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let us pray and now Lord me, the words of my mouth and the meditation of each heart gathered together this morning. Be acceptable in your sight for you are indeed our strength and our redeemer. Oh

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, man! Are you convinced? My official answer is yes, yes I am. I mean usually most of the time, except when I'm not you at this very moment. Are you convinced that nothing

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can separate you from the love of God? It's harder than usual to be convinced of God's love in these days of the pandemic. I think I find myself trying to believe, trying to be convinced.

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Trying to hope again. Like the psalmist in Psalm 42, trying to Praise God. I find myself sometimes talking to myself the way the psalmist does. If you look down, he says near the end

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, why are you cast down on my soul? Why are you casting? Come on already. Come on, praise, praise, praise. The best you can do is get to someday I will praise

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again. I will yet praise my God, my Lord and my God, he can't get there right now. But he hopes to be able to get there again. I remember when I was more of

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a psalm, 100 person. Remember that one make a joyful noise to the Lord all the lands et cetera Than a Song 42 Kind of Person. I think it was just a few months ago before that

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coronavirus hit, I took one semester sabbatical to write a book on wait for it. Clay play during the coronavirus during the quarantine. How did that go for you? Cindy. Well, let me tell

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you how it went. There's nothing like tuning in every morning to look at the latest corona violet coronavirus statistics and then turning on the computer to an empty screen and trying to write about play something about it

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just didn't work. And so I'm doing what all of good theologians do when they get stuck. I'm thinking about the dialectical tension between grief and hope between praise and not being able to praise. What I've

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learned courtesy of my experience and also courtesy of Professor Juergen moellemann in this book helpfully titled Theology of Play is that sometimes play is not appropriate. Sometimes play just can't be done. Sometimes we have to do

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something else before we can play. Sometimes we have to recognize the liminal space this between where we want to be as active believing praising members of the community of faith who are working to bring the Kingdom of

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God to Earth as it is in heaven and those who can't quite be convinced, even on a given day of God's Love Goldman. And this book says something lots of interesting things. But let me tell

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you, he writes the whole book on play. And then has a couple of people respond to him and the responses are on the book. And then he responds to those who responded to him. And

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he is hopping mad. He's angry. And after this book, which was written in 1972, he never writes about play again. You know why? Because he says The Cross is not play. His

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respondents started talking about horrific things as though we could interpret them playfully. And mormon said, uh, everything is not play the Cross. It's not play , death is not play, suffering is not play

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, uncertainty is not play, despair is not play brief is not play. You get the idea the Cross is not playful rights. Moma Balmont only false prophets speak of peace when there is no peace and

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of total play. When the great play has not even begun, the cross of christ remains an offense and Auschwitz remains Auschwitz, and maybe we could add charleston remains charleston until the dead rise and all begin

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to dance. Because everything has become new play should liberate, not tranquilize awaken, and not anesthetized, liberating play is protest against the evil place of the oppressor and the exploiter. This play therefore thus play

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seriously, he says, and fight joyously and so in this liminal space today, in this little Luminal space of my life, I've been reflecting specifically on the question of how we can have a theology of

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play that takes into account not only praise, but also lament not only our joy, but also our grief, not only the reality of our forgiveness, but also our complicity in systems that promote injustice and

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oppression. How can we follow moments advice, exhortation , actually, to play seriously and fight joyously? How do we live in a liminal space also between certainty and uncertainty. So I hope to have more

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to say about play in the beginning with the assignment for the sermon series is to talk about the space before. So hang on. I hope to say something about play today. I'm talking about uncertainty and

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how that needs to be considered and factored in and not just overridden in order to play. What are we to make in these days of our uncertainty? Is it only to be waited out until the virus

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clears until the riots stop, until the love of God is more obviously in evidence, until we get back to normal and can rest into the more comfortable , more convinced, more playful and praise fel version

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of our faith. I can hardly wait to get back. But that might be a problem. I'm worried when we use the the language of normalcy to express, To express christian hope in these times of

