God does not have a plan. I have always bristled at the phrase, “God has a plan.” It is often said with all good intentions to calm one’s fears, but for me it has always been unnerving, an insidious, false sense of security. The thought of God as a dogmatic cosmic puppeteer, a God of prescriptive design evokes serious questions as to the problem of evil and violence in the world, the disparity between wealth and power and the lack thereof, the dispossession and suffering of innocent millions. If God has a plan…It ain’t working.
God doesn’t have a plan; instead, God is like a jazz musician, as it were, improvising creation into being…making it up as God goes….open to imaginative possibility…playing artfully the music of creation anew yet keeping to a theme, a theme grounded in beauty and mystery, but a theme, a melodious score nonetheless present ever since the dawn of time, even before…the One song of goodness and love and right order… a theme whose imaginatively improvised notes are, as Flaubert put it, Just. Fitting. Right
The Process Theologians beginning with the works of Alfred North Whitehead in the early twentieth century articulated such an awareness: that God Godself is yet becoming, evolving…becoming as the created order is becoming, full of grace and truth, evolving as the universe evolves. To say that evolution is somehow contrary to the myth of creation in scripture is ludicrous. God is about the means of things, not the ends. God is process. God is becoming. The means are the ends in the making in God’s economy. God is about the journey as we, humankind made in God’s image, are about the journey…never completed but ever renewed, ever new. The twists and turns of the road are unknowable except in the present moment…the present moment resonant with past and future. It is heartening for me to think that God has doubts and uncertainty and perplexity; that God experiences grief and joy and even surprise…that God has experiences of awe and wonder and regret and disappointment, like us. The scribes of Hebrew scripture thought as much. God the anxious protagonist. Jesus, himself, in the gospel accounts of his life, experienced doubt, uncertainty and moments of conversion and clarity….improvising salvation at great risk…salvation meaning quite simply the well being of others…the means of salvation being the giving of one’s life away for the good of the whole. In our culture we have made salvation about self alone, but the writers of scripture make it clear that salvation is about our neighbor, and therefore the life and voice of faith, the narrative of the journey, belongs in the social, economic and political fabric of our world. Otherwise the spiritual and religious enterprise is irrelevant.
The journey then for us and for the one we call God, by whatever name, of whatever culture, is to live for the other; to empower and assist each other for the ambiguous, arduous journey ahead. It is a difficult and risky journey to be sure, but it is also the one journey that fulfills and brings lasting joy. It is for us as it is for God to take courage, and to hope for the best, to act as if the good is true. The ends are unknowable, unresolved, yet to be completed; but we have knowledge of the means and the imagination to engender them in the world….an improvisation of the good and true, of nurturing well being and dignity in the lost corners of our world. ….There is no plan, only an artful unfolding, artful travelling… a noble and unlikely journey; but the only one that is real.
What a wonderful way to start my day, hearing your voice speaking words that give so much hope, so much awareness of your view of what the human condition is all about. I am so glad you are back with us in person. The sermon on Sunday gave a new awareness of baptism, and encompassed the feeling of love that truly surrounds us.
Thanks!
Welcome back home. I enjoyed your intellectual and spiritually challenging sermon. It requires me to fully participate in my own spiritual journey. Your message is a part of my own awakening .
Can we say the next Bishop of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast?
Jim, how wonderful it is to once again benefit from your amazing mind and breadth of knowledge; thank you and keep going for all of us.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
“I don’t have any plans for you,” says the Lord, “but we’ll see what I can make up at some point in the future.”
Yeah. Seems legit.
Jim, I saw your article in the Birmingham News this morning and read this meditation from CH Spurgeon later in the day. Here’s the “pull quote”, but I suggest reading the entire entry…
“He (Jesus) showed us that the surest road to wisdom is not speculation, reasoning, or reading human books, but meditation upon the Word of God.”
See the entire meditation below. God bless.
C. H. Spurgeon
“He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”—Luke 24:27.
THE two disciples on the road to Emmaus had a most profitable journey. Their companion and teacher was the best of tutors; the interpreter one of a thousand, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The Lord Jesus condescended to become a preacher of the gospel, and He was not ashamed to exercise His calling before an audience of two persons, neither does He now refuse to become the teacher of even one. Let us court the company of so excellent an Instructor, for till He is made unto us wisdom we shall never be wise unto salvation.
This unrivalled tutor used as His class-book the best of books. Although able to reveal fresh truth, He preferred to expound the old. He knew by His omniscience what was the most instructive way of teaching, and by turning at once to Moses and the prophets, He showed us that the surest road to wisdom is not speculation, reasoning, or reading human books, but meditation upon the Word of God. The readiest way to be spiritually rich in heavenly knowledge is to dig in this mine of diamonds, to gather pearls from this heavenly sea. When Jesus Himself sought to enrich others, He wrought in the quarry of Holy Scripture.
