CALL TO WORSHIP
We come today before God.  God is so holy, so infinite, so majestic that we who are so unholy, so finite, so human can never come before God on our own.  No, we are God’s children, we come today by God’s invitation knowing that it is God who makes it right between us.  So let us prepare to worship God this morning with the Prelude. 

SERMON
For many years now we have had a little book—a book I expect most of you have—a book compiled by Eric Marshall and Stuart Hample entitled Children’s Letters to God. (Children’s Letters to God:  The New Collection, Compiled by Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall, Workman Publishing, New York, 1991) In this little book through the letters of these children I find the very honest and innocent expression of what it means to try to get to know God.  In letters to God children share their fondest hopes, deepest desires, and greatest fears.  In letters to God children reveal a most vulnerable humanity struggling valiantly with a relation to someone we really don’t fully understand but desperately want to get to know.  In letters to God children tell God what they think, let God know what they want, and ask God very serious questions.  Let me read a sampling this morning. 

          Dear God, My grandpas says you were around when he was a little boy.  How far back do
          you go?  Love, Dennis 

Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world.  There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it.  Nan 

Dear God, It rained for are whole vacation and is my father mad!  He said some things about you that people are not supposed to say, but I hope you will not hurt him anyway.  Your friend, But I am not going to tell you who I am 

Dear Mr. God, I wish you would not make it so easy for people to come apart.  I had 3 stitches and a shot.  Janet 

Dear God, I wish that there was not no such thing as sin.  I wish that there was not no such thing as war.  Tim 

Dear God, If you watch in Church on Sunday I will show you my new shoes.  Mickey D. 

You really find here all the reactions—the hopes and the fears—of what it means to relate to God.  These reactions are so much like our own and they are so much more honestly expressed.  This really is how we react to God.  Sometimes we want God to be very close like Mickey who wants God to meet God in church..  At other times we find ourselves standing back a bit from God, disappointed, confused, or afraid, whether enduring mere inconvenience of a rainy vacation or the tragedy of war.  When children write letters to God we are in touch rather quickly with what it means to relate to God.  Could we not say that these are letters from us to God? 

For many years now the church has had a little book, a book compiled with so many others in this book (the Bible).  This little book is actually a letter; a letter written long ago to the Hebrews.   This is a letter written by God through a servant to children, children of God.  This letter is from God to you.  In this little book I find the very honest and innocent expression of what it means to try to get to know God.  And you know what?  This letter talks about God’s fondest hopes, deepest desires, and greatest fears.  In this letter God struggles valiantly with the relationship of the most holy to a most vulnerable humanity.  Here in the Scripture God is self-described as a blazing fire, darkness, gloom, tempest, one whose sheer holiness would mean death for anyone or anything unholy that comes too close.  On the other hand, here also is God self-described as the one who gathers the first born of heaven, who makes people righteous and draws everyone close in the bonds of love. 

This letter from God and these letters from children describe very well our continuing relationship with the holy.  Sometimes we want God very close.  At other times we’re almost scared to death.  Before God we are afraid and fascinated. 

Rudolph Otto, a German theologian, spoke most famously of this reality in his 1923 book The Idea of the Holy.  (The Idea of the Holy by Rudolph Otto, Oxford University Press, 1923)  How do you describe God? he wonders.  How do you describe the experience of the holy?  Rudolph Otto referred to the Latin term mysterium tremendum, “the great mystery.”  Here is what he said:
          The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind
         with a tranquil mood of deepest worship.  It may pass over into a more set and lasting
         attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant, and resonant, until at
         last it dies away and the soul resumes its ‘profane,’ non-religious mood of everyday
         experience.  It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms
         and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport,
         and to ecstasy.  It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly
         horror and shuddering.  It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early
         manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and
         glorious.  It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature
         in the presence of—whom or what?  In the presence of that which is a mystery
         inexpressible and above all creatures.  (pp. 12-13) 

How do you describe God?  Human words ultimately fail.  The full awareness is too overpowering, totally unlike us, too different.  Yet it is very fascinating.  To be specific about it, God is so holy, so perfect, so infinite, so majestic, so totally different and alien from us—to really encounter God in all of God’s fullness would not be unlike the sudden appearance of a huge alien spaceship landing outside with blazing fire, blinding light, and deafening noise.  And our reaction to this new alien presence among us would be much the same as our reaction to God—afraid but fascinated. 

But there is more.  There is more to this relationship between you and God than just how we are going to adjust to this alien presence.  Because what does God want?  Well, God wants you to totally give up your accustomed ways of living and adopt God’s alien ways.  God is not content to simply coexist with you, God wants to take over your life.  Now let’s talk about fear and fascination! 

With God, you see, comes the reign of God.  This is what we’re talking about.  This is what this letter describes.  This is what the children write God about—God’s rule over your life and the whole world.  You pray for it all the time:  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  This prayer expresses the deepest desire of our hearts that God really take over, make the whole world God’s, end all wrong, injustice, pain, sorrow, and death.  That is the epitome of the Christian hope, the fulfillment of God’s promise, the completion of creation.  We’re utterly fascinated.  We feel so invited to that, we even long for it.  But that way of life, that transformation is so alien to us.  God’s justice, you see, requires you to change, to be different.  There is so much in your life, so much in my life, so much in this culture in which we live that is so radically opposite to the reign of God.  God’s values and this culture’s values differ that radically.  I would propose to you this morning that the real problem between God and humanity, the really scary part of this mysterium tremendum, is not so much whether we can possibly negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship with one another; it has to do with whether you can really live the way God wants you to.  To do that you have to be willing to give up much of your advantages for those who are disadvantaged. You have to say “I’m sorry” and take responsibility for your actions.  You have to grant forgiveness when you are wronged by others.  You have to think of others before you think of yourself.  You have to give up all your notions of place, power, and prestige and be equal with everybody else.  You have to give instead of get.  That, all that, is so very alien to us.  We may as well try to live on that spaceship in the yard as try to live that life here and now, for we surely have not done a very good job of it.  Am I right?  Is that what the Scripture says this morning? 

So what do you do?  Well, let’s turn to a letter to God from Nora:
          Dear God, I don’t ever feel alone since I found out about you.
Nora, like you, is a child, a child of God, who knows God loves her and tries to love God back.  That’s what you do.  What does God do?  Well, hear again from this letter of God, which says in part:
          You haven’t come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, a darkness, a
          gloom, and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the
          hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them…no…you have come to Mount
          Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable
          angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in
          heaven…and to Jesus..(Hebrews 12: 18, 22-24a) 

What does God do?  Well, God does not just stand at a distance in holiness and majesty demanding that you change yourself that you might come into God’s presence.  No, God, in divine and patient love, God changes you when you, in your helplessness, admit and proclaim that you can do nothing on your own by yourself to enter God’s presence.  God changes you when you totally entrust yourself to God’s care.  When you do that something surprising happens.  In the very moment you feel the farthest away from God, the most helpless in God’s presence; in the very moment when it becomes all too clear to you deep in your heart that you are just never going to be good enough or just enough or loving enough to get anywhere near  God; when you finally surrender; when you finally give up; when you become like a child; it is then you find yourself where you have tried so hard to be for so long—the very presence of God.  You see, God, in this letter to you, does not say “you will come.”  God says, “You have come.”  In your surrender to God you are already there!  In your surrender to God you are already there—you have arrived—you are already seated at the banquet table of the Kingdom of God. 

Nora is right.  You never feel alone again when you find out about God.  When you know God loves you you can love God back.  And isn’t it good to know that God answers every single letter so personally!