Get My Mind in Gear for God

We recently had a friend from North Carolina — Clare Sahling — visiting here in Prince Edward Island.  As we were going to church in Montague a week ago she said she ‘needed to get her head in gear for God’.  I found this to be a good metaphor for how we live the Christian life.  I actually changed it to ‘get my mind in gear for God’ as I like that better but the main point is the same — how do we live so that we are open to God’s presence in our lives and in the world.

I presided at the little church in Souris yesterday.  I was asked to take the service at the last minute — Saturday night — so I did something I rarely do — I adapted a previous sermon.  We follow the Book of Common Praise lectionary and it was the seventh Sunday after Trinity.  The Gospel reading was the account of the loaves and fishes in Mark where Jesus feeds a crowd of four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fish.  I preached on ‘miracles and wonder’ using the Paul Simon song from his Graceland album.  If I had had more time to prepare I would have used that catch phrase ‘getting my mind in gear for God.”

The Paul Simon song ‘Boy in the Bubble’ speaks of miracles and wonder:

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

Our world is filled with things brought to us by science and technology which would have been miracles to us when that song was written in 1986.  However, we are in a world that no longer believes in the miracles that are brought to us in the bible or any other miracle that is brought to us by God.  Science must explain it all or dismiss it as nonsense or lies or myth (in the wrong sense). 

Science can explain the ‘hows’ of things are but it cannot explain ‘whys’ of things.  Why is there life?  Why are we here?  Sometimes it cannot explain the ‘whats’ of some things either — what is the meaning of life?  If we are to consider these things — the things in life that science cannot explain — we have to get our mind in gear for God and realize that sometimes there are no answers.  That is because despite what science may tell us not everything is explainable.  As wonderful as the human brain and mind is there are things that we cannot explain fully or definitively.  That is because we are finite creature and God is infinite.  Some things will always be beyond us — at least until we are finally united with God. Until that happens we can get our minds in gear for God and appreciate what God has done and in doing in this world and in our lives.  We can see and respond to the miracles and wonder that happen right before our eyes — miracles such as the hummingbirds who fight possessively when there is more than enough in the feeder; the miracle of growth in the garden that is taking so long to flower this year; the incredibly beauty of the sunrise over Howe Point; the wonder that I am alive in this place and at this time which is so wonderful.  We can put our mind in gear for God and give thanks to God for all God had blessed us with.