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uncertainty. I hope we're back to normal by then . I hear and probably say about 12 times every single day we might warn each other. You have to accept the new normal. We need to be

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adaptable, adaptable, adaptive leadership. There's a lot of that word flying around adaptability. Well I'm not against adapting as long as what we're adapting to is the will of God. If we adapt to what

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the world demands of us, that might not be a faithful, acting faithfully to adapt to that. Right? In her article article titled pandemic pandemonium, the illusion Katherine Keller associates normalcy without which is not

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only not of God, but demonic. First she engages in a wordplay between the word pandemic and pandemonium , she kind of starts off saying, I sense that these words are similar and ah ha I figured

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it out. They both start with the three letters P A. N. Pan, which means all pandemic dem democracy pandemic means all people. As in Covid 19 affects all people. Pandemonium is all.

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But the next element is not D M D E M. O. N. Demon, Right? So all the demons, all the demons. And then she goes into the litany that we put into

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every sermon. I've already had it in this of all the demons that we're confronting today, racism. Sexism, Ageism, she says. Because more older people are dying than any other demographic and also people

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of color are dying more than other demographics, more than their share as usual. Environmental destruction, she says while COVID-19 is not a result of global warning , warming, environmental destruction is obviously related because we

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seem to have caught this by by messing with another species, right? Government corruption. Too many. She says too many demons all at once. How can we possibly deal? Hello? Reminds us that

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the word pandemonium comes from john Milton's classic poem. Paradise Lost. Pandemonium is the name of the capital of Hell. Given to the capital by the biblical God Mammon My for the elegant city that is the

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capital of hell in john Milton's poem. So, pandemonium is constructed in paradise Lost by the bowels of the earth by all the demons of the earth. It's constructed out of all the bad stuff, but

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then it's coated over with glitter and gold. It looks elegant. It looks beautiful. What has happened , Keller says, is that the pandemic has removed the glitter, remove the gold and shown us what

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is always true in relation to the normal. To get back to normal, she suggests, is to wish not for the demons to be exercised, not for the kingdom of God to come to Earth as

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it is in heaven, but to get back to what is ultimately a world for privileged people and not marginalized people, a comfortable world. For many of us, here's the dilemma Now. We should be

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working toward not going back to normal or responding adaptive lee to whatever new normal is coming our way, but to actually exercising our agency creatively in constructing what is to come. Do you feel tired yet?

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I do. This is what we said to each other every day. We're tired. We're weary. Were uncertain. Someone tells me at least once a day. For good reason. Be nice to yourself

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. Take it easy. It's all right. Don't be too hard on yourself. Well, don't worry if you're lacking in conviction, it'll come back. Um, problem is we have to act now.

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I'm really stuck another dialectic. Right? So I'm trying to think of what it looks like to be a christian and care for myself and care for others and be encouraging and say, hang in there,

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remember the poster of the kitty cat that was hanging in our elementary school rooms? Hang in there. Is that is that what we want to characterize our christian life? Um, I don't think so Well

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of all people, I've been thinking lately, not as much of a biblical character as about Neville from harry potter and those of you who don't care about harry potter. Never going to read harry potter.

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You should, but you know, I understand you're tired. Just kidding. Uh But NEville is a character who is probably the real hero of the story . I'm looking at my zoom pictures to look at

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people younger than me to see if they are nodding a little saying, I can go with that Harry potter's the hero. But NEville shows up despite the fact that he's tired, despite the fact that he's

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awkward, despite despite the fact that he is not certain about what he should do. If you don't like to think about NEville, though, I'm going to give you an out. You can think instead

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about Don Quixote. The man of La Mancha or Cervantes is original novel, he's actually modeled off of Father Abraham. It was kind of a bumbling, foolish, believing God that he could have as many

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descendants as the stars in the heavens. That was kind of a strange thing to believe. Nonetheless, he believed it. Um Don Quixote seems to dream the impossible dream right with all the impossibility, neville