The favoured pair were led to consider the best of subjects, for Jesus spake of Jesus, and expounded the things concerning Himself. Here the diamond cut the diamond, and what could be more admirable? The Master of the House unlocked His own doors, conducted the guests to His table, and placed His own dainties upon it. He who hid the treasure in the field Himself guided the searchers to it. Our Lord would naturally discourse upon the sweetest of topics, and He could find none sweeter than His own person and work: with an eye to these we should always search the Word. O for grace to study the Bible with Jesus as both our teacher and our lesson!
markmcelyea@pclnet.net
Hi Rev Flowers
It is a good article. I find some things to agree with and some things that
need more consideration before agreement or disagreement. I think that God
has a plan. The question is as old as Judaism itself and is discussed in
some detail in Paul’s letter to the Christian church at Rome. The idea of
God having a plan and the question of “Why do bad things happen to us?”
collide with each other and the answer has occupied the minds of some of the
greatest Theologians throughout the history of Judaism and Christianity.
There has never been a completely satisfactory answer that directly answers
all of the dimensions of humanity’s question regarding why bad things and in
addition the question of the purpose and meaning of it all to start with.
Even Paul falls short in his systematic theology written to the Christians
at Rome. The letter requires much thought and leaves some issues open to
question. In the end, the answer God gives us is direct and indirect at the
same time. It is very clear and yet a deeper understanding requires some
thought because it is not explicitly stated. God’s answer reminds me of a
characteristic of Jesus’ teaching. He would not always be direct about the
truth he was teaching. He would use a parable – “The Kingdom of God is like
a vineyard owner who…” The story that followed would be making a point,
but you had to derive the lesson for yourself. He was not going to hand it
to you without you thinking about it for a while.
So it is with these questions of greatest importance that we are asking.
God’s answer is both direct and indirect, and it goes something like this.
He says to us, ” You are right. There is suffering and its bad. Some of you
have, and will suffer tremendously, subject to unimaginable cruelties, and
terrifying agony. For now I will only answer in this way. I will become one
of you and endure it too. The outcome I am after is worth me doing this. I
hope then that you can trust that it is worth it for you as well.” Not
totally satisfying, but at the same time, He doesn’t seem so indifferent to
our suffering when I think it about it like this. Things also don’t seem to
be entirely random. I am reminded of Forrest Gump standing over Jenny’s
grave and saying it seems to be both random and purposeful at the same time.
I liked the article. It is good that folks will write about these tough
issues and not hide from them. I bet your a pretty neat guy to know.
In Jesus,
Mark McElyea
Rev. Flowers,
I love reading all of your articles. My passion with the Episcopal church leans toward what you speak in “Of an Unlikely Journey.” What I mean by that is having been raised in a Southern Baptist church — no insult intended toward that church — I knew that there had to be something more. You see, I (like most) had doubts and could not question any of the dogma of the church.
So jumping ahead to early marriage (7 years) and a pregnancy with my first child I knew that I wanted to raise children within a church community. My husband — a cradle Episcopalian — was open to visiting different churches. First, we tried a Baptist church — didn’t work — then I entered the Episcopal church and absolutely felt I’d found what I’d been searching for my entire life!
Fast forward — some 40 odd years into my marriage — my husband and I have raised two beautiful girls in the church. No regrets! As to how all of this relates to your article let me explain how it resonates with me.
To the point: I had stormy teenage years. My father was drinking heavily and my mother was moving into a shell of denial. When I was 27 his misery compelled him to put a gun to his head and end his life. Did God have a plan for me to have a rocky teen life or for my father to end his. Of course not!!
Two years ago my sweet, Baptist, God fearing mother suffered a stroke. She is still living and resides in a nursing home. Did God have this planned for her. No way! … And on and on with all the turmoil of what one can chalk up to unfortunate circumstances in one’s life.
Here’s my conclusion: God never forsakes us and when bad things do happen he’s there to carry us through (when we’re ready to listen). God only has the best in mind for us. His free will that is bestowed upon us allows us to move through life and make our own choices not as a robotic plan for us. God is that inner voice that is always ahead of every decision and action that we make or take.
One of our neighbor’s just lost an adult child to a long, long battle with cancer that left her paralyzed and suffering terribly. I do not know this neighbor well. However, I felt compelled to knock on her door — a few weeks after — and express my deep sympathy for her loss. I expressed to her that I can not imagine losing a child of any age … And oddly enough (even before I’d read your article) I told her that I do not believe that was necessarily God’s plan that this would happen rather he’s there to help her draw her next breath and continue to live her life. She looked at me and I could feel something draining from her (in a good way). She said no one has said anything like that to her and if she’d heard it was God’s will one more time she thought she’d scream.
So, I end. I live knowing life will have bumps ahead and also know that I’ll lean on God to navigate me through. I do not know the final thoughts of my father when he breathed his last breath. I do know that God was there to give him a final opportunity to speak to him. My mother continues to live and reads God’s word and finds comfort there. My neighbor may be a little less burdened if she can see that God did not have the horrible fate of her daughter planned, but he is there for her to reach out to.
Peace,
Becky