Marilu Thomas, “God in Disguise”
Something I heard this week keeps rolling around in my mind, and I want to know your thoughts. “God comes to you disguised as your life.” That is what I have been pondering as I retire from Associate Rector at Christ Church. I never aspired to work at Christ Church nor was I actively seeking a position in any church at the time I was hired. It was the opposite. I had gotten burned out on church politics, having been trapped in ecclesiastical limbo after moving from another state.
I had a complex plan to address my insecurity. I would forgo my calling as a priest, get a charming little office, and see people for counseling. It just didn’t seem to work out, no matter how hard I tried. Months later, a woman I knew suggested I have coffee with Paul Walker. I could see no reason whatsoever to do that. I live 35 minutes away, was not an Episcopalian and, frankly, he looked pretty serious and preppy on the website. What could we possibly have in common? At the same time, the woman was also telling Paul to meet me, and he could see no reason to do that either. Grudgingly, we agreed to coffee because you can drink coffee without commitment. We met at Grit on the downtown mall. Two hours later, coffee long forgotten, we were absorbed in law and grace, Gerhard Forde and Martin Luther. Grace is like that. Unexpected.
I had not wanted to leave Minnesota, but my husband hated the winters and one of our daughters had moved to Charlottesville. After the decision was made, I was on my way home from the little church where I was working, entertaining every fear I had about what it would be like to live in Virginia, when a very BIG bald eagle flew right in front of my windshield. I pulled over and stopped. Words formed in my heart saying, “Go East. You will have a job you love and you will not burn out.” I held onto those words as we packed up our house and moved.
Two weeks after we met for coffee, we stood in the parking lot and Paul said to me, “I promise you will love this job and you will not burn out.” My brain short-circuited for a moment. Had he just said what I had written in my diary as a memory of the bald eagle moment? Could that possibly be true? God came to me disguised as my life. God’s plan for my life in Charlottesville has been so much better than my plans had been. What disguise is God wearing now—Retirement? Aging? Moving? Grief and Loss? The Counseling Center?
We can hear this same conundrum in the parable of judgment called The Two Sons, which is only found in Matthew. As parables go, this is an easy one with only three characters and one question. A father asks each of his two sons to go work in his vineyard. The first says no but changes his mind and goes. The second says yes but then doesn’t go. A yes then a no and a no then a yes.
This parable is part two of the religious leaders’ discussion of Jesus’ authority based on trust or distrust in him personally. It is not about which son chose to work or not work. Working in the vineyard is not the point. Robert Capon wrote, “This is the hard stone in the gracious peach of his Good News; salvation is not by works, be they physical, intellectual, moral or spiritual, it is strictly faith in him.” Both sons remain sons and are loved by the Father. The will of the Father is for his sons to trust him. The question then is which son believed that the Father’s will was trustworthy and good over his own will. This is a parable of judgment because one son trusts the authority of the Father over his life and the other rejects it.
Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of his father?” What do you think? What is the will of the father? Is it that his children get out there and work the fields? Or is there more to the story?
What did the son who went receive in the vineyard? What did the other son miss from not going? The character Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry says, “The only constant variable is the unexpected. We can’t control it. It’s only when you look backward that you see how it was all connected.” Grace is unexpected and connected.
Dave Zahl talked about a movie in adult ed called The Saint of Second Chances. The tagline says, “This is the story of a guy who struggled to be a good son, and accidentally became a great dad.” Mike Veeck is the son of baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck. When Bill owned the Chicago White Sox, he hired Mike because the Cubs were getting all the fans. Together they started most of the stunts that fill up stadiums today. But Mike pushed it too far and 10,000 crazed fans destroyed the park and his career on the same night. Thus, started what Mike calls the ‘decade-long drunk,’ complete with divorce. Then his dad died. By his own account, he was not functioning well. His upstairs neighbor told his sister, “You got to come over and meet the loneliest man in the world.” Mike says, “I had no confidence left but she believed in me. Jesus watches out for baseball operators. (That’s a bit too biblical even for my taste but you can edit that out.)” Then the call came to start an independent league team in St. Paul, MN. My family and I moved to Minnesota that year. It was the wildest night you could spend at a ballpark. A pig delivered the game balls, there was a nun who gave massages by a hot tub near third base, where you could also get a haircut. The train drove through at least once during a game and we waved to the driver. The most welcoming stadium in baseball felt like grace.
Because redemption is a two-way street, Mike Veeck hired those in need of redemption. A woman pitcher. A legless outfielder. A blackballed Major League pitcher named Darryl Strawberry. The legless outfielder befriended Darryl, who needed a friend. Grace works by raising the dead to life, transforming us from the inside out. Augustine wrote, “I will distrust myself and trust in You.” Why would you do that? Because the will of the Father is redemptive, healing, and just plain better than your will.
This is the message of the Gospel. Jesus tells us in John 6:40. “This is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” I believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ because I have experienced it in my heart and my life. Things that were dead like my marriage, my career, my faith, and my belief have been resurrected and given new life. And I trust that there is more to come. My will would never have led me to Christ Church, where I have experienced an abundance of grace and love. By God’s grace, I now have a charming little office where I see clients. Jesus has come disguised as my life over and over again.
But maybe this seems all too good to be true for you. Why would God care about you when the world seems like a dumpster fire? Well, why wouldn’t He care about you? This is the God of second chances who cared so much that He bundled himself up in a human suit and came to be with us as Jesus. You may feel very alone today in this sanctuary but you are not. You will look back on this moment and know that Jesus was with you.
A friend told me about a country song called, The Little Girl. It’s about a girl with a very difficult childhood. When her adoptive parents take her to church, she says “I know that man on the cross! He was with me when my parents fought, when I hid from their anger, when I was alone.” So it is with you. Grace has already found you. You just haven’t seen it yet. You will see unexpected grace in retrospect as God doing for you what you cannot do for yourself, coming to you disguised as your life. Amen.