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, sorry, Rachel, for hitting that mike, I will try not to do it again. Neville in harry potter is an uncertain, awkward character and he never gets over it. Harry starts out bumbling

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around and he becomes slick and confident, graceful. I can't imitate harry potter better at imitating level, but nonetheless, neville. And the final scene of the main story of the movie, one of the

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final scenes at the end confronts Baltimore, the devil , the demonic figure, and this is what he says, he says, it doesn't matter that Harry is gone. People die all the time, he

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says now what kind of thing is that to sit ? What kind of thing is that to say? What kind of thing is that? To realize? Notice that neville does not try to minimize or diminish

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the reality of the suffering. He doesn't wait until he's in a better place with it all to move forward. He somehow motivated to keep participating in that , which is bigger than himself despite his awkwardness,

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his uncertainty, his suffering, his loss, the possibility that even he might die. I like neville he shows us what it might look like to act like christians. Even when we are uncertain and bumbling

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level doesn't really put much stake in his certainty or lack of it. There are bigger things to think about. They need to be confronted now whether we're ready or not, rested or not. I was

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watching a race matters program Caroline household was in one a couple of weeks ago. The Pc USA had a week of talking about Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. And in one in one session,

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a white woman called in and said very nicely to the black panel people who were black on the panel , I just don't have the energy to do much right now. A black woman said, you know

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, we don't have that luxury. We have to do something, our lives are in the mix. Um but do we have to be ready to march forward with absolute certainty and show everyone what's what?

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That might not be a good idea anyway. For many reasons, they have to show up bumbling or not, nettles. Experience showed him not only shows us not only the doubt can be part of faith

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, but that uncertainty is even essential to faith, insofar as it reminds us, that that in which we're engaged is not about ourselves and our uncertainty, but about the God who has entered even into uncertainty

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and loves us, no matter what, That's where our conviction, conviction lines. I remember Over 20 years ago now going to san Antonio to First Presbyterian Church and doing a program on doubt. I remember

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I had every dot I mean I had all my ducks in a row for this presentation. It was flawless, flawless presentation on doubt. I finished the presentation. There were a lot of people there and

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two men approached me from opposite sides of the room , both with a lot of energy. The first one beat the second one. How do you think that one of my lost beat? The one on

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my right came up to me and said, young lady, I remember that distinctly because I didn't appreciate it at the time. A young lady, he said, I can't believe you're a professor of theology

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and you're talking about doubt. That's the problem with seminaries. Today we have professors who are all over the question. They don't believe anything with firm and certain knowledge, with conviction. And he said,

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I've never once in my life, dad, in God's love for me and I think I handled him pretty well. You'll be happy to know. I told him maybe that was his gift, but it

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wasn't everyone's gift. So maybe he had to consider how he was going to share that gift with others without condemning them. So meanwhile I'm talking to him and I feel this breath on my neck. The

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other guy was on my right hand side and I turned to him and he was already reaping and he said to me dr Rigby, I have tried my whole life to feel the presence of God. I've

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wanted my whole life to feel God's love for me . And when I saw you were talking about that I had hope that maybe you would say something I haven't tried or haven't heard, but I'm so disappointed

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. He told me because you stood up there talking about doubt in such a way that it was clear that you do not doubt God's love for you and you know, he was right. I doubt a

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lot more now than then for reasons wherever. Um , but maybe I've generally had that gift, maybe it's wearing off or something, but but he said , I can tell that you don't have that kind

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of doubt you were talking about. And he said , so, what do you have to offer me and, you know, honest to goodness. I thought about this man for 20 years and I don't

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think I gave him the right answer. And I think I just figured out the answer because of my reflections in this little space. What I told him was that I would pray for him, that his

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uncertainty would become certain that his feelings of doubt would become feelings of of of of God's presence would be replaced by a sense of God's presence in his life , presence in his life. And I'm not against

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any of those things. But what I neglected to tell him was that God is in the uncertainty God can work through doubts and that even in the abyss , God is present and the this itself is not

