off the effects of entropy. I have seen it happen recently in Rome to Canterbury and Anna’s Guild gatherings, and it is a special experience, for in seeking each other out, we come to understand how indeed God seeks us out.

God’s search energy is constantly seeking us. Not to chastise us or put the fear of God in us but to focus and make useful the desire to love and to create the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of Peace, the Kingdom of love.