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irredeemable. Why? Because nothing can separate us from the love of God, even our lack of certainty , even our experiences of suffering and death, and all the demons that are surrounding us. Nothing at

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all that we can be certain. And even if we're not certain of it doesn't matter, because if it's real and true, it's real and true. Despite us, it's a confessional plane. I'm certain

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that my uncertainty cannot keep me from the love of God. If the Love of God is a reality which I believe it is, And more importantly, the picture that's bigger than myself bears witness to that

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, the community of faith bears witness to that. I've just got a note. I'm still getting the hang of the same thing that people thank you for . The notes are crying. I'm leaving. This

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has been um an interesting journey for me to to realize this, that faith isn't about. I always knew it was okay to doubt. It's not just okay as a temporary situation, but that God can

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teach us in and through our doubt or uncertainty. Mhm. Um The junior class just did the traditional memorization of Calvin's definition of faith. We can all say together. Can't we accept the Junior Class didn't

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really get tested on it because I couldn't figure out how to give the quiz with zoom. So they're kind of missing out. I don't know if they really memorized it, but maybe this will be an

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incentive. Let me see if I can say it . I didn't practice for the sermon. I don't ever written down. Faith is the firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded upon the

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truth of the freely given promise in christ. Both revealed to our minds and so it upon our hearts through the holy spirit. So in relation to this theme today was Calvin wrong? Well, I don't

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think I should put anything on tape or video that says Calvin's wrong. I might get in trouble, but I think we can reform Calvin a little. Not saying he's wrong, but here's how I would

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interpret that in light of this liminal journey that I'm on. Hopefully on the way back to playing withdrawing and some respectable amount of certainty about God's love. Uh Faith is the firm in certain knowledge of God's

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benevolence toward us. So, 1st, 1st of all, faith doesn't rest in the knowledge but rests in the freely given promise in christ and God's action . That's the message of romans. A famous faith

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is a firm in certain knowledge, but this language of certainty in Calvin's definition of faith, I'm going to concede might be a little troubling when we feel uncertain, but Calvin might roll over in his grave

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at me doing this or or write me down for a first appointment when I get to heaven to straighten me out. But I'm going to use it paul Tillich theology to push to nudge Calvin oil. What

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Tillich says this until it says this, we are only uncertain about things that we care about. We are only uncertain about matters of hope and faith and what he means is I think that you don't wake

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up in the night. Well maybe you do wake up in the night worried about stupid things you don't really care about. But then you tell yourself this is a stupid thing I shouldn't care about and go

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back to sleep. Or you wake up the next day and try to figure out what it is that really woke you up, right? But the things that wake us up in night at night, what

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are the things for you? I can start listing mine. My mom in Orlando, haven't seen enough of her. So we don't want her to get Covid 19, my kids who are at home,

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you know, they're doing great. But all teenagers , I worry about that and we go down the list, go down the lowest. Um, I might not have all the answers. I might not

00:23:26.290 - 00:23:41.860

be convinced of everything related to those things with the fact that I worry about him. The fact that I'm not convinced uh shows that I'm engaged with them the way neville goes in and bumbles forward despite himself

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. Don Quixote, the psalmist. I think there's a wiggle room in Calvin to do the same. So faith is the firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence, firm and certain, and sometimes not as

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firm and certain, but still grounded in the freely given promise in christ. That'd be a little awkward , Calvin was less bumbling and more slick and harry potter like than I am, but just a suggestion

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. So, in closing, the last thing I wish I said to this man who came up to me was more about jesus entering into his own despair , his own questions, his own uncertainty, because

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finally, finally, that gives us hope. Even when we aren't certain about things. The fact that Jesus himself asked why Jesus himself struggled, and there we see the love of God that leaves us never

00:24:41.210 - 00:24:56.350

behind and and leads us to hope. Not only that we will yet praise God, but we don't have to wait until then to begin to act and be partners with christ and the Ministry of Reconciliation.

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So I look forward to thinking about this morning getting on with play in the coming months I'm in.